My Hope

While we were in Lebanon, we got to spend some time reaching out in ministry. Tommy and I went with a team to Horizon's newest ministry center. It didn't even have doors installed when we arrived but we still were going into the refugee camps to invite families to a service the following day.  We split up into three groups, each with 20 vouchers for food. It was a drop in the bucket in meeting the needs, but it was all the space would hold. I was paired up with a Horizons teammate who could translate and off we went.   We were warmly welcomed into the first tent and began sharing a little. As we visited more and more people came in until the tent was overflowing. The original plan was to visit multiple tents passing out the vouchers but we didn't even have enough to give to the people in the first tent. Some of the people who didn't receive one became upset and it was difficult and heartbreaking to turn them away.   Empty handed, we were still welcomed in...

I’m a mother and one of the things that my kids can do that bothers me most is direct disobedience. When I know I’ve made myself clear and they choose to ignore or defy my command it troubles me and there are usually consequences for them. If I’ve been unclear about my expectations in a new situation, I’m much more lenient.   God expects obedience out of us, and He has made His expectations abundantly clear.   7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do.^8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. (Jos 1:7-8 NLT) We read in Joshua 1:8-9 to study and know His word… that we might obey it. God does not expect us to follow instructions known only to Him. We see this throughout script...

We just got back to Clarkston and in less than 24 hours I’ve visited multiple families, shared the importance in being obedient to God and had an international experience that one only finds here at the Clarkston Culture Fest!    It’s good to be ‘home’… for the next three weeks.    Then we’ll say goodbye to this home and make our way back to Bainbridge to get the girls settled before Tommy and I leave for a training in Lebanon.    Our lives over the next couple of months are going to be extremely transitional and segmented and as difficult as the constant goodbyes are going to be, we’re also looking forward to them.    I’m glad we aren’t just taking off from here without getting to see friends and family back at our other ‘home’.       We spent the last two weeks focusing on language learning…. Sort of.    We’ve really been focused more on how to be a language learner.    Americans are so used to only speaki...

I think I've said this before, but maybe the thoughts have just run through my head.  I'm saddened by the divide in the church that just seems to be getting greater and greater.    We are called to be one body.  I am not speaking of everyone, but there are some people that have made us feel as we no longer belong to the body because they don't view the things we do as being of value.  We are so grateful for the members of the body who have lifted us up and confirmed our call to be here for such a time as this.  We will not stop being a part of the body just because some people have said "I don't need you!"  God has placed us where He wanted and we will continue striving to carry out the unique role for us.  We strive to please God, not man.  But that doesn't make it easy to sit and listen to the hatred.    Are you working in unity with the rest of the body?  Are you telling other parts of the body they don't belong?  We only need so many eyes and s...

The struggle is real.... I’ve been struggling this past week.  There are so many conflicting views and thoughts on my news-feed and I’m wrestling with reconciling them all.  I love the community we’re in.  When we moved here I imagined it would be a step towards ministry and knew we could impact refugees in the area, but being here for the past year and a half has been so much more than I ever imagined!  The friendships I’ve made have enriched my life so much!  We share each other’s joy and pain.  I feel like the time here has stretched my faith and caused me to examine in different ways what it means to truly live my life as a Christian.  Welcoming the tired, the hungry, the huddled masses is not just something that is symbolic of my view of America, it goes to the very core of my beliefs as a Christian and being here I’ve been able to practice that faith in a way more richly than before. It’s not that the outreach I’d done in the past was superficial, but it truly wasn’t incorpora...

Training wheels Teaching M how to ride a bike didn’t go quite the way I envisioned.  I really thought I’d be running behind her holding onto her seat try after try and bandaging plenty of scraped hands and knees.  In reality, it was much easier than that.  We made an early attempt to remove the training wheels but she seemed frozen in fear.  She’d barely make one rotation of the pedals before hopping off declaring she was scared she was about to fall (even though I still had a tight grip of her seat).  She didn’t allow herself to get enough speed to really take off.  We were getting nowhere so we took the advice of seasoned grandparents and put the training wheels back on, but at a higher level.  We taught her to listen for the sound of the training wheels hitting the pavement and how to straighten the bike back up when that happened.  After a while riding this way, one of her wheels literally just fell off.  She didn’t even realize she was riding without it and stopped not because s...

I love how God’s word is living and breathing in our lives. It is constant and unchanging but He reveals himself to us in new ways as we search the scripture. I feel like I’ve been able to read the Christmas story with new eyes multiple times during the past nine years. This year the gospel account of Matthew was the one that spoke most to me. Matthew’s account shows the need for the young family of three to have to flee Bethlehem to escape the killing spree of King Herod. Matthew 2:9-23 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to H...