So I'm the world's worst blogger.


Thought I'd just go ahead and throw that out there since it's literally been over a year since my last update.

Sorry about that.


But maybe you'll give me some slack when I show you why...

Yep. God saw fit to give us a sweet little baby!!! To say she's changed everything would be a huge understatement. It seems when babies come along, things like blogging tend to fall by the wayside for awhile. Perhaps most of you understand that, or will some day :)


But  back to the changes...I'd say she's changed a lot of things about me like: 

How much sleep I get. 
How long my showers are.
How I perceive late people (since I'm finding myself as one of them now!). 
The size of my purse.
The size of my heart. 

But I'd have to say the biggest thing she's changed for me is the way I perceive God's love for me.



Don't get me wrong. 


I knew He loved me before she came along, but I guess I didn't really "get"  the whole idea of how much a parent loves their child. He has used this precious little gift named Beth to help me understand His love so much more.  One lesson specifically seems to keep resurfacing...



I CAN ALWAYS TRUST GOD BECAUSE HE DOES WHAT'S BEST FOR ME, EVEN WHEN I DON'T UNDERSTAND.  


Let me tell you, I HATE to see my sweet baby girl cry. In fact, I would do anything to take away her pain. Anything at all, no matter the cost. 

Well, let me clarify. I would take away her pain on one condition... that removing the pain is what is best for her. If she's crying because she is hungry, I feed her, regardless of how sleepy or hungry I may be. If she needs a diaper or clothing change, I change it, no matter how late for church I may be. 


But...


... there are times she cries that I have  let her cry because the circumstances causing the tears are for her best, although she may not know it. For example, when I've had to take her to the doctor, tears have been known to fall off her pretty little face. It seems she doesn't like boring waiting rooms or cold stethoscopes or shots, but I have to let her cry for a short time because it's what's best for her in the long run, even though she doesn't know that now.



Now God loves me FAAAAAR more than I could ever love Beth, and He ALWAYS does what's ultimately best, even if it's painful at the time. 

Unfortunately for Beth, I will do things wrong, and make choices at times that aren't what's best for her at times... even though I try so hard not to do that. But I find great comfort in the fact God never fails. He never wonders if He made a mistake. He always knows what's wrong. And if He chooses to, He has the power and resources to fix any problem I might have. 

So what was it you were worried about again? 

Yeah...

You might wanna quit that worrying stuff because the Lord that loves me  loves you too!!!  And if you've trusted him as your Savior, you are HIS CHILD. He's not out to get you. Quite the contrary. 

"...if God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"  Romans 8:31b-32

What a wonderful Lord He is.  You can trust Him. He is good. He loves you, even when your hurting...

 Especially when you're hurting...

Will you go to Him? Take Him your hurts. He will fix them. 


And if fixing them isn't what's best, He will still hold you while you cry...



"Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." 1 Peter 5:7

As missionaries, my husband and I are sometimes viewed as "extra special" by others. I'm writing this post to clear that up :)

I am human. Flesh and blood just like you.

I fail.

I cry.

I beg God to change me in the wee hours of the morning sometimes when there's no one awake but me and Him.

I'm scared of cockroaches and spiders.

I struggle with feeling inadequate.

Is my life different than yours? Maybe a little. But let me assure you, the only thing "extra special" about me is the AWESOME Lord I serve and the place He's asked me to serve Him.

I'm also writing this to tell you who the real heroes are ...

...

...

Our families back home.

See, we are "in the action." We know what's going on. We know if we're safe at night. We know if we're sick or healthy.

Our families don't always know that.

They are the ones who pray for us faithfully, listen to our crazy stories, clean our house when we have to leave in a hurry, check our mail, mow our lawn, buy our groceries, keep us updated on what's going on in the US, and give freely of their money, time, and heart to make sure their loved ones are taken care of. They have to wrestle with God to help them not to worry that their babies are in a dangerous, foreign land. They have to deal with having their heart on two continents.

So to my family back home, Mom, Dad, Curtie, Mary, John, John Jr., Becky, Alyssa, Shayla, Grandma and Grandpa, Maw-Maw and Jr, and everyone else who falls into the "family" category, thank you. Thank you for being the unseen heroes in all of this. We couldn't do it without you.

Thank you for the welcome home dinners, for disrupting your schedule to fit with ours, for celebrating Christmas in November, for talking on the phone to us at crazy hours when we don't remember the time difference, for holding yard sales, buying mosquito nets, Don't Bite Me patches, and bug spray. Thank you for praying with us, weeping with us, and loving Africa with us, all in the name of Jesus.

