prayers

I don't have any pictures to prove it, but the Edler family made it safely today, as did Rick and Carol! While they are all exhausted, it is so wonderful to have Bill and Julie here with us, along with their sons Sam (2) and Joel (4 months).  We lived with Julie in 2008-9 and again in 2011, and Bill has been a visiting professor here at Emmaus several times!  We're thrilled to now have them here together, and the girls are excited to have some new friends (with Northern Irish accents) to show the ropes to. Their dad came with them just to help and to love on the boys while they settle--what a gift!

God so incredibly sent us the Heckmans, knowing and providing exactly what we needed and a beautiful part of life and ministry, and now we've been praying with the Heckmans for the Edlers for a very long time...to have them sleeping next door tonight is a surreal answer to prayer!  Please pray for them for their transition!

It's also so good to have Rick and Carol here, Rick to work alongside of Phil, and Carol to help Jodenel and I close up the fiscal year and get ready for a new one!  VERY thankful for her finance mind expertise and ridiculous patience.  I am both blond and continually sleep deprived and very creatively brained--I don't know HOW she does it, working with me without EVER getting short.  She has laughed at me several times.  But never angry :)

I'm so grateful to have heard from so many of you regarding the last post...

Two quick follow up's from those responses.

1--DO NOT QUIT.  If you're in the valley and help doesn't seem to be coming, PERSEVERE.  He is NOT going to leave you there, and you must refuse to walk away until He lifts you out.  DO NOT figure this out on your own, or fix it in your own, but be firmly rooted in Him, waiting. on. Him.  He has a purpose, He has a plan, and He will not leave you there.  Don't move till He moves you.  He will lift you out of it a new person in Him, deeply rooted and changed.

2--I know people can be sucky.  I am one of those sucky people.  I mess up continually, even in the middle of great intentions I often blow it.  We all make lots and lots of mistakes, and God's working on all kinds of things in all different places on each of us.  We don't know where God's working on others.  Trust CHRIST to be at work in their lives.  Cling to grace and extend it.

Trusting God with others has proved a dozen times harder in my life than trusting God with myself.  SURE, I trust Him with me...but what about with one of my girls?  What about that person who is really ripping my heart out right now?  What about with a situation I'm uncomfortable with? What about a group of people who have let me down? What about someone I just don't trust?

It's not ABOUT trusting them anymore than it's about trusting yourself.  It's about trusting Him with them, and keep on.  Take courage, He has overcome.  Love anyway, as He has loved, anyway.  We don't need any other reason.

Thank you for your email prayers and for your encouragement.  Each time I think I'm alone in this, He reminds me that we're in this together.  I PRAY with you as you are praying with me.

Lily's not quiet done yet, but today was Sofie's last day of school!  So proud of this girl...she had another wonderful school year at an incredibly special school with a really special teacher.  I am so thankful for Kids Alive!, for Erin, and for all that she has learned about the world, about relationships, about God, about shapes, colors, numbers, letters...all in Haitian Creole and French alongside of some wonderful kiddos.  She is growing up rich in all the ways I have prayed for, in a classroom with no lightbulb and a straw mat.  Praise the Lord!