Without Words

This is one of those times that I am so overwhelmed by what God is speaking through a book that I just finished that I am without words. I just finished reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Rich Stearns. To say that this book challenged me to see Jesus' heart more clearly and live out the gospel differently would be an understatement. I can't recommend this book enough.. Check out this interview with Rich..Worth the ten minutes.



How will I respond to this challenge? God is doing some radical, scary stuff in our hearts at my house. Exciting but whoa what an adventure this is...Praying that God continues to keep my eyes open to His heart and that I will begin to answer His call to reach the poor and least of these.

Amazed

I have been going on these youth mission trips for three years now.. I know what to expect..I know that these trips will effect me...I know that I will come home stretched, expanded, and stronger in my faith... I know it but it never ceases to amaze me when I experience it again!!

Each Thursday night of our mission week, we have a special service. We look at the scripture in John 13 where Jesus washes his disciples feet..Then, we wash the feet of our teens, wrap our arms around them, and pray specifically for God to continue to build up their faith and use them to further His kingdom. I've done it before.. I have held these teens in prayer all year. I know them-their struggles, victories, worries, concerns. I watch them all year as they question, study, and grow. I think I know how they will be as a result of this week-how they will respond and what their reaction will be..or so I think.

I went to wash the feet of one of my teen boys who was broken in tears before the Lord. He was crying so heavily that it was difficult for me to get through prayer for him. He was sobbing in my shoulder as I wrapped my arms around him and prayed for his faith to increase and for God to continue to use him. I finished washing his feet and returned to my place in the circle and entered into prayer myself. I continued to hear the young man cry-looking up from my prayer I saw another one of our boys embracing the first and praying intently for him. Soon after, all of our boys moved around this young man and initiated a group prayer session right there all on their own!! I was moved to uncontrollable tears myself!!

These teens get it.. They are living out lives of radical faith that put me to shame at times. So what where they praying for??...The boys were praying about starting a ministry in the high school to reach other young men who don't know Christ..They are so burdened for those in their high school who don't know our Savior. They were in tears before the Lord because there are so many who don't know Him!!

What a challenge for me! It leads me to ask myself...Am I so broken for the lost? Have I shed tears for those who don't know Him? What am I doing personally to reach those who haven't heard the gospel??

I am so thankful God has given me these teens for this season in my life. What an immeasurable blessing they are.. I am praying that God continues to allow me to be a part of these teens lives and that they continue to be an example and a challenge to me.

On the Road Again..Please Pray

Saturday at 6:15 AM, we pack 27 suitcases and 23 teenagers with 4 adults into two fifteen passenger vans to begin a nearly twenty hour journey to Swan Quarter, North Carolina. We will spend the week there loving on the less fortunate children and working on community buildings/projects or homes of the poor. This week is always an amazing time for our teens in our ministry and without a doubt it always seems to have a huge impact on me too.

I was looking back at my pictures,like the one above, from our first trip in 2008. We took nine kids that first summer we were serving here in ministry. Many of them had little experience with God, didn't know much of His Word, or really know a thing about my husband or myself. WOW, what a diffrence two years can make. Now some of those same nine kids who were so new to God's word in 2008 are living lives of radical faith for our Lord each and everyday. In the past two years, I have seen them do things like: lead the annual See You At The Pole Event for hundreds of students at our highschool, share during our church service what Jesus is doing in their lives, intentially build into other believers through leading small groups for students younger than they are, serve by working at Christian camps, and attend international mission trips to spread God's love and teach His word to unreached people groups!! God has allowed us to see so much fruit coming from the lives/faith of our youth. As I look at the picture, I just keep thinking..from these few I will build my church...

So this year we are are taking 27..three times what we had the first trip. On these few I will build my church-a hand full of dedicated teenagers..changed by the Word of God in their lives. I couldn't imagine that God would do what He has done! I praise Him for the way that He reaches out to us and uses us! I never get tired of seeing the power of God's Word working through lives of the teens that I am privileged to walk alongside daily in this life.

Pray for us as we embark on another week filled with service, learning, worship, sleep deprivation, bad food, and no cell phones. We are blessed to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of our teens and we pray that more are reached for Him this week. I am praying that like those first few who answered and continue to answer the call, some will begin to live lives of radical, obedient faith to Him!

Without Words

I can't believe that we have been in Patalup, Guatemala for an entire week already! I am without words, but be sure that God is working! We are experiencing Him all around us!! I will post more when we get back in the states. These people are truly amazing and have been a blessing to me much more than I have been to them! We are building houses, running ministries for teens, women, children, and distributing food and clothes. We are even running a medical clinic with the help of a national doctor. All ministries are overflowing with hundreds of people walking miles daily to be cared for physically and spiritually. God is good to allow me to be a part of the work here. Please continue to pray for us as we finish our work tomorrow and head back to the states this weekend. Thank you for your support. You are so much a part of all that God is doing here.

A Different Sort of Journey

Tomorrow at 3:30 AM, I will embark on a journey that may seem to have nothing to do with adoption. I will board a plane and fly to Guatemala City, Guatemala. From there I will take a bus to a small village known as Patalup. Patalup is home to a small tribe of Mayan ancestral people who, by the grace of God and His love, I have the pleasure of serving and loving on in the week to come!

So, what does this have to do with adoption? Last year when I traveled to this village and as I viewed all the beauty that this country has to offer, my heart was broken for the poor and the fatherless who live there. This is where God wants us-serving the poor and the fatherless where ever it is we can find them-in Guatemala, at home, or close by.

God stirred my heart through last year's trip in a way that I had never experienced before! Children, hundreds in this small village alone, without enough food, in homes that we would consider shacks, begging for the chance to attend school because they did not have the money to go, and yet so joyful!! Without even the basic necessities of life yet so open to receiving Jesus's love!!

The one thing that they are lacking is someone to bring the news of Jesus's love to them! I am traveling with a team of 23 willing servants to this small village to tell them of God's salvation and the love that He has extended through Jesus Christ. Please pray for us as we leave tomorrow and arrive home on Sunday, June 27. Recently the village has been heavily affected by a tropical storm and severe mudslides. We are going to rebuild homes destroyed by the mudslides, run ministries designed for children, teens, women, men, and pastors, and bring food they desperately need because the mudslides have devastated many families' crops.

Guatemala's adoption program is rumored to be reopening soon! In the next week, I may be caring for a child that God has set apart to place in your family. Is God stirring your heart to care for these children and other children who are fatherless all around the world and in our backyard? If not you, pray for God to raise up His people to fulfill His mission!

James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction..