What He has done…

I sat frozen in my seat, sucking in air, why was I feeling so much pressure? I looked up at the stewardess, her black hair perfect and shining. Her smile delicate and reserved, her manner efficient and eager to help.  She leaned close to the mother in order to be heard over the screaming child. “You must keep her in the seat. She cannot stay in the aisle.”

I purposefully slowed my breathing, pulling air past my tightening throat. Stress sometimes can do this to me, but this was different than normal stress, this was a pressure I had never felt before. I was on an airplane headed for Taiwan, going to speak to the students at Morrison Academy Kaohsiung.

The stewardess had caught my eye, I couldn’t quite understand what could be motivating her exceptionally high level of performance. The other Chinese around me were also neat, reserved, polite, and gentle. It was remarkable! Even the parents who were consoling the screaming child. It had been more than an hour and they were still quite, patient and subdued.

But I was distracted by my own anxiety. How was I going to effectively speak to the students? I am more emotionally driven and they seem to strictly guard their emotions; I feel messy, and they are so neat; my train of thought can jump around before I get to my point, and they value clear logic. The pressure seemed to be turning to dread. I felt a solemn, authoritative demand to perform. A weight sitting on me, seeming to say… “If you don’t perform perfectly, you are finished. You will be worthless, rejected, cast out. No more worthy of love.”  It was a terrible feeling.
Finally managed to simply pray, “Help me God! What is going on?”

As truth began to break into my heart. I forced my brain to dwell on these words. “I don’t have to perform perfectly to gain God’s affection. He loves me because He is love. He performed perfectly for me so I could be received.”  Even if I speak with jumbled words and everyone thinks I’m a mess, GOD will still receive me.

Jet lagging in a high-rise apartment.

And with that, the power of the anxiety was broken. Within ten minutes all the weight and pressure was gone, my throat had opened and I was sitting in complete peace. Feeling loved, and so grateful. He was sending me to Taiwan, and all that matters is I am doing it for Him.

It was then that I looked up at her again, and my heart suddenly saw with compassion. Is this what she feels? Is this the lie pressing down on this culture? Do they feel they must perform perfectly in order to be loved?

I wasn’t sure at that moment, but I wondered did God allowed me to feel the pressure some live under here, so I could speak with understanding and compassion?

The Highschool Chapel

The week is over and I wish I could go into detail about how God was with me in each class. How He helped me get over the ones that were awkward and didn’t go as well. How he helped me press on when I was tired, helped me speak boldly yet with compassion to the non-Christian students. (70% of the students there are not Christians.)

And finally how He helped me find and record actors for the newest Brinkman Adventure.

Sweet Stephanie playing Maiah in the newest Brinkman Adventure 

On the very last day, and the final time I was to share, I had the opportunity to speak to the Christian students. They gather for youth group every week.I asked many of you for prayer for this one, and really asked the Holy Spirit to come and move.

It was the night before that I had scribbled out an outline, but I still didn’t feel completely good about what I was going to share. It was only as I sat there during worship before I went up that God showed me I was missing.

I was supposed to tell them of my experience on the plane. I didn’t want to because it’s embarrassing. I didn’t want to admit that I had felt incapable of speaking to them… but I knew it was God telling me to… so I began.

My contact there (Chandel) had told me the students were hard working, respectful and getting A’s, but they struggle to find the motivation to seek God.  They don’t really understand why they need God, and Christianity just feels like another thing they have to succeed at.
Discovering dragon fruit and yellow watermelon

The main idea I wanted to get across was to let them know that when we follow God it is not just boring, forced rituals we go through. Instead, it is the most amazing and challenging thing we could do!  I wanted to share with them that He is more glorious than they could ever imagine, and He wants to be real in each one of their lives.  But the major way we experience Him in our lives is when we allow Him into the secret place of struggle or pain in our lives. It’s when we are honest about our places of sin or weakness that we find His life and grace.

It was just before I spoke that I began to understand that the extreme pressure to perform is blocking them from really experiencing God. When a culture values high performance, admitting to weakness or struggle produces shame, and people hide that part of themselves.  But the problem is, then they can’t experience God’s incredible love, power and mercy.

A local temple and monastery 

As I began to share the once fidgety and laughing students became deeply serious, they were staring… thinking. You could have heard a pin drop.  I told them, “As believers, we don’t have to be driven by that demanding voice to perform for love… We ARE loved. And out of that love we get to do our best and know God is cheering us on. It was like the Holy Spirit had pulled back the cover and there we all just sitting… people, weak, and inept, but loved.  I went on and told how I saw God’s glorious heart in Zambia, and how He met me in my struggles, of His glory and His goodness.

Afterward the students prayed for me, and in their prayers, I heard that He had spoken to their hearts.  I bowed in gratefulness. Only He could have done that… showed me things about a culture I had no clue about, and a glimpse into the little world these kids find themselves in.

