Blogging-- merely an idea for this crazy gal this year... with life in India above our church and with 42 shinning eyes looking to Paul and I....I wonder if I had a day to myself, with power and a good connection--would I be better about it---I doubt it, my style seems too frustrating as I can't keep it to one subject here....so many titles in just an hour here pile up in my mind challenging me to stay on topic here--Sorry in advance, my dear type A friends trying your best to follow...know it's only your love for us you don't give up!!! Sitting here with my laptop on a box so I don't kill my neck ...making the use of another power outage-battery should last a good 40 minutes as I play worship songs while typing with baby at my side.
Another glorious couple weeks in the mountains with our 19 girls has just come to a close... Paul and I returned from our 14 and a half hour journey in the bus with full hearts and at the same time, emotionally spent.
Entire 15 hr days without power, afternoons focused solely on discipline issues with little ones from not liking their teacher--to telling their sister she was an orphan, dealing with staff issues, interviewing for new positions, meeting with pastors, sharing God's Word in the mountains, shopping for our girl's needs in the crazy market place with baby boys, problem solving over candle light with our team, calls for buses and vans and loading them all up one by one for outings to the park and church, even dealing with a dangerous situation my hubs showed his great wisdom in dealing with him once again.
This is the trip that we will never forget....this is the one where I didn't have to wonder with my hubs what his cherished memory was.
Knowing my husband and the way he loves to protect and guard their hearts, I understand how he's waited patiently not wanting to defraud them about our great move to Chennai..though they ask us relentlessly each time we leave...are we coming to your house with Daddy Paul and baby Isaiah and Maciah now?(ah, heart breaker.)
We both have this odd mixture of great anticipation and then a little nervousness too...what if the enemy thwarts our amazing plan for them....and it will be yet another test to trust and give up our dreams. SO many altars with these girls since the beginning of this story when they stole our hearts the year the first were born and rescued.
How many times God Himself revealed His own jealous heart to me of my passion and intensity for these precious ones--(that started back in 2004-my first dip in India)-wanting that for Himself first. Big lesson there.
Then again another game change in 2007 after a failed attempt to help these same children when God reminded me HE is the one who opens and closes the doors. I went to India on a mission determined to help these same babies and when I found myself on the other side of a huge closed door, darkness flooding my heart and an anger I had never known surged in me for the injustice I witnessed.
If I could only have more of an understanding, Lord of Your true sovereignty--that indeed YOU ARE! You are the first and last and beside you there is NO other! YOU are the blessed controller of all things....(Rev. 22:13, Is. 45:5, Tim 1;7) this is at the base of our theology here....and one of the attributes that made me fall for Paul early on. All is in His hands and with this knowledge only I can keep an open hand and open heart...I understand that the focus must always be on the ONE and only...vs. being small minded seeing only the the situation -or the person we think is blocking us or our family from grace in that moment.
With this acceptance that it is God Who parts the sea and moves the waters as He wills on our behalf I had the strength to put down the only thing I wanted years ago--to be a mommy to these girls.
My journal entry in the fall of 2007 on the cement floor of my little rat-hole hotel in Chennai opens with "I have another plan for you, my dear daughter"....Little did I know at the time my God, in His infinite mercy, in His grace and love had Paul in mind for me----first would come marriage--and then the babies. :) First He would demand total submission and abandonment to Himself--not a calling, not a desire to serve--only a desire to see and know Him in His beauty.
First, He wanted to heal the broken places in my heart I had long sealed up, even forgotten. I thought I was there....I had to come to India for God to reveal how many idols I held tightly in the secret places of my soul.
How He convicted and molded my adulterous heart that was married to a calling without me even realizing...
"Bend the knee, my daughter and worship and love and look for My face--not a purpose, not a calling....for I am the One that is here waiting, calling out to you"...
And I thought I sold my things and waited 2 years for the blessing to go and serve in India to care for the needy and the hurting, to be a mother to 'throw-away' babies...
