Molding a lump of clay

Anointed, whether we know it or not

2012-01-23T13:08:00.018+03:00

I'm starting to fall asleep as I type a scene for my book...not a good sign. So instead of berating myself and whining about how boring my book is, I've come back here with another thought to ponder.

A few months ago I read a comment by Priscilla Shirer that stuck with me:

"An author can pen a book without the anointing,

but only the anointed author can write words that carry the weight of God

to accomplish eternal purposes in the lives of the readers."

Like many Christians, I battle between wanting to use my talents for fame and fortune and wanting to use them to bring glory to God. It's the struggle between flesh and spirit, the things of this world and the things of the Kingdom...it's age-old, nothing new under the sun. But it's still there.

So when I read Priscilla's words and think about the anointing, my first thought is, "Do I have the anointing to write this book?"

Then I think, "Of course I do. God told me to write it so I must have it."

But then I worry. "Maybe I lose it when my motives are less than pure, when I start imagining my book on the NY Times bestseller's list."

And then I fret and say 'sorry' to God and remind Him (and me!) that it's all about Him, and I want the glory to be His alone.

(This scenario happens on a regular basis.)

So does the anointing come and go? Do I have it when my heart is right, and lose it when it's not?

I did a little research (not much, this isn't exhaustive...don't quote me) and was encouraged by 1 John 2:20-21, 27:

But you have an anointing from the Holy One,

and all of you know the truth.

I do not write to you because you do not know the truth,

but because you do know it

and because no lie comes from the truth...

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you,

and you do not need anyone to teach you.

But as his anointing teaches you about all things

and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit -

just as it has taught you, remain in him.

God has anointed me (and you!) through the indwelling Holy Spirit - the Anointed and the Anointing are One and the same. Therefore, everything I need to accomplish the task God has given me is available to me at all times through the Holy Spirit:

the skill (how do I 'show' the way the thump of an African drum bounces around in your chest),

the energy (wakey, wakey! no falling asleep over the computer),

the determination (I think I can, I think I can),

and especially the faith (believe in what you do not see).

Isaiah 7:9 (NASB) says:

"If you will not believe, you surely shall not last."

So I am taking a stand today to believe I have God's anointing for this task, and I am leaving the results in His hands. I want to be of the ilk that it's said,

"Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" (Luke 1:45 NIV)

May you realize the anointing God has given you through His Spirit to carry out the work He has called you to, and may you be blessed as you believe Him to accomplish it!

Beating to windward

2012-01-19T21:52:00.003+03:00

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't blogged for so long.

The good news is: I'm finally writing my book!

The bad news is: this is the hardest project I've ever undertaken in my entire life.

Helping pioneer a YWAM base in northern Uganda was easier than this.

I decided to blog about this new journey to have a place to sound-off. That writing itch is kind of finicky...I can be fed up with my book but still needing to write. So be warned...a lot of what comes may be complete jibberish. It's just me slogging this out.

Recently I read an article about prayer by Evelyn Underhill and she was discussing the necessity of exercising our will in our prayer life. One statement she made is written on a sticky note and fixed to my desk:

"She must be prepared to beat to windward if she would reach her goal."

Underhill was talking about prayer, but this statement spoke to me on several levels:

Broadly:

The life of following Jesus,

praying 'Let Your will be done' on a daily basis,

taking time to listen to Him and go deeper in His Word,

and then being radically obedient to His commands...

...these are not easy things.

This lifestyle takes sheer, teeth-gritting, vein-busting determination.

It takes that 'Never Give Up' attitude that separates the grain and the chaff.

It involves moments of terror when you KNOW God told you to do that thing, but it's not working,

nothing's going right,

it feels like the whole world has conspired against you fulfilling that task...

...and finally,

when you're sweating and

your nails are bit to the quick,

God shows up and saves the day.

Again.

And He gently asks, "What were you so worked up about? I told you it would work out."

Some of you know what I'm talking about.

Zooming in a bit:

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to Know God. I'm studying Isaiah at the moment, and have been struck by the following scriptures:

Isaiah 1:3 "The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel

does not know. My people do not understand."

Isaiah 5:13a "Therefore my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge."

Hosea 4:1, "Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and

no knowledge of God in the land."

Daniel 11:32 "With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him."

There are loads more verses which talk about knowing God, but even in just these few it is so clear how essential it is to know God.

Not just to know of Him.

Not just to pray once in a while.

But to really know Him,

to spend time with Him,

to learn what's on His heart,

to develop that intimacy with Him where you hear His voice

and He teaches you to walk in His ways.

The scariest verse that shows the danger of doing for God without taking time to be with God is in John 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord,

did we not prophesy in your name

and in your name drive out demons

and in your name perform many miracles?’

Then I will tell them plainly,

‘I never knew you.

Away from me, you evildoers!’

Yikes!!!! How horrible to hear those words and be banished forever from the Lord Almighty.

Knowing God is not something that just happens.

It takes time and commitment.

It takes a hunger and thirst to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. It's a steadfast pursuit on both sides.

Finally, on a micro-scale:

Completing this book will require serious beating to windward. It's been burning on my heart for about five years, but it refuses to write itself.

Each scene is wrestled onto the screen,

each description freezes in my mind's eye and won't let me transform into words.

I'm pushing and pulling, cajoling and pleading.

I give up and go watch Master Chef USA for relief.

I recheck the word total and see

I've only added another fifteen words to the daily total.

It's painful. It's like the marathon that never ends.

Did you hear about that guy that ran a marathon every day for an entire year?

365 marathons in 365 days.

That's kind of what I feel like at the end of the day...like I just ran another marathon and don't have the glutes to show for it.

(As if I knew what it feels like to run a marathon. I can barely do 10km!)

No matter how fiercely those words dig in their heels and refuse to come to my party, I'm not giving up. That's one good thing about being stubborn...it usually comes with an extra portion of determination.

So I will keep beating to windward to write this book while seeking to know my God more and more because He is my secret weapon. I'm not writing this alone. I'm co-authoring with the greatest story teller ever. And that's enough to keep these oars slapping the water.

Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho!

A little poem

2011-10-04T11:07:00.002+03:00

Let not my heart be hardened

by stress or worries deep

Let not my soul be cold and dark

but rather Yours to keep

Let neither fear nor pride divert

me from the path You've laid

but rather peace should reign within

this masterpiece You made

Each day to walk in faith with You

above life's troubled way

Clinging tightly to Your hand

forever come what may

To hear Your voice...my heart's desire

to see You, greater still

To give you glory...all I ask

Let it be done...Your will.

Drill Sergeant wannabe

2011-09-29T11:48:00.004+03:00

I think I would have made an excellent drill sergeant.

My poor husband and kids experience the home version of boot camp pretty much daily, especially now that we’re on a tight time schedule and still trying to get into a routine.

Aidan! Get your shoes on.

Noah! Brush your teeth.

Kezi! Pick up your pajamas.

Hurry up, kids. We leave in 3 and a half minutes!

John! Grab the keys, we have to go now.

Hup, two, three, four, Hup, two, three, four!

FORWARD...MARCH!

The only problem is, no matter how authoritatively I bark my commands, nobody responds with military precision and efficiency.

Aidan wanders to the coat rack and puts on his jumper instead of his shoes...well, at least he’s getting something on.

Noah totally ignores me in his quest to find the charger for his gameboy.

Kezi just looks at me and sucks her fingers.

And John picks up his book and disappears into the bathroom.

FORWARD...HALT!

So I run around barking more orders, getting in people’s faces, grabbing shoulders and steering little ones to where I want them to be. I don’t go anywhere near John and the bathroom. Slowly by slowly the chores get done, the family members get organized, and we get out of the house.

Then the race is on to get the kids up over the hillside to nearby Fish Hoek in time for school. Here comes a school-run mom on a brand new course in a BIG truck...outta my way! I still don’t know the area really well, so I race up and down side streets until I find the right one. Ooops...took that corner a little too sharply and ran the back tire up on the curb...3 kids’ heads bounce off the roof of the truck. Oh well, no blood. Onward, soldiers!

There it is...my freedom! Bay Primary School. Boot the kids out of the truck...”Come on, guys, out you get. Come on!” Drop ‘em off, quick wave, and I’m off. Yes!

Not that I don’t love ‘em...‘course I do. But my sanity has been severely stretched after 11 days in the car with them and not one minute of alone time. I have a lot of catching up to do!

Besides, their lack of response to my drill sergeant orders is wearisome, and I get tired of repeating myself, getting louder, issuing threats.

Maybe I need to get a whistle.

Days 6-7 Kampala to Cape Town 2011

2011-09-19T19:43:00.006+03:00

Days 6 & 7 of Journey to Cape Town 2011

Greetings from Livingstone, Zambia! Well, we completed our first week on the road today. I can’t believe we’ve been driving for 7 days! So far the journey has been farther and slower than we expected, no surprise there. For those of you into numbers, we’ve driven 3,846 km (2,390 miles) through 4 countries (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia). From the time we left in the mornings until the time we arrived at our daily destinations, we’ve been ‘on the road’ for 70.5 hours (that includes stops for fuel, food and potty breaks). When I averaged the distance we travelled and the time it took us to cover that distance, we discovered we are crawling along at a mere 54.5 km/hr (33.5 mph). Painfully slow!

We’ve learned that we can’t figure out the distance, say 500 km, and guesstimate an arrival time, ie. “if we drive 100 km/hr we should get there in 5 hours, 6 with breaks.” No, that doesn’t work here at all. You never know how many villages you’ll go through, since the main highway passes through numerous villages and towns, and at every one you have to slow down to 80, 60 or 50. There are always speed bumps before and after every town, and often many on the main drag through town. There are also frequent police checks where they check our drivers’ licenses and vehicle documents to make sure everything is up to scratch. So far we’ve been stopped by traffic police 11 times.

But through it all...the long, slow journeys, the speed bumps and traffic police...God has faithfully protected us. Yesterday we had our first tire blow out. I was sitting in the middle with the boys, John was upfront with Kezi, and Yolam was driving. All the sudden I heard a whoosh!! and thump thump thump thump thump. The inner tube in the right rear tire blew and the tire went flat in seconds. Yolam did a great job keeping the truck on the road and gearing down to a stop. He managed to save both the tire and the rim, but the tube and the ‘gutter’ (?) were in pieces.

I ran down the road aways and set out our emergency hazard triangle and dragged a big tree branch into the road to divert traffic around us, and John and Yolam got to work changing the tire. Thankfully we were in a pretty deserted stretch of road...no other vehicles or people on the road when the tire blew...and it was straight and flat, so it was a perfect location to get a flat. We managed to get the tire repaired at the next ‘biggish’ town at the ‘tire mending tree’...literally these guys were fixing flats under a scrawny tree on the dust-blown side of the road with no building at all...just a portable air compressor powered by a generator. They did a great job, but all the delays turned our 9-hr journey into a 13-hr journey. Oh yeah, we also lost time when we pulled into Barclays bank to get money from the ATM, and there was a Zambian woman with car problems in the parking lot, and Yolam came to her rescue and fixed her car within about 30 minutes. It’s great to have him with us and awesome that he can be a blessing to others, as well!

We slept at the YWAM base in Lusaka last night, and then headed out around 9 this morning for the 6-hr stretch to Livingstone. Today was uneventful with smooth, beautiful roads, hardly any traffic, very few speed bumps and only a few police stops. We arrived at Jolly Boys Backpackers around 3:30, and now John and the kids are enjoying the swimming pool while Yolam talks to some of the workers at the bar. Kezi is shrieking with joy having finally caught the knack of swimming without having to stop every time she needs to breathe. I would say today is the first day of her doing ‘real swimming’ on her own!!! Pretty cool place to learn that!

We are about 10 km from Victoria Falls on the Zambian side, so tomorrow morning we’re going to go and check them out. Then we’re hoping to drive to the Botswana border at Kazungulu, cross with the ferry, and begin our journey south through Botswana on the eastern border. We don’t have a place booked for tomorrow night, and aren’t even sure how far we’re going to get, so please pray for God’s guidance to a good place to sleep.

Tomorrow is also the presidential elections here in Zambia, so please pray for peaceful voting and no problems. We in the West often take this for granted, but here in Africa elections can be dangerous times. Most of the locals we’ve talked to don’t expect any problems, though.

The next few days are a bit unknown in terms of which cities we’re aiming for or where we’re hoping to sleep. Originally we thought the journey would take 9 days, but now it looks like it’s going to be 11. So we still have 4 more driving days to go. God has really been sustaining us, but I have to say...I’m feeling pretty shattered. Tonight is our second night of camping, and although it saves money, it’s tiresome to set up the tents, etc. Plus it takes ages to break ‘em all down and repack everything. Not sure how many more nights we’ll camp on the way.

There are many more observations and things to say, but I’ll stop for now. Thanks again for all your prayers, and we’ll do our best to keep you posted on the journey.

Lots of love and many blessings,

Vikki for the gang

Days 1-5 of Kampala to Cape Town 2011

2011-09-19T19:36:00.003+03:00

Dear friends and family,

Greetings from Shiwa Ngandu, Zambia! We’ve been driving for 5 days now, and are at the halfway point on our journey to Cape Town. We left Tuesday Sept 13 at 5am from Kampala, and spent the 1st night in Nakuru, Kenya. That was a 12 hour day. On Wednesday we left just after 8 am from Nakuru and crossed into Tanzania where we stayed at the YWAM base in Arusha. That was an 8 hour day.

Thursday was a killer 16 hour day, driving 900 km from A

rusha to Iringa via Morogoro (still in Tanzania). The things that slowed us down the most in Tanzania were the numerous speed bumps, traffic police (we got pulled over 5 times) and having to slow down to 50 km/hr for every small trading center we passed through. We figured we were averaging between 50 - 60 km/hr all through Tanzania.

Thursday night we camped at River Valley safari camp along a river, and decided to sleep in and let the kids run around in the morning before getting back in the truck. So we climbed the hills around the campsite the next morning and took our time getting packed up. We left there around midday, and drove to Mbeya, arriving at Karibuni Center about 6 pm.

We left Mbeya this morning around 7:30 am, crossed the border into Zambia, and drove on to Shiwa Ngandu, more specifically Kapisha Hot Springs at Shiwa Safari camp. We arrived here about 4:30, set up camp, and have been enjoying the lovely hot water in the springs for the last 2 hours, and are now about to enjoy pizza and burgers.

Tomorrow, Day 6, we have a 9-hour journey to Lusaka, still in Zambia, where we’ll be staying at the YWAM base there. So far in Zambia we’ve hardly seen any speed bumps or traffic police, so we’re able to average about 80 km/hr.

All in all, it’s been a fantastic journey so far. The kids

have been doing absolutely amazing...hardly any whining or fighting. Yolam, John and I have been doing 2-3 hours shifts driving, and rotating around who plays with the kids and who rests a bit up front. Staying here and enjoying the hot springs has been a real treat, and makes the whole journey more like an adventure.

We so much appreciate your prayers, and ask you continue to do so! We’ve really seen God’s hand of protection, provision, and favor. We’ll keep you posted on the rest of the journey as often as possible!

Many blessings and lots of love from us all,

Vikki, John, Yolam, Aidan, Noah and Keziah

I feel like SHOUTING!

2011-09-12T06:10:00.005+03:00

Psalm 66

¹ Shout for joy to God, all the earth!

