holding us up

An awful lot of little things all piled up have had me discouraged the last few days. Very best efforts feeling like no where near enough, my incessant desire to please others and never quite being able to, some basic struggles with the basics: fuel (there is none) and water (with mud, from the faucets) and internet (if I stand on one foot in the exact right six foot area) sickness (all four kiddos are coughing and dripping) and chocolate (our supply was exhausted weeks ago, the only thing lower than our fuel supply) adding time and frustrations and complications to already very full days.

Add some students who are genuinely struggling with complicated lives and situations that we don't know HOW to help, add in a whole country's worth of people struggling to get bills paid for children for school, starting September 9th, add in continued battles to get things done and keep moving forward with honor and integrity in a country where everything is done through corruption, bribes and fear, Micheline being in Port-au-Prince again for two weeks, Matt leaving on Saturday...

and things in Haiti are not good.  really really not good...we need your prayers.

I could write you a long list of why I'm heavy, but it doesn't lighten the load.

I'll give you a list instead of how He's holding us up.

Nikki is safely and finally here, which means that instead of leaving for work with total chaos and doubt that the girls will knock out their school lists the best they can before I come back at noon and spend from one-five working on fifth grade Math...

...that I leave the house with Nikki ushering the girls to quality and thorough and patient education and come home to being able to spend time with my children and cook dinner for visitors together and play with Ben and Nora instead of trying to entertain them while I work with the big girls. When I headed for teaching yesterday morning ON time and with Ben chattering happily with Micheline and the girls wrapping up morning devotions with Nikki, I was SO INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL.  

For this priceless moment I have prayed and prayed and prayed, and the fact that Nikki is here to help us is God's grace and provision and nothing else. 

I am thankful for wonderful 2-week intensive courses, and have heard SUCH good things from our students about them. 

I am thankful for all the student interviews and testimonies I was able to be a part of those two weeks I wasn't teaching, and to better know how to be praying for and preparing our people!

I am thankful for how the Lord gives us who and what we need.  For TiLou, sitting at a gas station in Limbay from 1-4 am Saturday morning to get us a few gallons of fuel that was delivered.  For Dr. Ray, who is here as the Dean of Education and Leadership, who miraculously fixed our increasingly major water problem of the last few weeks that none of us could figure out.  I am deeply thankful for men and women in our lives who are continually willing and ready to help, who aren't saying, "That's not my job" or "You're going to have to find someone else" but who are pouring themselves out simply for the encouragement and help of others.  

I am thankful for all the little sweet moments every day, even when they are saturated with boogies, even when sick kids or having 8 dozen children at our house has lots of extra grace needed.  I'm thankful for friends for our children, I'm thankful for the conviction God gave us before Lily could speak that our children MUST learn to speak Creole fluently, so that they could have genuine friendships and meaningful playdates and be at HOME as foreigners who don't realize they're foreigners...for priceless moments every day that are possible because He has helped us pursue that conviction and has provided for it, over and over.  

I'm thankful that at night, the air cools just a little bit, and for kiddos and puppies who love to walk the campus and chat with staff and students and look for where God was a work throughout the day.  I'm thankful for a place of peace for our staff and students, for our children, I'm thankful to have, and to BE, that place of peace...all the more reason to give our burdens to the Lord and lift up our praise.

Matt and I are both thankful to be teaching again. Matt was MADE to teach and kicked off Psalms with fourth year yesterday, one of his very favorites, and Introduction to the Bible with first year students today.  He blooms teaching God's Word and comes out of it energized and passionate.

And I was made to community, and opportunities like teaching to go deeper, to build relationships, to give and learn, to walk like alongside each other, to laugh together bless me.  I love getting to know our first year students well like this each year, and the relationships that carry on for years after.

He's holding us up.

When I'm letting people down, He's not. When I'm weary and discouraged, He's not. When I'm fragile, when I'm helpless, when I'm needy...He's not.

When we can't count on governments, can't count on fuel, can't count on water, can't count on chocolate :), can't count on others, can't count on ourselves...He reminds us again and again we can count on Him. 

He is the Lord, there is no other, and His Word carries me. I am so thankful for His priceless Word. May it carry us together, today!