the road to Jesus

 It has been incredibly wet, and I drove through the worst flash flooding I have ever experienced getting Aunt Sharon from the airport Wednesday morning...so thankful for the policemen and firemen who helped in several spots that the car was drifting in high and rushing waters...a lot of people struggling in Jackson and many other places in the US and world with water right now!

Saturday, our newly grass-cutting 13 year-old ran the lawn mower over the still-waiting-and-unburied internet line, so we've been unable to communicate, but I am so thankful for those of you who reached out. We are doing fine, lots of schools and businesses cancelled these next few days due to water issues, but we are safe and dry and THANKFUL for the last few days of unpredicted SUNSHINE.  

I am ALWAYS thankful for sunshine...but especially this week.

Can I share the coolest testimony with you?

A bunch of years ago, these guys moved to Haiti to live and serve alongside us at Emmaus. We didn't know them much or well, but the Lord quickly used them to befriend, comfort, encourage, refresh and restore us.  We LOVED serving alongside of them, and I can honestly say that the five years we lived almost every element of life together were sweet and godly and the BEST Biblical community. We were overjoyed a few years in when Ethan wanted to be baptized, and Matt had the chance to be a part of that in the Caribbean. It was such a special day, and I loved my littles being there and seeing that.

Ethan left Haiti before they did, heading to college in Jersey and we all just missed him.  Over the years, new jobs, experiences, friends...doubts that he had long struggled with came between he and the Lord, and when he came down to Jackson in January and stayed with us for a few days to attend the wedding of a mutual New Jersey friend, he confessed to us that he no longer considered himself a Christ-follower.

We started praying for him daily, always reminded by Lily and Sofie, who have always been enamored with and looked up to Ethan. While he was in Mississippi, we encouraged him to consider moving down... NOT because moving to Mississippi made any sense (I still don't know what we're doing here most days :), but because both Wesley Biblical Seminary and our church, Foundry, supply rich community of genuinely Christ-following 18-30 year olds, and we knew he could find some of the community he was looking for, if he was willing to take that crazy leap of faith.

We kept praying, continually, and early summer, he did.

Ethan from Jersey, same home church as Matt, Ethan from Haiti, next door all those years, moved in with our pastor 15 minutes away. And it's been a joy these months to have him in our small group, at church, in our home...praying with him, working through questions, loving him, trusting HIM.  

Last Thursday night he texted us that he was off the loop of doubts and indecision and given his full heart to Jesus, all in. Friday night, Lily showed up at youth group, and Ethan was there to help lead. This past Sunday, with Aunt Sharon here too, Ethan was baptized at Foundry. 

Every time I sit beside him at small group, I marvel at how we spent years in Haiti in Wednesday prayer group and now sit somehow in Jackson, still listening to Matt teach. Having him full-circle... leading Lily's youth group just baffles me. 

But remembering his first baptism as a youth on that beach surrounded by family, and then listening to him confess his faith and watching him be baptized Sunday surrounded by family? I was losing it. Matt couldn't help me because HE was losing it. To have Sharon next to me, all the sweeter.

It reminded me that this is what it is all, all about. 

Not where we live, though I miss my heart home just deeply. Not what we have, not who we're with, not how we do, nor where we go. Not what we make or wear, not even how we serve or all the things we do. It is ALL ABOUT people coming to KNOW Him...genuine, true, transformed. It's all about doing all we can alongside Him to urgently and naturally and fully point people to the God pursing them. 

I don't know how God brought it all full circle with Ethan from Jersey to Haiti to Jackson, but, I DO KNOW that He. has. been. at. work. all this time and was never finished.

I continue to feel--all the time--sad that my best years unto Him are behind me. 

I know that sounds stupid to you, I know you think that's ridiculous...have you never felt that way? My heart and mind just have never stopped feeling made for the foreign missionfield...and every day further from it feels further from the best years of sharing Jesus.

But you know what? I have been determined no matter where I am to be. His. missionary., and there is NO PLACE IN THE WORLD I woulda rather been Sunday than right where He had me.

Walking alongside people on the road to Jesus is the sweetest place there is.