an added crisis, English aches and proper placement

The Easley's made it back to the States safely, and our visiting professor who planned to come tomorrow cancelled yesterday.  This is the second visiting professor who has had to cancel for April, totaling 60 hours of teaching that suddenly needs covered!  Lucner and Matt "flipped for it" this morning and are each rather anxiously attacking 30 hours of classroom time...a HUGE amount of preparation!

Matt will be teaching Inductive Bible Study and Lucner, Civil Rights.  I'm very thankful for these guys and everyone's continual willingness to sacrificially help out when needed.  They are both also feeling the weight of their master's studies, administrative tasks, and the other courses that they are both teaching...please be praying for us!

Sofie is officially 30 weeks along (see the girls' blog here) , Lily and Dodo and I are all feeling better, Matt is on his way to town now to preach at an English chapel service that a friend is having, the heat keeps ramping up and life continues to be a busy joy.

Today's English class was especially fun.  We just began Unit 12, which talks about emotional, spiritual and physical health and problems.  It begins with learning the parts of the body, which had me bent over with laughter.

No one ever mastered the pronunciation of "thumb", which has lots of non-Creole sounds in it, and there were lots of good questions, like "Teacher, are mouth and belly synonyms?", "Can I add -ache to any body part if it hurts, like back-ache, elbow-ache and buttocks-ache?" followed by "What is a buttocks?" and "Why is your small finger called a pinkie?" and "What do you call a sixth finger if you have a sixth finger?"

It is also April's Fools Day in Haitian culture, as well, and I always get particularly nailed being rather gullible.  The favorite joke every year seems to be to tell someone that someone else was looking for them, and then laughing hysterically whenever the two people find each other and didn't need each other at all.  I fell for this at least 4 times this morning.  Junior got me particularly well, but then his dear conscious bothered him too much during prayer time in chapel and he left the service to find me and to apologize :)

This morning's "Utmost" reading nailed my days struggle again...

Look at our current circumstances.  Do crises which affect us or others in our home, business, country or elsewhere, seem to be crushing in on us?  Are we being pushed out of the presence of God and left with no time for worship?


If so, we must put a stop to such distractions and get into such a living relationship with God that our relationship with others is maintained through the work of intercession, where God works his miracles.  


Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will.  We run ahead of Him in 1001 activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God, and we fail to intercede.  If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of worship, it will only produce a hardness towards God and despair in our own souls.    


God continually introduces us to people in whom we have no interest, and unless we are worshiping God the natural tendency is to be heartless towards them...giving them a quick verse of Scripture or leaving them with a hurried, uncaring word of counsel before we go.  A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord.


Are our lives in the proper place?

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!"

busy, beach, burden

This past weekend was a busy one and the week has started much the same! The internet drama continues, so hopefully this blog will make it up sometime.

We enjoyed Friday night with Don, making plans for his team coming down in April, and then saw him off early Saturday morning.  No one was happy to see him go, but Lily had huge tears streaming down her cheeks and broke my heart.  I'm so thankful that despite His faraway calling on our lives, He still gives us precious times with family.  We are thankful for family in Lily's Haiti life!  She loves her Uncle Don, and is already talking about how he will "be back soon!"

Don and Maxi

 the guys scheming early Saturday morning

Saturday, we headed out with the Easley's and Hubeles for the beach.   Traffic (see below)  meant that it took 2 hours to get there, but once there, it's always worth the trip.  We had a fun day, supper together at our house that night and at least Matt, Lily and I went promptly to bed.

Lizzie and Lily both look so tired!

from left to right: Leslie Easley, Sarah E., Jacob E., Brian and Lizzie, Josephine H., Matt & Lil, John and Rachelle Hubele, Jacob H., and Ben E.  

Yesterday, Matt and Bryan headed to Vilmer's church in town while Leslie, Bubba and Dodo and the kids and I walked to Saccanville's Maranatha Church.  After all this talk of how much cooler it has been this spring, yesterday ended all that.   "Haiti" hit...it was hot and humid and is again today!

Heavy on my heart today is Konpech.  Upon Junior's arrival there yesterday afternoon, he was asked not to return again.  I'll sit down with Junior tomorrow to learn more about how things transpired and to spend some time in prayer with him over this people group, but I can't seem to put them out of my mind...Neither can He.

Please keep praying for this zone and for this precious and fragile opportunity to share Christ.

trusting Him to do what He does

Things that are making today a beautiful day: 

1- After 5 days without, the internet is finally up and running again!

2- I received a bag of Valentine's Day conversation heart candy yesterday from my aunt.  Oh yeah.