My prayer is that their hearts will burn with the longing that mine did when God first pulled back the curtain and allowed me to see just a glimpse of Himself. Because in my experience, that is when their journey begins!!

Thank you for your prayers.

Such a beautiful world to discover!

God is so good! And the Gospel is good news, no matter what culture we find ourselves in!
I’m flying home now, and in one week will be back on a plane heading to Africa.

I can’t wait to see what He does there!!

Much love to you all, Sarah B

Psalm 66:16
Come and hear, all who fear God,  and I will tell of what He has done for my soul.

 

Frantic Desire

How do I see Jesus right now?
I’ve tried to write several times, but nothing came, so I’ve waited.Finally today I feel ready to share.

I wanted to share how I see Jesus here.
Jesus is strong. He is love, but He is also very strong.

I see Him in the people around me that are standing in the middle of storms.
I see Him in the missionaries who are battered by the issues of those they daily love.

I see Him in the faithful offering of Josephine’s life. Asking for no glory, no recognition, she daily spends herself for those in poverty, at risk, and in the small and mundane things that are hard, yet must get done for this work to go on. And I see Him in her patience with me and others who forget things or loose things and her gracious way of reminding us.

I see Him in the joy and love and laughter spreads from Owen to everyone around him. Even though he came from a past which would say, “God forgot you and thew you away.”

I see Jesus in the rain that is finally coming down on this country… after 2 months of waiting, crops failing. But now the rains.

I see it in the way He tells me “There is no fear in love.” Love can feel reckless, and wasteful on those whose hearts seem blind. But He keeps on loving just the same.
I’m learning that real love is kind. But it is also strong. It can say no, and it can set limits. It isn’t afraid of hurting people’s feelings for the sake of healing their real hearts.

When you are in a place of such poverty and death and pain, people can feel frantic, and the cry for help comes from everyone around you.
I see it every day from our dog Blackie. Our “guard dog” that acts as though she was abused at her previous house. Her unashamed cry for love and attention is so intense, that she jumps on you over and over, putting her muddy paws all over your clothes

And when you give her food, even before you set the bowl on the floor she pushes her muzzle into it starting to eat it mid air, spilling it everywhere and swallowing down huge gulps of unchewed dog food. Coughing and choking as she goes. Afraid that if she doesn’t eat it fast enough someone else will take her share.

Blackie wolfing down her food

I see the brokenness of the children we are reaching here in the villages. Sometimes the frantic call for love, for food, for attention feel the same. And as much as I’ve tried to teach Blackie to sit and wait for her food, to be patient, that nothing will take it from her so she can relax and feel safe and enjoy… she just doesn’t get it.
I was pondering one day as she wolfed down her food… Saying, “God can those children, abused, and neglected for so long unravel their hearts, and learn to relax in the love they are given? Can they stop grabbing for themselves? Can they heal and start giving to others?
And He whispered to my heart. “The dogs don’t have Me Sarah. I change a hearts, my love can transform and dispel all those frantic inner longings.”

And you know, that’s what I’ve seen.
In Owen, who lives to care for kids who have lost everything just like he did when he was 14.

In Josephine who cares for only the smile of her Savior over her… and worships Him with all her heart.

Josephine tutoring kids in the child sponsorship program

In Mike who goes on day after day inspiring others to follow this Jesus even times get hard.
In Ken who comes to the village on his off days, to spend time discipling people there…

And in the children at the children’s home who, yes, are settled and no longer clammer like dogs around a shallow pot.
They can rest, and they can give. Like when I see them leading worship at church, and are learning to treat each other with kindness.
Ndanda and Loveness… so much changed after living in the Children’s home for 3 years.

When God calls you to the broken, you can be pretty sure you will get broken yourself.
But as His followers, we have the balm of His Spirit, the healing power of His blood, and the unity and love of the body that bandages those places, and shows us even deeper the strength of His love.

If you feel battered by the place He has led you… don’t look away from Him for a break… look toward Him, and let Him love you.

He is the only One that can settle that frantic little voice inside you.
He is God, He is enough, and He is our reward!!

My Blue Room

I sit in this blue room, my little blond dresser resting comfortably near the “new” armoire, proudly holding clothes for the first time in it’s life.  Everything is almost in and settled now… except all the stuff I shoved under the bed. Ahem, I’ll see to that later.

I’ve been in this place for two weeks now… and I’m so very grateful.

My blue room

This place (called the Boiler Room) has been a working place, a sending place, a resting place, and a healing place for me for the last 7 years.

And I’m so grateful God has led me here again.

What are you doing now Sarah?
I keep hearing that.

And although it’s not breaking news, I thought I would write a little update to you, my friends who live afar off (or near) who would like to know my whereabouts, and the direction of my heart.

Let me take you back a little bit in order to take you forward.

