Smol tok nomo |
Smol tok nomo |
I recently heard a story from a local Pastor friend of mine. we call him “Oldfella” (a term of respect in the Ni-Van culture). He smiled as he enthusiastically told us of a girl that once came with a mission's group. It was their last day in the area and he was taking a part of the team on an all day trek to and from a village. He pointed at the part of the mountain they had walked as he explained how they had tried to kindly ask the girl not to go on this tedious trek because her health wasn’t very good and they had concerns. The girl insisted on going and then sat down half way through and wanted to wait for them there. They couldn’t leave her behind and had to talk strong to her to keep her going. She passed out a few times and she was too heavy to carry but it was imperative they make it back before dark as the trail on the mountainside wouldn’t be as safe at night. They did make it back but he laughed and laughed at how hopeless they felt trying to convince this American girl to just keep going! I have felt like that a time or two. Convinced and sure of where I was to go, never thinking for a moment I could not make it. Getting out into the middle of it and realizing all that strength I thought I had ran out before the journeys end. Being forced to admit that I needed the Lord’s help just to make it. Sometimes I feel that way as a missionary. Sometimes the task seems mammoth, sometimes I feel inadequate and sometimes I want to sit down and close my eyes and say “just pick me up on your way back because I can’t take another step.” Being a missionary was never my first calling. Being a Christian was. Early on God taught me lessons on loving others, on giving others more grace than myself, on having faith in Him for the impossible, on integrity even if it hurts me, on trusting Him to see when I do whats right even if others can’t and above all letting all that I do flow from love for Him. Am I always perfect as a Christian? No. Certainly not. In fact it is in my failure moments when I say the wrong thing or try to take it upon myself to fix the situations I face in my own strength without a heavenly consult, in these moments I want to sit down on the trail and say “I just can’t” “Not another step.” But what I am learning, albeit slower than most, is that before I will ever be able to complete my second calling as a missionary I must complete my first calling - being a Christian. It was in prayer tonight that a famous saying I have heard many times came to mind, “ Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light” I must be willing to be stretched, be willing to learn from others and choose to focus not only on the positives but to focus on the perfect one - Jesus Christ. So if I am going to sit down let it just be long enough to pray and regain my strength. If I am ever to complete my second calling it will only be when I am completely surrendered to my first calling. Even when the journey doesn’t look how I thought, even if there are times the enemies intentions show up in full strength, I will keep going in my second calling finding strength from my first - my call to Christ.
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Tomorrow makes seven years! Seven years since we said “I do” and found ourselves on the mission field a few months later. Our first anniversary we camped out on a beautiful remote beach and watched the sun rise together right here in Vanuatu.We have spent anniversaries on the road itinerating in cheap little hotels.We have cooked nice dinners at home and celebrated with our kids as a family with false hopes that the baby would go to sleep early. We took one anniversary and spent two nights in Branson. But now we are here - year seven. We are heading out at five a.m. to visit “Hope Christian School” and our work family in the village of Wosayolo. Nate and I have laughed and teased each other today, we caught each other’s eye a few times and we have said “I love you” just because more than once. Pasta Steve asked me to bake a cake for my anniversary. We laugh because Pasta Steve thinks every celebration calls for cake and he isn’t shy about saying so! It has been a good day. Scratch that, a GREAT day!My husband took the left over roast I made and turned it into an amazing ginger beef with curried vegetables. We have felt no pressure to pull off any great anniversary feat tomorrow. It has been real, and relaxed and we are happy. Tomorrow we are going to Wosayolo to visit the school and check on the students and teachers. To encourage them and help them if any problems have arisen in our absence. He will probably lock eyes with me at some point again tomorrow, in the middle of our normal life, just doing what we really love. I am sure at some point he will try to say “I am sorry I didn’t plan this better, or sorry we have no one to leave the kids with or I wish I could have taken you out somewhere fancy.” He will study my face closely to see if I am pouting or if he is failing me in some way and needs to make it up in some big gesture, but all he will find is satisfaction and joy. We will laugh at how bumpy the ride is I will pray out loud as we cross the river. We will listen to Pasta Dick tell all of his great stories of days gone by on the ride there and back.When it is time to leave, my kids will pile into the truck covered in dirt with messy hair and heavy eye lids for the two hour ride home. We will crawl into bed tired and I will sigh a happy sigh knowing I am the luckiest girl in the world. I am living my dream with a man who loves God and his family and in the natural moments that we call life he shows me a million ways how much he loves me. There is no where else in the world I would rather be for our anniversary than right here in the middle of our lives in the middle of our love story written by the one who is at the center of it all. Happy Anniversary Nater Tater :) Nathan and I on our first date since we returned to Vanuatu (left).
Our family being prayed over at our commissioning service (right). “To be like Jesus”
“ He was despised and rejected, of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ” “ To be like Jesus ” “The son of man hath not a place to lay His head” “all I ask” “ that I may know Him …and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformable unto His death..” “ is to be like Him.” I sing the classic chorus “To Be Like Jesus” from time to time. Oh to love like Him, to be selfless like Him, to be pure and Holy like Him! Not bad desires and certainly something to grasp for as feeble as it may be. But do I really realize what I am asking? What does the Bible tell us about the life He lived on earth, the things He suffered, the loneliness He must have felt, never really belonging this side of heaven. With the same breath I say “Oh to be like Him!” I ask “God, why must I suffer?” Why have YOU allowed this trial to come upon me?” I heard another speak just this week about the chisel God uses to make a masterpiece. In such love yet such precision He works on us, His beloved. Yet we must know that it will sometimes hurt when He cuts away at the self, at that last personal “right” we are holding onto, and we say “God, all of it? You are really going to take every bit of me and leave nothing? You are asking me to literally die completely to self?” Do we trust Him? As He chisels a masterpiece with our lives will we walk away and say “not that part” will we hold on to our sufferings and all the wrong done to us and carry it around on display for all to see how we have hurt. Are we crying out to be seen in our pain? Or do we look to Jesus - the author and finisher of our faith. To be like Jesus, does that mean that I become Savior of the world and worthy of the praise of men? Or does it men I die, every single day to self realizing my reward will come in another life? To be like Jesus, to have faith to live for the life to come. To be like Jesus, lonely and going the opposite direction of the masses. To be like Jesus loving my enemies and laying my life down for others. To be like Jesus adored by my heavenly Father. To be like Jesus, laying up treasures for another time and another place. “That is all I ask, is to be like Him” All through life’s journey, from earth to glory, All I ask, is to be like Him.” Friend, “count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worth patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” James 1: 3-4 To be like Him means allowing Him to take His chisel and make a masterpiece “He never wastes our pain.” |
AuthorWife, Mother, Missionary, Teacher, Friend ... just a few of the many titles I gladly wear. Never dreamed this is the journey God would take me on. Archives
July 2022
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