Category: JOY

And Then We Have a Nine Year Old!

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This amazing little girl turned NINE yesterday surrounded by our adopted overseas family.

The children’s department made much of our birthday girl throughout the day

and then there was much rejoicing as she enjoyed a piece of ice cream cake in the evening among friends.

She had counted down the days and her radiant smile throughout the day was nothing but contagious.

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Rachael,

I could not be more proud of you. Your heart is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. How you gently care for the little ones that flock around you is just amazing to watch. Your kindness, your gentleness. You see even the smallest ones and long for all to be included. You graciously listen when others just pass on by and you are always willing to offer your arms to help embrace another. Your laugh is contagious and your joy radiates. How you go out of your way to speak well of others, even if they have not been kind to you. How you see the best in people. How you long to honor others in speech and actions. I am just so incredibly blessed to get to be your Mom.

Thank you for daring to embrace people from other cultures, even when it’s messy and hard. Thank you for daring to listen to others when you are not sure if they will stop to listen to you. Thank you for being so willing to offer reckless abandonment hugs to any and all who will receive them.

You lead your sisters so beautifully well. You care for the inner hearts of people, even when it costs you time and tears. You just love so incredibly well, holding nothing back and offering all that you have. You are such an example to me, Rachael, and you encourage me so by just being you.

So here’s to a wonderful year ahead, my dear Rachael. I absolutely thrill at the opportunity to watch you grow and take flight in our Lord. Oh how awesome it is to get to cheer you on as your beautiful heart grows in the Lord.

I just adore you so, Rachael. Happy, happy ninth birthday, Love. And thanks for letting me still call you my baby. =)

Love,

Mommy

 P.S. Stop telling people you only have 4 more years until you’re a teenager. Mommy’s heart can’t take it. 😉 

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Happy 9 years, sweet Rachael. You are an absolute blessing to our little pack of foreigners.

 

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But For All Eternity

 

There’s no Christmas lights on houses. No tinsle. Not even Christmas trees. There’s no discounted decorations. No Christmas music playing in stores. No desirable presents to buy and wrap for expectant kids. There’s no sledding. No cold winter walks. No snow. Nothing that points to a familiar Western Christmas scene. Nothing here that even points toward the Christmas season.

That’s what it’s like to live in the seed-planting phase on the mission field. Where Christmas doesn’t even seem to exist. (Kind of like the first Christmas, I would imagine.) The “first feet on the ground”. We are literally two of a small handful of Christians swimming up a stream of 100,000+ people. When Matt and I stood up in church to receive communion with the other baptized believers in the church, we stood alone with a visiting pastor. In a congregation of about twenty (and that was on a good day!), we stood alone as baptized believers in our city.

‘Ok then, let’s get started!’

It’s the proclamation phase. The proclamation of the Good News to those inside of the church building because clearly there is much to be certain of in a foundation of the very basics. And the standing on the figurative street corner outside of the church calling out from the depths of your toes to a passing sea of faces.

“Noel, Noel! Come and see what GOD has done!”

 

It’s not just some story. A folktale. A feel good slice of religion for the weak.

It is a piercing light that breaks through the suffocating darkness surrounding us all. It is a promise of a God-man who stepped out of his place of honor into the filth and terror of this world.

This God-man who humbled Himself into the form of a needy babe that we could have the opportunity to be reconciled to a God we, as all of humanity, were actively, and still are, choosing to deny.

It’s a God-man that steps into the middle of egos, desperation, pride, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, hate, abuse, assumed self-sufficiency, deception, and a whole host of all our dirty laundry. The God-man that comes for the purpose of stretching out His arms to take the gut-wrenching blows in our place.

 

“Noel.

Noel.

The Light of the World given for us!”

 

He didn’t just leave us in the middle of our unraveling chaos.

No, beloved, instead –

“Come. And see what God has done!”

 

May His Good News sweep through this home, this community, and this world,  breaking the Light of Hope into the hearts of those surrounding all of us.

It’s a story that changes absolutely everything. Not just for a season, but for all eternity.

 

“The story of AMAZING LOVE!

The Light of the World, given for us.”

May we never be the same.

Never.

 

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Last Day

Today was the last day of school for Rachael and Abi at the local Portuguese school. These girls rocked out their year with excellent grades (some of the highest in their class) and the casual learning curve of 100% of school being in a foreign language they didn’t even know how to say hello in eleven months ago.

So before I put one uniform away in the memory box and gave away their old uniforms and books to others, I got one picture of their utter joy amidst a year of accomplishments.

Well done, Rachael and Abi! Daddy and I are beyond proud of your endurance and hard work and we are so excited to celebrate being back on the same schedule again. We made it, ladies!!! And you all blew us out of the water with your wonderful selves again this year. Let’s celebrate with our normal Friday pizza and movie night and a night of No Homework for the first time in a long, long time (yes, I too will never forget how you guys had homework every night).