While I was in Zambia in 2012 I felt God nudging me to start taking “video making” seriously. So I came home and started taking classes and really working on it.
I knew God wanted me to use it for missions, but I always felt I really didn’t know what I was doing, and was sort of embarrassed by what I would create for people.

2013 was a year of practicing, a year of being vulnerable, of asking professional people for the very first time, for their opinion and guidance in my work.
It was humbling and scary. I would rather not know how good or bad I was… just as long as the people I was making it for were happy.
But I knew that God was saying, “Stop hiding, and being afraid, do it with all your heart.”

So I did, and I saw myself grow! Yay! That was wonderful. But my heart’s first love is missions, and seeing people come to know Jesus, and raising up people to go out.
“I don’t just want to be stuck behind a camera and computer Lord.”
Even when I’m weak, and unable… that little flame burns in my heart… and I long for those days.

But I walked on, learning and growing and filming…

Georgia, Alaska, Wisconsin, Ecuador, Kentucky, Chicago. I was getting tired… but I knew I had to just keep following.

And then finally last June I found myself back in Zambia. With my new camera, my new set of skills, my new eyes, ready to make a new film… and oh man, my heart was so glad.

Especially glad to be back with the precious girls who are learning to follow Jesus… the old Mamas who have nothing, and say “I’m not suffering, because of Jesus”

The girls I love so much in Zambia

To work alongside the ones lifting up the broken, and fighting for the kingdom to come in the dark places… my heart rejoiced and cried and longed.

And then I left.

Oh, my heart.

But I knew even in that it was right. Following God is not about doing what our feelings tell us, it’s about finding His wisdom, about listening to that deep peace that is deeper than our feelings, that still small knowing that comes as we surrender, and chose to love Him over all.

And so I found myself thrust back into the crazy world of editing, finishing, writing, and more editing… until finally 2 weeks ago, I was done. (Well with those projects at least!)

Learning from the master editor Dianne

I packed up my bed, and dresser and piled it all in this little blue room.

Oh my heart… hello. Here you are. Here you are in Michigan, in this blue room, where on the other side of the wall lies a dearest of dear Michelle’s who is loving the broken here so well. Across the ally sleeps a couple couples who are fighting for the kingdom to come in this dark place, and there is a girl, so newly found in Jesus that she would end her prayers by saying, “um, I love you Jesus, and have a good day.” And every day she is wanting to know Him more.

And there are hearts here, ready to receive His healing, hungry for it.
So now, finally I have come here again, here like in Zambia… with a desire burning in my heart for them to know the sweetness of His goodness. The peace that can only be found when He finds us.
And oh, I’m so grateful for our prayer times, in the morning or evening, where we lift it all up to Him.

So I am here for this season. Ready with my camera if He wants to send me out again. But in my heart… I’m here, leaning into Him, asking Him to teach me to reach the people here.

I’m realizing there are so many strongholds, so many lies. The battle is not easy here. Not easy to keep it real and from slipping into religion or performance. But it is possible. And He will get the reward for His suffering even here!

The first week I was here, Kevin, a man we’ve all known here for a long time, took his last breaths and saw Jesus for the first time. He had given his life to Him and was baptized the week before here at the Boiler Room. This man, who was so broken all his life. Found healing and wholeness in this past year… and for some reason the Father chose to take him home.

Kevin’s baptism. Photo: Brooke Colier

Tears and sadness were all around. But in my deepest heart I bowed in awe and praise for the One who has such grace on Kevin…
That’s the One I want to follow in here. The One who loves us!

Thanks for listening.

We are all on such unique journeys with different longings and heart aches.
But Jesus knows what is deepest in us, and He will be faithful to complete that which He started.

Thank you for your love and the times you lifted me up before the Father.
He is so worthy of our praise!
I’m so grateful for you all who are on this journey with me. Lets not give up until we see His face!
Lets go whole heartedly wherever He sends us!

Here are the videos that came out of my time in Zambia:

Love’s Door: https://vimeo.com/107290165

African Shade: https://vimeo.com/109404554

In the Middle

In the middle of my time in Zambia this is what came out…

“She’s 12, and she really wants to go to school.”

a village hair cut

This drunkenness brings such hunger and abuse.
I can’t adequately describe the hurt I see.
Abuse, bringing pain which is drowned by new drunkenness, leading only to more poverty and abuse.
It is so sad to see.

And 

I look at the ones just born, this horrible reality being etched into their vulnerable little hearts.
And as they grow, it tears away the innocence and hope that still somehow clings to their childhood. The dreams they have crumble.
The innocence which brings laughter and happy days of tree climbing… are stolen away by acts of drunk neighbors or selfish men. And the once bright eyes grow dull and sunken in, and life becomes full of repressed anger, tormenting memories and fearful anticipation of the future.


I saw her last week, I remembered her sweet face from 2 years ago.
Dear Maria (not her real name). A shy, but loving smile always sprang to her face whenever she saw me. But now, here she was before me, the age when boys are looking at her.

