Freedom!

I have new determination to fight sin in my life.  He died so I could live.  He was bound on a Cross by His enemies so I could be free.  I want to believe what He says is True and walk in it fully.  17 years into my journey...after years of a million answered prayers and seeing thousands of changed lives and being consumed in the glory of so many things He has done thru us I am fearful.  Fearful that I have somehow thought this has been in some small way because of my goodness or strength added to His righteousness.  I know with my mind that it is Christ plus NOTING but my logic somehow tells me a different story.  

I feel as though my heart is being awakened anew to the mercy and grace found ONLY in His Sacrifice...not even a tiny bit thru my good works or morality. This is causing a deeper worship of my King.  A new determination to fight sin.  Sin and slefish desires are no longer my master.  I have a greater desire to read His Word thru a different lense.  I feel more passion to reach out to the lost with the GREAT news of His Redeeming Power!  So much more compassion for the poor, needy, broken...awwwwww because I am just as poor, needy and broken.  

All the verses I am reading, memorizing, meditating on...they are all tying into Redemption.  As believers we have been redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to us.  It is for freedom that He set us free.  As we throw off every weight, sin and distraction that so eaily entangles us we can run the race marked out for us with pereverance.  We must understand the goal and the great worth of the Prize or why bother to fight when the battle rages on?  We will fizzle out and not finish strong settling into complacency.  LET IT NOT BE SO!

My life may appear more pure and clean on the outside than the days I first believed but it does NOT mean I am any less weak or powerless apart from Christ...it does not mean that I should  be any less desperate in seeking Him than I was at first.  I am finding the beauty of following Him means we fight harder to see Him as He really is and choose to believe He is who He says He is and that we are who He says we are in Christ.  Seeing Him as He really is surely is our greatest weapen against our temptation to sin.  When we drink from broken cisterns it is because somewhere in our hearts we are not believing that He is the Living Water and that He alone satisfies our thirst.  When we truly believe that His grace is enough and His mercy covers every sin and failure it should lead us to greater obedience AND abandon AND worship AND humble service in HIs Kingdom! Our souls should be at rest in His Presence and alive in His Truth and humbled by His holiness.

I have been incredibly tempted in recent years to place 'good' things on the throne of my heart.  Things, people, ministries that Christ has called me to devote my life to for the sake of His Kingdom have become temptations. When they dominate my thoughts and reign supreme in my affections they become deceitful in my heart. He is speaking loudly to me, in love, that He must reign supreme in my thoughts, affections and heart.  He has an order to things...and He must always be first in that order.  Our first love, our first pursuit, our first cause!  

The battle only grows stronger and the weapons He has called us to fight with are spiritual in nature.  He has won the battle.  If we believe and fight humbled before His mighty hand and with His strength, abandoning our own feeble efforts to His, we will see His glory in the land of the living.  We will see the Reality that HE HAS OVERCOME!  He has TRULY overcome!  His death and resurrection did for us what we can NEVER do for ourselves.  

My heart is humbled, alive, ready and willing to see Him as He reallly is.  Please pray with me that Jesus would reveal Himself to us in a way that causes us to make Him the greatest Treasure and pursuit of our hearts!  Surely this will cause HIs light to shine thru us lighting the way in the darkness for others to see Him too!  

Oh Lord how we love and long for You ALONE!

The Battle for our Hearts

So many people gathered in our home last night as we worshipped the Living Water. The well for our souls that NEVER runs dry. We celebrated the great work God is doing thru Richard Moore III and thanked Jesus for it all! But then I woke up feeling hopelessness and in despair. I looked at all the work...work that needed to be done in my heart and the hearts of those in SL for the nation to REALLY be changed.

 A water well installed is great and should be celebrated....but it will run dry. I knelt on the closet floor that I've been praying and weeping and worshipping in for days and NOTHING. No words could even come into my mind. Then the thoughts came like a flood. What are you even doing thinking you can make a difference? It's too much. It's a mess and will never be undone in your lifetime. Your own heart isn't even pure and you think you can wade thru the mess of the sin in the hearts of so many in a nation who's culture you will never figure out in the 4 mission trips you take each year. You have have a powerful force fighting against you. Your enemies are relentless. Just give up. 

Aawww but then a tiny seed of Hope sprouted up and I just started quietly, slowly whispering all the verses that I KNOW God ordained for me to memorize in past weeks. My faith started growing. I knew He had revealed my own sin and mercy so I could show that mercy to others. So I could hold out Living Hope with passion! He answered my prayer to understand the gospel by first revealing the wickedness and deceit in my own heart and then showed me the power of the gospel in me thru His Cross. The enemy is a Deceiver. Our battle is not against flesh and blood...it is against our Enemy  is fought and won in our hearts thru the Cross. THERE IS NO STRONGHOLD HE CAN'T BREAK. NO LIFE HE CAN'T SAVE. NO RUINS HE CAN NOT REVIVE! He CAN use us to make a difference as we humble ourselves and pray, memorize and meditate on His Truth, put it into practice by His power and worship Him thru every trial, attack and persecution with hands lifted high NO MATTER HOW WE FEEL!

Lord, fight for us and they us like the mighty Warrior You are! We want to see Your glory!!!  We give our lives for this!!!!

What If?

I have worship playing loud on my back porch as I walk around and BEG God for the ruins to come to life! As I BEG God to help me seek Him with my whole heart in private and OUT IN THE OPEN so others might follow me as I follow Him.