Yay, my delightful loves, WE MADE IT!!!!!!

(Did you catch that ankle friendship bracelet in the above picture, Aunt Jes? It’s still going strong over a year later. She never takes it off. =) – You are so loved. )

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Together for Ten

Today marks 10 years of us. TEN! Wow, that flew by so crazy fast!

And while we’re in the thick of a two week training in our efforts to embrace a culture outside of our heritage, I’m thankful that we get a chance today to stop and just celebrate the blessing of being together.

It all started with a conversation about God’s work in the world and here we are running hard after His plan in our lives.

Thank you, Matt, for the years of laughing, crying and singing parody songs through life together – now brought to you in a bi-lingual version. Thank you for helping me learn to be a better follower of Jesus, wife and mom. Thank you for your endless patience and the grace you extend without fanfare or even comment. Just like I prayed with you last night before we went to bed, today I’m thanking God for my best friend and the utter privilege of getting to do life together.

It’s had some crazy turns: 4 girls, 10 years of serving at Miamisburg FBC, seminary, 2 foster boys, 1 baby who won the race to Jesus first, and now here we find ourselves fighting for fluency in a foreign land… all of which because Jesus said go… and He gave us this together.

So here’s to the rest of our lifetime of together!

Love you so.

Happy 10 Years, Love!

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Your Love

With the visit of Matt’s mom, which I will be sharing our adventures for those three weeks quite soon, you all overwhelmed us with your love.

We made a list of what all we could think of with full intention of letting things linger until another trip of another family member and then you all surprised us by buying it all in one swoop. And we are overwhelmed by your love.

So much about this season here in language training has been repetitious. Monday through Friday looks so very similar: Get up way crazy early because the sun is up, breakfast, get kids ready for school, drop off older girls, return home to finish prepping for the day, language lessons for Matt from 7a – 10a, my language lessons from 8:30a – 11:30a all while the little girls play and run wild in the house, (which many days looks like juggling taking them on language outings to keep them from going insane playing with the same few shelves of a few toys), pick up the big girls at noon, lunch prep, lunch, littles go down for naps, bigs get homework help, language for me from 2-4p, language for Matt from 3-5p, I play with the kids/start bathtime routine post-language amid dinner prep, Matt enters post-language and helps with dinner/bath routine, dinner together, then family worship/bedtime routine. The sun sets here between 5:30p and 6p year-round and the kids go to bed between 6:30p and 7p. Matt and I then usually have a few hours to watch a movie, study, check email, FB, or chit-chat before we knock out somewhere around 9:30p. And then we repeat that schedule – to the nines, people! – every. single. day. Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday have a bit more variety depending on weekend activities, visiting village churches, etc., but the evenings usually look the same for us in terms of our bath/bedtime routine with the girls.

So you all entered into this, the same-old, same-old. That being said, friends and family, I don’t want to downgrade the training we have had here. While our schedule has stayed virtually the same for our ten months here, consistency has built our language and culture learning. Day after day. Sentence after sentence. The people aren’t boring and neither are the lessons (most of the time), but it’s just the scheduling consistency that can sometimes feel like a groundhog day.

And then along came you all with your blessings. And the squeals. And the delight. Because really I can’t possibly describe to you how much joy filled our household. So we took videos so you could be there too.

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It may just look like things, but it’s your heart that we have felt as we received your gifts. This was so much more than a care package to us – it is a chance to finish strong, sailing on the wind of your encouragement.

Thank you, dear friends and family, for your beautifully generous hearts.

You love us far greater than we could ever deserve.

Thank you for walking this road with us.

We love you all so, so much.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all so

for your love.

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Refreshing

Cause I’ll never get by living on my own ability!

How REFRESHING to know you don’t need me!

How AMAZING to find that you want me!

 

I am completely insufficient of a warrior in this battle. This battle is beyond me in immeasurable ways. The wisdom needed, the grace offered, the endurance, and so much more … I am completely insufficient! I am absolutely nothing on my own!

But the power of CHRIST in me makes me strong

This completely blows me away! How He does not need me. Not even in the slightest! He’s completely and entirely All-Sufficient!

And yet how utterly amazing to find that He still wants me.

I am completely humbled that He would choose to use me as His mouthpiece. ME?!! Oh how HE must be the One bringing the victory through these lips, through these hands…

And how He so willingly receives this offering that I lay at His glorious throne…

I am brought to tears at His utter grace.

How He takes the incapable, breathes the life in them, gives them the words and the boldness, orchestrates the listeners, touches the hearts, and then receives it gladly as an offering unto Himself.

It was all Him!

All Him all along!

Oh thank you, Lord, that You would bless me so to be a tool in Your hands.

How humbly amazing indeed!

 

 

 

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