Expectant...

I don't know if I could have fit anymore meetings, emails, fundraisers, cups of coffee or bottles of Excedrin into the past 6 months! It has been a whirlwind time of preparing for this trip to Zambia! My family and I leave in less than a week and the team meets us there in 3 weeks.

We started out on this journey 8 months ago with the first informational meeting and this past Saturday we had our last official meeting for the team. I am excited to see what God is going to do in and through this team. I am exicited about all the hope that is going to be handed out and the love that is going to be taken in.
I am excited about the awarness that will open the eyes of the women and the transformtion in the hearts of the men. I am excited about a lot of things but I am more than excited, I am expectant for God to show up.

Expectant in the God who has never let me down. Expectant in the God who says He will never leave us nor forsake us. Expectant in the God who can do more than we ask or imagine. A God who is already in tomorrow and knows our needs before we ask for them.  I am expectant in a God who is in the business of restoring lives and breathing hope into dry and tired souls. I am expectant in a God who will heal bodies and mend broken hearts. I am expectant for God to again break my heart for what breaks His. Monday can't come soon enough! Especially can't wait to see this young lady again in the video:)  Just seeing God work in her life makes all the Excedrin and late nights, stress, paperwork and preparing worth it!

On The Edge

The edge-it is a place most people don't like to be, a place that we tell our kids to stay back from. The edge is risky...seemingly precarious; and no, I'm not talking about the guitarist from U2:) I think of my kids when they were younger. They would jump with abandon to the top of a brick wall to teeter across or to the tip of a pier to catch a glimpse of any darting fish. It's funny how when we are younger we don't see the edge as a place of danger but a place of expectation and excitement.

Over the last 5 years, God has led me back to the edge, even though I am not young anymore! To the place where discretion meets reckless faith. Where wisdom seeks courage and hope is in what we can't see as we strain to look over.

I have been asking God the past year or so, for the gifts of wisdom and faith. Two things that could essentially be polarized. Pushing against each other. It would seem sometimes that wisdom deems us gray, with adventures behind us; while faith is stamped on the likes of Moses and Joshua. But I see them as partners in the walk that God has called me to, pursuing the edge knowing that is where God will meet me. It is where He calls my soul, stretching it, growing it so that His hand can be seen.  Following in faith the vision God gave me 5 years ago for Extending Hands, is an adventure I never dreamed of taking on. The mountains, the climbing, the edge are where He now says, "Your home, this is where I want you. This is where your steps of faith have led you." But the edge is just the beginning.The wisdom is in knowing when He is asking me to jump.....

To be or not to be....free, that is.....

I have been thinking since Easter about sacrifice and love; about being willing to give up what we are holding tightly to for those around us. What that looks like and what that means for our own lives. How hard it is in this world, in our society, to give up self, our agenda or our wants and desires.The next step of course, is to lay down our freedom, to become a slave, a slave of the One True God.

I was reading this morning from Revive our Hearts on the qualifications of being a servant and how it goes against every grain of our culture and world. Are we willing to be nothing more than, yet everything we could ever be, in the servant hood of Christ? I am not Kristin Choitz, blah, blah, blah....whatever those titles after my name could be. I am only and from now on, a bond servant of Christ. A slave of Him to whom I owe my life. I want no other title.

It is interesting that in what I do, I talk a lot about women's issues and "freeing" women spiritually and emotionally from abuse, strongholds, and literally from being held captive by prostitution, etc. and in that I am nothing more than a slave myself. One who has given up my right to do as I will. I have FREELY given up the rights to my own life to take that ear piercing as Nancy talked about in Exodus 21:5 in her radio program. To be marked, as one who is owned. She went on to say, that as a servant you would not take on this permanent mark of slavery to a Master unless you believed it was in your best interest. I have to be willing to believe that being a slave of Christ is better than anything else I could want, desire, have, be, own or experience in life. I am marked for all to see and in that, free to live the life God has laid out for me.

Freedom and slavery-two words that do not go together other than in the context of a perfect, loving God. My desire for the women in Zambia is that they would come to know true freedom through being a bond servant, one owned, by the lover of their souls, the One who came as a servant to FREELY die for them and for me and for you. Again, I surrender-I ask you Lord, to pierce my ear, that all may know, I am Yours...

Matthew 20:27-"...and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Is it Spring yet?

Longing.  I would assume most of us right now are longing for spring amidst all the snow and cold.  Longing for not just the word, "Spring" but an all encompassing sense of Spring.  We don't want Spring to arrive and not have warm sunshine, flowers pushing through the cold ground and  the smell of newness in the air. That is what we want.  We know it's coming, it's just a matter of time.

Wanting what is not yet here seems to be how we live.   

Living for today and longing for tomorrow is a fine line to walk.  Let us long for God in our tomorrow's as we live for Him today.  Longing for Him and not things, wanting hope and not worldly security, desiring peace and not prosperity. Longing to praise Him tomorrow for what He did today. We can long for the newness of what each new day will bring because it is Him we want to know more.  In that, whether our tomorrow is here on earth or starts out in eternity, it is with Him.  Let our longing be focused on Him who is eternal.  Worry is then cast aside as a pointless sin because tomorrow can only bring us closer to God.

Longing for God is much more certain than even Spring.  It fills our lives with much more than fleeting moments of color and beauty.  Let us long for what lasts. But I have to say....God, "Thanks for Spring!" He is good!  Enjoy every moment!