What if the 20 people who read my blog and Facebook decide to seek Him with their whole heart?

What if the 15 teenaged girls who sit in my living room each week decide to seek Him with their whole heart?

What if the 20 people that gather on my back porch every Sunday night decide to seek Him with their whole heart? 

What if the 100 kids in an orphanage I visit in Africa decide to seek Him with their whole heart?

What if the 10 ladies in my small group bible study decide to seek Him with their whole heart? 

What if these 7 children I'm raising in my home decide to seek Him with their whole heart? 

Surely if I seek Him with my whole heart in private and OUT IN THE OPEN...And I pour out His life into these precious ones He has called me to shepherd...then they might seek Him with their whole heart ...and also go out and make disciples and lift high His Name...then together we could make Him known so the world could SEE that He truly is Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life! 

His Word is True and He is the God who makes impossible things come to pass so I will believe that this is why He has called me! ALL for HIS glory! 

He Calls Us Friends!

Jerome typed a rough draft of our financial records...what has come in and gone out thru KOMEO...for our donors and sponsors to see. He also typed up all the needs that have been met since Summer Gordon agreed to be a living sacrifice as our missionary in SL. He sent it to Shana Rutz and i to edit. (He loves Jesus but bless his heart he can't spell very well, we just laugh and blame it on his missing finger!) Shana works full time, runs our non-profit with every other waking moment and as for me, well, i have 7 kids....so eventually these will get edited and emailed out. AND I'M SOOOOO EXCITED!!! Here is why....

When looking this over for some reason it makes me cry tears of joy for all He has done thru us, the weak and powerless!!!!  All the attacks, all the persecution, all the fears and anxieties, all the effort, all the time and money, I count it ALL as great joy because I count our lives as NOTHING except knowing Christ and making Him known and living out His commands with all of HIS power which works so powerfully in us...us, the dust that He daily breathes life into...us, the ashes He shows His beauty thru...us, the cracked jars of clay that He shines His glory thru. Lord let us lie down low with the orphan, widow, oppressed, thirsty, hungry, poor, broken. Let us suffer with them. Weep with them. Give them food and water and clothes and love and Hope knowing we are really giving those things to YOU! Let us not be strayed from your call to this and let us push every hindrance aside to do Your will with whatever strength, help and resources You provide. Let us have confidence with a clear conscience that one day we will bow before you knowing we lived to carry Your Name in all the earth and do Your will!!!  Thank you precious Lord and King for calling us friends and letting us be a part of Your great work in Sierra Leone as well as our own nation...for such a time as this!!!!

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:13-17 NIV)

Be encouraged fellow co-laborers. John 15 is what He is enabling every person connected with KOMEO to live out. Every prayer partner, every donor, every sponsor, every encourager, every missionary, every helper. He is bearing much fruit thru HIS ministry. He is using this small Gideon-like army with our fearful, fumbling, imperfect efforts to do great and mighty things that matter in His kingdom! Thank you for loving the least of these along side us with your time, money, prayers, support. You are holding our hands up in the battle!!!!

WE ARE SO BLESSED TO BE CALLED HIS FRIENDS!!!!

Gladly Boasting About My Weaknesses

Let me start by saying that God is so gracious to prepare us for trials and sufferings even before they come.  That is why it is so important to stay connected to a body of believers thru a local church.  His Word says to encourage one another daily so that our hearts are not hardened by sin's deceitfulness.  It is also just as important to spend personal time in His Word and in His Presence to prepare for the opposition that WILL come if you are seeking to do His will. He often leads me to scriptures and messages as a way to speak to my heart to prepare me before a battle begins.  This gives me great courage to fight thru it trusting that if He loved me enough to prepare me He will fight for me as well.  The last sermon series at my church was focused on welcoming failures, trials and persecution as a sign of being in His will as well as rejoicing in sufferings of all kinds as a way of refining us.  These sermons had a theme woven in of thanking God for trying things in ministry and failing and then learning thru our failures instead of not trying at all because we were afraid to fail.  My husband, me and one of our very best friends, Shana Rutz are the co-founders of a non-profit ministry, KOMEO.  Our ministry's focus is taking care of orphans, widows, the poor and needy in Sierra Leone, Africa as a way to further the gospel in this muslim nation.  We have experienced MUCH persecution and many failures as our organization is young, understaffed and going thru growing pains.  Keep this context in mind as you read this post.  

After days of intense pre-Africa warfare (and all the team members are suffering thru this right along side of us) I wake up to yet one more reminder of my clear inability and evident weakness. I dropped to my knees, prayed right there beside my bed, begged God for the strength to boast in my weakness because I could only do what He empowers me to. I Got up, came out side to my porch, pulled up the bible app and what was the verse of the day you ask?

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

I LAUGHED OUT LOUD!!!!

So let me do a little glad-boasting about my weaknesses...

I'm laughing at the days to come! The God who cares FAR MORE than me about orphans being fed and having spiritual parents, children wandering from shelter to shelter and house to house instead of being placed in families, the widow being taken care of and her prayerful desires granted, a team of people visiting a Muslim nation to hold out Christ who is the Hope of their country, clean water given to villages who against all hope choose to believe in the Hope of Living Water,  me being a faithful wife and caring mom, my life being holy and transparent with all my weaknesses and inabilities brought daily before Him...HE IS THE GOD who moves mountains for those who believe He can, who acts in behalf of the One who waits on Him, who uses and lets those created from dust boast in their weaknesses, who works all things together for good (including our failures) for those who love Him, who gives us the ability to rejoice in persecution, who is a mighty warrior fighting the battles He's in listed us in as we stand still in His Presence, who is our one Defense against every false assumption or accusation. 

