One thing

Not long ago several of us were talking about the "one thing" in life that is our dream, our goal, our priority. It's harder than you think to narrow it down to one thing. Two, three or ten things, yeah, no problem. But just one? I could be all spiritual and righteous sounding and say my one thing was to be closer to the Lord, or be His servant or do everything in His will and in a way that would be true - I do desire these things. Every day, though, I don't spend my time seeking these wonderful things and how we choose to spend (or not spend) our time is really where our heart lies. My mother-in-law often says "People can say what they want but what they choose to do really tells the story" and she's right. So honestly I can't say my one thing is any of the above, although I wish I could. And of course I could tell you my one thing was being a Godly, submissive, loving, wise wife but my husband could quickly unravel that myth. Since I spend lots and lots of time with my children you might think my one thing was being a great Mom. I do love my children and desire them to grow in the love and reverance of the Lord with a great deal of my heart but I am certainly not the Mom Timothy must have had. And although my desire is to see them walk with the Lord and use their lives fully for Him, I can only do my part as a parent in that and encourage them as they grow and make their own choices. So what is the "one thing" I dream about, spend my time on, desire? I have to say it is to try to learn in the many things how Christ must love us more than we can understand. In the tiny bluebirds learning to fly in the backyard, in the satisfaction of weeding a flower bed, in the joy of hearing my children talk about God's love, in the washing of dishes or any everyday tasks the one thing I desire is to see and understand Christ in all things. For only when I see HIM can I understand how badly I need Him, how far I am from who I think I am, how unbelievable His love is for me. To see Him in all things small and great, morning and night, day after day. That is my desire.

What good is short-term missions?

Recently I had a great conversation with someone who has never been on an international missions trip and has only participated in one local mission trip during her wonderfully extensive life. She was being very open and honest when she asked me why she should consider supporting church members who went on short-term missions - was it really worthwhile? I really appreciate her deep consideration and her honesty. We need more of it in the church! We should never - I repeat never - assume that any church body, any church leadership, any church tradition is automatically Biblical because it is under the "roof" of the church. That assumption has led to so very many cultural mistakes, completely false teachings, and unnecessary divergence from God's absolute truth.
So yes, I DO appreciate her honesty and her questioning. In fact, at one point earlier in my life I had wondered the same thing but did not verbalize it! Why should we spend time, money and energy on short-term missions? Why not simply focus on evangelizing our neighborhoods and supporting missionaries in other cities and countries?
When Jesus wanted to teach people he used parables. There is nothing more permanently thought-provoking than a good parable. Why? With it we change lenses in our worldview glasses, swap out our prejudices for new ideas, and end up right back at home re-evaluating ourselves and our actions in a different way. Short-term missions is, in a way, a "reality parable". Yes, hopefully we will encourage career missionaries. Yes, we have the opportunity to reach people simply with the curiosity factor invoked who might not otherwise come to hear the one and only true life-changing Good News story. But more importantly, I think, is the fact that the trip is a parable that we bring back home with us. A new way of looking at familiar surroundings that might, and often does, bring us to the realization that we need only to open our eyes as far as the mirror before we see someone who needs a Savior. And then we can see our families, our next door neighbors, our coworkers and fellow church members as mission fields, too - fellow sinners in need of Christ. We often set out to be used by God for others in a new place and find out that He has used His own love to change our hearts. Then finally, maybe, we will see that the whole idea of missions is not about us, or missionaries, or even the lost of other places, but about Christ. And if we can see HIM at the center, it will not matter where we are, where we go or what we do. Anything and everything with Christ alone at the center is always worthwhile.

Book Update

A friend asked me to post on facebook what our family had been reading. Well, if you are on fb or other social network, you know the limited space for a status update. And if you know me you are laughing aloud already knowing that the books we have been reading in the past few weeks would never fit in that small space :) ! I could post it as a "note" on facebook but prefer to do it here and add pictures. Plus, this blog is a more "permanent" recording for the family.

So without further ado and in no particular order:
Beautiful Girlhood and Before You Meet Prince Charming - with Emma Kate - our discussion springboard for how to become a young lady and not a "tween"

Swiss Family Robinson - read as a family

King Arthur - (Howard Pyle version) - family reading

The Lamplighter - wow - you need to read this one! Great as personal reading or as a read aloud for the family

True Stories of Great Americans for Young Americans We are reading only one or two stories a week to go along with our Social Studies. I highly recommend this book to anyone teaching American history to elementary or junior high ages. It's a reprint from previous generations when students were taught Biblical character

Storm Warning - Billy Graham - an older book but still very appropriate

Desiring God - John Piper - always a great challenge

Do the Right Thing - Mike Huckabee

In Plain Sight (Elizabeth Smart Story) this fills my "mystery" quest. I like to be reading at least one amazing true story along with everything else.