For those of you who read this post, I'm asking you, if you know our family, thank them for giving us up so that people in another land can hear of Jesus' unfailing love. Thank them earnestly. ( Hug them for me too, would you? )

And when you pray for us, please pray for them too. Pray for emotional strength, that their hearts won't break quite so much, and that God will send comfort when their minds race with worry.

I think there will be a lot of rewards in Heaven for unseen heroes.

I certainly hope so.

"For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward."   Mark 9:41

God is good all the time.

In happy times.

In heart wrenching times.

He never fails. He never does wrong. His love is beyond my ability to comprehend. His kindness is beyond my ability to explain in mere human words.

HE IS GOD.

Sometimes it's the big things He does that gets my attention. Like bringing us thousands of miles from our home and our family to witness thousands of souls choose to call on Christ as their Saviour. Or healing me from malaria. Or answering an unspoken prayer request in just the right way at just the right time.

Sometimes it's the small things, like when He holds off the rain for me when I really need the clothes on the clothesline to dry. Or gives me an unexpected hour of electricity when I really need to print a document. Or giving me the courage and aim to kill a scary spider!

I'm so grateful for a God who cares, really cares, for me.

I love my Lord.

Have you had a situation that you REALLY wanted to work out a certain way, and you prayed about it and did EVERYTHING within your power to make sure it happened the way you wanted ...

...only for it not to go at all the way you had hoped?

I have. More than once.

Just this past week, our national pastor named James was going to be out of town, and he usually drives us around in Juba (this is a craaaaaazy place to drive and I am not yet brave enough to try it). This meant we needed to hire another driver.

We really wanted our driver from last trip named Roger because, well, he's our buddy! He helped us so much last time and even started coming to church with us. We LOVE him. But he couldn't drive for us. We begged and did everything possible to get him to be able to drive for us, but he was in a contract with someone else for the week and just couldn't.

We were sad.

He said he'd send us someone else, but it still wasn't the same.

Enter Nasa, a 20-something year old Ugandan working here in South Sudan. He agreed to drive for us this week.

He drove Eric to and from all the places he had to preach. And every time, instead of waiting in the car like most drivers would, he'd come along and listen to the preaching. He heard the gospel again and again and again.

Friday night he knelt by his bed at his home and called on Jesus to save him.

Nasa is one of us now!!!! On his way to heaven!!!

I'm oh-so-glad things didn't work out my way this time. Maybe one day I will learn His ways are much better than my ways...

What a gracious God we serve.

Our church in South Sudan has several outreach ministries, including primary and secondary schools, orphanages, military barracks, a blind school, and the community as a whole during visitation.


I love all the services we're in. But for me, there is one service that seems to stand above the rest. The men there sing triumphantly of Jesus' power and love. Their voices are deep and strong, and resonate in my soul long after I leave. The images there are carved into my mind and heart.


I have to fight back the tears literally every single time because the presence of God is so strong it's overwhelming.


Where is this place?



The prison.



"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." Luke 7:47



Maybe that explains it, I'm not sure. I just know these men know what it means to worship God.



They understand freedom in Christ far more than I probably ever will.



I pray I can learn from them.

I love smiles. I love them even more since coming to Africa. I may not yet know Juba Arabic well enough to carry on a conversation, but I can sure smile a big cheesy smile :) Smiles, my friend, seem to be a universal language.



Here's some things that made me smile today:



1. Watching my husband boldly proclaim the gospel to hundreds of teenagers at a school (after facing opposition from a Muslim teacher there) and seeing about 75 of them trust Christ. All I can say is WHAT A BLESSING! :)



2. Our maintenance man. Let me explain. Our power strip that charges all of our devices met an untimely death this morning. Somehow the leg of the metal bed frame made its way onto the cord and basically sawed it in half (shocking us in the process, lol). We thought we'd have to buy another and they aren't cheap! But our maintenance man was able to quickly fix it and now it looks (and works) as good as new :)



3. A little girl. During our Juba Arabic lesson today, baby Providence (one of the national pastors' daughter) came to me all by herself and crawled up in my lap with no coaxing from me or anyone else. She's very young and will shake my hand but she's never came to me all on her own. She sat with me for probably an hour and was good as gold :)



4. Sugar cane. Yum. Enough said. :)



5. A simple answered prayer. Our national pastor Charles and his wife and baby had to go home and it looked like rain was immenient. Their transportation is a motorcycle (boda boda). We prayed God would hold off the rain until they got home. He did. :)



6. Having a husband to laugh with. We talked today about how certain parts of being here sound so romantic, but they really aren't at all, lol. But having someone to share the good AND hard times with makes life a lot more enjoyable. :)



7. My own Bible in my language, and the ability to read it without fear of persecution. So many people don't have this luxury and would give all they own to have what we take for granted.



