My Daddy

Daddy, I’m scared.
It’s ok, honey. It was just a bad dream.
No, Daddy, it was real. There were big bad guys. They were gonna get me.
Well, Daddy’s here now. It will be ok.
Can you stay here with me, Daddy?
Sure, sweetie. Daddy’s here. Let’s just tuck these covers up...there.
Daddy, I don’t want those men to get me.
Don’t worry. Daddy will keep you safe.
Do big men ever try to get you, Daddy?
Sometimes, but they’re not like the ones in your dream.
What are they like?
They’re kind of sneaky. They’re called problems. They come in all shapes and sizes. They tell me stories that aren’t true about my life and about God.
Do they scare you, Daddy?
Sometimes.
Who chases them away for you?
My Daddy.
Who’s your daddy, silly Daddy?
He’s big and strong. And He’s your Daddy, too.
Who, Daddy?
Well, He lives up in heaven, but He’s right here with us, too...
It’s God! Will I have problems like you when I’m big, Daddy?
I’m afraid so, sweetie.
Why?
That’s just what life is like, hon.
Will you keep me safe?
If this daddy can’t, your other Daddy will.
Why?
Because He loves you. And He’s even bigger and stronger than me. He takes care of His little girls.
Always, Daddy?
Always.
I’m glad I have two Daddys.
Me too, hon. Goodnight.
‘Night, Daddy.

Lovely Summer

Here I am again, blogging. I know, it has been ages. Truthfully, it has been a long time since I've felt like writing. I just haven't been up to it, so I haven't written. But summer is here now, and I'm planning on resting a lot, even though I'm working full time. Trust me, mowing a cemetery 8 hours a day is resting compared to sitting in a classroom for 21 months in a row (two years at Emmaus with a summer of classes in between). Yes, I am working for the city of Pratt, keeping up the cemetery there, mowing, trimming, etc. The Lord so graciously provided this job for me and I feel very thankful. It pays minimum wage, but 40 hour weeks even at minimum wage adds up. There are a few things I'm hoping to be able to buy after I pay off this year's school bill (although that bill is very small indeed, since the Lord has provided so amazingly for me), like a laptop battery (Delton - his name - has needed a battery for at least 7 months or so), a nice-ish camera (my old one bit the dust), new glasses. Then hopefully I can make some advance payments for next year, but we'll see where the Lord directs me to use the money.
Where was I? Oh, yes, mowing. So I'm doing lots of it, and enjoying it so far. The hours are long, but I'm so thankful for the job and I enjoy the time alone with the Lord, so it is good. I'm quite sunburnt and my hair is turning red again, which makes me happy. I feel quite pale and sickly being inside all year at school. :)
I'm also planning to go to camp for the first two weeks of June. First, I'm counseling at Sooner Bible Camp, Lord wiling, then speaking at Kansas Bible Camp, for the grade school girls week. Speaking of which, I need to go work on my lessons, so I'm heading off. But hopefully I'll be updating more this summer and just blogging in general. :) TaTa for now!

final prep for Mexico

I've been thinking lately about how truth is truth no matter how I feel or what I believe or how I act. God is faithful and good, no matter how He answers our prayers. He is right and just, no matter what He does. I am thankful that He has opened so many doors for our team going to Mexico, but even if He chose to shut them all now, before we even go, He would still be good and faithful and nothing can change that. He IS who He IS regardless of what happens in my life!

Well, we're down to our last week before Mexico! Thanks so much for your prayers and support. The Lord has been providing overtime for our team and we feel overwhelmed at the answers to prayer. In a world that is shaking financially and economically, God has proven to us that He is well able to provide. At this point our team has an extra $1100 above what we planned on needing. We're curious to see if something will happen that we're not expecting that we'll need more money for. But if nothing else, the extra will be given to the believers in Leon and Guanajuato (Gwon-a-whotoe), especially the people whose homes we'll be staying in and the elders of the churches. So thank you for praying and sharing! :)

Some people may be concerned about our safety with Mexico being in the news and all. Just to reassure you - we are flying straight to Leon (with a change of planes in MX City), which is in the middle of the country and away from the violence at the border. It should be quite safe. Of course, the Lord is our protector in any case. :)

Things are coming together well. The Lord provided a van and a driver to get us all to Chicago early this Friday morning. We are performing one of our skits/mimes in student chapel Tuesday morning so the rest of the school can have an idea of what we're doing. Both of those are answers to prayer.

Things to pray for:
- Health of our team - it's a dangerous time of year and several of us haven't been feeling the greatest, flus and coughs, etc
- Continued growth as a team - that we would continue to be unified and build each other up in love
- Boldness as we are in Mexico
- Many opportunities to share the gospel
- Salvation of many people
- Our hearts to be changed
- God's glory to be evident to everyone around
- The churches there to be encouraged to step out and evangelize, too

Updates, Lord willing, and possibly even pictures will be available on our blog: www.missiontriptomexico.blogspot.com. Please, check it out and read about our team and our plans. :) (my profile is on there, on a page of older posts - link at the bottom of the page). Do look it up. :)

Thanks again so much for praying! I'm looking forward to writing you in a couple of weeks when we're back and sharing how much the Lord has done.