Why do I worry as though something strange were happening to me? Why do I expect that He wants me to be perfect when He, the Perfect One died so I didn't have to be? Can't I look at my life and reason that as time goes on I am putting His Word into practice more and more and rejoice in this? Surely I can look and see that giving away half of my income for the orphan to be cared in a foreign land as well as the gospel going forth in my local church, opening up my home week after week so disciples of all ages and social statuses can be made as an Acts community is formed, having my doors open to the wanderer who needs a place to rest for awhile, adopting fatherless children into my forever family, teaching my children who Christ is and what His ways are like, spending time daily in His Presence worshipping, memorizing, meditating on His Word and crying out for the things I see in Scripture that matter most to His heart, getting on my face in my closet just big enough to lay prostrate before Him and weep over my sin and disobedience as He reveals it to me.  Surely THIS IS WHAT MATTERS most to Him.  Not my perfection.  Surely what matters is seeking Him with all my heart then putting into practice the command to lose my life for His sake the best way I know how with whatever strength and ability He gives.  Surely what matters most is fighting to follow with all my fears and failures ever before me, pushing them aside with all His strength that works so powerfully within me.  Surely what matters most is not the opinion of man or how successful my ministry is in the Christian community or how brilliant my children are in the homeschool circles or how caught up I am on my laundry and how well planned out my meals are for the week or how many followers I have for my blog and how many likes I get on my facebook posts.

He is doing something in me.  Something deep and wonderful and freeing.  I am being refined thru my trials, thru persecution, thru every failure I am getting back up again, thru every accusation I am becoming more embolden instead of bitter, thru each rejection I am sorrowful in a way that leads to rejoicing, in the times I am misunderstood I am counting it joy because I know that He alone knows the way I take and He is who my conscious needs to be clear before.  I am quicker to recognize my sin and see it as being against Him and grieving over this in a way that cleanses and makes me whole. When I hurt someone I feel an ache deep in my heart over this.  I am realizing what it really means to lose my life for His sake and find it. I have NO POWER to do any of this on my own yet  I feel unstoppable.  I feel embolden. I feel empowered. I feel strong...like I could scale a mountain and leap up to the high places like a gazelle, no longer being Much-Afraid because He has transformed me into Acceptance-With-Joy.  I feel He is taking every deeply ingrained weakness and turning it into a mighty strength for His glory as He alone is working holiness in my heart. Only Jesus Christ crucified and raised to life alive inside of me could bring me, the chief of all sinners (so I feel) to this place.  And my mind can't even conceive the places He has yet to take me.  I know His Word promises to take us from faith to faith and glory to glory. And ALL HIS PROMISES ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND TRUE!  WOW....His love and power are beyond my comprehension.

I am watching daily for Him, waiting expectantly for Him to take me deeper still despite me being crippled and unable to follow after Him unless He empowers me.  Yet I know He will.  He is my faithful God whom I can place all of my trust in.  He has called me to far too much on purpose so I might never boast in my own strength and ability but only boast in my weakness because it is then that His power will rest upon me.

Waiting on Him

Why do I let the sock tub pile up and put the laundry on hold and ignore the chaos around me and let my kids run on auto pilot to sit on my back porch for hours reading and praying and pondering deeply all things Jesus Christ?  

Because I am desperate.  

I am not good at this wife...mom...missionary...mentor...discipleship thing that Jesus has called me to.  I have anxiety over kids that break down over missed-matched socks.  I have guilt over people God has called me to that slip thru the cracks.  I have frustration over soccer clothes that need to be washed weekly. I have fear over getting on a plane to Africa and leaving my household to be managed without me for 2 weeks.  I carry other people's burdens with me in my thoughts all the way to bed.  I am faced with my selfishness and covet comfort far too much.   I have sinful habits that won't be broken easily and strongholds I can't seem to tear down on my own.  I snap at my next-to-perfect (seriously) husband and see my precious child-blessings as a nuisance at times.  So, I put everything else that seems important aside and choose to seek the Thing that is truly most important daily...weekly...yearly...so I can become like the One that I seek.  I trust all the other things into the hands of the One who holds my heart and waits patiently for me to learn to wait on Him.  

What really matters in this life?  If not Jesus Christ crucified and risen then let's eat, drink and be merry for death is the end.  But what IF He really IS what matters?  What if my attitude and the way I treat people and how I love them because I am conscious of God is the heart of this life inside the gospel.  Then I better spend time with the only One who has the power to change, reshape and mold my heart that is oh-so-deceitful and wants its own way.  The socks, the laundry, the chaos, the kids, the mission work, the endless sea of people to pour into can wait while I wait on the only One who can give me any real power to make an eternal difference in and thru all of those things.  

This morning I once again made a choice.  To lay aside work that needed to be done...so the real  work of sanctification could take place in my heart as I made myself available to Him.  I am watching and waiting at His doorpost knowing that He is coming again soon.  I am so thankful for this life inside of His Son.  All the big tasks and little tasks have eternity in them when I am not living on yesterday's manna.  Daily I will come to Him open-handed waiting hopefully and expectantly for Him to fill me with new hope and strength and mercy for the new day He has set before me!  

Praying for passion with you all to join me in this!

It Is Not a Waste to Follow After You!