No, indeed--"you came to seek My face", was His gracious and daily reminder in my brokenness..How many idols that needed to be stripped away,
with thankfulness I write this that the Lover of our soul never gives up on us---but sees what I can become and calls me over and over in spite of my own selfishness.
And that is where I met Him all over again as He wooed me in my sorrow on that altar.... the altar where Paul and I were called to set these girls not once or twice, but 4 times with the acceptance that HE may or may not chose to give them to us.
The amazing part of this whole journey with many layers...(I vow to compile in a book for my children one day), in taking on the care of 19 beautiful darlings is that God keeps bringing to the forefront of our hearts that this is HIS glory and He is not willing to share with anyone. It's HIS story.
He is the one who knitted them together in secret in the very wombs of their enemy....He is the ONE Who rescued them, using even corrupt people to save them for their own purposes. Though the enemy schemed their death many times, God meant each attempt to be for the glory of the risen King.
The irony is that my Lord loves His glory and He allows every tear, every test, every injustice that we cry out to HIM for relief from for our very own good when we adore Him. To the praise and honor of HIS own Name-the One that is worthy of all laud, all adoration, all our lives.
It's amazing, He allows us to call out to Him for what He put in place,
He allows us to plead for His mercy-to remove, to tear down a painful thing and to raise it up again for the praise of His Name. He just waits to make sure it is HE that will have all the glory. :)
Tears fill my eyes as I type making it hard to see what I am doing. Little Mac Truck sits beside me on the bed his chubby arms flying up and down, as he enjoys the sound that comes from the slap them bouncing off my leg. :)
Our highlights...the quiet moments we caught one on one with each girl hearing her whisper the treasures she's been storing up for us, the squeals of excitement when we got our school girls their first new bangles to wear like all the other girls, shinning sunbeams reflected off their brown fingers all smooshed under our door waking us each morning, partaking in true family life with my girls, doing lice-kit treatments together. ;)
I narrow it down to the one that was most unexpected for Paul and I that came in the form of a gift.
This is the first year in my ignorance, I am attempting to put together some sort of fund raiser to build their home. You can't possibly know the burden to move these beautiful girls unless you come and visit, love on them and see where they are living. You can't know the urgency we feel to get them near us until you travel the grueling all-night bus ride with us and our baby boys. The land where they are is not ours. The girls alone are.
How desperate we have felt to get them near us, to be with them at any chance we want to. To give them a lovely, safe haven where their unique gifts thrive in under the love and care of watchful eyes who fear God and are crazy about them, giving everything in their power to help them succeed.
These little lambs are no less than miraculous. Paul and I see giants when we look at them. Paul and I see the greatness of God in their eyes and when His Words fall from their lips you cannot help but worship our God, seeing His holiness.
We never want to defraud our little ones....Knowing what a bear it will be to move them. Our first year and a half was the battle of their legal documents...ensuring every jot and title was legit and even getting aid from Paul's brother, Xavier willing to travel in all the original dangerous villages for signatures of those who gave over the babies. Because these very crucial steps weren't taken before, the girls home could never be legal making it possible for the government to seize them at any time.
On this trip to India we have now in our hands the miracle of the certificate of a legal girls home. I cannot even express what a mountain size task this was to secure--especially since this government building we picked up our documents in was burned down just a day later.
So, we praise You, Abba and with gladness in our heart we bend the knee and embrace YOU for putting the obstacles in our path causing agencies and government officials to wash our hands of these girls and the mess. We bend the knee at YOUR sovereign ways and the time in which YOU do all things well for Your own joy and knowledge, hiding from the masses. We bend the knee at Your merciful choice to move the mountain You only put in place.
After the miracle of securing proper work-the next giant in our path ---
a daunting amount of money needed to BUILD.
Those of you who know us best know how much we loath to discuss money.....we'd rather do anything---a hike with babies on our back to Tibet from here--you name it, this just is not the way God has lead us to this point. This happens to be another quality I fell in love with in him.