Maria, now so tall…

I hardly recognize her because she has gotten so tall, and the look on her face has changed. She is dirtier than the other girls her age, something which 12 year old girls here are very aware of.
(Even if they live in a mud hut.)
After talking for a while, I asked her if she has a mom or dad. She told me in broken english that they left her years ago, and she lives with her grandma… who has her own children to care for.
I looked at her face. So young, and so sad. Big hoop earrings hanging from her ears. She is trying so hard to hold her head up, but when I asked if she is going to school, she looked down, and said, “No, no money at home.”

I know a tiny bit how she feels, when the other kids are passing every day to go to a special place and you can not go.
For me, it was because my parents felt God calling them to homeschool.
But Maria isn’t at home to learn. She sweeps the dirt around their mud house, and holds her grandma’s newest baby… her little uncle that cries in her arms.

Maria’s little uncle

She squats by the river for hours washing clothes and dishes, checking every so often for crocodiles. She fills a bucket with water, swishing it just right to keep the dirt out so the family wont complain when they look into their cups.
She balances it, sometimes 40lbs on her head, her little shoulders standing straight underneath as she walks past the pigs to their house.
And she lowers it and raises her head just in time to see the other kids coming home from school, laughing and trying to use their new english words. She walks over to the fire, pokes it, and tries not to cry.

Kids going to school, about to pass her house


I remember when my neighbor drove past in her new car. She was 16 and so was I. My parents had us wait until 18 to drive, and shame washed over me as I stood there, muddy water and rust all over my hands from the second hand bike I was standing there scrubbing. I wished I could disappear…
For me it was just for a little while, but for her it means falling behind in life.
Never able to learn the basics of math, reading, and a chance to think beyond the suffering of poverty.

There, 

standing with her in that field, I see how broken she feels, and the Spirit of God rises up in me, and words pour out like water:
“God sees you Maria, you are so precious to Him. He has put so many gifts in you, He knows what He wants for your life, you have so much potential!”
Tears well up in her eyes and she hides them from Winny, the girl next to me who goes to school.
I pull her into myself, holding her little head, and hiding her tears.
“God loves you so much! He will take care of you. We just have to pray and look to Him as your Father… He hears us and knows what to do. He has a future for you.”
I look over at Winny, who is a girl of unusual heart, and I see tears in her eyes too.
She says, “It’s so hard when you can’t go to school.” She knows just how that feels.

Maria holds her little uncle… next to Mampi, Whinny and Cynthia 

The next few weeks I saw Maria numerous times. I could see she was lightened by the love Jesus showed her that day… and the hope that gave.
And Dan said I could take a picture of her and interview her to see if she would qualify for being sponsored. 
Even though they aren’t taking new kids yet, they may be soon, and she might qualify to be one selected for sponsorship.
I pray that it is true.

Maria smiles for the photo that might be shown to someone who would sponsor her

It’s amazing to see the one’s once struggling like Maria, now going to school, with clothes and pencils, laughing, and living in a home with no snakes. 
(The children’s home called the House of Moses). They are surrounded by love and are learning that it’s all coming from a God who cares so much for them.
It warms my heart… and gives me a little glimmer of hope for Maria… maybe one day soon I can see her dancing too!

Here the children, living in the House of Moses, are singing a song I just taught them.
It’s one my dad used to sing to me.
We call it “Run Around the Pillow”.

RUN AROUND THE PILLOW

This trip held a lot…. I will write about more in the near future.

Finally Back

Two years have gone by, and I don’t know how. My mind and heart have been pulled back so often… to a place I once lived.

Painful -the longing to return, knowing it wasn’t quite the right time… and knowing my dear friends were there, waging a war that batters the heart, and challenges the toughest of saints.  A war that sees lives saved and watches lost and sick souls pass away without ever knowing His love. As you mend, you can feel it also tear you apart.
It is not for the faint of heart. But also not for the expert. It’s for the wide eyed ones, who live by simple childlike faith in His character… and who know they have been called. Because it is truly a work that only succeeds if God moves. And that doesn’t take an expert…

A PEACEFUL AIRPLANE SLEEP

So with that I sit quietly, anticipating, waiting, listening to the air being ripping through the turbine next to me, propelling us forward as we cut through the sky.

Zambia -I’m coming!
Finally coming.

Not to save you, but to bring whatever He wants to give you through me.

And I’m bringing a friend.

MICHELLE ON OUR WALK IN GERMANY

Her name is Michelle. She has had a fire burning in her heart for two years to come. That’s sort of unexplainable… sort of confusing to the world. But she has felt the love of God for you. A love that shocks the bearer, and propels them forward toward that one for whom it is intended. It rocks them just as much as you. That God would love so much? How is this possible? Us, the ruined ones, the filthy ones, sick with sin and self-righteousness. Aching with a sore we can’t identify. And only that love, His love, seen however He reveals it, can touch that ache, and tell us it’s ok. Tell us it’s all been forgiven. We’ve been longed for. We’ve been loved, even in the middle of our darkest hour. We’ve been loved.