² Sing the glory of his name;

make his praise glorious.

^{³ Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!}

So great is your power

that your enemies cringe before you.

^{⁴ All the earth bows down to you;}

they sing praise to you,

they sing the praises of your name.”^[a]

⁵ Come and see what God has done,

his awesome deeds for mankind!

^{⁶ He turned the sea into dry land,}

they passed through the waters on foot—

come, let us rejoice in him.

^{⁷ He rules forever by his power,}

his eyes watch the nations—

let not the rebellious rise up against him.

⁸ Praise our God, all peoples,

let the sound of his praise be heard;

^{⁹ he has preserved our lives}

and kept our feet from slipping.

^{¹⁰ For you, God, tested us;}

you refined us like silver.

^{¹¹ You brought us into prison}

and laid burdens on our backs.

^{¹² You let people ride over our heads;}

we went through fire and water,

but you brought us to a place of abundance.

¹³ I will come to your temple with burnt offerings

and fulfill my vows to you—

^{¹⁴ vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke}

when I was in trouble.

^{¹⁵ I will sacrifice fat animals to you}

and an offering of rams;

I will offer bulls and goats.

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who fear God;

let me tell you what he has done for me.

^{¹⁷ I cried out to him with my mouth;}

his praise was on my tongue.

^{¹⁸ If I had cherished sin in my heart,}

the Lord would not have listened;

^{¹⁹ but God has surely listened}

and has heard my prayer.

^{²⁰ Praise be to God,}

who has not rejected my prayer

or withheld his love from me!

The faithfulness of God should not surprise me...that is His nature! Over and over and over again He does what He says He will do...not like fickle me who sometimes forgets to do something, or just doesn't feel like doing it, or whatever. No, God never fails to uphold His promises.

He told me way back in the beginning of the year not to worry about the plans for South Africa, that He had it all sorted out, it would all come together...the schooling, the housing, the visas, the journey down by road. So what did I do? I worried. Yes, I worried about the schooling and the housing and the visas...oh, especially those visas and all that wretched paperwork. And did any of my worrying do any good? Of course not. And one by one, the giants before me were laid to dust as God arranged first an initial place to stay, then a school that would take all 3 kids, then the visas.

Now we are about to head off on the journey down to Cape Town, possibly even leaving tomorrow, and when I went to bed last night we didn't have a place to stay for the first night on our 9 day journey. I spent hours on the web trying to find accommodation but to no avail. I don't know about you, but setting out on a massive long journey and having no idea where you're even staying the first night can be a little disconcerting.

This morning when I woke up I saw a text from a friend in Kenya with the phone number of a South African lady living in Nakuru who has offered to let us stay with her! Wow! How cool is that? I'm not sure if it will work out because Nakuru is 2 hours farther than where we were hoping to stop for the night, but it was encouraging to see that text anyway. It reminds me that God will keep providing for us, just as He always has, no matter how much I fret and worry.

That's why I feel like shouting...God has done so many great things for us. More than I can remember, more than I even know. And He will continue to, because that is His nature.

Not all of His great things seem great to us at the time. Note verses 10-12 of the above Psalm...how many people can praise God for testing and refining them? For "letting people ride over their heads"? This psalmist knew God's blessings come in many shapes and sizes and are all for the good of His beloved children.

It's hard to reconcile that sometimes, especially in the midst of the fire, but as I look back on my journey with the Lord, I see that the pruning and the refining are actually more life-changing and greater blessings to me than things like provision. Those hard times when He faithfully guides me through the darkness, holding my hand and comforting me, shaping and molding me, those are the times that bring me closer to Him and result in making me just a little bit more like the woman of God He created me to be.

So today I shout for joy to God...my Daddy, my Rock, my Joy. May His name be praised in all the earth.

Cape Town...

here we come!!!

Check out the YWAM Arua/Yei promo vid!

2011-08-06T20:47:00.000+03:00

We finally got the YWAM Arua/Yei promo vid uploaded...many thanks to Ashley, Carl and Jared for all their hard work in making it happen.

Let us know what you think!

New Wine reflections: the refining fire

2011-08-04T13:52:00.002+03:00

It's the second to last day for us here at New Wine Newark, and it's been an amazing week. Leave alone the lost child, tornado, busted water mains, 3 cut fingers in 3 separate Wrights and deflating air mattresses...even without all those things it's been an adventurous week.

I've been hugely blessed by the challenging, in your face, not-so sweet talks of Simon Guillebaud, the main speaker of the week. The title of his series is "Back to basics: the gospel call." He started out with the Gospel Call to Authenticity, and basically said, "Look, we're in a war, life is no picnic, let's not pretend following Jesus is all sweetness and light. Life is hard, parts of it suck immensely, and the reality is that people need to hear an authentic gospel message that in this world we will have trouble, but we must take heart, for Jesus has overcome the world."

I loved the straight-shooting of Simon's talk, and some of his quotes were seriously thought-provoking:

We're immortal until God calls us home.

Until you know that life is war you cannot know what prayer is for.

The second day Simon talked about the Gospel Call to Adventure and encouraged us to take risks for God. He quoted Hudson Taylor who wrote,

"Unless there is an element of risk in our faith journey,

then there is no need for faith."

Simon said:

"We cannot settle for bumper stickers and slogans

when God is calling us to scars and stories."

No one really wants scars because that implies a wounding and pain, and I think most of us would rather dodge pain, where possible. But something Simon said today really made me think.

He was talking about the Gospel Call to Abandonment, and being living sacrifices for the Lord. He exhorted us to resist being conformed to the world, but instead to embrace the transformation of God to become more like Him. Although I wish it were different, I believe through my own experience that God's transformational work comes through those refining fire periods when life is excruciating and we can hardly bear the pressure.

Simon told a story of a group of ladies who were studying the refining fire process in Malachi 3:2-4 where it says:

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?

For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;

he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.

Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,

and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord,

as in days gone by, as in former years.

So one of the ladies studying this wanted to see for herself what the refining process truly looked like, so she went to a silversmith and asked if she could watch. And the silversmith said, "Sure, feel free."

So the lady watched the silversmith do his work, and she asked him, "Do you have to sit and watch the silver while it is in the fire?"

And the smithy said, "Yes, I have to watch it intently because as soon as it is done, I must take it out immediately so the refining process doesn't go on one little bit longer, otherwise the silver will be damaged. So I don't take my eyes off of it."

And as the woman was leaving, the smithy called out, "Oh, there's one more thing I forgot to tell you. I know the process is complete when I can see the reflection of my image in the silver."

So I'm sitting here thinking, "What an amazing God. What a loving Father! He sits with us through those fires, those times of trials, those heart-breaking seasons, and He waits and He watches and He poises, ready to grab us out exactly on time. Not too soon, else we won't be finished. Not too late, else we be damaged. But right at the perfect time when He is able to look into our spirits and see His own shining out at Him.

I hate those refining fire seasons, but I love the finished product, and I'm desperate to reflect my Daddy more and more, to be made more and more in His image. I know it's not just once or twice...for some of us it seems to be a long string of refining fires. But if that is what it takes to make me a person who can bring God an offering of righteousness that is acceptable to Him, like those of long ago, then I readily offer up my life as a living sacrifice to Him yet again.

Have your way in me, sweet Abba. Have your way.

Two Kingdoms Collide

2011-06-08T01:36:00.008+03:00

We just spent 3 days with family at Disney Land in California. The weather was perfect, the lines were pretty short, and we all had a blast.

We got to see Mickey

and Donald

and Minnie

and Goofy

even Mary Poppins and her beau

Kezi was in awe of Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

and Snow White

and Cinderella

and Belle

Disneyland in California is often called "The Happiest Place on Earth" and the place "where all your dreams come true."

Disney World, in Florida, is also known as the "Magic Kingdom."

And they DO make it look magical and wonderful...it's easy to imagine life being perfect and all my dreams coming true in that fairytale world.

But God's been teaching me over the last year more about His kingdom and what that looks like here on earth. It's not picture perfect palaces and pretty princesses. It's not the amazing World of Color water spectacular or diverse unity in The Small World.

The Kingdom of God is real.

It's also contrary to the ways of the world, which makes living it out difficult, messy, painful. Take 'love your enemy as yourself' for instance. That's not 'happily ever after' in most people's books. Most of us want to condemn our enemies, avenge ourselves on them, or at least cut them out of our lives. Forgive them? Forget it.

Then there is 'do unto others as you would have done to you.' How many of us actually live like that? The tendency is 'me first, and if there's anything left, I might share with you, if I feel like it.'

I'm not judging anyone here...just observing life. I'm right in there, too...trying to bring God's Kingdom to come in my life, failing miserably, falling at the feet of Jesus once again and saying, "I can't do this without you. Would YOU bring your kingdom to come in my life. Would YOU let your will be done in me."

It's not about my best efforts...it's all about God's grace, and me walking in faith knowing He can do it in and through me as I keep my eyes on Him and let Him be my shepherd.

I was thinking about the idea of Disney being the place 'where all your dreams come true.' It was the last day of our 3-day pass, and we were just about to get on the roller coaster for the last ride of the day, when I heard some commotion behind me. I looked back and saw John carrying Noah, both of them covered in blood, and Noah crying, "I'm dyyyyying, I'm gonna dieeeeee!"

Noah had tripped on the stairs and landed forehead first. Blood was pouring down his face. One of the ride attendants was spinning in circles going, "Okay, it's gonna be okay, alright, okay, what do I do, okay, it's gonna be okay." One of the others was a little more proactive and brought a stack of paper towels and some ice cold water, so after several cold compresses we were able to stop the bleeding and assess the damage. It turned out to be a pretty small cut, but you know how head wounds bleed.

They brought a nurse who cleaned it up a bit better, put a bandaid on and pronounced us good to go. Noah was allowed to go on the roller coaster since it was our last ride, and we managed to get home without further mishap.

My point is, it wasn't our dream to have our little boy crack his head open and bleed all over the place on the last ride. It wasn't the Grand Finale we had in mind. And there's no guarantee that anyone anywhere can make all our dreams come true.

But when we live in the Kingdom of God here on earth, letting Him be King in our lives, and letting His dreams become our dreams, then it IS possible to see our dreams come true. The plans of God will never be thwarted.

May He give us the grace to let Him put His dreams in our hearts, and give us the faith to trust Him to make them come true. And may we all see the Kingdom of God coming more and more in our lives.

Wilderness lessons: 3 – Blessedness of Spiritual Poverty

2011-04-02T10:37:00.014+03:00

As I experienced the brokenness of God, and came face to face with the ugliness of my heart in His “holiness mirror,” (see lesson 2), I gained a deeper understanding of the term “poverty of spirit.”

Jesus said,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
(Matt 5:3)

Jesus had just been moving throughout Galilee, teaching and preaching The Gospel…the good news…”the Kingdom of Heaven is near!”…and healing the sick, and now He sits down to teach His disciples just what that Kingdom of Heaven is all about, and His first recorded words are this:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Darrell Johnson says that poverty of spirit is the first mark of a “gospelized” person because it shows we have truly encountered Jesus. “When we encounter Jesus as He really is, we automatically see ourselves as we really are…woefully falling short of who He created us to be.”

This realization was incredibly painful to me, as it can only be. I had thought far too highly of myself, until God showed me the true colors of my heart. Then I went into a tailspin, agonizing over the junk I saw in myself, and wondering how on earth I was ever going to become like Jesus with all this rubbish in me.

Brennan Manning wrote, “The poor in spirit are like survivors of a shipwreck. Out at sea, all the things they used to rely on no longer matter. All that matters is this passing plank to which they reach out with the desperation of the drowning. Adrift on an angry sea, the shipwrecked never ask what they did to merit the plank…they simply receive the plank like a gift knowing there was absolutely nothing they did to deserve it.”

The plank…the cross. When I saw the true nature of my heart, I had to accept that there was nothing in me that merited the cross, and still nothing that deserves God’s daily grace over my life.

“Poor” in the Greek translation used for this beatitude is ptochoi which means abject poverty, or destitution. Standing before God, the poor in spirit know that they bring nothing in their hands that God needs and nothing in their hearts that compels God to accept them. They bring their poverty, hoping for sustenance. Their ptochoi –– poverty of spirit –– has broken them, making them fertile soil to receive God's blessing.

I came face to face with my destitution.

Watchman Nee describes this process as the discipline of the Holy Spirit and says it is the greatest means of grace. When all kinds of problems and all sorts of people are pressing in from all directions, God is at work trying to break the things to which we are bound, that quench His Spirit and hinder Him from working in and through us.

Nee says, “The supply of the Word, the grace of prayer, the fellowship of the believers – none of these can substitute for the discipline of the Holy Spirit. This is because you need not only to be built up; you need also to be destroyed, to be delivered of all the many things in your life that cannot be brought over into eternity.”

The discipline of the Holy Spirit…the greatest means of grace. And now we understand, as Johnson pointed out, the heart behind the famous lyrics of Amazing Grace:

“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear”…because grace first helps us see how wretched we are apart from grace. Yes...the holiness mirror. God’s grace showed me what I am really like apart from His grace.

Yet, in His amazing love, He doesn’t leave us there…”twas grace my fears relieved.” God shows us the poverty of our spirits and says, “Those who recognize that apart from me they can do nothing are the very ones to whom I will give the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Johnson says the poor in spirit die to self-sufficiency and self-saviorship, but since self-sufficiency and self-saviorship are illusions, this death is a birth. The poor in spirit open up their empty hands in gratitude, and God gives them the Kingdom.

I love that Jesus starts His teaching with this first beatitude...to be like the "kingdomized" people of God that He describes in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is only possible when we have reached that place of destitution. We finally give up leaning on our own understanding, trusting in our strengths and behaving as if we have a better plan than God. We finally say, "Let Your will be done, let Your kingdom come, in my life, and on this earth, just as it is in Heaven."

May God’s grace enable me to walk in that place of recognizing my desperate need for Him, today and always, so that His Kingdom may fully come in my life, and He may reign in everything I do and say.

There is none like Him, and He is worthy of my life laid down.

(Highly recommended resources:
Darrell Johnson, “Living in Sync: Studies on the Sermon on the Mount”, Regent College audio series, www.regentaudio.com
Watchman Nee, “Release of the Spirit”)

Wilderness Lessons: 2 - Brokenness

2011-03-29T17:13:00.015+03:00

The distilled essence of brokenness is simply this…

apart from God I can do nothing
(John 15:5).

Nothing of any lasting value. Nothing that will go through the test of fire and survive (1 Cor 3:13-14).

In my own strength, with my own wisdom, I am simply building castles on the sand. One minor storm washes them away.

Brokenness is the place where I realize all my efforts without Christ are futile. My ‘great intellect’, which I once prized and believed was somehow better than many others (this idea highlighted by years of winning contests, receiving scholarships, etc.), really IS foolishness in the Kingdom of God.

Towards the end of last year, God led me down a path towards this revelation, but instead of seeing it for what it was, I strove harder, pushed myself more, gritted my teeth and will-powered my way through, refusing to ‘give up’, refusing to concede defeat. Sheer stubbornness, that was.

But my strength gave out, my emotions capsized, my mask of capability melted into streams of tears running unchecked and unexplained. I was finished.