This blog was inspired by a line in a worship song that my friend Cristy Cash wrote...

It is not a waste to follow after You my Lord...

My baby is sitting next to me.  The one who has been grafted into my family the way I have been grafted into His.  Her beautiful almond shaped eyes bring me so much joy when I look into them...because I see Him.  She is one of 7 living daily in my home who look to me to be a mommy.  God brings so many others thru my front door and into my heart.  I am not enough.  Never enough.  He keeps me way out in the deep.  I am one person.  One very weak person.  But He lives.  

My life is spent on loving Him because I believe that it is not a waste to follow after my Lord.  I believe He lives thru me...and I see Him living thru so many others.  If His Word is true then my life is found in losing it.  Money and fame and man's approval can not be what my strength is spent on...it must be spent on loving Him.  So in the really hard moments when I see clearly that my strength is feeble and I have failed for the ten thousandth time....I remind myself that He lives. I remind myself that this all matters to Him. He really does consider my service to the least of these as service to Him.  It is precious to Jesus when I hold a child's hand in Africa or put a bandaid on their wound.  He really does care when I stand over the sock tub and make a choice to thank Him for all the big and little feet that are represented.  He cares when I take the time to laugh and play in the water with my 2 year old.  He sees when I excitedly enter into a lengthy bug-conversation with my 4 year old.  He takes delight when I open my home to one-more-child because they do not belong in a shelter but instead a family. When I write an impossible prayer request in my journal for someone I barely know He is moved by my faith and I can be certain He knows that person intimately.  When I fall to my knees on my closet floor desperately asking for help He bends low to listen.  When I weep over the way my sin and selfishness have affected others He weeps with me.  When I memorize His word and meditate on it convinced that this is the way to true freedom He rejoices. When I choose sacrifice over comfort and obedience over self-indulgence and humility over pride I know the Cross and it's power are real.  When I open up my home for people to worship Him and not for my own popularity I have confidence that He also is invited in.  

My life is going fast.  I walk thru my house and think years back.  The rooms have been filled up a million times with so many people that my memory can not contain them all.  But He knows them.  Each and every one.  He has given me honor by allowing me to welcome Him in as I have welcomed each person in. 

Everything is different yet the same.  The same God is moving in the same way as I see He has done for thousands of years in the Scriptures. Yet He is causing me to be different, more like Him. The same mirror over the the same vanity is revealing a reflection with a face that is a little more aged, with a little different glow of His glory.  My house has the same structure yet the rooms are now decorated differently as others have offered me new beauty and inspiration and added space for the ministry He is growing right under my roof.  

I don't have to leave my house to find Him.  He is here.  Always here.  Always with me.  If I want to live for the sake of the gospel...and I do...He meets me here and fills my desires with Himself. 

When I am tempted to believe the lie that peace and quiet are found in my circumstances He shouts out to me in the chaos to still my soul and look for Him.  He is here.  He is real.  I matter to Him.  All the people that come into my home.  They all matter.  Each one is an opportunity for me to serve Him and love Him.  

In three weeks I will get on a plane and fly to a little country in Africa filled with many people I love who look very different from me.  Yet we were all created in the image of the same God. Each time my heart aches to leave all these precious ones right here in my own town nestled comfortably in my own nation many who come right under my own roof so Christ can love them thru me.  Though God has called me to travel to a land very far away 12 other times the sacrifice is always a choice and a struggle.  All the really BIG decisions and the really little decisions (which are really BIG decisions) matter.  Every time I say yes to His will and choose His ways I lose my life to find His and I always realize in those moments that He really is worth it!  So I will not look for my life in a relationship or a circumstance or security.  Life will not be found any of those places because it is only truly found in Him.  

His Mercy Fully Revealed!

I have been awake since 5. I have had sleepless nights and distress.  Oh I am so happy for this! I am thankful that everything is not always perfect and that I stray and focus on non-eternal things and worship at alters that I shouldn't because it is in this that I see His mercy.  Mercy over my sin.  Mercy over the sin of others.  

I have had blue-letter bible pulled up...obsessively searched the scriptures and wanted to know every single meaning of every single word in a verse I came across and scribbled in my journal a few days ago. I have prayed and wrestled thru line after line.  Listened to worship lyrics that talk about His greatness and mercy as I struggled with my feelings and fears and insecurities not lining up with what His Word says.  I have preached to myself as I have seen the places my feet have chose to walk that are not on the path He has laid before me.  I have cried as I realized that His mercy and goodness were there for me before I ever took a step away from Him.  He had a rescue plan already in place way back at the beginning of time before I was even created....knowing I would wander away in 10,000 ways.  He knows the way I take.  He alone knows it.  His mercy is never exhausted because He loves me.  Enough to die for me.  Enough to leave heaven and rescue me.  Enough to pursue me all the days of my life.  All of my days.  His goodness and mercy are here with me now...leading me all the way to an eternal life of unbroken fellowship with Him.  His mercy is everywhere I look.  His Word made available for me at anytime.  My husband, children, friends.  ALL HIS MERCY! His mercy is stopping plans that lead me away from Him.  His mercy is keeping me up late and waking me up early so that my heart and mind will be saturated with His Truth.  His mercy is leading me to pour out my thoughts of Him in pages of pages of journals and unending status updates and blogs written for years.  All a record of His faithfulness towards me.  And I am just one life.  One life.  He does this for the countless others.  His love for them is not diminished in the least by His great love for me.  