To carry this love to others is a holy, precious burden. One that breaks our hearts when we see what you’ve been suffering all these years, and one that takes courage to voice and act on as we see the hardness that has come through years of hurt and suffering.
Yet it’s truth will change you like it has us!

Let our lives, Father, pour forth Your heart… for the one’s who are still sick and hard, and wandering without a Shepherd to care for them.

Let them see.
And let us hide in You.

ONE MORE LEG TO GO!

Thanks for praying along with us friends, and thanks for sending us. We go as an extension of you, your heart, prayers, and your hard work which helped pay the way to get us here.
We are grateful!
Like 3 John 1:5-8 Says… ‘you are fellow workers with us’, and we like that!

I will try to update you as this month races by.

So far, we had a lovely time in Germany. (on our 8 hour layover) We jumped out of the airport for 3 hours and zoomed around on trains and walked through some sketchy parts of town (where we almost turned back) to get to a very beautiful place, called Liebieghaus… which felt like a little glimpse of heaven.
A sculpture museum with pieces dating back to ancient Greece and Rome.
We walked, ate, talked and cried (well, that was me) as our hearts got ready to come.
I haven’t felt that much tangible peace in a place before. It felt really significant to me.

A SWEET TALK IN A PLACE OF PEACE: LIEBIEGHAUS

It was a beautiful metaphor for our life and this journey…
Pushing through the ugly, hard, difficult and sometimes scary parts of life to get Home.
It’s waiting for us… all of us who will come!

Love you friends!

Air Coffee and Kentucky

I usually don’t complain about coffee.
In fact, I can easily enjoy an instant Folgers when necessary… But what I have before me here is really terrible.
Blaahkk.
Not even two sugars can mask the awfulness.
I straighten up, and stir it again…  Nope, still terrible.

The mountains stand tall below me as I fly in the plane, and I look out on the clouds hanging soft in this morning light.

I just left the home of K-Bay coffee, and am on my way to Madcap territory, so I guess I’m a little spoiled.
I suppose if this plane was my home I wouldn’t know any different. I might even get used to this awfulness, and I might imagine that it washes the honey mustard pretzels down quite nicely.

K-bay Coffee in Homer, AK

And I suppose that’s what happened to Jessy. (Not her real name).
She was handed something awful every day… and even if she instinctively knew it was bitter and nasty, she just figured it was normal.

I got to sit for 2 hours and hear her tell us… things that made us all cry.

I never imagined myself spending the night in Kentucky with three ladies who were once homeless. And those girls didn’t see me coming either. All they knew was some ladies were on their way to tell their stories, and explore the place where all this transformation was happening. For me it was a real treat, not only to do a film project with two awesome ladies, but to witness first hand, the raw, tough, messy, transforming love of God.

 

Filming with Dianne Becker and Stephanie Johnson

“I tried to scare her, and intimidate her, and threw her Bible in the trash.”  -Jessy told us. She has come a long way!

My journey to meet Jessy actually started in Ecuador where I met the woman who started the ministry where she found a new life. Teresa, the founder, had a dream to see ladies in crisis have a spiritual sanctuary where they could meet Jesus and start a sustainable life. She herself grew up in very similar situation as Jessy and the other girls in the home. Extreme domestic violence was normal in her house, and when her Mom finally divorced her dad, she became an alcoholic and finally kicked Teresa out of the house when she was 19 and had a 1 year old baby to care for.
Because Teresa knows what it is to work through these intense issues, and struggle to get free from the fierce grip poverty, she can speak to these ladies with an authority that very few can.

I saw in this little house she created (called the Hosea’s House) the principals of “When Helping Hurts” lived out so beautifully.

Hosea’s House, Louisville, KY

I often recommend that book, but don’t often see people living it out. Because it’s easy to do things for people… but through that book I’ve learned that giving hand-outs creates dependency and further cripples the poor by damaging the fragile dignity that is so crucial to their recovery.

The beautiful Faith-Filled Teresa

But not Teresa. She looks them square in the face and says, “You can live in this house, but you have to get a job, pay rent, and keep the rules. We will point you to jobs, and give you interview training, but you have to call them up and make it happen. We will be walking with you, and we know you can do it… But YOU have to do it! (Oh, and you know who else knows you can do it? The One who created you, who loves you!)