And then God showed me the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen…He showed me my heart apart from Him. It was as if He lifted my covering of grace and held a mirror to my face and let me see the depth of depravity in my soul. No love, hard heart, selfish, hateful, vengeful, bitter, critical…utterly petrifying.

I found a description of this experience in R. Loren Sandford’s Renewal for the Wounded Warrior. He called it the ‘holiness mirror’ and, referring to St. John of the Cross’ ‘dark night of the soul’ said:

“The dark night of the soul will expose everything about you as defective. You will appear stripped of every virtue. The dark night enables a complete and accurate assessment of your own total depravity that sharply accents the depth and magnitude of God’s grace to cover it.”

Oh, so that was what that was all about. Well, scary as it was, I felt relief that God had a purpose in showing me the nastiness of my heart…brokenness.

“The dark night of the soul brings you to the cross where you cannot escape until you learn that you have nothing in yourself and that He has it all. The dark night burns away the flesh until you know that only the Spirit makes you live."

“Until that point, you can do little more than hold your heart open to the searingly bright light of His presence and choose to endure the pain and brokenness his purity creates in your flesh. When you know your condition and understand God’s grace in relation to it, nothing remains to be threatened. You can fully rest in Him only when you have despaired of yourself.”

Watchman Nee said, “Anyone who serves God will discover sooner or later that the greatest hindrance to his work is not others, but himself. He will discover that his outward man and his inward man are not in harmony…his outward man is unable to submit to the spirit’s control, thus rendering him incapable of obeying God’s highest commands.”

There is only one process that can enable man to be useful before God: brokenness.

But going through this process isn’t easy. At first, the person being led into brokenness doesn’t know what’s happening; friends and family struggle to know how best to respond.

Sandford explained:

“Profound loneliness fills the dark night. No one understands. No one hears. Well-intentioned fools give shallow advice based on hurtful misunderstanding and shallow theology. To avoid the sting of their misguided wisdom, you begin to hide from people. Friendships gradually erode. In the face of their own powerlessness to help, people flee.”

Alone, misunderstood, avoided…finally I got a little piece of understanding about what it means to share in the suffering of Christ. Just a little, tiny piece.

Sandford says:

“These people have been driven into the wilderness while everyone else was having fun. They have worked through a personal depth of sharing in the cross of Christ and His resurrection, becoming more one with Jesus both in His death and in His life than they had ever before understood or experienced.”

Madame Guyon wrote, “The true land of promise always lies beyond a vast wasteland.” In this wasteland of loneliness and confusion, God does the purifying work of brokenness.

Yes, it’s painful. Yes, it’s scary. But without this process, our spirit will not fully yield to the Spirit of God within us. We will not produce the fruit of righteousness we so crave. We will always be doing what we don’t want to do, and not doing what we want to do.

Watchman Nee says, “It is vital that we be broken by the Lord. It is not that the life of the Lord cannot cover the earth, but rather that His life is imprisoned by us. It is not that the Lord cannot bless the Church, but that the Lord’s life is so confined within us that there is no flowing forth. If the outward man remains unbroken, we can never be a blessing to His Church, and we cannot expect the Word to be blessed by God through us.”

I imagine this is not a popular concept. Most people don’t pray to be broken…actually, we pray quite the opposite. Like the prayer of Jabez. We don’t like pain. And brokenness necessarily involves pain…that’s just a fact.

But don’t forget the Promised Land waiting on the other side of that pain. We must lose our life in order to save it.

If we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness; if we seriously seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the only way for His Kingdom to fully come in our lives is to allow Him to break down the things in us that are contrary to His kingdom.

Those who retreat from the refining fire will wander in the wilderness, griping and complaining and wishing they were back in slavery.

Those who surrender to the process and allow God’s gentle hand to lead them through this wilderness will rejoice in the joy and abundance of the Promised Land. They will be set free from striving, competing, and manipulating, and will be a tool in the hand of God, set apart and useful for noble purposes.

May God give us the grace to trust His tender hands.

Wilderness Lessons: 1 - What it means to care

2011-03-22T15:01:00.020+03:00

Towards the end of last year, I lost my vision.

Not physically, but spiritually.

I felt no love towards anyone. I didn’t really care anymore. I had reached the bottom of whatever well of compassion there was in me, and nothing came in to fill it back up.

I was just empty and dry.

And then I became angry. I don’t know why exactly, but everything made me mad. Or irritated me. And I couldn’t be bothered to work up the patience and tolerance to deal with people or problems.

I was finished.

People call it a wilderness season, a time in the desert, a mid-life crisis…whatever the name, the symptoms are the same…depression, doubt, angst, exhaustion, grief.

I cried easily for no particular reason...rather embarrassing, really.

The only possible way forward was to withdraw…take time out with God…

go into solitude.

So I pulled out of the leadership team, out of ministry, even out of team meetings. The only commitment I held onto was being a mom and a wife, but every other thing I put on the back burner for about 2 months.

One of the things I am most grateful for during that time was the nearness of God…I never felt like He wasn’t there. He didn’t go quiet on me. Rather, He was the One who called me to ‘go up the mountain’ and spend time just with Him.

I learned many things during that time…God was extremely faithful to teach me His truths on multiple levels. Some of them I will share on this blog in the days/weeks to come,

others are for Him and I alone.

But one of the first things I learned about was ‘caring’. Our society is programmed to cure, not to care. We want quick fixes. We want people to try this or try that to get over their depression, be free of their anger, come out of their slump. We find it hard to wade through pits of despair with people…we just want them to pull up their socks and get on with it.

And yet, sometimes God has a purpose for those pits that won’t be realized unless the pit-dweller remains there for a season, embraces the darkness and confusion and pain, and allows God to minister to her in that place. There is a refining process that can take place in the pit if we will surrender ourselves to the Lord, trust Him to do what He needs to do, and allow Him to bring us out of the pit in His perfect timing. It’s a tricky balance between wallowing when God says, “Come out,” and climbing out before His sanctifying work is done.

And the key lesson I learned about ‘caring’ as it relates to 'the pit', is that the people who really care are the ones who climb into the pit with you and just sit there, holding your hand, assuring you with their presence but refraining from fixing it all and trying to pull you out. I just read a passage from Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude which summed it up best:

“…when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness,

that is the friend who cares.”

This pic says: "To be with you is all I can do."

I am blessed to have friends who, although having their own challenges in life, willingly agreed to walk through this wilderness with me, to read my rantings and ravings, my musings and doubts, my questions and ponderings. They held me up with their prayers, they didn’t shy away from the dark places I wandered, they didn’t judge or criticize the ugliness of my heart as I laid it all out there. They were safe, faithful, present. They were the friends who cared.

I’ve learned from this walk in the wilderness what those suffering in the dark places of their souls need most…a caring friend to share in the fellowship of suffering with them. Not one of Job’s unhelpful advisors, not abandonment… just the simple presence of a fellow sojourner who acknowledges her own inadequacy to fix the problem, but trusts God’s unfailing love and is ready to stick with her aching friend through the long haul as God works out His good purposes in her life. After all, God's Word says that sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. However long that night is, the friends that are with us in the darkness will celebrate with us that much more in the joyful morning.

Care.

It’s really rather simple when you experience it.

And now having experienced it, may God grant me the grace to extend that same level of care to whichever hurting friend may need it next.

A mobile zoo in Arua!

2011-02-15T11:52:00.010+03:00

Aidan came out of school last week saying, "Mom, there are animals at the golf course! They have lions and they're going to let a goat loose and let the lions chase and kill the goat!"

Yeah, right, I thought.

"Who told you that?" I asked.

"The teachers. They said we should go see the animals and it only costs 1,000/=. Can we go? Pleeeeeeaaaaase, Mom?!"

"Well, let's drive by the golf course on our way home and see if there are any lions chasing goats," I said. So we made a slight detour and went the longer way home.

All along the edge of the golf course there was nothing but the usual cows trying to find something green in all that dried brown grass, and women washing their clothes at the little stream.

When we got back up to the main road, I said, "Sorry, Bud, but it doesn't look like there are any animals there."

As we headed home, though, and passed the top part of the golf course that borders the main road, sure enough we saw a long stretch of tarpaulin that wasn't there before, and just peeking over the tops we could see the edges of cages.

"There they are!" Aidan shouted in my ear and then practically dove out the window trying to get a better look.

"Alright, alright...get back in here!" Sure enough there was a big sign saying that the Ugandan Wildlife Authority in conjunction with Entebbe Zoo had brought a mobile zoo to Arua.

I couldn't believe how excited my kids were to see these animals in cages, especially when we get to see them in the wild regularly on our way to Kampala as we pass Murchison Falls National Park. But hey...there's not much excitement in Arua so this was a big deal.

And actually, I was quite impressed with the mobile zoo. Not in terms of its grandeur or variety, but because of the heart behind it.

Talking to one of the animal keepers, he told me that many Ugandans still don't see the value in conserving wildlife. He said, "They ask me why we keep these dangerous animals alive...why don't we just kill them! So we have to start at zero to explain the importance of wildlife conservation in nature, and also the benefits we gain in tourism."

Huh...pretty cool, I thought. And in order to do this they set the entry fees very low so everyone can come and see...it only cost 1,000/= Ugandan shillings (about $0.50) to get in and another 1,000/= to see the animals.

The lion was a big attraction and always had big crowds around it, although in that small cage and the heat of dry season...this is how it looked most of the time.

The highlight for us, though, was the massive python that they brought out several times a day. First they gave an educational talk about it, and then 2 handlers carried it out and allowed people to touch it and take pictures with it.

Aidan and Noah were absolutely stoked! John felt sorry for the snake. Kezi watched from the safety of Daddy's shoulders. I took the pictures and tried not to get crushed as the crowd pressed in around us.

So kudos to UWA and zoo keepers for taking another step forward in wildlife education and conservation! Well done, guys!

<--- Uganda's national bird = the Crested Crane

Chasing Fireflies

2011-01-26T17:30:00.004+03:00

If you're looking for a really good, uplifting Christian novel...

<--- read this one. (Thanks, Kathryn!!)

Chasing Fireflies is about 2 little boys...one the narrator now grown up, and the other, a little orphan who has had a heart-breakingly rough childhood.

It's also about the narrator's foster dad, Unc, and his foster cousin, Tommye (I still don't know how to pronounce that...I kept calling her 'Tommy-ey').

Anyway, it's a great story with a strong mystery to solve, 3-D characters that you can smell, and enough heart to temporarily put the worst depression on the shelf. I immediately started hounding my husband to "read this now." He'll love it, when he gets around to it.

I'm hugely envious of this guy's writing ability, and already looking at what else he's written to see how I can get my hands on it! If you're interested, check out www.charlesmartinbooks.com

Highly recommended...you won't regret it.

A Royal Retreat

2011-01-23T17:21:00.006+03:00

We just finished a short overnight women's retreat here in Arua for our women's Bible study group. We've been studying the book of Esther,

so the retreat was themed around Royalty.

Being little girls at heart, we all 'dressed up' like queens in our royal best...for some of us this meant buying 'ball gowns' for $5 at the local second hand market.

These are the "Gold and Turquoise Girls"

For me...it meant wearing the changing dress that I wore at my wedding 10 years ago!

Yes, my hips are a bit wider and I've got lots more jiggly flesh,
but it all fit into that dress and it wasn't even too snug!
So that was already a big ego boost!

Me and Pam...the Blue Girls

We are all the "U.S. Passport holders"

Me and Cheryl

Joanna Coppedge
Our retreat leader

One of the pages that Joanna had put in our retreat package was titled A Royal Decree, and I just wanted to share it with you:

A Royal Decree

My Vow
Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.

My Constraint
Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.

My Confidence
Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.

My Joy
To do Thy will, O God.

My Discipline
That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.

My Prayer
Conform my will to Thine.

My Motto
Love to live: Live to love.

My Portion
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.

If I were to get another tattoo...

I would want to get that motto tattooed somewhere

(don't ask where)

Love to live: Live to love

What a goal...to rejoice in the life God has given me, and spend that life loving others. Oh that God would saturate me with His love that I couldn't NOT overflow it to others.

I have no greater wish, right now,
than to have
God's heart of love.

Faith in the face of evil?

2011-01-18T10:11:00.004+03:00

I have been contacted by 3 different people in the last week to see if I can help with the case of a Congolese Albino woman who is seeking asylum to New Zealand. She hopes to get to Kampala to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees office for safety until she can process the journey to NZ. These 3 people are hoping someone can help get her to the UN and help get her case seen.

An albino child in Tanzania

All I could do was pass on the information to a friend of mine who is the Director of International Justice Mission in Kampala. Maybe he can help her.

What is her case? What is she fleeing from?

Death and organ harvesting, according to the report.

There is a belief in many parts of Africa that albino body parts have stro

ng powers, and witch doctors use them in various ritual killings and potions. Kidnapping and sacrifice of these albinos is not unheard of...in fact, last year I remember reading an article a

bout the albinos in Tanzania who were given

mobile phones by the Tanzanian government with toll free emergency numbers that they could call if they felt someone was trying to kidnap them.

an albino baby

(For more information, read this article in the Daily Mail: African albinos murdered for body parts to use in witchcraft )

The sister of this Congolese albino who is seeking asylum was also an albino...she had already been kidnapped and killed, and her body 'hung out to dry'...apparently they dry the skin and bones and then crush them into powder for the witchdoctors to use in their potions.

That is the potential fate that this woman is running from.

I don't understand this level of evil...my brain just can't take it in. I've seen mob justice in Uganda...a man was beaten to death by a crowd of people right in front of my eyes. His crime...stealing the equivalent of $30 from a small shop.

I saw the rage come into the eyes of the mob...it was almost animalistic, like some deep

primeval emotion that gripped the mob and filled them with blood lust. It freaked me out, to say the least.

But this kidnapping and slaughtering of albinos, as if they were animals...this one is beyond me. How dark the blind that satan has pulled over the eyes of these kidnappers and witchdoctors.

What hope is there? In this morning's quiet time, I read in Proverbs 11:21...

"Be sure of this: The wicked will not go unpunished,

but those who are righteous will go free."

Is that any consolation at all to someone who is literally running for her life? Does the promise of God's judgement upon the wicked satisfy the victim enough? Especially if she never sees the judgement in the land of the living?

African albinos

A friend of the YWAM base called Charles who has a 'boda boda' business, which just m

eans driving people to and from town and various other places on his motorbike, was called to pick up a lady the other night. When he had dropped her at her destination, he was given a soda an

d woke up half a day later.

His phone and his motorbike were gone.

A boda boda driver...not Charles

So what does he do? It's unlikely the police will be able to help him. So does he take matters into his own hands and try to hunt down his perpetrators and his bike?

"Vengeance is mine," declares the Lord,

but think about this for a minute. This friend had a loan from the bank for that motorbike that he was still paying off. He has children about to go back to school that need school fees. He was also helping put his brother through school. He was building a house, and had materials that still needed paying for. Not to mention food and basic things, like medicine.

How hard it is to turn the other cheek! Everything within us rises up and wants to do something! I remember when the thief came and took all our money...some people wanted to do a search throughout the neighborhood of all our neighbors' homes! Others wanted to go room by room throughout the base and search all of us staff.

Somehow there is a basic need to take matters into our own hands and fix it.

I was talking about Charles' problem with a Ugandan friend, and she said, "He just has to forgive those people and let it go. He just has to pray and trust God for another motorbike."

