A Different Way to Battle!

You know those days when you feel like everything is a battle? Everyone knows what I mean, the weeks when you've had everything pile up and you feel like a very, very tired little warrior? Well this is where I woke up today. The battles I'm fighting now include still working carefully with immigration, the appropriate responses to hurricane season both for ministry and safety, a budget reevaluation that leaves me needing to raise about double what we're working with and missing Ben, my family and all of you that I love! 

The kids are pretty much all off-island getting school stuff together and ready, leaving me with a week to do some much needed cleaning, laundry and catching up on emails!! Great right...no, it's been a looooooong week encountering and uncovering each of the battles I told you about above. I finally woke up this morning, stressed and heavy from a week of trying to figure out how to beat all of these things, knowing that something had to give...

Today I choose to battle a new way-by praising Him! Yep that right...by laying down my armor and worshiping my Savior!! Let me explain:

I have found a church that I love, mainly because it is made up of broken people like me trying to do the best they can with what they have been given. When I'm there I'm not the new, young, sort-of-different white girl that I feel like alot of the time. When I'm there I'm just a broken girl with a love for her Lord, and impossible dreams to change the world for Him, and I'm in the company of others who want the same thing. Our pastor is very real with us and calls us to impossible things, recently those have included praising Him when you're broken and battling and don't really feel like it.

Well today I switched from my battle stance and gave this a try instead...and I can't stop!!

It doesn't matter that immigration doesn't want to make it easy for me to be here...Jesus fought death for my sake.

It doesn't matter that the storms will come and we have to deal with them as they do..."Who is this man that even the winds and the waves obey Him?"

It doesn't matter that we have more fundraising to do than I know what to do with...God provides all our needs in His own way and His own timing, "God himself will provide the lamb"

As soon as I turned my heart to praise Him, things change, mountains of stress and anxiety are moved, and all that's left is this girl with her arms open wide, loving Him and loving these people He has called me to!

Try it...right where you are, take a break from the battle, remember the Gospel-the victory that is already ours, remember how loved you are by the One that matters most...remember why we're here-to praise Him!!!

...you may just find that when the battle picks back up, you have the strength and confidence you need to face it head on!!!

Beautiful Promises

“Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah was He had promised.” ~Genesis 21:1

Ben and I are reading through Genesis right now and one of the things that we are noticing most is that God is always faithful to his promises, and in Genesis He makes a lot of them! Almost all the stories we are reading are about God calling people, people trusting Him in really hard things and God doing great things in and through their lives.

We have a chance to live this now. We really believed God has called us to this, He has promised us great things- that kids here will get to know and love Him in a new beautiful way- if we will lay down our lives and let Him work…and we’re trusting Him because we know His promises are good. It’s not adequate but I want to thank all of you for your prayers and support and walking with us as we follow Him!

Some updates:

The last couple weeks with the Raleigh girls here have been wonderful! Hope and McRae left about 2 weeks ago and Anna left Tuesday. They not only were a familiar comfort to me as I am meeting people and settling in here but they were a wonderful reminder of what it looks like to love people across age, racial, cultural and economic boundaries. We met tons of friends and everyone was sad to see them go because they had loved so well. We were at a bonfire Monday (Anna’s last night) and my friend Tammy looked at her and said to me, “I didn’t think it was possible but I think she may fit in as well or better than you even did when you first came here!!” I love watching these girls that I have seen grow up embrace the idea that God loves all and watch as they live that out in where ever He places them, our God is a global God and I think we are understanding that better than ever now!

I want ya’ll to know people here, so I decided I would give you a couple of my new friends each week to be praying for and this week there is a group of 5 girls going into grade 9 that I can’t wait for ya’ll to meet! They are all amazing girls, and I've only just scratched the surface of knowing the incredible young women that they are and will be! We come from different cultures and different places but we laugh at the same things and most days that's what friendship looks like!! So without further ado:

Keitra is my neighbor across the street. She loves me well and has come to hang with me and check on me every day! I prayed for a friend here and she has really become that! She’s seen my tears when friends leave, laughed with (and at) me as I fumble through life here, and met all of my family and some friends over skype. She is also coming to my wedding (and helping plan it), we’re already looking at plane tickets! Her grammy owns the ice cream shop in the settlement that has the best Rum Raisin ice cream ever!

Nija lives a couple houses behind me, on the way to the cliffs behind my house. She works for my friend (her aunt) Pam and is one of the most adventurous girls I have met here. She and Anna were two peas in a pod, jumping from the tallest cliffs, swimming til they were exhausted and laughing through it all. For all of my friends from college who know what I mean what when I say that she has my “scream” down pat…you should hear it, it’s uncanny!

                                          (No picture yet!)

Nell is my next door neighbor, her mom Rebecca is another friend of mine. Nell has actually been in Nassau the last couple months that I have been here so I haven’t met her in person yet, but our facebook chats lead me to believe that we will be great friends. I mean, she likes Say Yes to the Dress and that may or may not have been all that my roommates and I watched our junior year of college!!

Lisa is actually the only one that doesn’t live in our settlement, she lives about 30 minutes away in JC. But she is actually the reason I was introduced to the other four in the first place! She is spunky and loves to listen to music. She is off island now til school starts and I miss her! Her cousin is dating one of my closest friends down here, Valencia and that’s how we met in the first place.

And finally, Ashley is Lisa’s best friend and a beautiful girl inside and out! She likes to laugh and is very sweet to be around. She is involved with the Catholic church here and her relationship with her big sister Travante reminds me a lot of me and Emily growing up. Her boyfriend Shawnie is also in high school with them and they are so stinkin cute/fun together!

A couple weeks ago I was broken up thinking about the work permit trouble (which is being processed as we speak, yayyy) and all these plans unraveling, now looking back and spending time with these friends and others, I can’t believe I ever doubted God’s hand in this timing. I’m holding my time, relationships, finances, plans and heart in open outstretched hands and God is putting them together in a way I could never have planned for or dreamed of…what an incredible God we serve-I trust His promises!!