Last night I knelt on the floor with my best friend and the baby in her womb and prayed prayers of faith for strongholds to be broken in our lives.  Today He woke me up at 5...showed me that not only is this possible but it is His greatest desire towards us.  He passionately pursues my heart.  He is fierce in His jealousy towards me.  He never lets me go no matter how far my thoughts and feelings carry me.  He never fails me or forsakes me no matter how many alters I worship at that are not the ONE TRUE alter.  He chases me down with His goodness and mercy time after time after time.  It feels so awkward to write this.  It seems in some way as if it is heresy and it seems as if it means I am forsaking the holiness of Christ or cheapening His grace. NO!  It is making me see His holiness and grace more!  Something I do not deserve and will never fully comprehend this side of eternity because of its vastness.  I want to hold out this Love and Mercy to so many in my life...but how can I effectively do this unless I understand it more for myself.  I desperately want to understand the gospel in its fulness for me, trusting that I can then with great passion share it with others.  

I want so much to be like Jesus.  Conformed to His image.  Everything of ME eradicated in the power of His Presence and washed clean by his Word.  He held out Life to the world.  But more precious, He held out Life to me.  To me.  I was powerless.  I was destined to follow my own way.  And IN HIS MERCY He rescued me.  Even now.  Today...He is rescuing me thru the Cross. I am still powerless.  I can not obey or love of worship Him on my own.  Not a single good thing in me apart from Him.  Nothing.  This may sound offensive to some but for me it is the road to freedom and enlarges my heart even more to His great mercy.  If I cried every day from now until I went to be with Him the emotional pain would be worth it and not even remembered once I finally saw Him face to face.  

Life is not about feelings, single moments or the circumstance we are currently faced with.  Life is about God.  Jesus Christ exalted and written down for us to read and drink in.  Life is about us knowing Him, being like Him.  Thanking Him for every single thing that sifts thru His fingers into our lives.  ALL OF IT.  The things that make us so happy our hearts might burst...the things that make us so sad we think we might cry forever.  He is better!  He redeems it all.  He works it all for the good of those who love Him.  THIS IS MERCY!  Life is about a bunch of moments strung together by His grace.  The really painful ones and the really happy ones.  Life is about seeking, and waiting and TRUSTING.  No matter what we FEEL.  Life is about knowing that our destiny is in His hands and our way is being made straight...always being made straight as we keep our eyes fixed on His.  Life is about knowing His ways are good and His commands are for our joy.  Life is about knowing we are dust and He is a holy God and that He loved this dust enough to create a life out of it and breathe breath in us so we could worship Him and know His love in an intimate way.  He created us to know Him and love Him and worship Him for all eternity because in His lovingkindness He knew this joy would be greater than all the pain.  He loved us enough to create us.

I am so thankful for all the moments strung together by His grace, His Word that washes me clean, His Name that is a Strong Tower and His Love that is leading me thru the dark hours, the wilderness, the dry seasons, the confusion, the pain and the sin to a place of everlasting JOY.  Joy that will never ever end as I one day know Him fully even as I am fully known.  May my life be spent on the seeking and may I thank Him for every last breath that He gives until that day finally comes and I see His mercy fully revealed!

Guess Who's Moving to Africa?

Dearest Friends and Co-Laborers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh how I love you! I am writing this letter to you as our March Komeo team is preparing to take a team of 8 to a land we love. God is good! He is rich in mercy!

I have something important to tell you.

I returned from Africa for the 12th time last month. Two weeks before I left I knelt on my laundry room floor and prayed about everything concerning my trip. The Lord brought my friend Summer to mind. I got up. Text her a simple message asking her to pray about coming with me...to consider that maybe the Lord had allowed her to 'not be working' right now for such a time as this. God had been speaking to her also. She text back her concerns about raising the funds. I assured her God would provide if she said yes. She text me a picture of her journal entry. She had already come to a place of complete surrender. Have your way Lord. Whatever you say, my answer is yes. He did the work in her heart before I ever knelt and prayed. I am in awe that the God of the universe weaves us into His glorious plan. With all of our weakness, sin and failures He still uses us! Oh His mercy over our lives.

Fast forward. We are in Africa. We are ending our first full day at the orphanage. Summer has met the daughter she has been sponsoring for the first time. We spent the day on the most beautiful beach in the world. Before we go to bed we decide to end this amazing day with worship. We stood in a circle with some of the most beautiful children in the world and wept as we watched them sing out, SCREAM out their love and affection for Jesus Christ...Children who have been orphaned over and over...Children who are growing into young adults with great dreams and plans in their hearts and nothing but faith in their hands. As the three of us girls wept, we sang with these precious ones declaring the faithfulness of our God through our tears. Oh the deep sorrow-filled joy we all felt. He rescued ALL of us! I have not felt His Presence that strong in a long time. As the missionaries we were on equal playing field with the orphans. We were in desperate need of a Savior and He rescued us! He did not leave us as orphans!!! He heard our cry and answered!

Summer started crying so hard she could barely breathe. She had to walk away. I went to her. Trying to catch her breath with tears streaming down her face she kept looking me right in the eyes repeating these words over and over through her sobs, "I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve to be here." And my response, "Oh precious friend, neither do I. That is why He has called us."

This is the life God uses. The life that says, "I am dust. I bring nothing to the table but my yes."

Two weeks before the trip Summer responded with her yes. For 2 years before that she had prayed over and over for God to increase her faith. She begged Him to help her know Him more deeply. She gave her yes and He answered her prayer in an orphanage 5,000 miles away from her homeland.