Yes, I would agree with that, oh, but the internal struggle! Dealing with the betrayal and

violation, the fear and injustice. It's a narrow road that we have to walk to follow in His footsteps.

Do I trust God to judge the wicked and punish them one day? Absolutely. But would I be so strong if I was the one who's sister had just been slaughtered, who was running for her life and forced to go live somewhere thousands of miles away in a foreign land because my own people wanted to kill me?

Just because I have no skin pigment?

I just shake my head sometimes. It's too baffling for me.

And when that happens I can only fall on my knees and declare,

"Lord, I believe You are good, and that all Your ways are good.

I believe You will judge the wicked and reward the righteous,

but I pray for Your grace now...in this moment when the wicked are running free,

wrecking havoc and ruining lives.

I pray You would help me lift my shield of faith to trust You

no matter what it looks like around me.

No matter my circumstances, or those of others,

let me cling to Your promises

and pray that Your kingdom come and Your will be done,

in the life of the Congolese woman,

in the life of Charles,

in my own life,

just as it is in Heaven.

In all situations, You are worthy to be praised.

Amen."

Please take a moment to pray for the Congolese woman and the safety of albinos in Africa.

Pray also for Charles.

Thank you.

Breaking the blog silence...

2010-12-20T20:09:00.011+03:00

It's been so long since I've blogged that I couldn't remember my sign-in password...that's pretty sad!

Thankfully I had it written down along with the 37 other usernames and passwords for various accounts, so here I am once again...back in blogging action.

Things have been CRAZY the last couple of months, so much so that I was too exhausted to blog! I was already tired from months of dealing with the aftermath of the theft, plus various other crises that kept popping up, so when we hosted and staffed a 6-week Leadership Development Course, it just finished me off.

Instead of getting refreshed, like I had hoped, the LDC just took every last little bit out of me. By the time everyone left, all I wanted to do was stay in my house and have time with God. I was really really really finished.

Now, almost 4 weeks later, I'm doing much better but still needing space and a lot of time with God to process this year and try to learn the lessons He's been teaching me through all this. Maybe one day I'll be able to share some of those things on this blog.

In the meantime, here are just a few pics from the past couple of months:

My baby girl turned 5 in early November

and wanted a Princess birthday party.

I was stoked at how well the cake turned out...

...and Kezi and Elsie Jayne (who shared the

b-day party...she turned 3) loved it!

We borrowed a ton of dresses and let all the little girls pick out the one they wanted to wear, then added a few accessories. They came out in pairs and did a little twirl to show off their princess attire. They were adorable!

My big boy turned 9 a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't so impressed with my cake this time around, but he was happy with it so that's all that matters.

Aidan wanted a campout/sleepover with a bonfire, so he and his friends pitched

the tent, then roasted hot dogs,

marshmallows and sweet potatoes in

the bonfire. The dads slept out with them

and did a great job!

They also played water balloon games which brought lots of laughter and quite a few drenched clothes. But hey, December in Africa is dry season, so they didn't stay wet long.

Otim almost popped his balloon just from laughing so much.

Noah and Ogeno race to the basins with their balloons.

We also got into the holiday spirit

and made about 130 Christmas cookies!

I was so thankful for Kezi and Kenzie who

rolled, cut and colored with me.

John, Noah, Aidan and Cheryl (Kenzie's mom) also got into the spirit and helped decorate.

But the real highlight for me of the last few weeks is this right here...

RAINBOW TOES!

Someone told me at the end of the LDC

to try to do something fun for myself every day.

So when Kenzie came around with her

nail polish kit one day, I took one look and said,

"There's a rainbow in there."

So there you have it...when you're down in the dumps and need something fun to do, spice up your life with some rainbow toes. There is no way you will not smile at least once (or many times!)

We're off to Kampala tomorrow for the holidays, so stayed tuned for more pics...

Reflections on battle

2010-09-25T08:04:00.002+03:00

"Tenacity is more than hanging on,
which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off.
Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe
that his hero is going to be conquered.
Remain spiritually tenacious."
Oswald Chambers

I was reflecting the other day about this last year and the many many challenges we went through, and are still going through. I've never seen a year like this....tons of sickness in our family and on the YWAM base, lots of 'pastoral care' issues that needed hours of conflict management and counseling, and then, of course, the BIG THEFT that blasted our world and kept knocking us with all the aftershocks.

We, as a base, never really had time between blows to get back on our feet and resume fighting stance. It was more like we would begin to push ourselves up, and just when we were straightening our legs and lifting our heads, we'd get another right hook to the jaw that would knock us back into the ropes again. And again. And then again.

So many times this year I've thought, "What the heck is going on?! This is crazy! This is too much!" and the inevitable, "God, what are you thinking?"

I wish I could say I handled it all like Moses who "never wavered through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised." No, I'm afraid I wavered. And ranted. And raved. And indulged in a few pity parties along the way.

Yet somehow my faith has grown and deepened through it all, even though we never found the thief, even though we're still bruised and a little sore emotionally, even though we're still quite tired and wrung out.

I read back over some of my journal entries from earlier this year, in the weeks preceding the theft, and I discovered how God had tried to warn me and prepare me for the coming trials. On the 13th of June, during one of my quiet times, I felt God saying, "Things are changing. Be ready. Be alert. Stay very very close to me. The battle is heating up, and your shield of faith must be high and strong. Your faith will be tested like never before. Remember I am with you...do not be afraid."

Exactly 2 weeks later the thief struck.

The following days and weeks were hard. I was up and down, up and down. One minute praising God and believing with all my heart that He would show His power, raise His mighty right hand and save the day. The next minute asking Jesus, "Where are you? Are you praying for me that my faith will not fail? 'Cuz if so, You need to pray harder. It's hanging by a tenuous little frayed thread and feels like it could snap at any minute."

It was tough.

But here we are, 3 months later, preparing to host a Leadership Development Course, and I'm rereading a journal entry from the 9th of July where I quoted:

"We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized;
we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do;
we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side;
we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken.
So we're not giving up. How could we!
Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us,
on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times,
the lavish celebration prepared for us.
There's far more here than meets the eye.
The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow.
But the things we can't see now will last forever."
2 Cor 4 The Message

So...tenacity. Not just hanging in there, according to Mr. Chambers. But refusing to believe that my hero is going to be conquered...refusing to give up hope in the knowledge that Jesus has already won the battle, and He's on my side.

I like what Beth Moore said about William Carey...after listing all the troubles and loss he endured as a missionary in India, Beth said, "William Carey became the devil's nightmare. Every time Satan knocked him down, the man of God stood back to his feet again, more determined than ever."

We've been knocked down so many times this year, it was tempting to crawl over to the corner and nurse our wounds, or even slither under the ropes and get out of the ring. But God's grace each and every day has been enough to keep us fighting the good fight, refusing to give in and give up, because we know that our Saviour WILL one day come riding up on His white horse to save the day.

In the meantime, He fights each and every battle with us. He never leaves us alone.

No matter how hard it gets, Jesus is my hero, and I will never let go of Him.

An African parable about Belonging

2010-09-21T15:57:00.004+03:00

This is the story of Mr. Bat

Once upon a time, in the Animal Kingdom, a new law was passed requiring all animals to pay tax. Mr. Zebra, the newly-appointed tax collector, went from animal to animal to collect the tax.

When Mr. Zebra reached Mr. Bat's tree, he said, "Mr. Bat, I have come to collect your tax."

Mr. Bat flew down from the top of the tree and landed on a lower branch. Then Mr. Bat stretched out his hand to display the webbing connecting his arm to his body.

"I am not an animal," said Mr. Bat proudly, and he flapped his arms and flew up a few feet in front of Mr. Zebra. "Have you ever seen an animal with wings that can fly like this? I will not pay your tax because I do not belong to the Animal Kingdom."

Mr. Bat flew back up to the top of tree and left Mr. Zebra to carry on his way.

Some time later, a similar law was passed in the Bird Kingdom requiring all birds to pay tax. Mr. Owl, the newly-appointed tax collector, went from bird to bird to collect the tax.

When Mr. Owl reached Mr. Bat's tree, he flew up onto a branch at the top of the tree near Mr. Bat. "Mr. Bat," he said, "I have come to collect your tax."

Mr. Bat looked at Mr. Owl, and then he opened his mouth wide and bared his fangs. "I am not a bird," said Mr. Bat proudly. "Have you ever seen a bird with fangs like this? I will not pay your tax because I do not belong to the Bird Kingdom."

Mr. Bat then ignored Mr. Owl until Mr. Owl flew off to visit the rest of the birds on his list.

One day, Mr. Bat got sick and fell to the ground at the foot of his tree. No animal came by to visit Mr. Bat. No bird came by to visit Mr. Bat. That night, Mr. Bat died alone on the cold, hard ground.

The next day, Mr. Fox was passing by and discovered Mr. Bat's body. He ran to the birds to tell them about Mr. Bat's death.

"You better come and bury your friend," said Mr. Fox to the birds. "He has died and his body is just laying on the ground near his tree."

"He is not our friend," said the birds to Mr. Fox. "And he is not even a bird. Have you ever seen a bird with fangs like his? We will not bury him because he does not belong to the Bird Kingdom. You better bury him."

"We cannot bury him," said Mr. Fox. "He does not belong to the Animal Kingdom. Have you ever seen an animal that can fly like him?"

Neither the animals nor the birds took responsibility for Mr. Bat. And so, Mr. Bat's body was left to rot at the foot of the tree.

The End

Moral of the story: It is better to belong and contribute to the group, than stay apart and suffer alone.

In Africa, I have seen this communal spirit played out over and over. When someone is getting married, everyone in the community pitches in with whatever they have to see the wedding come to pass successfully. When someone dies, everyone in the community pitches in with whatever they have to pay the costs of burying the person. If you don't contribute to someone else's need, no matter how little you have, you will also be shunned when your time of need comes.

The "Mr. Bat attitude" has no place in Africa.

Chicken Pecks

2010-09-17T16:56:00.010+03:00

Right in the middle of our holiday (vacation) in Mombasa, Noah came down with Chicken Pox.

Lovely.

After a few nerve-shredding days of Noah crying and wailing in frustration, pain and itchiness, we discovered oatmeal baths, and everything changed. Whatever is in that oatmeal, it really works.

I would set up the portable DVD player, and Noah would soak in the bath washing with the oatmeal in a sock. Kezi and Aidan would keep Noah company and watch the video with him.

Soon Noah started healing up, and we managed to enjoy the last few days of our break.

Now, 2 weeks later, Aidan has come down with the virus. This morning he said it must have originally been called Chicken Pecks because it feels like a chicken is pecking his skin.

We're still in the throes of the nerve-shredding crying and wailing, but I'm thinking tomorrow we'll get the break through.

Not looking forward to the Little Princess Drama Queen getting hers, though.

FYI...if one of your kids get the dreaded Pox, try the oatmeal bath...it's the only thing that really helped mine.

The incredible world of nasal baths

2010-08-03T11:56:00.004+03:00

It's amazing what opportunities there are for those who happen upon them.

My most recent amazing opportunity has been the discovery of Saline Nasal Irrigation (SNI), or simply 'nasal baths'.

According to Wikipedia, SNI has become widely accepted as a home remedy to relieve conditions such as allergies (such as hay fever), colds and mild sinus infections. Preliminary research indicates that SNI could also be an effective treatment for allergic rhinitis and chronic sinusitis.

So far so good. As a chronic allergy sufferer (hay fever, dust mites, mold spores, children) I seem to constantly be sneezing and blowing my nose. Inevitably, all the gunk gets tired of simply clogging up my sinuses and decides to invade my lungs as well, so I end up with a nasty cough that lasts for weeks.

A friend of mine suggested I try a nasal bath to help with the allergies.

"A what?" I asked.

"A nasal bath," she repeated. "It's all the rage. Oprah Winfrey even had it demonstrated live on her show."

Well that sold me on it! With Oprah's stamp of approval, it surely must be a good thing.

So I Googled 'nasal bath' and sure enough, there it was. A popular home remedy for allergies and chronic sinusitis.

Great! So how do I get started?

Apparently a nasal bath requires the use of a neti pot which is a miniature teapot-looking thing. You mix up a saline solution, put it into the neti pot and then pour it through the nasal passages.

How do you do that, I wondered. Turns out you stick the spout of the neti pot into a nostril, turn your head to the side and let the water sluice it's way through the sinuses and come out the other nostril!

Gross!!! Are you serious?

Oh yes, they were very serious, and there are lots of videos available to see for yourself, if you don't believe me.

Now, I understand that this whole neti pot thing is probably very old news to most of you. But you have to remember I live in the middle of Africa, and news gets here very slowly...even with internet access.

So this information was front-page headlines for me. And I knew I had to try it.

But I had no neti pot. And the nearest Bed, Bath and Beyond is several thousand miles away. But improvisation is the key to survival out here, and sure enough, after digging around in my kids' bedroom for a while, I found what I was looking for....

...the doll house teapot. YES!!!

Thank you, Keziah!

Unfortunately, the doll house teapot is round and chunky and not at all slim and pointy like the real neti pot. And yes...you do have to get that spout right up there in the nostril for it to work.

So after a bit of tugging and shoving, I managed to get it up there...started pouring, and like magic that saline solution started dribbling out the other side! How cool is that!

You do have to remember to breathe out of your mouth, though, or you end up coughing and choking on salt water....not that I had that problem, I'm sure.

So for any of you allergy sufferers, or just plain neat freaks who like everything as immaculate as possible, give the neti pot nasal bath a try! You won't be disappointed.

His mercies are new every morning

2010-08-01T15:06:00.003+03:00

A week ago today I was in quite a state....sick, depressed, unmotivated. I was scheduled to teach starting Monday for a week on the Discipleship Training School. Topic: the Holy Spirit.

I'd started loading up on vitamins and lemsips, and slathered my chest and throat with Vick's. I had a scarf wrapped around my neck and was huddled up in bed with my teaching notes, propped up with 3 pillows, sucking on Strepsils and trying not to cough. Let's just say it: pathetic.

I looked pathetic,
I felt pathetic,
and I was within seconds of calling Bosco and asking him to get another teacher.

And then Sunday afternoon, I started losing my voice.

Great. Just what I needed.

But then I realized...if God really wants me to teach, it's totally up to Him now, 'cuz I can hardly even speak.

Monday morning rolled around and I tested my voice...cracky and scruffy but audible. So I got myself organized and went to class. That first session was a tough one, but as the morning went on I felt lighter, happier. Physically, though, it shattered me...I went home, took 2 ibuprofen and slept for 2 hours.

The rest of the week was more of the same, with every day God giving me just enough strength to get through the teachings, and although it was physically draining, I felt a breakthrough spiritually and emotionally.

Hope had returned.

And then Thursday evening, on my way to the dining hall for supper, I was blessed with the most beautiful double rainbow arching it's way across the sky...one side seemed to disappear right into the classroom where I'd spent the week teaching. My heart just filled with joy and awe at the majesty of God.

The rainbow reminded me that God's promises never fail, and He doesn't delay in keeping them.

But I also had my part to play...

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God,
you will receive what He has promised.
For in just a very little while,
'He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.'
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but of those who believe and are saved.
Heb 10: 35-39

It's another Sunday, today...this one is bright and shiny. I'm making cookies, listening to music and thinking, 'Though the sorrow may last for the night, joy comes in the morning.'