So Jessy, a girl who had been homeless for 4 years, never living in the same place for more than 2 weeks… landed there. And HATED it!
She said it was the chores, the curfew, and the rules she couldn’t stand. A frantic fearful rebellion would rise up in her against all authorities because of what her father was.
But for some reason she stayed. (I asked her “why? You could have left at any time.”) And she told me, she knew that she needed it, no matter how horrible it felt at the time.
She saw love, and goodness… and slowly began to trust it. She got a job and for the first time worked from 9-5 every day. Her trust in God began to grow as she truly connected with other believers and opened up about her past. And she began to heal! She now is firmly planted in that community, with a job she loves, and more importantly with people that she loves… and trusts! And she gives all the credit to Jesus… who pulled her up and out!

“Jessy” telling us her story on camera 

Jessy’s story isn’t finished, and neither are the stories of the other ladies that are there… every day they are slugging it out with their flesh, with their past and the devil… and at the same time they are learning more and more to trust God.
They are surrendering to goodness, and the beauty of responsibility.
And some are getting their kids back! They are coming back out of the foster system… to moms who no longer do drugs or drink.  To a mom who celebrates the fact that the kids are also learning to pray.

After a packed week of meeting all these ladies and seeing the lives they have lived and are yet to live, I look up into the face of our great Father. Heart pounding at the beauty and weight of His glory.

He is reaching out and taking that bitter ugly, hurtful cup… that cup they’ve always known, so dark and horrible, and handing them something they can hardly believe is true. A life that is rich and so full!
A life that is free, and full of joy.
I wish you could meet these girls.
In meeting them you would go away with a hope -so strong -for your own life.

ANYONE can change!
ANYTHING can turn around.

We just have to give up what we’ve always known… and by faith reach out for what He has… being willing to humble ourselves as He morphs us into something new.

And oh the freedom!
I saw it in Jessy’s eyes… and in her bright new little apartment that she now pays for and takes care of so proudly. And I see it in the way she goes back and helps the new ladies at the home who, like her, are learning to let go.

Jessy painting with one of the little girls living with her mom in Hosea’s House

May our lives shine just as bright….  as we let go of the bitter… our own ugly cups…
and embrace the beauty He has for us.

All praise to the One who knows it all, and loves us all…

 

 

Need and the Fruit of 5 Lives

Why is it that the poor of this world understand it easier?
While we struggle so hard to keep our pride intact?

Holding the “welcome paint”

I’m sitting in this coffee shop, the bug bites still itching from Ecuador.
And my heart is hurting for this city.
I see people all around me looking for identity and purpose, trying to find themselves in this gray town.  I want to reach them with the brilliance of His love.
Not just the poor, but also those who are making it… and who are so lost.
The ones who can’t link arms for fear of the other.
We try so hard to be something special, and that very trying keeps us from Him, – the only One who actually calls us by name, who made us, formed us… and brings us into light. In the jungle I found the joy of letting others in, close to my misses and mistakes.
I felt the beauty in the awkwardness of needing help.
I was there to record for the Brinkman Adventures, but it became  so much more.

I found myself sitting in an old hand carved canoe, so dependent on this jungle girl who asked me to come with her to her special bathing spot.
I awkwardly climbed into the  canoe as she handed me one little boy and one very small girl. She had to tell me where to sit and how to sit, as I watched her standing there pushing us up against the current with her long wooden pole. And she started teaching me a song.
She looked in my eyes as she mouthed the words carefully for me to understand. The song which meant: “Who made the sky that’s so blue, the birds that fly above us?” She pointed to the parrots flying over us. We stopped where a clear little stream entered the river, and she dumped a bucket of river water over the shivering little girl’s head, now clean.

Mingare, who taught me so much

I couldn’t get the song, the words of her language are so strange and foreign to me.
I try over and over and fail. She takes my glasses and puts them in a “safe place” in the canoe. I gulp. She pushes me down in my seat as she steps over me to tie the canoe to the jungle tree behind me.

It felt awkward and uncomfortable needing so much help.
I didn’t like it as I squirmed inside. “How many people feel this way that I help?”  The thought struck me and I tucked it away. I reach for my shampoo.
I look into her face. Me all cold, sitting in my bathing suit in that old canoe. And then I realized that she wasn’t looking down on me for needing, she wasn’t belittling me. She wasn’t rushing me… She was gentle. I look at the clean water flowing in from that special spot, the trees over us, those sweet naked little kids shivering and waiting for us… And I see it. My need, as awkward as it felt, wasn’t crushing me, it was actually bringing us closer. I shiver as I poured water over my head, and scrub the dirt out of my hair.
And in that moment, as my dependency and need were met with her love, my tears mixed in with the river… and I realized why the poor understand.
This felt grace is so precious…  and How can you not love Him?

Nelly helping us cross the river.

This whole week the Waodani have been taking care of us. The Western leader of our team sits back quietly, as the villagers take charge as hosts and lead everything.They made a jungle “long house” for us to sleep in, and we watch as they hang the hammocks they made for us to sleep in. They take us out during the day to hunt and forage for food.