I called Jerome that night and told him about how precious Summer was to the Lord. I could see it. He loved her. He called her. He was moving heaven and earth to answer her desperate prayers. He saw. He answered. I was so overjoyed at the way she was experiencing His love for her. I did not find out until a few days ago that after that phone call Jerome prayed for Summer. He asked God to make her the full time missionary that a few of us had prayed for over a year ago in Crystal Drwenski's living room.

Fast Forward again. We were making the long 3 hour drive to Makeni to visit children at a Blind School many of us have a heart for. They had a new building and a year's worth of rice. We were going to rejoice with them at God's provision. We also wanted to visit 6 of our college boys who are running a church in that same town along with a full schedule of college classes. Summer gets motion sickness really badly. The exhaust from the vehicles caused such terrible nausea for her even on a short trip to town. But she went anyway. When we got to Makeni she had us stop so she could use the bathroom. She was so sick from the long drive. We walked through a dusty, dirty compound. She could barely lift her head and she had heat rash all up and down her arms. She looked up at me and said, "Why would God call me to a place where I am so sick and I am a burden?" I encouraged her. In our weakness His strength is made perfect. I hurried her along as she walked with her head down. She stopped me to show me a bright green heart made out of paper. What I didn't know until a few days ago is that her question to me carried more weight than I knew and that heart that stood out to her amongst all the red dust and trash was her answer from the Lord. In those moments the Lord was calling her to live in Sierra Leone full time as a missionary and she was wrestling with that call. She was wrestling with her weakness and inability to carry out His call and didn't tell me about it so I wouldn't be disappointed if she said no.

Fast Forward again. We meet at Life Church to worship together in America for the first time since we've been home. I meet Summer in the lobby with tears streaming down her face as she talked with Stacey, the other girl who was on our team. I rushed the kids to child care and came right back so the three of us could pray. I return and Summer finally tells me that she feels called to take up her cross and follow Jesus all the way to Sierra Leone. She feels called to rent out her house, give up her career, cancel her health care plan, leave her cozy bed, warm showers and all the comforts of America. She has decided that though she loves the family and friends she sees every week...she loves Jesus more. She has decided that she wants to die to herself and say Yes to whatever He asks of her. She doesn't know how. It doesn't make sense. She doesn't know if she will be sick every day and have heat rash and be eaten alive by bed bugs. But she loves Her Lord and wants to obey Him. For years she has been praying to know Him more. To love Him is to obey Him. To obey Him is to know Him. She wants to obey.

This is the life that God uses.

 She is an answer to our prayers for Komeo. She is an answer to Pastor Hassan's prayers for help. She is an answer to the children's prayers for a mum. Pastor is SO happy that she will come and live there.

Summer has passions God has placed in her. She wants to be a house mum for the boys...lead bible studies every morning with the children...tutor the younger students...(She was a 5th grade teacher and has a love for teaching)...encourage the teachers and be a support to them...and sooooo much more. She spent the day yesterday writing out God's story of how He led her to this place. It is amazing the ways He began preparing her for this years ago. I will share her story with you as soon as she has it edited.

The girls have Deborah and now the boys will have Summer. He has not overlooked our sweet boys or ignored their cry.

 I love you so deeply. I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of a community of believers who are white-hot in their worship of our Lord and King! You are truly a biblical, gospel-driven family to us! Thank you for honoring Him with your lives!

Please rejoice with us and pray for Summer as she prepares to move next month.

Do You Feel Weak? He Is Stronger!

I am thinking very deeply about His mercy today.  Instead of seeing only my weakness I see His strength alive inside of me.

Last month, 2 days after I landed in Sierra Leone, I sat in a church service with my little team of  3 ladies.  The preacher happened to be the father of over 100 orphans who have completely captured my heart.  He is a man I aspire to be like.  He is my brother and friend.  He has poured out His life for the sake of the gospel in one of the poorest nations on earth.  I feel so overwhelmed with gratefulness every time God lets me step foot on a plane to go and see these precious believers again.  I have so little to offer. 

 Before his sermon he began telling the congregation that there was someone he wanted to honor.  He spoke such wonderful things about this person.  He finally told them the person he wanted to honor was me.  (WHAT??)  He spoke to them about me being someone who continued to come and visit even though most people had stopped.  He told them we were family.  Not only for a lifetime but more than that.  Forever.  FOREVER.  Then he asked me to stand so the church could pray over me. 

 All I could do is weep.  Why?  Because everything in me cried out:  I AM NOT WORTHY OF HONOR!  Goodness.  I have been trying to get the children fully sponsored for years and some of them still aren’t even getting letters.  I come with so little compared to the great needs.  I am distracted.  I don’t lead well.  I am not organized.  I just beg God to use me…to bring me back…and He does. 

 Fast forward a few weeks.  I am back home in my closet praying.  My husband comes to find me.  (Bless that man for putting up with my emotions!)  He begins to talk to me to try and find out what’s wrong.  The tears start streaming down my face and I spill out how weak I am.  How I have so little to offer.  He has heard it a hundred times. 

 I remind him that he goes to Sierra Leone and preaches the gospel and puts in water wells and does BIG things and…and…and.  All I do is let the kids pile into my little room in the corner of the orphanage and talk until the generator shuts off forcing us all to sleep.  I tag along with Pastor from village to village and beg God to use us to meet the endless sea of needs in this nation.  I ride in the car and sometimes all I can do is cry asking for God to do what I have no power to accomplish. With just a tiny bit of faith I pray simple prayers asking for the impossible.   