I don't want to be one of those who shrink back and are destroyed...I want to be one who perseveres and does the will of God, especially when I'm sick and depressed. I don't want to be a fair weather Christian, but one who believes and is saved, no matter what the circumstances are around me.

But only with God's grace...one thing I've relearned this week...I can't do it on my own. I don't want to do it on my own. I want to live my life led by the Spirit and empowered to do God's will as I live beyond my own abilities. It's a scary place to be, but He is worthy.

Faith, or lack thereof

2010-07-08T12:31:00.003+03:00

A Scottish preacher in the last century lost his wife suddenly,
and after her death he preached an unusually personal sermon.
He admitted in the message that he did not understand this life of ours.

But still less could he understand how people facing loss could abandon faith.
"Abandon it for what!" he said.
"You people in the sunshine may believe the faith,
but we in the shadow must believe it.
We have nothing else."

(Philip Yancey Reaching for the Invisible God, p. 61)

I'm in the shadow right now. I'm struggling with the waiting, with the trusting, with the hoping.

Why isn't God shining His light and revealing the thief? Why has He left us to suffocate under this massive crushing weight of depression, suspicion, fear and uncertainty? When is He going to vindicate His people and show us His salvation?

I know, I know...me of little faith. Not even as big as a tiny little mustard seed...certainly nowhere big enough to order a mountain into the sea. Sorry to disappoint you all...I'm wallowing today.

"Storms are the triumph of God's art."

said poet George Herbert

Sorry, can't see much of the artistic value in this particular storm...just the big ol' muddy mess.

And yet, I don't want to give up. I'm not a quitter by nature...too stubborn.

"A living faith is nothing else than a steadfast pursuit of God
through all that disguises, disfigures, demolishes
and seeks, so to speak, to abolish him."

Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Though my enemies surround me, I will trust in the Lord my God. I must have faith because there is no other way through this storm. In this shadow I choose to continue believing.

A YWAM base crippled by theft

2010-07-05T17:28:00.001+03:00

This article has just been published on YWAM's international website about the recent theft on our YWAM base:

A YWAM base crippled by theft / News / News & Stories / ywam.org / Home - YWAM

My heart's desire is to write a follow-up article reporting that the thief came forward on his own accord to confess, repent and return the money...now THAT would be a story! God is a great big God and quite capable of making that dream come true.

Thank you for your continued prayers!

Theft at the YWAM Arua base

2010-07-04T12:26:00.005+03:00

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to
sift you as wheat.
But I have prayed for you, Simon,
that your faith may not fail.
And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."
Luke 22:31-32

I don't know if this is God allowing Satan to sift us, or just negligence on our part, or a spiritual attack (which would still be Satan sifting us, I guess) or what it is, but this last week has been one of the most intense times of my life.

From Monday morning, June 28...when we discovered the theft of nearly $27,000 from our YWAM base accounting office...we have lived in the midst of the longest daytime nightmare I've ever experienced.

You'd think the loss of the money would be the biggest blow, but actually that was just the beginning and less malignant of the experiences that followed. When some of our YWAMers and other people connected to the base were taken in for 'questioning', the greater cost of this experience on the emotions, security and reputation of these people started to be really seen. Many of us will bear lifelong scars, some of them more deeply than others.

For days I walked around with a lump of dread in my stomach as another challenge came up, and another, and another. John was pulled in 20 different directions as each person gave his/her opinion about what should be done, who should be investigated, how we should respond. The pressure on him has been crushing.

I found myself crying out like the psalmists did, "How long, O Lord, will you hold back your right hand of judgment? How long will our enemies mock us? Vindicate your children, Father, and show us your salvation."

But He has chosen to remain still.

And I believe He wants us to be still, as well, and know that He is God.
But this waiting period is HARD!

People's futures and reputations are at stake, and meanwhile someone is busy spending money sacrificed for the work in Sudan, and for the DTS in Arua.

No wonder patience is a fruit of the Spirit...I certainly don't have it on my own.

And I thank God that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us day and night, praying that our faith will not fail. I don't want to fail this test. I don't want to doubt my God, no matter what things look like around me.

In the midst of it all, God has been so good to us. Many many people around the world have been praying and sending us encouraging emails and text messages. With all this prayer cover I find it hard to believe the thief has any chance of getting away with this.

We've also united as a base in a special, family kind of way. We had a powerful, healing time of grieving on Friday that bonded us closer than ever before. There is something about crying together that unites people in times of trouble.

I'm still a bit raw, and very very tired.

But God hasn't changed. He's still good, and all He does is good. And we are trusting Him to bring good things out of this.

I'm believing God that He will do something BIG through all this...something God-sized.

And we will shout His name from the rooftops and wave our banners, because He is worthy to be praised.

And we will strengthen our brothers and sisters when it's their turn to walk through the fire, because these trials purify us and bring us closer to our Father. Yes they are painful, but the end result is so much better than before.

God reminded me of a birthday cake I had made for one of my kids a year or two ago...it was quite big, and I hadn't left it in the oven long enough. When it had cooled and I started cutting and shaping it, I realized that the middle was still gooey and would ruin the cake. So I reheated the oven and put the cake back in.

It took twice as long to cook that cake thoroughly the second time around.

God said, "Don't try to get out of this fire until the work is complete. Otherwise, the work will be ruined and you'll have to go back through this fire, but for twice as long next time."

Although I want to beg and plead for this to end, and for God to do something NOW, I would rather be patient and trust in Him, and see His deliverance in His good and perfect timing.

Because no matter what it looks like, He is faithful, and we can trust Him.

To God be all the glory.
Amen

Noah's 6th birthday

2010-06-17T16:18:00.012+03:00

Noah decided to have his 6th birthday party at home this year, instead of the usual pool party at White Castle.

The advantage was that we could include more of the YWAM base kids.

The disadvantage was that it meant more work!

But lots of friends helped out and we all had a great time.

Louise (L) and Kenzie (R)
help paint faces --->

<--- Moses, Noah, (Joshua), and Otim a.k.a. "Spiderman, Tiger, (Vampire) and Curious George"

Junior and Noah --->

<--- The kids

"Happy Birthday to Noah..." --->

<--- Blowing out the candles...

...and blowing them out again
when they relight themselves --->

<--- Praying for Noah

Hip hip.... --->

<--- ...Hooray!!!

Pastor Sam brought his gift to Noah at night...
Noah named the sheep 'Rocky' --->

Seeing God's heart for the deaf like never before

2010-06-11T16:04:00.006+03:00

After 13 years in Uganda, I'm experiencing a whole new world for the first time...the world of the deaf.

This may sound strange to those of you who know me because you will know that my husband is deaf, as is his older sister. However, with the help of hearing aids, we live a pretty normal life, albeit a bit louder than most.

But this year, for the first time ever, our YWAM base is running the annual Discipleship Training School with 4 deaf students. No hearing aids. No talking a bit louder. Deaf as in 'no communication apart from sign language', which I don't know.

<--- Adam and Helen Fielder are the impetus behind this new experience. They joined YWAM Arua last year and started up the Deaf Connections ministry. Both of them will be interpreting on the school.

Yesterday I was leaving my house on the way to pick up my kids from school, and I came across the DTS staff and students doing a tour of the base. I stopped to introduce myself and greet everyone, and had my first experience of needing to be translated for into sign language. Instead of spelling out V-I-K-K-I, Helen, who was interpreting at the time, told one of the students to give me a sign name. The female student studied me for a few seconds, then made a sweeping motion with 2 fingers down the bridge of her nose and off the tip up into the air. It reminded me of being little and people saying I have a 'ski-jump' nose.

Then, of course, nosey me (no pun intended) I wanted to know everyone else's sign names, so the deaf and hearing alike signed their names, all of which highlighted some unique feature on the face or head. One guy pulled on his ears, making me think of Dumbo (except his ears weren't exceptionally large or funny-shaped...not sure why they chose that sign for him). Another lady ran her thumb across her forehead because she has a kind of line across there (not sure if it's a wrinkle or a long scar...will have to examine it up close later).

It makes sense to identify someone by a special characteristic they have, but I could see how it could be awkward if the feature chosen is something the person is ashamed of or embarrassed to have pointed out. Guess you have to have or develop a thick skin, but maybe it helps that they can't hear the rude comments or the mocking laughter.

They can see it, though.

I wonder how they feel. I wonder what they think. I wonder why I'm just now wondering this while all along I've been married to a mostly deaf guy for 10 years.

Maybe because the deaf in Uganda are, in Adam's words, an 'unreached people group.' They tend to be shunned by society. They are marginalized. Hearing aids are available in Kampala...for a very hefty fee, far beyond the average Ugandans financial capability. So none of them have hearing aids.

For some reason these students are affecting my life differently than John's hearing impairment ever did. I'm the first teacher on the DTS, and I'm asking myself,

"How does their deafness affect my teaching style?
How will they take notes? They can't listen and write at the same time.
Will they just absorb it all and remember it somehow?
How will they participate in small group discussions?
How will they pair up with others for 'getting to know you exercises', or for prayer?
How will they bond with the other students if they can't communicate?"

So many questions...no answers yet. I'm trying to figure out how to adapt my teaching style so they don't miss out. Thankfully both Adam and Helen are secondary school teachers, so I'm sure they'll be able to give me some pointers on how to teach inclusively.

Helen signing with a deaf boy --->

I'm on a steep learning curve, and without a doubt, so are the students. One of them wanted to go back as soon as his father dropped him off. But he's still here, and I know God is going to bless that guy.

I have a sense of expectation and excitement...I believe God is going to show up Bigger and Better than I've known Him up 'til now...and we're all going to receive new insights and revelation into the nature and character of God as we walk this journey together over the next months. What a privilege to be serving here at such a time as this.

Thanks, Abba.

Following God to our promised land

2010-06-08T07:59:00.004+03:00

I'm really not getting paid by Beth Moore or LifeWay to promote her Bible Studies, but once again I find the content speaking into my life exactly where I am today.

A friend who I met when I had just recommitted my life to Christ recently blessed my husband and I with 2 copies of the Believing God workbook, and the set of audio cds with the weekly sermon. I just started Week 1 and am already touched by the way God is speaking into my life.

The premise of the Bible study is not just Believing God in terms of Faith as a noun, as in,

"Yes, I have faith in God. I believe in Him."

but having present-active-participle-verb type belief, as in,

"I continually believe God as a daily way of life, in every situation,
because I know He is Who He says He is,
and He can do what He says He can do."

Part of this morning's reading was Hebrews 11, and certain verses stood out to me in a new light:

v8-10 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country;
he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
For he was looking forward to the city with foundations,
whose architect and builder is God.

v 13-16 All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
If they had been thinking of the country they had left,
they would have had opportunity to return.
Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared a city for them.

I think these verses struck me afresh because I had just been talking yesterday with one of the CDTS students, Cheryl Cook from Canada (check out her blog!), about the early days of YWAM Arua. I had never been to Arua before God called us here; John had only passed through once. The others who helped pioneer the base had never been here.

Yet God told us to come...so we did.

For two and a half years we lived in a grass-thatched hut with no indoor-plumbing or mod cons. Not exactly a tent, but not far from it.

It was hard, that's true, but we never thought of returning to the countries we'd left behind...we knew God had called us here...this was our 'promised land' and our inheritance.

And our eyes have been fixed on that heavenly country...the one where there is no more sorrow, no more pain, no more ghecko droppings landing on our pillows.

We have made our home literally as strangers in a foreign country, and we will remain here until God says to move on. His plan is perfect, and although there are physical discomforts, the spiritual blessings are innumerable. We can endure all things through Christ who strengthens us.

I want to be counted among the number of whom 'God is not ashamed to be called their God.' I don't want God to be ashamed of me...I want Him to be glorified and lifted high in my life, and when I get to that heavenly city He has prepared for me, I want to enter it with joy and hear my Father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Yes, the road will be hard. Yes, there will be pain. But please, Lord, help me to appropriate your Grace which is sufficient for every situation. You are worthy, Father.

50th celebration report and photos

2010-06-03T21:00:00.002+03:00

The report I wrote for YWAM's 50th anniversary celebrations has been posted to the official 50th website: www.ywam50.com

Follow this link to see the report for East Africa, but check out the others, too! It's so cool to see how the different regions around the world are celebrating this Jubilee.

YWAM's 50th Jubilee celebration Eastern Africa

2010-05-30T09:49:00.008+03:00

After months and months of work leading up to the BIG EVENT...YWAM's 50th anniversary jubilee celebrations for Eastern Africa have come and gone, and I'm now in the recovery process.

Since last September we've been gathering stories and photos of God's faithfulness to YWAMers in Africa, and finally this March, the Jubilee magazine was finished.

36 pages of nothing but stories of the miracles and blessings of the Lord to and through YWAMers all across Africa.

How often do you get to read a magazine like that?

More weeks were spent gathering the historical
data of YWAM Eastern Africa....like where it began (Mombasa) and when (1978), and how it spread across Eastern Africa from there.

Elli and Rachel spent hours painting this artistic visual of the timeline, with Mombasa base in the center, and out of it flowing the vines with the bases that came later and the fruit of those bases (YWAM schools and ministries) written on clusters of grapes.

In the meantime I was doing my best to keep communication flowing throughout the region with email updates and general information.

Finally I came to Jinja a week before the celebrations began to help get all of the communication things in place. God blessed me with a wonderful comm team representing nearly every nation in the region: Ash from Tanzania, Ruth and Samy...Indians serving in Ethiopia, Judith...a Canadian on her DTS outreach from Rwanda, and me, Charles and Tom serving in Uganda.

<-- Our 50th comm team having an afternoon out at Bujagali falls, on the Nile River.

Our comm team worked together so well it felt like we'd been a team for years.

We made food vouchers and name tags and welcome packs. We did all the photography and videography of the event. We ran all of the audio/visual systems with the projector, sound system and computers. And we did all of the communication with Loren and Darlene Cunningham's team, plus the regional bases. So we were very very busy both before and during the event.

But through it all, God was SOOOOOOO faithful!

None of our comm team fell sick
None of the equipment got broken or failed to work
All of the communications were done smoothly and efficiently
And we actually had a lot of fun!

It was absolutely amazing!

And now here I am back in Kampala...John has dropped me off and headed to Arua with the kids and the team from Yei.

I'm still reeling a bit from the last 2 very hectic weeks, but I've had a few cups of coffee and the hot water heater is on, so after this I'm going for a long, hot soak in the bath, and I'm sure I'll be back in good form later today.

I'll also be uploading a report of the 50th celebrations and some photos on www.ywam50.com
later today, so be sure to go check that out!

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me...your prayers were answered, and we give all the glory to the King of Kings!

Give up so you won't give in

2010-04-23T16:17:00.002+03:00

Do you ever feel worn out? Do you ever feel exhausted or profoundly discouraged?

Dan 7:25 says, "He will speak against the Most High and oppress His saints."

Beth Moore quotes the definition of oppress which "literally means 'to wear away' or 'to wear out', as one would wear out a garment."

She goes on to say, "One of satan's most effective schemes is simply to wear God's people out."

I can see that. I can feel that.

BUT, Beth goes on to remind us that we have the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit within us that can never be worn out! That same power raised Jesus from the dead! What incomparably great power we have!!

But do we recognize it? Do we draw on it? Or do we keep operating out of our own strength and end up ready to throw in the towel?

