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.