Prayer

     It's interesting how many avenues that God has used to speak to me about prayer lately. It seems that I am being bombarded from every direction! I have been praying that God would use this time, this time when my heart is aching, crying out, to be on the field, to be serving Him where He has called me and my family to serve, to prepare us for the things that we will encounter in a third world country. That He would strengthen us and ready us for the changes, the heart break, the difficulties. It is easy to picture dealing with serving Him in such a hands on manner each and every day. Besides the births of my children, the best times of my life have been mission trips, where serving and worshiping Him is my main concentration. But I am striving to not just concentrate on those things, but to face the reality of the hard stuff. Praying this way is dangerous! It is like praying for patience, it is not fun to do. When you pray for patience, God grants you plenty of opportunities in which your patience can be tested and stretched. Utter aggravation. But it works! This is similar and I just know that satan loves it. God is at work stretching us in difficult areas, giving us the chance to make God-honoring decisions over and over. Sometimes I make the good choice and other times, unfortunately, the bad. But I am grateful that our God is faithful in answering my prayers. I desire for our family to be so strong, for our marriage to be so strong and for our relationship with Him to be so strong, that there would be less and less room for the devil to work! 

     In the sermon we heard this morning, the pastor urged us to pray solutions - not problems. He gave several examples, including The Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer says, "Give us this day our daily bread...," not, "We don't have bread." I think of the ways that praying like this could have a positive impact on my life, my prayer life and everyday. I think that would help me to be that much more positive with day to day things, if that was the way that my prayer time was spent. I would like for my mind to identify solutions immediately, rather that dwell on the problems. 

     We have had a very nice summer so far. We haven't been near as busy as usual and have had a lot of relaxing family time. That has been wonderful. However as the summer stretches to an end, I can see, and hear, that Ethan and Caeley are ready for school to start again. Whether they want to admit it or not, they need a schedule again and specific things to do. Like, stuff to keep them occupied and not arguing..... :) On the subject of school, I have been searching for the right curriculum for our family since March. Everything that I have settled on has been ok. Not great, not just what I was looking for, but ok. Then 2 nights ago I found exactly what I have been wanting. Online, for free!!! I have it all printed out and can't wait to get started. We have separate Math, Spelling, Science, History and Writing curriculum, but the base of our schooling will come from Ann Dunagan's,Teaching With God's Heart for the World. This is the write up about it that they had on their website: While your kids are young, (during a year when most of your children are older elementary age), devote a year of your homeschooling commitment to establishing a life-long foundational family commitment to God's Great Commission. This one (or two) year study presents a whirlwind tour all-throughout-history and all-around-the-world. You will learn the importance of developing a personal devotional life with the Lord and how to develop more of God's heart for the world and the lost. "Impart God's Heart . . . for the World!" Here is a link to their site, where this curriculum can be printed for free, and they have other freebies, more resources listed and much more: www.harvestministry.org. Just send me an email if you have any questions. Anyway, this is exactly what I was hoping for. I read many reviews and it is so good for so many different situations, not just homeschooling, but it is especially great for families who are going into full-time missions. Perfect!

     One last thing, and I will stop yammering on. Ethan wanted me to share this. This last Tuesday, I was getting ready for the day and stopped a minute, looking at my two bracelets. Let me back up... When Adam and I went to Mexico on a mission trip for the first time about 5 years ago, it was to serve with Casas Por Cristo, building a home for a family in Juarez. I had such a hard time coming home. I missed the kids so much, but felt like I was leaving my heart behind in Mexico. I put on one of those stretchy silicone bracelets from Casas while I was there, and have never taken it off. Then once we started to feel God's call to Africa, I bought some threaded bracelets that were black, red, green and yellow to represent Africa, and have had one of those on the same wrist also. Well anyway, that day last week I was looking at both bracelets and decided to pray another one of those "give me clarity" prayers. I prayed that God would clearly tell me if He was indeed leading us to Africa. I want to be sure that we are walking within His will, and not solely within ours. Then at our friend's house later that evening, Caeley has holding my hand, toying with my bracelets, like she often does, and SNAP! Off pops the Casas bracelet! How's that for clarity after hanging around for 5 years??? Caeley was upset, because she was afraid I would be mad. It was fun to explain to them later, after I let it soak in, that it was just an answer to a prayer I had just prayed. Anyway, goodnight! I can't believe tomorrow is August 1st! 

    God put missions on my heart quite a long time ago! I have talked to Adam about it a lot and have prayed about it for years. I have gone to Mexico on several Mission Trips and felt God tugging on my heart and not letting go.  Then, in 2008, Adam came to the realization that he was tired of going to work and feeling like he wasn't accomplishing anything from an eternal perspective. He felt that God was calling him to more. And so it began. Several years of Bible reading, missions reading, much discussion and much prayer, a few bumps in the road and here we are! Nothing official yet, but hopefully, with God's blessing, we will be Africa-bound within the year! We are attending a retreat with ACM International this week and may sign up as Recruit Status Missionaries. We are working with another family that is with ACM on potential plans to work with a ministry that is already established in Ghana on the western side of Africa.

     I wish that I had started a blog or journal a lot earlier to keep track of all of that ways that God has spoken to our family about missions. It has been amazing. This past year I have really worked on praying specific prayers, asking for clarity and obvious open or shut doors, and God has certainly been faithful. One after another after another... Most recently, he has been working on Caeley. In the months that we have been having serious discussions about moving to Africa, Caeley has been upset. She does not do change. At all. And we have had several big changes in our lives the past couple years, so I felt that this might just put her over the edge. However, once again, God has helped with some major changes. We, as well as some of our family friends, have been praying that if God truly wants our family on this path, that he would light that fire in Caeley's heart as it is in the rest of us. She has been slowly seeming to warm up to the idea, and then 2 weeks ago while we were shopping, she said, "Mom, when are we moving to Africa?" And she said it with excitement!!! Then at church last week she made a prayer card, she brought it home, and Adam saw it laying on her bed. It said, "That we would move to Africa soon!!!" Silly me, I wasn't even expecting that big of a change. Why oh why do we tend to limit God when we ask for things? He is so much bigger and greater! Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

     While I know there are many difficult things to deal with when making this kind of change in our family's life, I know that we are following the plans that God has for us. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Our goal as a family is to be sensitive and faithful to His calling. And we trust He will comfort us through the tough stuff. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." I know that this is just the beginning of the tough stuff as I begin to survey what is in our household. Figuring out whether each item is: something that we can do without, something that we can easily replace later, or something that is irreplaceable. It's that last one that I am struggling with. What is REALLY irreplaceable? I let go of our little red wagon a few weeks ago. Something I was saving for the possibility of future adopted children or for little nieces and nephews some day, or heck, even for our grandchildren. Next on that list is our baby crib. It's still here, waiting, but it's gonna have to go, and that's gonna be hard. I am thankful to have so many precious memories, I just need to work on the fact that these memories are not just stored in things. Anyway, enough about the tough stuff, I'm not even going to think about things like the goodbyes yet. Well, at least not too much.