I'm trying more intentionally every day to say, "Dad, I can't do it alone! Thank you for your Holy Spirit...fill me again today that I may be led by your Spirit, and bear the Fruit of your Spirit."

I know satan wants to oppress us until we give in and give up, but if we give up our lives to the Lord and allow His strength to work in us, we won't ever give in to the lies of the enemy.

When it all just seems too much...

2010-03-28T16:52:00.002+03:00

I wasn't sure whether to write this post or not until I received an email from a friend sharing her concerns about coming back to Arua for another short-term stay. It was her statement, "I feel like God wants us to come back to Arua, but I'm not sure if I want to go" that made me think...Yeah, I need to write this.

You see, it's not just my friend who is torn between wanting to come back, and not wanting to because she knows the challenges she and her family will face... after 13 years here, I also still face that same battle.

The most recent time was just last weekend. I'd spent 2 glorious weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand, enjoying airconditioned hotel rooms, hot showers, pothole free roads, Starbucks coffees and hi-speed internet. I came home anxious to see my family, but this time the transition back was so much more difficult.

On the bus ride up to Arua (7 hours in the baking afternoon heat), all I could see was the rubbish that littered the road, the huge plumes of diesel smoke from the battered lorry ahead of us, the rusted tin roofs, the dirt-stained buildings, the dilapidation, the poverty...

I've seen it all before. I live in the midst of it. But this time it affected me deeply...not with a new burden to bring change, but with a new desire to run away.

The next few days I tried to get back into the swing of things, but unbeknownst to me, I was in the first stages of malaria. I thought the body aches and lack of energy were just due to the long journey, and I tried to keep going, but by Tuesday I was shaking with fever and later that day discovered I had malaria.

That day and the next, all I could think about was how fed up I am with Africa. I ranted and raved about the corruption, the disease, the filth, the underdevelopment. I told John, "These are no rose-colored glasses...I'm wearing mud-colored bifocals and the view from this side is hopeless."

I just wanted to get out. I'd had enough. Why am I here? I kept asking God. Haven't I 'roughed it' enough?

I could see no good thing in my ministry here. What had I really done to make any difference? The kids on the other side of the fence are still walking around naked with snotty noses and nothing I'm ever gonna do will change that.

I was really in the pit of despair.

Then God spoke to me once again through Beth Moore (I just love that woman!). She was teaching on Daniel 6 - in the lion's den, and she focused on v. 10 where Daniel learned about the decree prohibiting prayer to any god apart from the king. His response was to go back to his upper room, get down on his knees, and pray, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

Beth pointed out that Daniel had developed a holy habit of prayer that became his default response to any emergency.

She said we all have default responses to emergencies: we can become critical...blaming everything and everyone; we can react in anger...raging against everything and everyone. She mentioned several others but my mind had latched onto those two and I thought, "That's just what I have done. For some reason coming home this time has triggered a default pattern in me to criticize and blame everything around me for how miserable I feel."

Beth went on to point out that Daniel didn't just pray, "Lord help me help me help me!" but he gave thanks to his God. Beth took us to Phil 4:6-7 and reminded us that we aren't supposed to be anxious, but to pray about everything, and do it with thanksgiving! And doing that will guard our hearts and minds!!

Boy did my heart and mind need some guarding. I had to pause the sermon right then and get down on my knees and say sorry to my Daddy for my attitude, my criticism, my lack of thanksgiving. Something in me broke and I just cried in my Father's arms, and soon I could see all the wonderful things He has blessed me with. And I began to name them, and thank Him for them, and soon that peace He promised came and blessed my soul.

I know it's not all about me, but it's easy to make it seem that way. However, I want to reset my default settings so that, instead of ranting and raving and generally hating my circumstances, I automatically drop to my knees and begin praising my God, thanking Him for His wonderful works and glorifying His name.

Because you know what? No matter my circumstances...He is worthy to be praised.

The FISH SPA!!!

2010-03-12T14:15:00.004+03:00

This is team bonding at its best...a bunch of YWAMers braving the unknown, overcoming their fears, and stepping into new frontiers together...

...the FISH Spa!

<--- Pam, Becs, Sarah, Kris, Calvin, Leda and Kelly cozy up for the foot nibbling experience.

Martijn and Mark also joined in
on the fun --->

<--- In the beginning there was lots of squealing and water splashing as some of the ladies yanked their feet out of the tanks. The swarming of the fish and the little nibbling sensation was just too much to take at first, but eventually everyone settled down to let the fish do their job.

The Fish Spa is right near a main road
with glass walls so everyone
can watch as the fish
eat off the dead skin
on your feet and lower legs. --->

<--- Some of the fish are tiny; others are a couple of inches long. You can really feel the nibbling of the bigger ones. It's the strangest feeling to have all these fish chewing on your feet! Yes...those are my feet in there!!

We stayed at the Fish Spa for about
an hour and a half,
but it was far from boring.
Apart from the whole 'fish-eating-foot' experience,
we also got to watch some kids
playing on all kinds of funky toys in front of the Spa.

This little boy was bouncing on
this curved, pogo-stick like thing. --->

<--- He managed to bounce quite high at times.

This guy here was REALLY good
at the pogo-stick things. He wore one on each
leg and did all kinds of tricks.
Here he's kind of doing the splits --->

<--- More bouncing!!

Sooooo, if you're ever in Chiang Mai
and looking for something really
OUT OF THE ORDINARY
to do, head for the Fish Spa.
It will be an experience
you'll never forget!!!

Pics and thoughts from Chiang Mai, Thailand

2010-03-12T14:15:00.002+03:00

After days of CRIT meetings in the hotel, we had the opportunity on Thursday afternoon to get out and explore the city of Chiang Mai.

Here are a few of us serving in communications in Africa: (from left) Vikki (me!), Pam, Tim, and Lydia. Far right is Sarah from Nigeria who is serving in the Asia Pacific region.

Some of the more interesting local cuisine
was on display at food stalls
near a waterfall.

The flames were keeping the bugs off the bugs.

Charles got an up-close
look at the bugs
but couldn't quite
bring himself to try any.

Erduk, however, was a little more adventurous.

Here he's about to eat a fried worm.

Here's a cute little girl
enjoying the cool water at the waterfall.

Although their religion encourages a lifestyle of humility and denial of material things, the lure of the mobile phone is great.

This huge statue in a Buddhist temple
reminded me of the 90-foot golden statue
that King Nebuchadnezzar erected in Babylon.
In their integrity, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
refused to bow down,
and God met them and delivered them
from the fiery furnace.

This sweet old man (yes, he is alive) has spent his life meditating his way to nothingness.
If only he new of the One Who had big plans for his life.

I'm not very sure what this sign means,
but I do know that there WAS a beginning,
and the Word was there,
and the Word was God.
And He came to us in the flesh,
to reconcile us back to God,
to die for us
so we might live.
And His name is Jesus.

Being a fool so God can be King

2010-03-09T10:46:00.003+03:00

Before I left for Thailand, I was conscious that God has specific reasons for this trip, specific things He wants to do in my life, specific ways He wants to lead me.

I was also conscious that I could get in the way of what God wants to do by letting pride in my abilities or giftings take attention away from God. It would be so easy to receive the accolades and fall prey to the false belief that it's somehow all about me.

Such a danger, pride. So sneaky and destructive.

As I prayed with a good friend before I left, she was impressed with a picture of me carrying 2 flags. One flag represented my achievements and giftings. The other represented God. And she prayed that I would raise high the flag representing God, that I would point others to Him no matter how much they may try to lift the arm holding the flag of 'my' strengths. She prayed that every compliment, every piece of attention, would be redirected back to God, because He alone is worthy.

It's so easy to idolize things
(wealth, education, achievements)
when really God should be the
only One on the throne.
A Hindu altar in the mall in Chiang Mai --->

So that was the prayer I came here with, and I told God, "Dad, I don't want to miss anything you want to do through, in and around me this week. I'd rather look like a fool than miss out on anything from You. Keep me humble."

God loves to answer prayers like that! Be ready if you pray something similar. This is how God answered my prayer:

Day 1, getting ready for the first sessions of the first day...I blew out the fuses in my room trying to run my hair dryer on the wrong voltage. Duh! The hotel engineer had to come to get the lights turned back on.

A few minutes later, down in the dining room, I spilled coffee down the front of my WHITE trousers just minutes before the meetings started. No time to change or clean it up.

After lunch, I managed to lock myself out of my hotel room. By the time the engineer came (AGAIN!), I was 15 minutes late for the afternoon session and looked like a tardy school girl.

Yes, God answered my prayers...kept me humble by helping me gently look like a fool, not only in front of my CRIT colleagues, but also in front of the hotel employees! I'm sure the people at the front desk are saying, "That lady in room 636...ai yai yai. She's going to give us headache!"

<--- At least I didn't have to wear one of these t-shirts that they sell at the night market for God to get His point across!

No, it's not easy when God actually responds to those kinds of prayers, but I appreciate His faithfulness because it protects me. It keeps me in the place where I can't raise my own flag, because mine is impractical, clumsy, coffee-stained and late.

But God's flag is elegant, white and always timely.

May He keep me focused on Him, may He give me the grace to raise His flag high, and may He be glorified in every minute, because He, alone, is worthy.

Thailand: a new perspective

2010-03-08T06:17:00.003+03:00

I arrived in Bangkok airport yesterday around noon, grabbed some lunch and sat in a quiet corner overlooking a beautifully landscaped garden. Some kind of temple sat in the center of the garden, surrounded by golden dragon-like birds mounted on tall poles, as if standing guard.

The last time I was in Thailand was in 1994, when I was still in the thick of a 13-year spiritual quest to find the meaning of life; to prove there was something 'bigger' out there.

I didn't find the answers in Thailand. Instead, I followed the hippy trail around the country, from the drug-infested hill tribes in the North, to the drug-infested beaches in the South. Everyone I met was trying to connect with a higher power, usually 'assisted' by psychologically enhancing opiates. There was deception on every corner, and I stupidly got scammed by fake gem merchants in Bangkok.

My visit back then was all about me.

Today, my prayer is that this visit will be redemptive of the former. That it will be all about God...what He is doing in this place and around the world, and how I can serve Him in the giftings He has given me. I pray that His love and compassion for the people in this place will rise up within me.

May God be glorified in these meetings and in my life, for He, alone, is worthy.

Missionary Survivor

2010-02-25T10:53:00.007+03:00

Living in Africa can be challenging at times, but we decided to celebrate those challenges by turning them into obstacles in the Missionary Survivor race held at my house yesterday.

The regular women's Bible study group usually follows a book or some kind of organized study, but we leave the last wednesday of the month open for some kind of creative activity led by whoever signs up for that day.

Thanks to the creativity of Katie Borchert, we had lots of fun and laughs as the ladies overcame the obstacles to win the race.

The 3 teams of 5 ladies are ready to go...

Sandra, Cathy and Sherry kick off the race at station 1
having to count 5,150 shillings (lots of small
denominations; Cathy won, of course ;)...

Sandra is doing well for having been here only 3 months...

Alissa is first to station 2 where they have to
stack 5 oranges in a neat pyramid
like the ladies in the market
(I wanted them to have to stack 10 but I was out-voted)...

Helen and Heidi R are working hard to stack their oranges...

Geesje is first to station 3...she has to tie
a Barbie doll onto her back with a
Kitenge cloth and then carry a basin
with a towel in it on her head
back to her team...

Pam and Kelli join Geesje and place their
Barbie dolls on their backs...

Geesje's got her baby and is now
getting her basin and towel...

All 3 are trying to walk quickly without dropping the basin
(they're not supposed to be holding the basin
but it slips off so easily on this mzungu hair)...

Pam gives up walking and makes a dash for it...

The 2 Marias and a visitor are at station 4:
they have to fill
3 small bottles from 1 big jerrycan
and find the matching lids...

Maria Fielder's got one ready...

Maria Knuepfer is working on hers...

There was a 5th station (that I didn't get any photos of) where the ladies had to grab a black plastic bag (kavera) and fill it with about 7 tins of canned food. Katie and I had booby-trapped the bags by slicing holes in the bottoms of them so that when the ladies ran back with the bags, all the cans would fall out and they'd have to stop to collect them. Unfortunately only one bag broke and we felt sorry for the lady (a visiting granny!) so we let her just leave the cans and run to her team so they could do the final challenge...

The final challenge was for the teams to work together

to light a charcoal stove (sigiri)...

Helen Fielder knew the trick was to light the coal

from underneath with dried grass...

The 3 teams huddle over their stoves...

The winning team!!

Thanks, Katie, for all the organizing and laughs, and thanks, ladies, for the good sportwomanship and team spirit!

After the race we brainstormed some of the many things we love about living in Africa, and then took time in triplets to thank God for all He is doing in this land, and to pray more of God's blessings over Africa.

What a privilege to live and serve here.

May God get the glory, because He, alone, is worthy.

Loyalty

2010-02-23T11:34:00.002+03:00

Loyalty: something we already are that surfaces in the test. A readiness; a preparedness that comes into action at the point of need.

Example - I am loyal to my husband. Therefore I have determined in advance to reject any temptations to commit adultery. I am prepared to be faithful.

Loyalty to Christ... am I steadfast in my resolve to spend my life serving Him? Is He King over every decision, every thought, every deed? When the going gets tough, do I try to back out, get stressed, cast blame, throw a pity-party? Or have I predetermined my loyalty to Christ no matter what?

How easy to automatically reply..."Yes!! Of course I am and always will be loyal to Christ!"... especially when things are going well.

But when the fire comes, when the furnace is cranked up 7 times hotter than before, will I stand like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and refuse to save my own skin whether or not God saves it?

Can I predetermine to be loyal to my King no matter what comes? Will that readiness be enough?

For sure more battles, more tests, more fires lay ahead.

Lord, work in my heart now to fight the battles well, to pass the tests with integrity, to pass through the fires courageously, so when the time comes, I'll be able to stand firm and say, "Daddy's got my back."

Keeping up with the times

2010-02-08T12:25:00.002+03:00

John's mum is here...Yay!!

Making the leap from tried and true methods of communication...

<---BOOKS that you can hold in your hands and turn pages...

to electronic social networks to keep her connected with her scattered family.

John sets Mum up with a Facebook account --->

God or the world? Choosing integrity over compromise

2010-01-30T08:11:00.004+03:00

Last year God started calling me more and more into YWAM Communications, much to my delight as writing is one of my favorite things.

But this new calling came with a warning...I strongly felt God saying, "No compromises, no short-cuts...you must be blameless in all areas of communication and have the highest integrity."

And then the Holy Spirit started convicting me of the areas where I HAD taken short-cuts, or compromised....

the pirated DVDs we bought here in Arua (you can't buy original dvds here so I convinced myself this was acceptable)

the free copy of Adobe Photoshop someone had downloaded onto my computer (my other free copy of Photoshop that I had received legitimately through YWAM as a communicator had seized up and I couldn't get it to work anymore, so again, I convinced myself that this other one was just a replacement)

the movies on my computer copied from a friends.

God said something like, "I don't care if that's all that's available, I don't care if it's easier and cheaper, I don't care how you justify it...don't go there."

And I knew in that deep place where you JUST KNOW that my integrity in this area would have a direct effect on my impact in communications. Someone said, "You can't take any ground from the enemy if the enemy has ground in you."

