LOVE LIKE THAT

I look outside and a shiver runs down my back. The ice and snow are not budging here in Illinois. That northern wind blows and our windows are frosted but that does not stop any of us from thinking about Valentine’s Day coming up! There is much ado about this day of love. Thoughts of romance, candy, candlelight and words of adoration fill our minds. Though my thoughts of love go deeper than just thinking about romantic love this week.

The shiver is gone and my heart melts though, even in the cold, with the thought of the love our supporters and partners have for not only God but for the precious people of Zambia. This holiday is the perfect opportunity to tell all of you who have prayed, given of your time, money and energy to the people of Zambia how much Ben and I love you all! The love we and you all have for the lost, poor and oppressed people of Zambia is love that will last! Love that walks alongside, touches, hugs, and sits in the dirt. True love is built on sacrifice, as Jesus demonstrated for us. Thank you all for the sacrifices you have made over the years to be a part of this ministry! We are so blessed by your love to us and to those you may have never met half-way across the globe. But there will be a day when we all are rejoicing in heaven over the lives that were saved and thus transformed by your support and partnership of us and this ministry! It is love like that that we celebrate today! Blessings to you all and know you are all prayed over and appreciated! 

This picture represents a small way in which we love. This is Charity. We met on the streets in the back of a bar in 2014. We had prayed with her and talked with her for quite a while. My Zambian friend who was with me happen to see her again in the market last fall. When I went in Dec. we went on a search to find her. After finding out she had moved, we went to search her out. The look on her face when she came out and saw me!  She was overwhelmed that I had come back to find her, that I remembered her. That I wanted to come and put my arms around her. She was not on the streets anymore, and was trying to make a living selling plastic shoes. We sat in her little home and chatted for a while and prayed with her. It was a precious time. You, our supporters, made that moment possible. I am just the extension of your arms of love to girls like Charity. Thank you!

WORD FOR THE YEAR

It is here that I need to back up and say, I did not get to write about my word for the Christmas season this past year. The season got away from me (A trip to Zambia will do that!) and even though I did feel the word, reveal or revelation was my word from God, I did not actually write about it (sad face). I feel it was in that word though, that God did reveal and well, ripped back open, past scars that needed to be felt again in a way to bring a fresh brokenness to my life, my marriage and ministry.

In our training with International Teams we have had to read a few good books and do some deep reflecting and searching in the reading and thus the writing on these books. In this, I have felt God asking me to go back, get a little more vulnerable than I have been and push into deeper self-examination. Through this I discovered I had been forgetting I had scars. Scars that have implications, meaning and hurt and pain associated with them. 

I am not saying here that we should go back and live in our pasts or re-visit them in an unhealthy way, but there was a point for me that I knew I was not living in the reality of the presence of my past in a way that brought the beautiful reality of it’s existence. There is a story in it. The story that we overcame. Victory is ours. 

In the training and through my word for the Christmas season God has brought us to a new place as we prepared for the new year. In the wrestling of why I needed to go back, why I needed to unearth the dark soil, God revealed it was to use it to plant new growth in my life. So grateful for God’s gift of words to me and the promptings that come out of that. As the week leading up to New Year’s Eve unfolded, Ben and I got dirty in the soil of our past to see the way in which God is growing new awareness and a certainty in what He has and is doing. 

The word, VICTORY, came out of all of this as we sat on New Year’s Eve writing out our recommitments to each other, God and our calling, after sitting in the dirt the week before. Victory rather than any other word, because it invokes the idea of battle, scars, tough decisions and fighting. It speaks of following and leading, protecting and yet total abandonment. It is also a reminder that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. And it is in the Word of God that we stand firm and win. The Word, not the little words God gives me but The Word that brings total victory and freedom to a life that God is growing His will in. His will planted in the dark soil of unearthed brokenness. 

“When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.  When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”  Deuteronomy 20:1-4 

Love this verse. How good it is to be in the “camp” of the Lord. To be in His will. Then we can have the assurance of His victory! Moving into 2016 today standing firm, ready to fight and accepting the victory God has given as we embark on moving to Zambia to join God in the battle there. 

