September Updates!!

This post starts the beginning of a new blogger!! One who posts alot, shares more about her life and ministry, and attempts to share this journey with you guys on a more regular basis...hold me to it!!

This past month started with a visit from my husband-to-be. And it was wonderful! Everyone knew he was coming and people stopped us all over to meet him! His birthday was Sunday and we celebrated with a 3 hour back-to-school church service and a thunderstorm that kept us in, instead of the birthday dinner plans I had (no worries the storm cleared a couple days later and an awesome dinner out happened!)

We planned his coming with the start of school so he got to go with me to meet with teachers, administration and welcome the students to school with brownies...brownies that we made at 4am so they'd be warm, yum!!

The rest of the week included lunch with a friend and her son, spending time with a missionary family on Spanish wells who is here working with the Haitian refugee camps, introducing Ben to the people and places he hadn't gotten to visit when he moved me in and figuring out yet more of the logistics of our new life!

At the risk of being ridiculous, I have to take a moment to say, life is better with Ben here. Not only does he solve the loneliness factor, but it is just easier to deal with life here when there is someone to tackle it with. I knew that would be true in my head but it is really something to see God's faithfulness in this area play out. I knew I loved that man but I didn't realize how perfectly God designed us to fit together so that we do His will with more ease, effectiveness and grace...I can't wait to share my life with him!

The next week I was stateside for a Staff Conference in Virginia. While all of the training and information was really helpful, what moved me to tears was the worship. And then it hit me...that was the only time since I left and probably the only time til I come home for the holidays that I would get to  worship the Lord in a room of believer's that had a faith that looked like mine. Now don't get me wrong, my church here is amazing and their worship is powerful, but it's still foreign and there is something sweetly comforting and moving about a roomful of people singing praise songs you grew up with in an accent and manner that you share. A later blogpost will be needed to explain those thoughts, but for now all that needs to be said it that is was exactly what I needed!

I got to finish the time stateside with Ben and our families, a touch of wedding planning and surprise appearance at one of my best friend's engagement party. Thank you Lord for sweet time at home!

The next few days were a whirlwind of getting my long-awaited work visa, visiting with our Young Life group in Freeport and a first meeting with a couple of rockstars in Nassau that are going to begin a Young Lives ministry . The Lord is moving!

The couple of weeks I have been back on island have been full steam ahead! Between opening the new ministry in Nassau, settling into a school routine and continuing to get the leadership on Eleuthera together, there hasn't been much time to sit and catch up.

Some big things that the Lord put on my heart this month were following through doors that He opens and creating a life well lived outside of ministry (sustainability).

Being sensitive to the Lord's direction is something I have had on our prayer requests for a while and I can tell you guys are placing that before the Lord because He is working on me. Ministry flows better when I don't blunder ahead but take time to stop and pray and listen. Many of you may be like "duh Sarah", but I can tell you honestly I am STILL learning this DAILY. Is a frustrating process but the Lord is using it to refine me for His work and for that I am very grateful.

As far as creating a life well lived: Alot of people that I trust and admire have sought out time to ask me what life outside of ministry looks like...almost as if they already know my answer. For now there isn't really such a thing. I am struggling to put up good boundaries and find genuine friends, things that are necessary for sustainability in ministry and frankly, peace and joy in daily life. This is a huge part of what God and I are working through in my time with Him and your prayers on it will be much appreciated. Specific things to pray for would be one or two friends that are in the same stage in life as me with the same faith...its amazing what you can conquer when you have someone to share it with and that is something I am realizing I definitely need here.

With that life-well-lived, I have also been advised to not discount the toll that being engaged while in two separate countries/cultures with a sketchy skype connection can be having, whether I want to admit it or not. Please pray with Ben and I as we do our best to honor God's call to each other and this huge step of marriage in the same way that we are honoring this difficult call to ministry here! That I don't ever put the second above the first, which has been a tendency, but to seek God's directing in our engagement and marriage the same way I would in ministry, knowing that family comes first and then we approach this call to ministry together. Pray that priorities and practicalities line up with the Lord's will for us this year!!

Whew, a whirlwind view of ministry and life which reflects the whirlwind of things in my heart right now. Ben and I loved walking through the good, bad and crazy parts of life and ministry with you guys and we are more thankful for your prayers and support than you would ever know.

This ministry would not be possible without the part each of you play in it and I can't think of people I am more excited to be in it with than you guys surrounding us now!

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!!