the Ohio State Fair!!

children's choir...made from butter 

Aunt Bex, our best friend and my room-mate from college, came in today to hang out for a few days! 

at this point, Sofie was exhausted :)

lots in life and parallel living

Bryan, Leslie and the kids head out tomorrow, so these last few days have been filled with lots of meetings, last second questions, decisions, changes and discussions.

Lily, and Jacob and Josephine, are really going to miss the 4 youngest Easleys!  Life has been so much more enjoyable for each of them because of having each other.  Leslie's camera was stolen yesterday off of her wrist while taking a picture...and yet they are still sad to go!

We have a visiting professor coming in Saturday, Dodo has been down sick with some kind of Haitian contamination, and suddenly tons of "year end" stuff is on our plates:  Spring EBS newsletter (want one? email me your address), creating a DVD for presentations this summer, personal spring newsletter (want one? email me your address), preparing for registration in April for classes in the fall, preparing for graduation, creating wedding invites and programs for 2 students (why do I always say 'yes' to everything???), pushing to get through as much material as possible before final exams, working through some issues EBS's financial system is having...you get the picture.

Also, today is my dear friend Elisa's birthday (Happy B-day, EJ!) and if you are not following my room-mate's blog of her life and His ministry in a closed country, you are missing out on some unbelievably touching and heartbreaking photojournalism...If I had no Lily, no husband, wasn't pregnant, and had a visa, I would be on a plane right now to join her.


After meeting with Junior some yesterday, he shared that the women of Konpech have been "firmly asked" by the men of Konpech to stop meeting with the Christians.  For their own welfare, they have requested that we stop coming.    

"Junior, I'm sorry," I said deeply and earnestly.  "What a discouraging day."

"What?" he said, with a grin.  "I'm not discouraged!  This isn't MY thing!  They're His, preaching the Gospel is His, leading me to Konpech was His...He knew this would happen and He's still taking care of it.  I'll continue to be in prayer, and when it is time to return again, I will go!  Not discouraged!"

Ah, so many days I wish I was more like Junior...which is really just saying that I wish I was more like Jesus, like Junior is.  I am so easily discouraged and so quick to forget that none of this is mine.  I'm always trying to hold His gifts in clenched fists instead of in palms of outstretched hands.

If it's all His and I trust Him, then I have no right to be discouraged by the ways of man.  Junior is outwardly living parallel with his inward faith in who He is.  

As my loving and straightforward friend Sharon would tell me after receiving a discouraged, doubting email: "Go read your own blog!"

will it be worth it?

I had a fun blog prepared for tonight with stories of a blessed weekend and a joyful evening this evening with dear friends. But before I began, I checked up on a few friends' blogs, and have to share with you Bex's tonight, instead of mine, because it resonates within my soul and speaks to my heart of hearts and encourages me to the depths of my soul in every way that I need encouraged.

I know it's long, but grab your coffee, shut the door, and spend a few minutes setting your mind on things above and not on earthly things...it will be worth it.

"I have really high expectations of what heaven and the new and fulfilled earth will be like.

I believe we’ll start with telling our stories. We’ll hear the stories we’ve all heard before and the stories no one knows.

Last week two local guys in this country were brutally murdered while trying to share Jesus with their neighbors. They both left wives, small children, neighbors and fellowships already struggling in a difficult land. And I don’t even know their names.

But someday we’ll hear those stories, we’ll hear the full story of injustice, the raw, bitter details of pain. I believe each person will tell their whole life story – from beginning to end – the victories, the failures, the hurts and the joys – and not just the stories, but the thoughts, intentions and feelings in each event. They will each be assisted in the telling by the persons who shared in each part of their life.

And we will all sit and listen – and instead of thinking about ourselves or judging or feeling guilty or being bored, we will be active participants in those stories – weeping in the pain, sharing broken humanity in sins, celebrating in the happy moments. We will be unashamed and unhindered to be honest with God. After each story, after the weight of each life is fully understood, then God will retell the story.