Upon our return to the states this time though, I had to be focused, I had to pray for the courage for this project, believing that God would bless our hard work as we shared our girls story in any capacity we could. Wanting to give these girls the very best compelled me to arrange something for them to share.
This way we would be able to plan for building and finishing our dream campus this year.
Leave it to the Lamb to want to show off again without my help. :) He gets a kick, I believe out of reminding me how much HE does not need my help, my ideas, my fundraiser ideas. I am so use to Him showing off at the last moment so this time it really took Paul and I by total surprise when a selfless couple and lovers of the Lord gave a huge amount to help fully cover expenses for our girls home.
Surely God would have us struggle a bit in the states, surely we would have to wait on Him, cry out, linger in the night hours in prayer wondering when, how. Nope, not this time.
This time God wanted to give Paul the joy and highlight of what would be most precious.
Telling our little darlings about our dream to MOVE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!
move them OUT of Egypt.
We could never share this dream with them until we were confident of their documents and then of the funds to cover this great task.
With a bursting heart I can hardly type this properly here.
How great are you, Lord.
How awesome are Your ways...sooo vastly far above my own.
Thank you for the incredible reminder that these little ones are Your's and no ones love for them compares to Your's, o Holy of Holy.
Keep my mouth oh Lord from sin, for I am utterly undone.
Oh, Savior of nations, how You call us to worship again on our knees, face to the earth here in the East counting Your gracious ways over us.
This dream....that started in the heart of a great, merciful, Loving Father....
this dream YOU dared to share with me, Oh my Lord, I am undone.
I can not and do not even believe this is coming true.
My heart is so overwhelmed at the greatness and the goodness of Your love for the children who were meant to be killed the day they were born.
Your love, Oh, Lord!!
Your love is forever!!!!
How YOU sing over them!!
How this is Your story.....I love it.
You are my most favorite story teller, o Great Lover of my Soul!!!
I love the way you draw us in, then leave us hanging in suspense for a couple chapters and at last shine so brightly with Your glory I can hardly
see to read the rest of the chapter!!
I never imagined in my wildest dreams, Oh Lord how speedily You would rush in this time and rescue us.
You know we are utterly lost without you. We don't have a chance on our own!!
You know we are crazy, Abba!!!!
But let us be crazy for the thing that YOU are.
Let us be solid, an unmovable gaze fixed upon the Master's face, eyes locked on Your's, ears opened to the sound of the voice we are desperate for!
We worship YOU!!!!
We adore You in Your greatness! In the beauty of Your majesty, You have won us over.
Thank you, o great Lover of My soul!!
how Your goodness compels me to forsake all and follow You!!!
Let us be faithful, Oh our Sweet Lord!!
Every rupee, every moment, every heart...
our prayer for 2012~
faithfulness, completely to our Lord.
Thank YOU that these girls are radiant worshippers of YOU, with a great purpose to lead nations to Your truth.
Wishing I had a photo to post of this -38 dark sparkling eyes looking up at us with thrill as Daddy Paul shared with them the story of their new
home being made just for them.
Who knew the priceless highlight would be so life changing.
I never believed God would give us that when we were there in the mountains with them. Pictures are on the way~ stay posted :)
Thank you our precious givers with all our hearts.We love you as our own family and long to see HIm bless your own family as you have given.
You know how much your obedience is changing lives....
and one day you can come and see it and feel the hug of a little beauty thanking you herself!!!!
Thank you for getting this far if you read this - your prayers are keeping us and we thank you with all our hearts~
now to face my laundry....love from afar, molly and the gang~ :)
and no, the work isn't done yet, it's just the very beginning, but praise to God we are ready....to order and get going on the plumbing for the campus, power up and order building supplies--it is a miracle.
and no, the work isn't done yet, it's just the very beginning, but praise to God we are ready....to order and get going on the plumbing for the campus, power up and order building supplies--it is a miracle.