So I determined that I would not give the enemy any ground. I deleted everything on my computer that I hadn't paid for or been given legitimately. I threw away my pirated dvds. I said, 'No thanks' to the offer of someone to give me many copies of different movies and nature dvds.

I told God I'd rather be without all of those things and be close to Him, than to have those useless things of the world and forfeit my walk with Christ.

Since then I've come up against the temptation over and over and over, and most of it's been from other Christians. I'm surprised at how many Christians think it's ok to copy programs, music, movies, etc from friends. My challenge in it all is I don't have a good handle on the legal side of it all...when IS it ok, and when is it definitely NOT?

So just recently I faced this dilemma again...I started a Beth Moore bible study with a friend, having brought back the workbooks with me from the States last year. Quickly we realized that this particular study was very session-led...meaning we really needed at least the audio cds to be able to get the most out of the study.

It just so happens that another friend had done the study last year and had the audio cds downloaded from iTunes on her computer. She offered to copy them to cd, lend them to us, and then we give them back. It sounded ok...after all, there's no rule against borrowing movies or music from friends and returning them, as long as you don't copy them...at least that's what we all thought.

But I had no peace about it. And the first week of the study, Beth Moore was talking about integrity, and how critical it is, and it reminded me of this whole issue and I thought, "I HAVE to know whether it's ok to borrow those cds, because if not, I'm gonna have problems."

I searched on-line, I asked people I thought might know...everyone said the same thing: as long as you don't copy them, it should be fine to just borrow, listen and return.

But I still didn't have peace.

I finally emailed LifeWay (who produce Beth Moore's books and studies) and asked them about it. They said, "unfortunately, the cds are meant for individual use."

So, there you have it. It may sound too strict, it may sound controlling, but that's what they said.

I am now in the process of trying to download the study sessions with a PAINFULLY slow internet connection (it took me six hours to get one session yesterday). But I'd rather be patient now and do it right, then take that tempting short-cut and seriously regret it later.

God knows why He puts limits on us and boundaries around us...we may not all have the same limits and boundaries, but if we know what ours are, we better stick to them.

I want to be holy because God is holy, and I believe He enables us to walk in righteousness even if the road is narrow and seriously bushy because few others pass that way. But I'd rather get my arms and face scratched up pushing my way through the overgrowth, then be swept along with the masses on the highway of compromise.

I'm not trying to exalt myself here...I know the wickedness of my heart. I'm just sharing my particular challenge of following Jesus, and hoping to encourage any of you in a similar position. If you feel you are alone in your convictions, know that there's at least One other with you, and He is worth it.

Devotions with Aidan

2010-01-24T08:46:00.000+03:00

What a blessing technology can be!

I'm home with Aidan, both of us still recovering from sickness (I slept through the night for the first time in 3 weeks last night...yay!!). John's taken Noah and Kezi to church.

Since we're missing church, I was thinking of what kind of devotions I could do with Aidan, and then I remembered the audio Bible cds our Care Group from Foothills Community Church sent us for Christmas. They also sent a portable DVD player which also plays cds.

So now we're sitting here, a light rain falling outside, comfy and cozy in our living room, listening to the Word of God through this Little Kids Adventure audio Bible on the dvd player. What a blessing to still be fed by the Word, even when we're home sick.

Thanks again, care group friends! We appreciate you so much!

A light at the top of the pit

2010-01-23T21:26:00.002+03:00

Had a lot of time over the last couple of weeks to think about my sickness, other people’s sicknesses, where is God when it hurts…that kind of thing.

It’s funny in an ironic-kind of way that just when I feel God is speaking to me about doing this hospital ministry and being a vessel of healing and hope for these people in the TB ward, I get sick. And not just kind of sick, but really sick. I’m talking about coughing so hard that I vomit, and being so weak that I can hardly walk across the room. I know there are a lot worse illnesses, but I felt pretty beat up. Not exactly the kind of vessel of healing and hope that I had in mind.

But that’s just it, isn’t it. We often have in mind some kind of glorified role where we swoop in to save the day (or maybe I’m alone in these kinds of daydreams). God speaks about some new ministry opportunity, and in my head it’s all healings and salvations and the world coming to Christ. And I do believe those things are there, but most of it is a lot messier than that.

In fact, most of the mess is the one God chooses to use…in this case, me.

I just listened to an amazing sermon by Graham Cooke who was talking about wounded people used by God. He made an interesting point about being in a pit…and if you read the previous blog post you’ll see I identified myself as being in a pit of sickness.

Graham said, “Pit stands for ‘people in transformation’, and although it’s distressing to be there, that very pit becomes a well as the Holy Spirit fills you with the Truth of God.”

Graham went on to talk about the process God takes us through in terms of transformation, and how those pits and hard times can be used by God to work out the junk in us if we will respond to the situation like Jesus did. When faced with the biggest sacrifice of His ministry, the sacrifice of His own life, Jesus asked if the cup could be taken from Him, but if not, He said, let Your name be glorified.

And that, says Graham, is where many of us get it wrong. In the distress, we cry out for rescue…”God, get me out of this pit!” But what we should be saying is, “Father, let your name be glorified.” When the work is done, God will deliver us.

Graham said, “God doesn’t measure time; He measures growth.” I can stay in that pit for a long time moaning and whining and throwing lots of pity parties, or I can submit to God’s work in my life and say, “Let your will be done, Lord.” And perhaps my stay in that tough place will be shortened because God will be able to work out all the hindrances in me that stop me from being used by Him.

He has to train us up to do what He wants us to do. And that training is hard work and can be very painful.

So is God at work in this pit of sickness? Is He training me up for something, like this hospital ministry?

Honestly, I would have to say, “Yes.” I never wanted to do the hospital ministry. I’m the last person who wants to be around sick people. I can barely care for my own family when they’re sick.

And yet here I am sick, my husband gets malaria, my son gets malaria AND my cough…God speaks to me about healing and hope in the hospital, and the next thing I know I’m surrounded by sickness.

But interestingly, I find myself thinking about how horrible I feel, and then thinking about these people in the TB ward, much sicker than me, with no one to bring them meals, no comfy room to rest in, no money to buy helpful medicines. And I just started praying for them. And I felt God gave me a little peek into their world…just a little one, but enough to see that these people really do need prayer and hope and compassion and the love of God.

And it changed my heart about the hospital ministry.

And I guess that was what God was doing…working out the junk in me so He could use me to demonstrate His love to these people.

I’m not 100% there, yet. It’s a process. But I don’t want to miss what God’s doing in my life, even when it’s scary. I don’t want to sit here whining and moaning when I should be saying, “Father, be glorified in my life.” I want to be used by God, I want Him to work out His will in my life.

Even if it means coughing so hard I retch, He is worthy.

Hate to admit it, but I'm in a pit

2010-01-15T11:40:00.005+03:00

Thank God for books that come just at the right time.

Our women's Bible study has just started Beth Moore's "Get Out of that Pit." Unfortunately I missed the first session 'cuz I'm still sick (after about 3 weeks). A kind friend sent home a copy for me and last night, between bouts of coughing, I read the first 3 chapters.

It struck me when she said: "You know you're in a pit when...

1. You feel stuck.
Yep...stuck in this pit of sickness, that's for sure.

2. You can't stand up.
Literally...I've been so wracked from the coughing even moving around's been a problem.

3. You've lost vision.
It's hard to stay focused on the goal when all I can see is my own agony.

Each of those descriptions has various levels to it, physical, spiritual, emotional, but the bottom line is...you've reached a point where you've lost the joy and you're not fighting the good fight anymore. That's pretty much where I am right now. I'm tired. I'm sick of being sick. I'm tired of not having any energy to play with my kids. I'm starting to question the value of what I do.

Now my husband's sick with malaria. My daughter's just come crying that she has an ear ache. We're a house full of sickies. This is not fun.

Yep...it's definitely a pit.

And Beth reminds us that satan loves to dig and camouflage pits right in front of us so we get tangled up, ineffective, self-pitying and unable to stand against him.

Well, this mama's not gonna let that pit become my home. I want the fire back, the vision, the joy of the Lord.

Pray for me (us!) as we walk through yet another trial. Let God be glorified in this, because He alone, the Lamb that was slain, is worthy.

Belated Christmas pics

2010-01-09T16:24:00.005+03:00

I know, it's nearly the middle of January, but I seem to be lagging behind already this year. I'm not sure how to catch up...but I'm hoping it happens soon. Maybe getting this post up will finish off last year for me and enable me to get back into the present.

So here goes....

<-- Our Christmas tree was quite large and wild this year, but the kids had fun decorating it and we enjoyed watching the lights twinkle at night for the few minutes we had before the solar system started beeping annoyingly at us.

Thanks to Christy and the care group
from Foothills Community Church,
the boys had new shirts to wear... -->

<-- ...and Kezi had a new dress! Rachel and Faidha also had new dresses (I don't think Kezi could have pulled off that lime green like they did!)

In proper British style,
we pulled crackers before dinner.
The kids needed some help
getting their arms in position. -->

<-- Guests Osobi, Fatu and John enjoyed wearing their crowns and playing with the toys inside the crackers...

...although John needed a little help
with his crown. -->

<-- The manly men carved up the turkey (bought from the Social Welfare Officer at the main men's prison in town).

And then it was time for the
big people to pull their crackers.
Munduru and Betty couldn't stop laughing. -->

<-- It was a wonderful time of fellowship
and friends as we celebrated our King's
birthday.

After the meal
we attempted to work it off
with a bit of Wii hula hooping...
Betty was absolutely hilarious! -->

<-- Katie and Jeff took the exercise up a level
with Wii boxing and some snow boarding.

After all the fun and games, we pretty much collapsed. Even our hound Toffee
was worn out.

Now I really understand the term
'dog-tired'. -->

Our new house on the YWAM base!!

2010-01-01T11:14:00.007+03:00

How many people does it take to move the Wright family from their rental house in town to their newly built house on the YWAM base?

A LOT!

Starting to load the Wright truck

Benjamin and Adam take apart shelves

William, Bosco and Mario load up the Diguna lorry

Maria sweeps the bedroom

Eric is ready...the lorry is full

Jeff opens the gate for the lorry to set out from the Wrights' rental house

Yolam and team follow the lorry to the YWAM base

The Wright family leaves their rental property for the last time

The Diguna lorry enters the YWAM compound

The lorry and the Wrights drive through the YWAM base to the farthest corner where the new house is waiting

'thar she blows!'

Most of the team that helped with the move in many different ways

Even putting in the lightbulbs was a team effort!

The ladies did an awesome job cleaning the new house so all we had to do was unpack and move in!

The little ladies cheered us on from the sidelines and did a great job staying out of the way

Now, a couple weeks later, here's what the inside looks like, starting with the view from the kitchen towards the dining room and front doors,

looking from the sitting room through the dining room towards the kitchen,

looking towards the dining room from the sitting room

Kezi, Noah and friends in the sitting room playing with play-do,

Looking into the sitting room from the back door with John's study in background

The kids' bathroom

Aidan's first night in his OWN room

Noah and Kezi's first night in their new room

Kezi and Noah's room by day

Vikki's favorite room in the whole house...her study!

It was a lot of work, but we did it!!!

Many thanks to all who pitched in and made the move
fun, quick and somewhat 'easy'.

We couldn't have done it without you guys!

Aidan's 8th Birthday

2010-01-01T10:52:00.004+03:00

Aidan wanted a Star Wars theme for his 8th birthday, so we came up with this R2D2 cake...

Friends from Aidan's school, the YWAM base and the expat community helped Aidan celebrate his special day.

They loved the 'trick' candles that keep relighting
themselves, and joined in to help Aidan
blow them out once and for all.

Following tradition, the guys hefted Aidan up high in the air 8 times, and then his daddy prayed a prayer of blessing over him. It was a great day.

Happy Birthday, Aidan bo-baidan. We love you!

In awe of His unfathomable love

2009-11-26T20:33:00.000+03:00

I am sitting here totally in awe, humbled at the enormity of the Father's love for me. I can't grasp how deep and wide and high and far...it's too much for me.

The background: When I was in Nigeria on the Leadership Training Course, we had an offering time, and when I asked God what He wanted me to give, He asked for my iPod.

This was incredibly difficult for me, but I struggled through it and gave away my iPod. Through that process, God brought a freedom in my spirit that money could never buy. (I'm giving you the very shortened version of the experience...just fill in the gaps with lots of tears and a searing pain like your heart is being pierced).

When I came back to Uganda, I knew we needed to experience this painful, but completely liberating, experience...radical generosity.

So yesterday and today we gathered all the staff and students on the base and I taught the things I had learned about Faith and Finances on the leadership course. After today's teaching, we had an offering, just like the one in Nigeria, and lots of people gave and shared what they had. It was great.

And then it was over. Or so I thought.

I had previously planned to go out for lunch with one of the staff after the teaching, so we went and had a great lunch. As we were parting she said, "Oh, wait, I almost forgot!" and she started rummaging in her bag. Next thing I knew, she pulled out her iPod and handed it to me. "God told me to give this to you," she said with a big smile.

I can only imagine the look on my face. I couldn't believe this was really happening. Me? Was God really giving me back an iPod? This isn't possible.

Yet there it was, in my hand. And when I got home and recovered from the shock a little bit, I looked at it and discovered it has 8 GB of memory...my original one only had 1 GB.

What an amazing God. I'm so humbled. The first song I listened to..."Songbird" by Josh Garrels made me want to cry.

I just love the way God loves me.

What a seriously Happy Thanksgiving for me.

Thanks, Daddy...You are so worthy of all praise.

6 things you might not know about me...

2009-11-21T10:43:00.004+03:00

Okay, Miranda, I'm rising to the Gorgeous Blogger Award challenge to tell 6 things people most likely don't know about me. This was quite hard, because I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and tell everyone everything about me. So I had to dig into the past, pre-Christ, pre-John days to find things that may not be so well known.

Drum roll please....

1. As an exchange student at Adelaide Uni, South Australia, I earned my pocket money by donning a Koala suit and walking around town in the sweltering heat to collect donations for the Wilderness Society.

2. After finishing uni in Adelaide, I decided to travel around the country, but had very little money. So I made my way from Adelaide to Darwin doing a variety of odd jobs, including picking grapes in Mildura, cleaning rooms on Hamilton Island, packing bananas in Tully, and working in a pokie machine lounge in Mt. Isa.

3. I left Australia and flew to Bali, Indonesia where I did a raja yoga meditation course led by a woman who believed in healing people by playing music on crystal bowls.

4. Having had enough calm and quiet on the meditation course, I longed for more excitement, so I joined a group and ended up scrambling on my belly through a jungle in Sumatra trekking wild elephants.

5. I originally came to Uganda as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and found myself surrounded by missionaries. Thanks to their love and friendship, I recommitted my life to Christ on the slopes of Mt. Elgon, on the border of Kenya and Uganda.

6. I have a dream of writing books one day, including my story, hopefully a novel or two, and any other books God leads me to.

Now, on to the second part of the challenge...to tag 6 other Gorgeous Bloggers and hear their less-well-known anecdotes of life that may inspire, amuse and/or shock us with the reality of their humanity. These are:

Marysol (the beauty of your blog alone is worthy of the Gorgeous Blogger award, and I know you have lots to share), Alissa (always doing new things...let's hear some of 'em!), Jane (amazingly artistic, witty and creative), Sarah (someone who dreams big and goes for it), Amber (claiming victory over a very rough childhood by sharing it in her new blog...you're amazing, dear friend), and Michelle (if you haven't heard of this woman's work pioneering Iris ministries in southern Sudan, you are seriously missing out).