 I come back to America fired up with a list of things in my heart that me and Jesus will surely take care of.  I cry for about a week and then get distracted by changing diapers and teaching math and doing laundry.  I settle back into my struggle with sin and pride and walk around in weakness. 

 So my sweet, patient husband sees that this will take awhile.  He pulls up a chair, looks down at me as I sit on the floor of my closet crying and begins to encourage me. 

 He tells me things like:

“God uses your love.  He uses your conversations and impromptu bible studies and prayer times with the kids in the orphanage.  God uses your weakness.  He turns it into great strength.  He uses your not-enough and turns it into more than enough.  He uses your prayers of desperation.  Not because you are worthy of honor but because He is.  Not because you are the hero but because Jesus is.  He brings good out of your intentions not because you are good but because God is.” 

 Precious believer, why do I share this?  I want to offer you the same encouragement my husband offered me.  It is my feeling that so many in the body of Christ are not stepping out in faith to do His will because they are paralyzed by their weakness.  They are convinced that they could never be used by a holy God to make an eternal difference.  This is just not true. 

He uses the life that is willing. 

He makes the one strong who brings their weakness before Him. 

He raises the one up as a light that kneels before him in the dark. 

I am praying today for all those who feel weak to cast off their sin, embrace their weakness and rise up in the power of the risen Christ to do eternal things in His Name!  When you finally stand before Him how great will your joy be!  It will be SO GREAT when you know that you have not only ran the race HE SET BEFORE YOU but ran it well and finished strong!  I am praying today for all those who are called to things you have not stepped into.  May you respond in faithful obedience for the glory of our God!

He is the one who is Worthy!  His death demands our life!  He is the Hero!  He died so we would have power to live boldly in His strength!  Let us live like this is true!

I love you all more than my next breath.  I really do.

He Has Broken My Heart!

He has broken my heart in Africa…once again.  But He is also healing it in new ways. 

 

When I was a little girl I grew up without a dad.  I grew up watching my mom be abused by men. I grew up watching my little brother’s dad adopt him…only to abandon him a few short years later.  I grew up having men molest me, rape me, when they should have been protecting me.  I grew up in a great battle for my soul.  The goal of the enemy…to take away my ability to trust…to trust God as my Savior…to trust that I could give myself fully to Him…to trust His plan for my life…to trust that whatever He asked of me was for my good and not to harm me…to trust that He was not like the men that abused me as a little girl…or even like the men I would later dance for in strip clubs who saw only the value of my sexuality.  God wanted more for me that what I had been given.  God in His goodness allowed pain, wounds and trauma to be sifted through His sovereign fingers into my life so that I would one day cry out to Him in desperation.  The things done against me and the sin I willfully entered into almost destroyed my life.  But God rescued me. At just the right time. When I was powerless.  When, in my wounded-ness and sin I had set my heart against Him…the only One able to heal and make new…He died for me.  He pursued me.  He saw every traumatic event, every moment of rejection, all the moments I cried in paralyzing fear as a child unable to understand the pain in my heart.  Unable to fix it or make it stop. He saw.  He was there.  And then at just the right time He came in and saved the day…saved my life…and began making me whole.

 

I am not whole yet.  His work in me is not complete.  I am still wounded.  I trust more and I’m afraid less but His work in my heart is not finished.  I walk with an incredible weakness and at times feel as if I am constantly struggling to love deeply without fear.  Yet I am increasingly aware of His faithfulness and goodness in all of this!

 

I wouldn’t change anything. 

 

You see, now I am taking care of children who were wounded and rejected even more deeply than I.  Here in my own home I have seen the wounds in the hearts of children I care for.  I have seen the fear in their eyes.  The great struggle they have in learning to trust.  The confusion they battle from not understanding.  BUT I have seen the power of God’s love transforming their lives as I choose to love them deeply because He first loved me.  I see them start to be able to trust as I recount His faithfulness over and over to them.  I see them start to understand…start to blossom…start to be free as I pray day after day over them.  I see them start to believe that God is good as I share His word with them.  I see joy burst forth as I snuggle and play with them.  I know the work is not complete.  But as I make myself available He is flowing through me.  The great beauty of this is….HE IS HEALING ME through these grace-filled, moment-by-moment acts of obedience to do His will.  It requires that I die to myself.  It requires that I sacrifice and pour out my life when I want to cling to my comfort and control my own days.  My future is in His hands and my healing is in my surrender to His will. 

 

I have returned to Africa time and time again only because I feel such a call to the people of Sierra Leone.  I feel as if He has carried me every step in my ministry to these precious ones over the last 4 ½ years.  All the dots seemed to be connected this visit.  He opened my heart this time to see a little more clearly what He has been doing.  The nation of Sierra Leone has been broken by violence, greed…evil.  The only thing that can fix it is the gospel.  Money will never work.  The love of God flowing through those willing to be broken by what breaks His heart and resolved enough to persevere and stay the course is what is needed.  He has asked many to open up their eyes and see…really see the pain…in the hearts of the orphans…in the eyes of the people.  And not only see but be moved to act.  Love is action.  Compassion is action.  Consistent, steadfast action. I saw a fresh glimpse of what these children have been through.  They are growing into young adults.  The battle in some ways is getting more fierce.  They are carrying deep wounds into their adulthood from trauma you and I will likely never be able to wrap our minds around.  Like me…they are walking with incredible weakness.  They have a man, their spiritual dad, who has not shrunk back in his care for them.  They have a few missionaries who have kept their promise to not forget or forsake them.  But what they need is what I need…healing that comes from trusting God enough to love others deeply with the same love they have been shown in the Cross.  This trip was my favorite.  It really was.  I saw a harvest being reaped.  I came as one with very little to offer.  A small team of just 3 of us girls.  A little bit of money.  And a LOT of love.  I watched the missionaries pour love into the children and the children pour love into the missionaries.  I watched the once teenaged boys, now young men, take constant care of us with the most endearing, pure affection.  I saw young women full of pride at being in the university while others humbly served us by cooking and cleaning for us with joy.  My children have risen up and call me blessed.  I could not be prouder of them! 