They protect us from the poisonous snake in the outhouse, chopping it to bits with a machete, and teach us how to outsmart the vampire bats at night. They help us catch stingray and piranha for dinner, and prepare toucan stew, and crocodile with fried plantain, and some other root we dug up earlier that day. They teach us how they make rope, weave baskets, and they show us how to carve spears and shoot blow guns. Minute by minute we are realizing how much they have to teach and how much we have to learn! They lead the Sunday service where Mincaye shares the message about being good soil for the Word to fall on. That same Mincaye who 53 years earlier speared the 5 missionaries who came to bring him that very Word. Now his grandson is a pilot heading toward Papua New Guinea to do missions. His granddaughter goes from village to village sharing the Gospel and teaching kids to walk God’s trail. And even he at 80, still goes whenever he can to visit people and share the Gospel.

Mincaye, sharing with us his stories

I stood under the stars that first night, all my teammates swinging gently to sleep in their hammocks, and  I listened to the Waodoni laughing softly around their fire, all having such a fun time hosting us. And it hit me. It was worth it. I sort of knew that before… But now, here, I see it. I see it in their shy and funny smiles. In their kids’ trusting eyes, reverent to their grandpa who speaks to them of Jesus. I see it in their hard working hands that patiently do what it takes to survive in the jungle. In the girls who are laughing and living free from fear. Those girls whose own mother saw her brothers killed in the morning by a terrible man who she was forced to marry later that very night.
That man who she is kissing now so many years later.
“Jesus showed me how to forgive him,” She said, “and what a marriage should be.”
If those five men hadn’t died, if their widow and sister hadn’t gone back in. These people, laughing softly around the fire would be dead.
And those that survived, would be living in bitterness and so much fear.

The long houses where we slept

And I cried standing there, for joy and with longing.
I cried out to Jesus for my generation.
I cried out for more people like those five men, more people like their widows. People who with humility and dedication to Jesus, would be faithful even in the midst of their deepest and most difficult darkness.
And I cried out for my own heart, wavering as it does some days, that I would be like them too.

Like those men, whose lives are living on, even though they are dead… in the feet of the Waodoni who are going even farther than they could have gone. Bringing His message to their people who are lost.
The recordings went well, as God helped me all the way.
The 10 days flew by, and before I knew it we were getting in the plane to leave this very special world.
As I flew over the jungle with it’s exotic trees and winding river, I wondered which beach was the one it had happened on… And I thought…  how short our lives are.
He chose even shorter lives for those five men.
But ours are equally short, with all of eternity waiting.
Oh, that my life would count like theirs did.
Even if it has to be shortened so others can really see Him.
The engine roared, and all the petty smallness stopped, as I looked out over that jungle, and offered myself to Him again.

As I stepped off the plane back into this Michigan grey, I wondered..

What could the fruit of OUR lives be?

Only He knows.

Mincaye, who once killed… now is transformed into one of the happiest Jesus lovers I’ve seen in a long time.

Higher than the earth

As I write this I hear soft giggles and suppressed excitement downstairs. For the first time since I’ve been here, the pattering of little feet, happy screams and children’s voices are quieted. The little ones are gone… 

And we all wait.

It has been 3 months since I arrived at this house of 9 children… after feeling the nudge to come and give an extra boost for this ridiculously crazy season.
And today is the grand finale.

The baby is coming. 

The theme of this families story I think, is obedience and faith.
Some people’s lives are led by the rational of safety, some by what is comforting and enjoyable… and others by what is exciting. 
I’ve seen here though, a motivation balancing on something different.

Who is God?

What does He want?

How can I adjust to that?

And it has led them to some radical turns. Downstairs is one of them. Not many people would dream of having 4 kids, yet trust has led them to this morning, where the 10th is about to be born.
I have water in my ears from the shower I just took, and my heart is thumping with the realization of what Amy is about to go through.
As the birth photographer I get the privilege of being in the room at one of the most precious moments in a mothers life. When she sees her baby for the very first time and holds him to her tired breast.

For some people, having children feels like too much, like it’s getting in the way of their lives. But I see a mother downstairs who has chosen to give up her life so that she can find it. And soon, as all the sweet smiles and giggles return, we all will revel in what her “giving up” has given the world.

And I think it’s amazing, that in the same way, my brother has given up a big job, or a big house, to live for God’s Kingdom. And from this little house, this crazy busy family, has come story after story after story that thousands are hearing, and through it, possibly beginning their own journeys of faith as well.
I think about it sometimes. How is it possible that this worked? How did it even come together? But it’s really happening. Parents keep telling us that their kids listen over and over again to these stories, and their hearts softening to God and His mission.

I guess it too was an act of obedience.