Now I could have listed all the things that went wrong, like starting the day off with shattering a bowl (my ONLY bowl, lol), a disrupted schedule, hot weather, bug bites, and on the list could go. But look at all the blessings I might have missed out on sharing!



What are you facing today that's threatening to steal your smile ? Be thankful instead, and go find a reason to smile.



And if you can't, go give someone else a reason to smile...and you just might find your smile in the process ...



"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." Proverbs 11:25

I dare say there are few things more comforting than having a husband who believes in the power of prayer.

Prayer has pulled us through some tough days. It has led us to a new continent ... a new world, really.

Prayer has changed our life.

But lest you think prayer itself is the answer to all life's problems, let me clarify by quoting my husband : "It is not our prayer, but the God OF our prayer that changes things."

Praying to a statue, a dead god, a mirage could never save a person. But praying to Jesus, my friend, that can transform even the filthiest of creatures into something beautiful...

What a thought, that we have the privilege of a direct line of communication to the Creator, Redeemer, and King!

I often wonder what might happen if only we cared enough to make good use of it ...

I've had multiple requests to start blogging more regularly, and instead of trying to backtrack everything I've failed to blog, I suppose I shall just start where I am...

I'm sitting in my concrete room, listening to the hum of our fans and the chirping of crickets through the open screen windows, enjoying the last few minutes of light before the electricity goes off for the night. Reminiscing over the day, it's often the small things that bring the biggest smiles, like remembering the advice i received earlier concerning my newest adventure of trying to learn Juba Arabic...

"Remember, you can eat a whale. Just take it one bite at a time."

Now, for most, learning a language may not be much of a feat. But for me, the girl who can barely remember her own name and gets lost in her hometown, this should be quite an experience! My only hope of learning it is His strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Boy, am I glad for that.

He's been teaching me a lot about that lately. Or trying to. There's a lot of areas I'm weak in here that I need to be strong. I am so thankful for a Saviour who loves me as I am, but who loves me enough not to leave me that way :) He keeps stretching and pulling me out of my comfort zone...beckoning me to get out of the boat...which can be a scary place to be...

BUT when I get the right perspective of the grand scheme of things, it seems so silly to ever fret over anything at all. After all, it's on the outside of the boat that miracles happen.

I'm thankful He's promised to be with me and never leave me ( Hebrews 13:5). And that He loves me and He has the power to stop any bad thing from happening if He so chooses. Therefore anything that comes across my path has already received His approval, even if it doesn't make sense to little ol' me. Its comforting to know that even though my family is a million miles away, He's taking care of them. And to know that the children I teach on Sunday whose clothes are tattered and whose bodies are covered with dirt and flies can have hope in this same Jesus that I do, and so I don't have to try to fix everything, as much as my heart may long to. I just have to lead them to the One who can fix things, who can heal their sick little bodies, mend their shattered hearts and reunite their broken families. He is able.

Did I mention that I love Him?

I do.

He's all that's worth living for.

And He is worth living for.

He's also worth getting out of the boat for.

And if you get out and go to Him, even if you are trembling with fear, you might just get to walk on the water...

7. David remained humble after the battle was over.

When David reentered town, he had women dancing and singing for him, giving him even more honor than even the king! And yet, when King Saul gives David his daughter to marry as he said he would, David responds humbly in 1 Samuel 18:18, “Who am I….that I should be son in law to the king?” 

APPLICATION: When you overcome your giant, remember who defeated it. To become prideful after a victory is one of Satan’s most effective traps. Don’t forget what it’s like to be on the other side of the giant. Reach out to those still fighting.

Remember that you are nothing . . . you are absolutely useless without Jesus.

Then go live your life in humble adoration of what He has used you to do, and encourage others that God wants to do the same thing through them.

6. David didn’t let other’s opinions of him change his decisions.

 David was just trying to help, but his own brother questioned his motives and called him prideful and naughty. King Saul told him he couldn’t do it. The giant made fun of him.

But that didn’t stop David.

He didn’t go cry in the corner because someone called him names or told him he couldn’t do it. Nope. He just went on in the name of the Lord.

APPLICATION: When you serve Jesus, not everyone is going to like you. That’s a hard one for me to swallow, but it’s true. Pleasing man and pleasing God doesn’t always go hand in hand. If people question your motives, tell you that you can’t do it, or even mock you, just hold your head up and go on for Jesus.

You won’t regret it.

And you might just slay a giant in the process.