In less than two weeks, Lord willing, my oldest daughter and I will be on the continent of Asia, literally half-way around the world
from home. I've traveled to lots of countries back in my "former life" but have never been so far away from my family and honestly it's a bit more disconcerting than I had expected. As much as my heart is aching to make sure every person in every country hears the glorious story of how very much they are loved and the hope that the story brings, it's still hard to travel that far away from loved ones, even only for a few days. There are several details about our travel arrangements that won't be able to be finalized until very close t
o our arrival time, but somehow that's not bothering me. I truly feel that if we have to take the 22 hour train ride instead of the 12 hour one, there will be a reason that the Lord in His wisdom and Providence knows, and He will give me the stamina to endure it after a 15 hour plane ride immediately preceding the train. If luggage is lost, planes are delayed, food is inedible, that's OK with me, too, knowing that these are the kind of "normal" things that happen in travel and again, the Lord orchestrates even the tiniest details. So you'd think I had it all under control, huh? wrong. It's funny, but what I find myse
lf wondering/fretting over are things like what if I forget to stock a needed food item for my family, what if they forget on which field the baseball game is, or what if they forget how to heat the frozen casseroles I've left them, etc., like
they are the ones that will be in a totally foreign country! Stupid, huh?? Especially when you consider that my dear hubby is not only adequate with such things as cooking but actually vastly exceeds my ability! So why do I fret over these things? I think it's because I
like fretting over them. Somehow I have equated this with loving them, and I realized tonight that is so wrong! My love for them causes me to want to serve them, but my serving them is not the same as loving them. Maybe this is just lesson number one of more than a thousand lessons I will learn from this experience.
If you can pray, please do.
Pray for my holiness in Christ ( a desperate need if I am to be a usable vessel),
my willingness to be used in each and every situation for HIS glory no matter how tired or physically weak,
for openness to the gospel by those we meet,
for my family to be safe back here,
for me to know how to encourage Americans who live for years away from their loved ones,
for my eyes to be opened to the vast needs around us, and
my words to be HIS and not my own.
Thanks so very much and watch here and on our facebook site for updates as we travel whenever we have access to internet.
Thank you LORD for your great and mighty deeds, your loving mercy and provision, your hope of redemption for each and every precious soul.....
ct directions to each child's destination; lots done and lots more to do, especially to leave the house in order. Today I noticed a few windows that needed washing, too, but wonder if time will allow that! All these preparations are for my family and I, but what am I doing to get my soul in order to serve those I will meet? What am I doing to clean and organize my heart, what preparations am I making to share the gospel through a cultural and language barrier? Which is the most important preparation? Yep, you know it as well as I do. And to prepare my heart, to be a cleansed vessel fully filled with the Holy Spirit, I have to stop all this "doing" and "Be still" and know the Lord God personally, as my best friend, my redeemer, my creator, my comforter, my strength, my wisdom, my everything. And to listen, really, really listen, to Him I have to clean out my own barriers, the "dirty windows" of my soul. It's not a cultural or language barrier but the sin barrier that I keep muddying back up onto my heart. Miss Bertha Smith used to ask "Have you got all your sins confessed up to date?" I can still hear those words in her powerful Southern accent, straight to your heart (at almost 90 she said she didn't have enough time left to tiptoe around things and nothing was as important as having your sins confessed and laid on the cross). She was right and I know it. She had a tremendous impact not only on the Chinese people she served, taught and loved for over 40 years but on the Americans she came home to teach. 
And the reason she did? She understood the importance of one thing - laying those sins on the promise of Christ's death so that He could use any of us at any time, anywhere for anything that He willed; dying to our own sinful self so that HE could live through us. May I prepare diligently this week in the one thing that matters. May the windows of my soul be clean, even if I don't have time for those in my house.