3- "Duncle Don" is a Machine.  He knocked out my "Hunnie Do" list within 2 hours of arrival, he's now knocking out tons of unfinished projects in the men's dorm, and he's preparing supplies and work for a team from Sharptown Church coming in April!  And chasing Lily around the house.

4- Everyone is enjoying the Easely's being here, especially Lily who is blissfully loving having 6 children to play with each day.  

5- Dodo and Bubba definitely make the list, while they do laundry, clean and cook for the Easley family, all tasks which in their absence, fall on Matt and I...A BIG job for such a busy time!  I retract all previous indirect blog statements that may or may NOT have been about them being old.  

6- Clear reminders of His faithfulness.  

It's that 6th blessing that truly changes life.  Everytime someone or a situation encourages me to "step out on faith" I think of that scene in Indiana Jones where he stands before a bottomless canyon.  About 15 feet away, he can see the doorway and the passage where he needs to go, but there is NOTHING between him and that doorway.  

However, his guide book tells him he must take a leap of faith.  His father's life is at stake (and his father happens to be heart-throb Sean Connery, so...yeah, this is important!) so closing his eyes, he steps off the cliff.  Two feet below him, he lands on a stone bridge so perfectly camouflaged that you couldn't see it until you were standing on it.  

Two weeks ago, something truly devastating hit our little family.  Trust was destroyed, an intimate relationship deeply bruised, and a lot of pain and uncertainty involved.  This, time and time again and every time, whether apparent or not, is what sin does.  It ruins all basis for relationship, causes separation, and hurts everyone involved, not just the person who choose the sin.

For these past two weeks, we have stewed, talked, prayed and pondered what our response to the situation needed to be, and how in the world we were going to live with whatever that response was.  On Friday afternoon, the Lord planted Lucner in my mind, and all weekend when I thought about the situation, I felt clearly that I needed to "talk to Lucner."  

So, Monday morning we shared the situation with him, and I knew based on our relationship, history and respect for Lucner as a Godly and wise man, and the clear way that I had been directed to him, that pretty much whatever he advised, we would probably follow. 

And he gave us good and Godly counsel.  And I knew it was good and Godly as I heard it.  But it was also heartbreaking counsel, and I was crying before he even finished, knowing that what we needed to do would be one of the hardest things I've done, and that it would leave us having some major needs with NO plans or even ideas on how to meet them.

So yesterday, for the sake of something worth it--His holiness, in a heap of tears--I stepped out of the doorway seeing no bridge below me.  It was so darn painful that I cried more yesterday than I have in months (I am also 29 weeks pregnant...might have something to do with it :).  And as soon as my foot left that ledge, I doubted.  

We had done the wrong thing.  What was I thinking?  How could something so painful for everyone be the right thing?  What in the WORLD were we going to do now?  How in the world were our needs going to be met?  

And you know what?  NOT because I had at all merited it, but just because He is Faithful, He was.  Almost immediately, He sent the perfect person at the right time with words of His perfect peace and assurance.  Almost immediately, He sent a solution, a GREAT solution, for our pressing needs.  And a few hours later, He sent an additional solution.

Though I was afraid and doubted, He helped us step out on faith nonetheless, and then blessed us immediately for it.  Met us, as promised.

When I say, "step out on faith", I'm talking not talking about faith that it would be ok.  ONLY talking about Faith in Him.  

I had faith (though my emotions didn't match it) that if He knows when every sparrow falls, He would take care of me, take care of my little ones.  If He clothes each flower, that He would care for the situation, and each person involved.  Though I saw no possible way that it could be ok.  

It has me wondering this morning...HOW MANY TIMES do I suffer the consequences of NOT having that faith?  How often have I, AM I, missing out on completely impossible to foresee-- yet PERFECT-- blessings, answers and parts of my life, because I was never willing to step out on HIS faithfulness?

Because I didn't TRULY trust Him?  Or because I only truly trust Him when I can clearly see in advance some possible things He could do about it?  

What a lesson I am learning (again/still) about He and I.  Do I trust Him with our lives or not?  Do I trust Him with Lily and Sofie, or not?  Do I trust Him with Emmaus?  With the students? With the staff?  With the future?  Is it all mine, or is it His?  And if it is His, do I trust Him to take care of it?

If trusting Him was comfortable, well, then it just wouldn't be following Christ.  It hasn't been comfortable yet, and I don't imagine it will be in the days ahead.  

Let me encourage you, and please keep encouraging me: whatever we are each facing, in our lives, in our jobs, or even just in our hearts -- trust Him with it completely taking whatever leap of faith in Him that we are avoiding...allowing Him to do what He does best, the impossible and the perfect.