Mexico Blog!

Ivan created this blog for our team! Check it out! http://missiontriptomexico.blogspot.com/

more about Mexico

Hello, all!
I hope this finds you all doing well and rejoicing in the Lord today. He has won the victory in life and death and just by believing Him, we are on the winning side! No matter what is going on in our lives or in the world, we ARE the victors in this battle if we believe in Jesus. The spiritual world is a real one - and we are made to be like Jesus and glorify God in our bodies and spirits, which sometimes means that we face even more trials and struggles because those things make us realize more and more that we cannot fight on our own and NEED HIM even more!

"Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:4-5

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers for me, and especially for this Mexico trip. This is going to be a long update, but some of you have requested it, and if the rest of you don't want to read it, don't feel obligated. :) Just know that plans are going well and the Lord is being glorified in real ways already. He's pretty amazing.

Guess what? We bought our tickets on Sunday! So, barring some natural disaster or the Lord's return, we're planning to leave Friday, March 6 from Chicago! The Lord provided them for about $100 less than we planned for originally back in December. We - Naomi, Victor, Tom and I - got together on Sunday with the couple who were letting us use their credit card and spent a good deal of time in prayer, then started looking for flights. Tom and I have been keeping tabs on them for a while now, so we had somewhere to start. It was a little stressful, because you can't really order 12 tickets on the same flight on the same purchase online, at least not in an ordinary way. So...we ended up getting on the phone with AeroMexico, and then I gave the rep all the information over the phone, which was rather intense, making sure we got all the info right. :) It worked, though, and we got the tickets for an average os $470 each! Praise the Lord! It was really cool to see Him work everything out.

We have finally got a pretty solid schedule for our itinerary worked out, which is a big relief to the guys leading and really exciting to our whole team. Of course, this is subject to change if the Lord switches our plans up - we're quite flexible. :) One of the guys on our team, Ivan Mungia, is actually from one of the towns we'll be working in, and he has helped plan the schedule with his church and such, so that has been really helpful.

So, how about a trip summary? We are going to Leon/Guanajuato, Mexico, north of Mexico City (safety should not be a big problem, considering it is not on the border or in Mexico City). We are flying straight to Leon. Our first four days will be in Leon, working with the church and going around the city door-to-door with gospel tracts and information about Bible studies and also doing street preaching. Then on Wednesday we'll be moving the team to a nearby town, Guanajuato, where Ivan is from, and we'll be doing the same thing with the church there. On Wed. night we'll be having meetings with the three churches from the area. Almost everyone on our team is going to have an opportunity to teach a session with the believers. Lord willing, I'll be teaching a women's class. All the sessions will center on different aspects of evangelism and sharing the gospel. We're pretty excited about that. It's also rather humbling and a little daunting. :) We'll have a day to hang out at a water park and some time to sight-see, but mostly we'll be doing evangelism. We'll be staying in the homes of believers from the area, which will be quite a new experience. :) So, that's basically what we're doing.

Our team. Wow, it's been cool to see how God has brought our team together. There are several that I don't know very well but I'm really looking forward to getting to know them better so we can build each other up in love and work together well. I love praying together already and I'm excited about growing in that area.
Victor E - sophomore whose parents are missionaries in Japan; he's studying elementary education here at school with the plan to return to Japan as a teacher and missionary one day, a natural teacher - people naturally follow him wherever he goes
Tom M - junior from Buffalo, NY, a quiet, serious guy who is studying Bible and computers here; he has a passion for sharing the gospel with others
Naomi S - sophomore from KS, one of my best friends here at school, who loves Jesus and telling people about Him and plans on being an overseas missionary eventually
Samuel O - sophomore from Vera Cruz, Mexico, an international student studying Bible here; his family are not believers and he has a passion to preach the gospel, especially back home in Mexico
Ivan and Laura M - a couple from Guanajuato, Mexico, who live here at the school as Ivan finishes his Bible/computer degree, planning to return home when Ivan's finished; a fun, exciteable couple who are just a huge encouragement to all of us
Laura K - sophomore from TX, a sweet girl who loves the Lord and is wanting to grow more bold to share her faith with others
Jessica P - freshman from IA, who is super excited about going, as she went to Mexico once before and would like to possibly work there in the future; she is one of the people I don't know well but am excited about getting to know better
Rebekkah S - sophomore from CO, in the Intercultural Studies major here at school; she has wanted to be a missionary for as long as she can remember, specifically to Columbia, South America; she is very passionate about her beliefs
Ben M - sophomore from WI, who is quite the unexpected sort of guy - he seems quiet but he's really a ham and is quite fun-loving; he loves people and wants to be stretched and learn more about communicating through sharing the gospel and teaching
Daniel R - sophomore from IA, a quiet, gentle guy who loves life and loves Jesus and also wants to be bolder about sharing Christ and whose coming is a great answer to prayer, because he was unsure for a while due to other commitments
Michelle V - freshman, who I don't know well at all, but she's a gentle, lovely girl who also was unsure for a while whether or not she should come, but we're so thankful she is coming; I'm looking forward to getting to know her better
Celina S - a graduate from Emmaus who came to Peru with us and is meeting us in Mexico! She is a gentle girl who loves Jesus and people so much and will be such a blessing to have with us
Willy T - a middle-aged guy who is a graduate from Emmaus who still lives here in Dubuque; he's what Tom calls an "absent-minded evangelist" (and Tom knows him the best of all of us :), but he's a lot of fun and knows his Bible almost more than anyone else I know