How the Spirit Filled My Life - Bertha Smith - I know, I just keep rereading it! Somehow I understand it with my head but have a hard time carrying it out in my actions so I keep rereading it.

Peep Behind the Scenes - another great book from Lamplighter and somewhat shorter than most others

Instructing a Child's Heart - by Ted Tripp - great companion book to Shepherding a Child's Heart but good to read alone as well


I think that's all for now... probably missed a few we have already finished and returned to the library. By the way, we LOVE inter-library loan option. We have been able to get some amazing books that way. Read on!!

Ashamed, just ashamed!!!

I am really ashamed to have gone so long and not posted here. Between keeping up with "regular" stuff, posting on facebook on both my wall and the one for our trip to Asia, I have neglected blogging. OK, enough excuses!! Since a picture's worth a thousand words, here's my updates (mostly) pictorially:

October -

This is Joanna and me with four new sweet Chinese friends, as we entered Long Sha Park, a beautiful park across the road from the University. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful the trip was, how we saw God move in amazing ways and how our lives are changed forever because of this trip. Praise - while we were there Joanna realized she had never surrendered her life to the LORD fully and made that decision to trust Him for her salvation and her future! Thanks to all who helped make it possible!!

Also in October (after we returned) we continued our Friday afternoon "Fun Days" with our homeschool friends and one afternoon had a cookout afterward, followed by a small fire with roasted marshmallows. Fall Fun!

NOVEMBER:
Emma and Ethan worked on several art and history projects, and we did our annual "Thankful tree" from construction paper leaves where each day they write at least one thing for which they are thankful and then on Thanksgiving Day the leaves "fall down" (aka get taken off the door :)!) and are used to decorate each plate at Gran's for the big turkey meal!

DECEMBER:
We have had a busy month (like everyone else) but lots of fun! This past weekend we took most of the older children from our "Friday" homeschool group to visit the Nursing Home to hand out cards, after playing in the afternoon and then eating homemade pizza. Saturday we watched Katy dance in competition at NCSU (pics to folow from Russ) and then went to see the lights at Lake Myra . Yesterday we celebrated Joanna's BDay with family, and now you are up to date ! I'll try to do better keeping up with blogging...maybe it'll be one of my New Year's "Revolutions" !

Go Away and Tell - Lesson 2

Just a matter of a few days left, lots of laundry being folded at my house; pantry, fridge and freezer stocked with individual homemade meals that can be easily heated up; carry-on and backpack partially packed; visa, passport and etickets printed and ready; weighing my check-in bag as I go due to the number of books I'm taking; calendar is coded with exact 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.

Go Away and Tell !

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 to 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 myself 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.....

A New 9/11 Lesson - "Why didn't anybody tell them?"

A few days ago my seven year-old asked me "What's Flight 93?" He evidently had heard it mentioned on a news show the evening before and was curious. That led into a discussion about Sept. 11th, the courage of those on Flight 93, and I was a bit surprised at how much he knew. "Oh, like when those men crashed the planes into the twin Empire State buildings?" (Yes, we stopped and had a brief NYC geography and architectural lesson :) right then). As I explained a little (on what I thought was a 7 year-old level to be honest but not to scare him) he interrupted me with this question "How did they get on the planes to hijack them if they weren't Americans?" Hmmm...short answer to him, "Well, they were living in America as visitors". Then he looked at me with very wide, serious, tear-filled eyes and asked, "Then why didn't anybody tell them, Mommy?" I saw his heart breaking and being puzzled I said, "Tell them what, honey?" "Tell them that they didn't need to kill people to get to heaven, that they could go there because Jesus loves them like he loves us." Ohhhhhh...... out of the mouths of babes! May I never forget the earnest heart break that he felt because "nobody" had told them. May I always remember that I can be that "nobody" if I let opportunities to share the love of Jesus slip away. May I never forget Sept. 11th and may I never forget the need for Christ, not condemnation, in every life.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" -Romans 10:14-15