Looking forward to reading your posts, friends!

To see Miranda's post, and the links to her tagged bloggers, go here.

Have a fabulous weekend, friend!

Granny then and now

2009-11-17T15:27:00.003+03:00

I just got this recent pic from my dad.

I am so blessed by how much my Granny has improved...it's like night and day.

This was taken in August this year
at the rehabilitation center...

...and this was taken just this month
in Granny's new apartment.

What an answer to prayer, and testimony of God's great love.
Thanks to everyone who prayed, and is still praying, for my Granny.

I love you, Granny!

Update on our house

2009-11-15T13:42:00.004+03:00

Just wanted to show you some photos of the progress of our house. We're planning to move to the YWAM base by the second week of December. Still have a number of things to do to finish the house, but hoping that it all comes together in time for the move. These are the 'Before' pics...will post the 'After' pics when we've moved in and settled a bit.

This is the front of the house
(it's been plastered since this photo was taken)

This is the back of the house

The backyard...trying to grow a hedge along the fence,

and lots of trees and plants, thanks to John

Outside my study...
going to have my own little verandah to sit on
and drink coffee with friends!

This is just inside the front door, in the sitting room area,

with the dining room and kitchen in the background

This was taken while standing in the kitchen,

looking at the dining room and part of the sitting room

The carpenters working on Noah and Kezi's wardrobe in their bedroom

The tile man finishing off the work in the kids' bathroom

One of the painters working on the ceiling in Noah and Kezi's room

Another painter working on the hallway

Inside my study...just need to clear the rubbish and finalize the painting

Please pray for us as we transition from living in a rented house in town, to living in community on the YWAM base. There will be a lot of adjustments and the need to rethink how we live as a family in a community.

Please also pray for the completion of our house, that it will be done in time and done well, and that it will be a blessing to live there.

Thanks so much!

Keziah's birthday

2009-11-12T14:28:00.004+03:00

Keziah shared her 4th birthday recently with Elsie Jane, who turned 2.

They brought lots of little friends to celebrate their special day with them.

What a blessing to have the pool at White Castle...perfect for this beautiful climate.

This time the kids from the YWAM base were much more confident in the water, and had a lot of fun splashing around.

Elsie's dad gathered all the kids and helped them act out the story of when Jesus calmed the storm. I think the kids preferred making the waves for the storm, rather than calming it. Getting them to stop splashing almost needed a miracle.

The cake

Happy Birthday, Kezi! We love you!

Why I do what I do

2009-11-03T20:34:00.005+03:00

This is what it's all about, what makes the gift of writing such a blessing to me.

Last month while I was in Nigeria, I had the privilege of writing about an amazing young woman called Patience Ashe Anyaku (left, waving her country's flag at her graduation ceremony). She made history in YWAM's University of the Nations by being the first Nigerian to graduate from the U of N within Nigeria. Her story was a joy to write, and it was posted here on the ywam.org website.

Just today I received an email from her saying,

Thanks for the writing about my grad. It was so inspiring for me to how you captured my heart in that piece of writing. That piece is changing lives sister! I got a mail from a lady in Bangladesh who was supposed to give up teaching to go do a DTS. She gave it up, but couldn't get a ticket to go... she was disappointed in God but after reading my story on ywam site, she got encouraged and opened up to God to have His way in her life. I wrote her back and said I thank God for disappointing me to honor me in a grand style... in short, there is no disappointment if we are in the center of His will.... His way IS THE... our way only SEEM TO. God made this ‘an inspiring graduation’ and I feel honored to be His vessel of display

.

I, like Patience, also feel honored to be a writing vessel for His glory. May His name be lifted higher as people share their testimonies and encourage others.

Sacrificial giving

2009-10-30T15:26:00.007+03:00

One of the most profound, yet difficult, times on the LTC in Nigeria was an offering we had.

It was a multi-dimensional offering that went on for several hours. We were all asked to pray and ask God for His heart of generosity, and to ask Him to show each of us what we were to give. It started with giving each other words of encouragement, and then moved in to a time of giving money and personal items, either to specific people or into a general blessing box.

Counting the money offerings given in US dollars,
Nigerian Naira, West African CEFA, and Egyptian pounds.

The idea was that we would share as God led us, and be a blessing to others. Many of the students hadn't yet paid their school fees, so part of the goal was to clear as many students' school fees as possible. Everyone was encouraged to ask God what they could give, even if they didn't have money.

But the real heart behind the offering was to let generosity flow, and allow God to work in some of our attachments to money and possessions.

I didn't realize how hard this offering time would be for me. As I prayed, I felt God leading me to give away a personal possession that I used all the time. It wasn't an heirloom, not even a gift. It was just an item I had bought on furlough one time, but had become quite attached to.

The blessing box

For reasons I can't explain, giving that thing away was like cutting off my arm. I wept while I was putting it in the blessing box. I couldn't believe how much my heart hurt. It was the first time I can honestly say I gave sacrificially.

I wasn't the only one. Other people gave away suits, guitars, computers, cameras, best pairs of shoes, even bedsheets. Many people cried as they parted with their treasures, but in the evening, when people shared their testimonies, the joy of giving was real on their faces. All had given and all had received, and there was a strong atmosphere of love and unity among us.

I sent a text message to John telling him all about it. I was still sore and bruised, and was crying as I typed the message.

Offerings laid out on chairs

A little while later John sent back a message, "Aidan was asking me this evening why we have to sacrifice money, and not animals. I thought, 'what a question' and a long discussion ensued. When I told him what you had given away, he burst into tears."

This floored me. Why would Aidan cry over my offering? He wasn't attached to it.

It made me wonder if I was modelling something selfish that Aidan had picked up on, and by acting in the opposite manner (giving something special rather than clinging to it) I was breaking something that even he felt all those miles away.

The first thing Aidan asked me when I got off the bus after my long journey home was, "Mommy, why did God make you give that thing away?"

More offerings on chairs

First I had to explain that God didn't MAKE me give it away...He just prompted and I obeyed. Then we talked about greed and selfishness and getting too attached to material things. We talked about generosity and blessing others, and holding things lightly that God gives us. We talked about the freedom of not being chained down by possessions.

It's not an easy lesson to learn, but I'm grateful for the work God has done in my heart. It's like He helped me pry loose my strangle-hold on the things I have and see that, in the end, they really are just things.

Now if I can just keep remembering that...

Painfully pruned, expecting much fruit

2009-10-26T15:31:00.004+03:00

I just spent 3 weeks in Nigeria for a YWAM Leadership Training Course led by the founders, Loren and Darlene Cunningham.

It was a wild ride of extremes for me...the teaching was excellent, but the living situation was hugely challenging for me. I was housed in a hot, smelly, crowded, noisy dorm with 19 other women, zero privacy and zero consideration of whether or not someone else wanted to rest or sleep.

"Be thankful you have a bed," someone said. Yes, good point, but not necessarily helpful when I'm tired and cranky and have no quiet place to recharge.

I struggled with the food. Then I'm hearing stories of times when whole YWAM bases lived on soya beans for 40 days. Our diet wasn't quite that extreme, even if I did lose 5 pounds in 3 weeks.

I struggled with the climate. Hot and humid, my clothes were always sticking to me to the point where I developed a prickly heat rash all over my back. Then I'm hearing stories of running schools in unfinished buildings in the middle of winter and the students having to write while wearing gloves. At least I could shower and cool off a bit.

Those were just the struggles with the basic creature comforts.

Then there were the other challenges that made me feel undermined, unvalued and second-rate. I don't believe this was intentional or calculated...it probably went completely unnoticed...except by me.

One of the teachers commented in class that, "It's easy to say we want to be servant-hearted and that we're willing to serve others without recognition, but what about when others start to treat us like servants? How do we respond then?"

I had to seriously consider this question in light of my own situation, and came face to face with several other questions, "Who are you serving, after all? If you are doing this for Me, then what happens when you're not recognized, not appreciated, not valued? What happens if nobody cares whether or not you are comfortable or well fed? How will you respond if you are just a nobody in the eyes of those around you?"

Yes, I had learned all about Relinquishing My Rights on my DTS...I had said I would lay it all down and pick up my cross, nails and all, to follow Jesus. But I hadn't experienced what I felt was such a massive violation of "my rights" all at the same time like I did on this LTC, and I'm sorry to say I wasn't very eager to lay them down.

But I didn't have any choice...there were no options for me to change my situation: they wouldn't let me change rooms, I couldn't change the menu, and they wouldn't even let me put the fan on in our dorm room. I couldn't wave my CV around or expect total strangers to respect me...what made me any different from anyone else? Why should they grant me any favors?

All I could do was pray for grace, and He gave me that.

Now I'm home and trying to process it all. Although my instinct is to blot out the hardships from memory, I know God had lots of good lessons for me in those hardships. This morning I was reading John 15:1-17 and thinking, "If I ever thought I'd been pruned before, it was nothing compared to the LTC." God must have been doing some serious cutting back to the quick, because it felt like He stripped me to the bone to get rid of the superfluous and show me what I was made of. Looked like a lot of spineless jelly to me, but somewhere in the gloop I saw a tenacious hold on Christ that would not let go no matter the circumstances. Maybe that's the sticking power the leaders were talking about when they said, "Success is not quitting, no matter how hard it is."

If this truly was God pruning me, then I look forward to the 'much fruit' I will bear as a result. Like Beth Moore said, "No matter how scary it may seem, you can trust God with a pair of shears."

I'll write more about the amazing teachings, new friends, and faithful works of God in Nigeria when I've digested the hard stuff a bit more.

Was it all worth it? Definitely.

An unexpected gift for Bingi and I

2009-10-11T12:57:00.004+03:00

This was an amazing gift for Bingi and I…

We had the opportunity to meet with the founder of Youth With A Mission…Loren Cunningham…to ask about his visits to East Africa.

For YWAM’s 50th Anniversary celebrations next year, the regional communication team for East Africa is putting together a visual documentary of the history of YWAM in East Africa. I am gathering information from all the bases in the region to establish when and where YWAM first came to East Africa and how it spread from there.

Since we are with Loren and Darlene right now in Nigeria, I thought it would be good to take the opportunity and find out when and where he first came to East Africa for our visual documentary.

I explained my purpose to one of the LTC staff who then arranged for me to have 15 minutes with Loren just before we started the evening session.

I took Bingi with me because I knew this would be our only opportunity to have a personal meeting with Loren and I didn't want her to miss out. When we got to the door and I knocked, she stopped and backed off saying, “I’m scared. I’m scared.”

“Come on!” I said. “This is your only chance to meet Loren personally!”

We went into the guesthouse and all the other LTC leaders were there finishing supper.

After a few minutes, Loren came out and sat with us in the living room. Then he started talking.

One by one the other LTC leaders headed off to class.

But Loren kept talking.

Soon it was only me and Bingi left.

And Loren kept talking.

Concious of the time, I half-heartedly tried to leave at least 3 times,

but Loren kept talking.

Two hours later, when the other LTC leaders started coming back from class, Bingi and I said our good-byes. We couldn’t believe we had been given a private audience with Loren Cunningham for 2 hours!!!

His stories were so inspiring, encouraging and thought-provoking…I have much to process and digest.

What an amazing blessing.

Thanks, Daddy!

Heading to Nigeria

2009-09-28T10:08:00.005+03:00

Tonight I hop on the plane with Bingi Dorothy (another YWAMer from the Arua base), and we fly to Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

We will be attending a 3-week Leadership Training Course at the YWAM base, run by YWAM's co-founders Darlene and Loren Cunningham.

Darlene's vision...to help leaders develop their full potential in God.

My vision...to grow in my leadership gift and spend time at Jesus' feet soaking in His wisdom.

Over the last several years of serving on YWAM Arua's base leadership team, I've realized how very little I know about leading others. I'm pretty good at motivating myself and getting things done, but serving and mentoring others is a much greater challenge for me.

And yet following Jesus is all about relationship...we are the Body of Christ, after all, and I can't walk this journey alone.

There's a wonderful African proverb that always challenges me:

"If you want to go fast,
go alone.
If you want to go far,
go together."

My natural instinct wants to just do it all myself because I can get it done quicker, but my heart wants to do it as a team, which takes much longer and causes me no end of frustrations.

Please pray for me and Bingi, and the rest of the LTC staff and students, that God would meet each of us at our point of need, and bring the rest, refreshment and reinvisioning that we need to walk together and help lead this Body along His pathways.

Please also pray for John and the kids, and Bingi's family, that God would give them much grace, fun and joy over the next month while we are apart.

God's timing once again proves best

2009-09-24T12:45:00.001+03:00

It's easy to get frustrated when things don't work out according to my schedule, but after 12 years of living in Africa, I thought I'd gotten pretty used to being 'flexible.'

This week it was harder.

I'd taken an overnight bus to Kampala Sunday night to be at the Nigerian High Commission at 10 am sharp on Monday. The plan was to apply for my visa, and then go back to Arua Monday night. Since I'm about to leave for a month, I wanted to spend as much time in Arua with my family as possible.

When we reached the High Commission, however, we were told it was closed for Eid (Muslim holiday)...come back Wednesday.

Well, that's easier said than done, especially when home is a 7 hour bus ride away. Why didn't God give me the heads up before I left Arua so that I could have postponed my trip a couple days and just gone down Tuesday night instead? Then I could've been back Wednesday night and had more time with my family.

Frustrated, I had no choice but to stay in Kampala and wait for the High Commission to re-open.

One of the things I'd been planning to do anyway was to look for a formica counter top to mount our kitchen sink in. After about an hour of searching, I found one, and since I had time, made arrangements to buy it the next day and take it to be cut so the sink would fit in it.

Meanwhile, the YWAM base in Nigeria called John to let him know that another of our YWAM Arua staff, Dorothy Bingi, had been accepted for the same Leadership Training Course that I am attending. That meant she needed to get to Kampala as soon as possible to process her visa. And since I was there waiting, why didn't she join me and we go to the High Commission together on Wednesday?

She also needed a plane ticket to and from Nigeria, without which it is difficult to get a visa. Since I 'just happened' to be waiting in Kampala, why didn't I go to the Kenya Airways office and get her ticket sorted out?

Yes...the 'extra' time on my hands turned out to be just what I needed to help Bingi process her plane ticket, and run around with that 3 meter formica board all over Kampala trying to get it cut and then packed on a lorry for transport to Arua. Looks like that 'extra time' wasn't extra at all, in God's calculations.

Regularly I tell God, "Let Your will be done. You program my schedule so that I do the things on Your heart." But when something gets in the way of my plans, I can easily question God and think something has gone wrong. I gave all the right replies to my friends' texts of sympathy...'Yeah, it's a bummer, but God must have a reason for the delay.' But in my heart, I wondered if I just hadn't heard Him right, or worse, if He just hadn't told me.

It's harder to trust God when things aren't going as I think they should, but again and again He proves to me that time is in His hands, and He knows how much I need to do the things He's called me to do.

And of course, generous Dad that He is, there was even enough time for me to go to Sparkles and get a pedicure. :)