Okay...that was long, but, there it is. :) That's our team! Thanks again, so much for praying and backing me up as I follow the Lord's leading to Mexico next month.

Mexico News!

Countdown...4 more weeks until our team leaves for Leon Mexico! Oh wow! :D This is the part where it starts getting really exciting. Everyone has made their decisions about whether or not they're going, so our team is settled (unless the Lord changes things). We are about to buy our tickets. We are starting to get a feel for the team dimension - figuring out how we each work and how to build each other up. The skits we'll be using for the street evangelism are going really well, just about all together.

So, just wanted to ask for a couple of prayer requests. This week I'm planning to email the itinerary and more details about the trip, but it would be wonderful if you all would pray for these things in the meantime.

- We need to buy the tickets ASAP, and we need to know what direction the Lord would have us go. Please pray that He will provide just the right tickets, all on the same flight, preferably.

- Please pray that the Lord will provide the rest of the $3500 needed for our team to go down to Mexico.

- Please pray that our team will, as a group of people with diverse personalities and different circles of friends, learn how to relate to each other and serve each other and just get to know each other.

- Pray for wisdom as we, especially Victor and Tom, keep making decisions about the trip.

Thanks!

...such and such...

Hello, all! Sorry for the long lapse in blog writing. It's probably irritating to try to follow my blog when I'm such a sporadic writer. I've been thinking of updating for a while now, but the beginning of a new semester with all the changes in schedule and the emotions connected to life in general and relationships in particular kind of make it hard to write regularly. So...yeah. I know many of you, my readers, are praying for me, and I appreciate that so much.

I have an exciting new semester of classes. Here's my schedule:
Monday/Wed/Friday
8:25 am - Christian Evidences (with Mr. Iverson) - new teacher, interesting topic, although it's not new stuff, I'm hoping to become more equipped to remember and be able to relay this information to unbelievers
9:20 am - Ecclesiology (with Mr. Glock) - study of the church with Grandpa Glock...every class is just an encouragement listening to his teaching, his encouragement, his love for the Lord and the Word
1:25 pm - Methods in TESOL II (with Mr. Harrison) - my last TESOL class!
Tuesday/Thursday
12:40 pm - Christology/Pneumatology (with Dr. MacLeod) - doctrine of Christ and of the Holy Spirit
2:00 pm - Personal Evangelism (with Mr. Hernandez) - really great class...talking about Jesus and the Gospel...of COURSE it's great! :)

I have lots of good reading, so that's a nice change, as last semester I didn't have much reading - more projects and papers. A friend of mine brought me new highlighters from Japan over Christmas, and they're getting lots of good use. Seven lovely, bright colors...ever see a red highlighter? :) I also got a new Bible for Christmas, a beautiful, just-right-sized ESV, so I'm having a lovely time discovering God's Word again in a new setting and new phrases. :) It is quickly becoming "claimed" as my own Bible. :)

Sooo....we have started planning our trip to Mexico hard core, now! One opportunity that may be available is teaching!! Some of us on the team may have the opportunity to teach classes to the believers in Mexico covering things that we are learning here at Emmaus. Oh my word!!! That's like my life dream! I never ever thought there was the possibility of being able to teach on a mission trip. I would love to teach, so I'm praying that we'll be able to do that. Please pray about that! :)

We'll need to be buying our tickets within probably a month or less. There are quite a few who are planning to go, and only a couple have the money as of right now, so please pray that the Lord will provide and that people will be willing to share financially with the team. There are also several who have yet to decide 100% whether or not they're going to come with us, so please pray that the Lord would give them wisdom and direction. Also, please pray for our work on the Spanish language. Right now, I'm pretty tired, and it's hard to work on a language, feeling unmotivated, along with the rest of school and church family responsibilities.

So, those are some requests you can be lifting up before the Lord.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.