And he will show us what really happened, what was really going on that we couldn’t see. He will show us the reasons for the brokenness, he will show us the overwhelming grace to cover our sins. He will make the connections and add meanings and explain our lives in ways we cannot understand now.

And he will redeem every injustice, every loss, every tear, and it will be worth it. And when he finishes telling our stories for us, we will cheer…we will dance and laugh and celebrate in a way that we never could if there hadn’t been such pain in the first place.

Then I believe we’ll worship. All of us together will worship the Lord, the God of all creation, the Savior of us, the Guider of our hearts. There will be moments of faces pressed to the ground in submission, moments of jumping and screaming for joy, moments of singing in unison, moments of singing our own songs, moments of wild dancing and moments of quiet reflection. And the Lord will be glorified. He will be pleased with his creation, with his bride.

There will be songs and chants and prayers of every language, every cultural style, every variety – and we will practice those songs, and invent new ones for all of eternity and it will still barely begin to express who the Lord is. And our voices, our hearts in unison – people of every tribe, every nation, every family – along with all of creation, the trees and rocks and birds and goats – will worship and praise and exalt the Lord.

I believe we will be completely at home. We will be and know that we are completely accepted by God. Completely known. Completely understood. We will be completely comfortable with ourselves – no more self-doubt, no more shame or guilt – a complete freedom so that we don’t have to think or try to connect with God or each other.

We will no longer miss anyone – the best most joyous moments of our lives will be all strung together into eternity without breaks. We will know each other fully. We won’t have to worry about language or cultural formats to share with each other – there will be no more misunderstandings. We will no longer ache for home or long for completeness – everything that we have ever hoped will be fulfilled. We will be whole.

And I believe we will be holy. Our sins, our sinful patterns of life, our habits of mediocrity will be fully washed away by the blood of the Lamb. We will be completely made new – in body and spirit. We will no longer be trapped or limited, but we will be sanctified by him. We will praise God with no thought of ourselves and yet with our whole being.

I believe we will know God. I don’t think that we’ll completely understand him – he will still be bigger than us, incomprehensible to our minds. And it will be the joy of eternity to continue to grow, to continue to grasp who He is, to continue to understand Him in new ways. But it won’t be as hard as it is here. Our eyes will be completely open, our hearts freed. There will be less distractions and we will completely be new creations, the holiness process completed.

We will be able to sit with and physically hold, for as long as we need to, the Jesus who died for us. We will be able to hear the Spirit with unblocked ears and purified hearts. We will be able to chat with our Father about creating the earth and loving us too much. We will be able to touch and see and feel God with new senses – unlimited by gravity and sin and time.

I believe that everyday we will be completely aware of how impossible and too good to be true God is. The earth will seem tiny and far away – it will have still shaped us and brought us to the Father, but in the light of Him everything else will seem insignificant. The overwhelming situations of earth, the pain we feel everyday will be gone. We will see only God – his holiness, his unfailing love, his unlimited grace, his radical salvation, HIM. And everything else will fall into proper perspective.

Everything will be worth it – everything will be redeemed. The hours of light will be enough, the rain will be sufficient for the desert ground, the beauty will not fade, the moments of laughter will not end, the feeling of home will endure. And we will drink and eat until we are full…finally, completely full. And there will be no more shadows of doubts that HE IS.

That’s what I believe heaven will be like…

And that is the reason I live in north Africa. Not because I always want to, not because I love it, not even because I have to, but because I believe it will be worth it – someday. I believe that people deserve to know that there is life, that there is a choice, that there is a Redeemer who will make up for all of this. He will pay us back, and we will eat until we are full.

It is worth it, friends. Push hard on the gates of hell, throw off hindrances, run hard and long and far, believe against all logic and hope, remember that the best of everything we have now is only a taste and someday we will be complete, take that radical jump you’ve always wanted to – move to the inner-city, ‘waste’ your life loving people who don’t believe, give away everything you have, let people think you’re crazy, focus only on our Savior – it is worth it. He is worth it."

Pushing hard, believing against all logic and hope with eyes fixed on Him...