 

On our 24 hours of travel to Sierra Leone, us 3 girls shared our stories with each other.  We each had stories of pain, weakness, and failure BUT each of us is now relentlessly pursuing the God we love.  I know that in the 12 days God kept us on African soil He poured His love and comfort and healing balm into our lives through the children…and He did the same for the children through us. 

 

I will never understand the mystery of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ but I will always praise Him for its beauty and power.  I will spend all of my days in worship.  Pouring myself out.  Trusting deeper.  Loving greater.  All in hopes that the kingdom of God will be lifted up and His Name made great through my broken life.  I will say yes to the next stranger He asks me to invite in, the next wound he asks me to bandage, the next brother he asks me to be persecuted with, the next widow He asks me to visit, the next orphan He asks me to care for…I will say Yes!  I don’t care if I am called a fool…I will spend my life worshiping Him in this way!  As I do may my healing come and His light shine in the darkness through me.

 

What has He asked you to do in His Name..For His glory?  Whatever it is, let your answer be yes.  He can be trusted.  I promise your joy will no know bounds!  He will give you all the grace you need every single moment.

 

Precious believer…join me in pouring out our lives for the sake of the gospel and our King!  He is worth it!  You will see Him and know Him in greater ways.  Yes, this alone is reason enough to be a living sacrifice! 

My Quest for Joy

I went to Africa on a quest for Joy.

Where do I begin?

God is faithful. So faithful.  Even when I am not.  He can not change who He is.  I love this about Him.  I love that He is perfect and constant in His character and never changes.  I am learning to take great comfort in His sovereignty.  I am seeing Him less as human and more as God.  He is not like us.  He is holy.  High and lifted up.  His ways are not our ways.  In fact they are far beyond understanding.  He is the most beautiful mystery I have ever known. 

He has rescued me from the pit.  Brought me from darkness to light.  He has peeled back layer after layer of His greatness for me to see over the years.  I never would have imagined I could know such joy, beauty, sorrow, pain, purpose all bound up in His Son alive inside of my heart. 

I keep getting these snapshots of what He intends for spiritual family to look like.  The intimacy and care that He wants for us to have for each other.  Letting go of every non-eternal thing that doesn’t matter.  Casting off every idol and sin that gets in the way.  Intentionally growing deep roots with people and inviting strangers into the family He is creating among us.  There is always room for another if they are willing to come and make their home with us.  No one will be turned away.  There are many rooms in His house.  I see an earthly picture of this when 100 orphans are piled into a few small spaces in Africa living as one family.  I see it when God brings one child after another into my own home here in America.  This space He has given us is filling up with people and our hearts are filling up with joy.  Why?  Because this is what matters.  Living together to bring Him glory.  Serving Him together for the joy of others. 

So when I feel weary, foolish, rejected by man.  My heart cries out…YOU ARE FAITHFUL…YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE I AM LIVING FOR…YOU ARE MY PORTION AND MY REWARD…YOU ARE WORTH EVVERY TRIAL, TEAR AND SUFFERING…YOU ARE MY SOURCE OF JOY!  Not my spacious living conditions. Not my material possessions. Not my status among men.  No, YOU Lord Jesus are my joy.  Living to do your will.  Living to fight the good fight.  Living to know You more.  Living to pour out my life for your causes.  Living to make You known to others. This is where true joy is found.  This joy inside your Son that wells up despite poverty of spirit, lack of resources, weakness and inability to live for you on my own.  Your joy can not be taken.  It is a gift from you.  What you have given to me, no man can take away. Your joy is deeply rooted in me by the power of your Spirit and it’s evidence is known to me more and more as I seek You and obey what Your Word calls me to.

When I got on a plane to fly to Africa for the 12^th time 2 weeks ago I was on a quest for joy.  I had determined to fight for it.  I had spent a great deal of effort seeking it out.  I knew if I was going to not grow weary in doing His will that I must have joy even if it meant chasing it down.  So I searched the Scriptures, fasted, prayed out loud on my knees, asking God over and over like the persistent widow.  He heard my cries and answered.  I am back in my home country and I have brought His Joy with me.  It is real, alive and rooted in my heart.  He has given it to me and I will hold onto it with all of His power that is a work within me. 

He died for us while we were His enemies.  We brought nothing to the table but sin.  He gave us life when we deserved death.  How much more does He want to give us the good things we ask for now that we are His children?  Ask Him for what seems impossible.  Watch as He answers in ways that are beyond your comprehension.  He is a good God and He has good gifts in His hands to give us.  Let us seek Him and wait on Him in trust to provide everything we need for life and godliness.  He who is faithful (even when we are not) WILL DO IT!

 

Praying for you precious ones!