WAITING FOR THE RAINS

The people of Zambia wait for the rains to begin every year in December. I am usually not in Zambia during this time of expectation but I feel God wanted to show me something, because I was also there with expectation and hope. Expectation of answered prayer and hope for the heavens to open. And open they did. In many ways, like the rain that eventually came to cool the blazing heat and sun, I saw God open heaven and rain down blessing on many encounters and conversations with the broken in Chibolya. Like those who have been praying for the life giving rain to plant and be able to harvest, I saw God answer my prayers to pave a way into Chibolya, soften hardened hearts, and reveal the ones God was calling to Himself. 

After prayer walking around Chibolya with some local friends on the ground, we entered into Chibolya with God and saw Him do some amazing things. The first day we saw 2 sisters come to Christ and had the opportunity to pray for healing and blessing over many others! The next day God led us to two women who needed to be delivered from demonic oppression. God guided our every step and we were so grateful for the Holy Spirit’s promptings to stop and talk to random people as we walked through this area that means graveyard. We saw the hearts and looked into the eyes of many hopeless men and soaked in the smiles of children that do not know yet the life that awaits them. We hugged many women who needed to know that God created them and that they were beautiful in His eyes and in ours and we encouraged a pastor and his wife in prayer to continue to preserver in their ministry at their little church (their church was not in Chibolya but they lived there). In the many different times that we went into Chibolya, we saw another man come to Christ and got to encourage another man who’s heart was so distraught over his life. He wanted to talk more about Jesus and my Zambian friend on the ground committed to meeting with him again. Our Zambian friends were also connecting the other women who came to Christ with a pastor’s wife and checking in on the freed women as well.  

We also went out on the streets on Friday and Saturday night. This is always hard but after much prayer, we got to see one young girl re-dedicate her life and then brought us her cousin who was also prostituting and she gave her life to her Savior and Lord! It was a beautiful thing to see the one girl who had re-dedicated her life pray with us over her cousin! I don’t even have the space to share all the conversations with the men who were at these bars, but let me say that there was one guy who actually helped us by bringing us girls to talk to and revealed that the stories of very young girls (12-14 year olds) at these bars in rooms somewhere was a reality that did not surprise us, unfortunately. We saw many underage girls about and one night we saw an underage girl screaming as she was being dragged and shoved into a car with 4 men. I will only share that she got away and It reminds me that this is a fight, a battle of light and darkness, good and evil. One in which we have God on our side. 

Though we had many God moments there was the obvious dark veil that hung over this place. Prostitutes that scattered and could not look us in the eye at our entering, and men who were bound to alcohol. Most men were drunk by 9 in the morning. The high rate of suicide in the most obvious demographic, young men, was something that we prayed against and saddened our hearts and the numbers we were hearing of HIV/AIDS was almost unbelievable. 

There is so much more to tell, and so many more stories but there is not enough room. We know this call is not going to be easy but God showed me that the heavens have opened not only for the rain in Zambia, but for us to minister to those in Chibolya. We are grateful for the opportunity to be God’s servants to those in Zambia. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

James 2:5 (ESV)

"Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?"

It is overcast here in our little town near the Windy City and things are still very quiet in our house. I am sitting here in my modest, comfortable home, warm, dry, fed and drinking my Irish Breakfast Tea. Before things get really busy, I wanted to take some time to ponder today, Thanksgiving. 

There are many in the world this morning who have found themselves without shelter, without anything to fill their stomachs and their babies crying with hunger pangs. Many of these have been recently displaced from their homes, looking for asylum, searching for anyone who will offer them solace from the remarkable evil of their homeland. I'm grateful for what I have (which by US standards is nothing) which is what today is all about however, I can't help but think of those who are much less fortunate. Those who are thankful today anyway, in spite of their poverty, in spite of the evil that has destroyed their homes.

I can't help but think of those who I have met in Zambia, those who live in a little one room shanty house who continually speak about how good our God is. Those who do not know where their next meal will come from but are thankful that God has helped them thus far. I'm thankful to have met these people, I'm thankful that God has given me the opportunity to see with my own eyes the things that break His heart. I'm thankful that He has called me and my family to minister to these people and spread the love that He so freely shares to anyone who will accept Him. 