Our lives don’t often become what we envisioned. We try to control things, and make it all work out, but most of us just end up secretly disappointed.   
After being here and seeing obedience and faith walked out so clearly, I see that when you allow God to lead your life, it also isn’t exactly what you envisioned either. Its surprisingly original, and in the deepest ways He makes it wonderful.
God has his own agenda, and to the degree that we are willing to trust Him and let Him have our lives, he will involve us in His crazy, amazing, wonderful, often secret glorious master plan. 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:8-9)

I’ve found some chapters can be hard, but I know He is working overtime to bring it all together. 

And downstairs, a new life… brought here by faith, is just about to enter the stage.
I can’t help but think that God is just as excited as I am. 

(Ok, probably a whole lot more!)

Wahooooooo! 

Let a new life begin!

Jude- two hours old. 

We made this video as we awaited his arrival from the hospital.

 

 

 

 

Gentle Lead

Today as my toes were finally free from my city boots, and touched the fresh sand, I smiled as Jesus reminded me of the other sandy spots my feet have touched.

There have been so many experiences that only God can remember with me, and reminisce with me about, somehow that reality made today extra special.
And it settled in, yes, this season has officially begun.

Culturally it’s quite different here than the West Side craziness I just came from.
I don’t have to wonder if there is going to be someone sleeping in my raspberry patch when I get home… or demand that drunk men get off my porch. (Whew… that’s not an easy thing to do if you are a conflict avoider!) Nor do I get the privilege of weeding my garden to blaring Mexican music. Or the sweet caios of the Love Feast… or the intimacy and diversity of Mission Church.
Instead I’m in a town built by Germans. (Therefore everything is neat and tidy) The houses are small, and the sidewalks are perfect. I live 3 minutes from Lake Michigan, and the tiny town perched on the edge of the lake is so manicured it looks as if THEY put the lake there, with every rock and little beach in just the right spot.

My rustic freedom loving self, is finding tiny hide-aways that feel wild, but for the most part I am just overwhelmingly grateful for people that love order, and beauty.

As I’m getting used to people here, and what they are like, I’m also getting to understand what it’s like to be homeschooling parents of 9 children.
I have SO MUCH RESPECT for parents! Let alone parents of many children, let alone parents who choose to homeschool!

The sanctification that goes on during those day after day, hardcore refining moments. WOW!
It’s easy to be good and sweet when your life is easy with only yourself to take care of.   But oh, how I wish I could take you into the living room here.  The patience that I see… the sweet love, the surrender, the rawness that a situation like this creates… it’s hard to hide what is really in your heart. And I find myself upstairs in bed at night thanking God for the sweetness of the love and reverence that I experience in my brother and his wife. It’s so so precious!
It makes me just want to love Him even more!

Kaila (14) and little Pete

I’m here to help them make audio dramas about missions, and to help get the house ready for the new baby… but really I think God has some deep sweet heart work that He has in store for me.  Everywhere I go… (If I’m surrendered) I find that He gives me jewels from the people I’m with. Truths I get to take away, and ways of being that take me deeper and closer into Him.

The verse He showed me yesterday which I’m just beginning to dive into.
1 Peter 4:10 and 11b As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God…
If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

“ministers” means to be an attendant, or to wait on someone, to distribute the things that are necessary to sustain life, and to attend to anything that may serve another’s interest.

 “ability” means might, or power…

and

 “supplies” really surprised me.

It means to be a dance leader, to furnish, give, minister.
To be a chorus leader that furnishes everything that is necessary for that dance or chorus, to furnish abundantly.

This made me stop. What? What an interesting thing, that God chose this word, this word which was used for one who generously supplied everything needed, so that anyone, (rich or poor) can be involved in the dance, or the song.

He first of all had the idea for the dance, and then He made it happen. He gave everyone their parts, their outfits, their books or training, their special flags or footware. And then He says: “Alright, are you ready?… Dance! Sing! Come on, lets do this!”

Isn’t that exciting?

It seems to imply also by the verse above that you can do it with an ability NOT supplied by Him. And that I understand.
Just a few days ago I heard Him gently tell me, “It’s better to do a little with love, than a lot with hatred or annoyance.”
He supplies the gifts for me to give to others, those gifts are sweet, and irregardless of their size, are powerful. If I don’t give His gifts, but start just kicking out stuff mindlessly on my own. Whew, I get dried up in a hurry, and resentful.
And oh the mystery of figuring this out moment by moment.
We can hardly explain it, but somehow He keeps guiding us.
Guiding us into really receiving, and the true dance of giving and using those gifts.
Oh, He is wonderful, and this world so broken. Yet those of us listening get the joy of displaying the unutterable beauty of His heart.

I am grateful to see a glimpse of that in my brother and sister-in-law. And oh, how I want to show that too!

Thank you friends for all your love in sending me off here.

There is no greater joy than to hear and to follow His gentle lead!

Love Speaks so loud, your heart is silenced dumb. Love is so simple. Love doesn’t need words. Love is all around you… because He is all around you. Look for it… don’t worry, you’ll start to see.