February-the month of love!

I am continuing my thoughts on love this month as it was just Valentine's Day this past week.  I realize my  January post was about love as well BUT you can't not talk about love in February!

I work part time in a flower shop in town and Valentine's week is always hectic.  It is funny to observe how many people, or men, I guess I can say, wait till the last minute to call and order flowers for their significant other.  Interesting since Valentine's Day never changes...it is always Feb. 14th.  Do they forget?  Or are they hoping the world ends before Valentine's Day so they won't have to go buy anything? Well, maybe they are just creatures of habit.  When they do call on Valentine's Day, we tell them, "of course we can do that for you!".  Maybe it's our fault:)

See, Valentine's Day is not just about saying, "I love you", but about showing it.  Putting those thoughts of love into action. Mostly the action of buying something for your love.  That, somehow, is the proof that we care. It is the action of taking the time and going to the mall or traveling to that special candy store she or he likes, or calling the local florist for her favorite flowers that shows you truly love. 

Love is action. Love is a verb, not a noun.  What actions of love are you taking today to show the people in your life that you love them?  It is much more than words.  It is in our sacrifice and our giving up of self that shows we love.  It is how Jesus showed us He cared.  It is how we show the world we care.

Let our actions to those around us show our love, not just on Feb. 14th, but all year long.  We have a team of people going to show love this summer in Zambia. They will be sacrificing much to go...because love compels them to act.  They will be ministering to abused women, talking to men about gender based violence, hopefully building a classroom off a school in a village, handing off a piggery to some women in the bush, and touching the lives of many others that need to see love in action. 

Our world is small.  Let our love be big.

To be an "active" part of this years trip and help in the funding go to www.extendinghands.org to the donate button.  Please be praying for God to show up in His great love as we will need much help in reaching our goals for this trip!  The conferences, the building project, the piggery and more will need lots of loving sacrifice from those of us who want to show how much we care to the least of these...
Thank you Jesus for showing us how to love...

Praying over a women with AIDS in a coumpound

Another Year!

Boy, it's 2013....

While I have been a little preoccupied since the first of the year enjoying time off with my kids and doing, well, nothing much; I have also been anxiously anticipating starting school (and everything else) this past week So, needless to say, break is over and I am back at here at Extending Hands AND in every other area of my life!  Here we go!

We are again in the beginning stages of planning our next team trip this coming summer which is exciting, overwhelming and time consuming. Looking for funding, doing training with I-Teams, taking care of the daily needs of Extending Hands and many other tasks will consume us for the first 3/4 of the year. Some might ask, "why?".  Why do I do this?  Why sacrifice so much?  Why care so much?  Why give up your vacation time?  Why go and why pour out myself to the women of Zambia?

I read a good quote a while ago that said, "Asking "how" leads only to information, while asking "why" leads to wisdom, clarity, and understanding." The 'why' is very important! 

My why?  LOVE.  This is my addiction, my adrenaline.  It is why I get up in the morning and continue to look to a God who first loved me, for the 'how'. It is in His love, by His love and because of His love that we ask, "How".  How God, do you want me to show the love You have so freely shown me?  I am listening to the song, "This One Thing Remains" and my favorite part is the chorus....'Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me'....it is in that power, the power of LOVE that I am willing to risk it all and jump off the cliff to touch one women who needs to know she is loved, not only by me but by the God of the Universe who created her.

When you know the 'why' you then have to ask 'how'.  Where that leads, you never know!  For me, it means going half way around the world to be Jesus....nope....it doesn't make sense....but love is kinda like that....

Merry Christmas from Extending Hands!

A couple of years ago my husband and I were asked to share at church about surrender in our lives and what that looked like. It was the word that God had given me for that season. At the time we were surrendering a lot and didn't know where that would take us. Well, it took us to a place of much pain, hardship and struggle. We had the opportunity to praise God during this time or to blame Him and walk away and be bitter. We chose to stand firm and bless the name of the Lord despite what He gave or took away.

During this Christmas Season another word represents this month for me – contentment. “Reality minus expectations equals contentment.” I remember this quote from a pastor a long time ago! I will never forget it. It seems that as we have surrendered, we have been wrought with hardship, probably as training and stretching for our future full-time missionary work. So, I have felt that contentment needs to be a word I claim this season. I must choose to be content with all that I have and all that has been stripped from me. I must be content despite testing and trials because that is my reality. If I have expectations different from my path or the journey that God has laid out for me, I am envying others’ journeys and am being jealous of the "nicer" path it appears they are on. If I do not accept what God is doing in my life, keeping my eyes on Him, but instead am looking at other people’s paved walkways as I compare, I will miss out on what God is growing and stretching in me.

What if Jesus had wanted to go His own way when he came to earth? What if He was not content with how God allowed Him to come into existence here on earth? What if Jesus went around saying that He was better than being born in a manger or that He wanted disciples with master’s degrees instead of fishermen and a horse and chariot instead of a donkey. Jesus walked His path with the acceptance of divine and eternal contentment with His life here on earth. He knew the path would get very rocky, yet His eyes were kept on His Father's will until the very end.

That I might so live. Let it be that the rocky terrain and mountains and valleys and obstacles would be the journey I can't help but follow and that the word contentment would be the reality I choose to live out.

What are you contented with this season? How peaceful are you in your reality? God will meet you where you are and give you contentment this year. Just ask Him! Let us rest in Him!

Have a Wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season from all of us at Extending Hands!