Time is short and I'm thankful for today. I'm thankful for all of you, my friends, my family and most of all my God who is the provider of all that we have and all that we don't. So today, as you are gathering with family and friends, giving thanks for all that God has blessed you with, please remember those who aren't going to be feasting today and offer a prayer of hope, a prayer of compassion to those who literally have nothing. 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

An Autumn Death

       

It is truly a grand thing that happens in fall; the beauty that comes from dying, the splendor that is accompanied by surrender. What a glorious thing to die and be beautiful while doing so. God is good to give us a picture of what it looks like to die to self. It is a picture of grandeur and guts. 

This of course is not for the tree to choose, but for us, it is a decision. I have been contemplating this fall, this annual autumn that I find myself in, the very choice to die to self again and again. Given the needed visual, I continue to see God growing me, by “dying” me. He gives us the choice to follow Him “unto death.” This is by no means easy and it is a daily thing we must do. But I, like many of you, desire to become as nothing, I must decrease, so Christ may increase.

I am grateful for another autumn to see what God is killing in me, so that I might resemble more of my Lord. What an awesome sight to see how God can use dying to reveal the beauty of true life. A life not bent on money, things, experiences, connections, accolades, position, power, or prestige, but a life dead to self and alive in Christ. 

We have a reminder every fall to re-evaluate our life, or more appropriately our death. To observe what we missed the year before or what we were unwilling to let fall deliberately to the ground. Grateful for the time of reflection. 

Let us see the glorious beauty in dying. 

Calculating... 3, 2, 1

It is Sunday evening and we just had an amazing day with some friends who are heading to the Mission Field of Spain. They will be working in Santiago at the end of the Camino Trail and are ready to go as soon as their Visas are approved, hopefully within the next few weeks. It was great to see them and to see the anticipation on their faces. We also already had a call scheduled with our Area Director and also great friends who are serving in Jinja, Uganda. We attended orientation with both of these couples a little over two years ago. While our planned departure was much later than both of them due to our family dynamics at the time, we are at a place where we really...really want to be in Zambia and continue the work that God has asked us to do.

So I started thinking about where we are and what it is going to take to get us to Zambia by the end of the year. We have made great strides over the past couple of months in gathering partners for this ministry and would love to see this continue. Based on this, I did some calculating. How many more people do we need per week to join our team? The pictorial graph attached below shows that, once all of those (people) have been spoken for, we will be ready to leave. As you can see, we only need 47 more people to join our team. That's less than 1 person per day between now and the end of November. If you have been thinking about joining us would you consider pulling the trigger today? We would consider it such a blessing to have you as part of our team. As Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians in chapter 4 verse 17,

"Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit." ESV

We would love to have you share in the blessings that will come from this ministry.

To join our team, either click on the picture above or click the link below. Thank you in advance! Together, we can bring Jesus to the community of Chibolya in Chongwe, Zambia.

Continuing to Dance

The hand held out inviting us to dance produces feelings that are exhilarating, intimate and profound. It means I was chosen, picked, desired. It speaks of joining, of trust, of leading and following. For us to be a part of this we have to do one thing though, reach out and take the hand that invites us. It requires us to engage with the one leading, living in the fluidity of the dance. One to lead and one to follow.

A few years ago God asked me to dance in the midst of trials and hardship (I blogged about this I believe!). To join in the beautiful undoing of myself in the arms of Him who gives joy and peace despite circumstances. I have continued to learn how to keep in step with Him and enjoy the dance, enjoy hearing Him sweetly call my name as I take His hand. There is such beauty in the mystery of God as we lay down our lives and dance to the song He chooses for us. I have been overwhelmed by the reality of the unsearchableness of God and of His holy unknowing. Something I am learning to rest in.

I must dance following His lead. Not questioning what song is playing for me. If His wisdom, knowledge and mercy are all unknowable, unfathomable, then what divine knowing of me is completely laid bare before Him. Every turn, every step in this dance called life is known to Him. And what is more, He does not need to reveal any answer to me, only the next step. Taking it in obedience that all honor and glory go to Him. What an awesome God that we serve! That whatever song He asks us to dance to, we know this one thing, that He is dancing with us. Take His hand.

This song was found to me a year or so after God called me to dance...it is like my soul was waiting for this one to be written. Enjoy!