As many of you know we are coming to a close in our second term in Swaziland! We depart May 21st for the states for furlough (raising support at home in order to go back). A few weeks back the Lord started speaking...
Doug went with our National Superintendent to some meetings/services. There, in the Tuesday evening service the Lord began to once again speak to and break Doug's heart. He has an amazing journal entry that pretty much sums it all up (I will have to get it to share).
He came home Thursday evening, to me leaving Friday morning to a Ladies Retreat I was leading. God began speaking to me similar things through our speaker and a dear friend.
As we came back together on Saturday evening and sharing with each other what was going on (til 1am), we came to the conclusion that God was moving us, our time in our beloved Swaziland is coming to a close! God began and is still continuing to confirm over and over of what He is asking of us. Love how He confirms through worship, as I sat in service the following day, tears streaked my face as we sang songs of obedience, sacrifice and how "He gives and takes away...my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name"! Gave a vision to a friend Doug was praying with, who had no idea of what was going on, and many other confirmations.
The burden, lost people.... who, the unreached..... where, good question! At this point we do not know where this call is to, but we know out of obedience we need to answer with a "Yes, we will go!" I have an amazing peace about this whole transition. We are in the process of selling pretty much everything we brought here in a container 8 years ago. God has been so amazingly faithful though in so many details with that already!
At this point we are looking forward to our time home for furlough, though we will not be in our "home" at "home" Issaquah (the term home, has such a different meaning for us now and those of you in missions totally understand. Just ask an MK (missionary kid) where home is, you will probably confuse them :). God has provided a home in Newberg, OR which we now look at and see God all over it. The thought of selling all here, not knowing where we will end up, but having the peace that state side all is sorted for us bring such amazing peace to this first born girl personality.
So, we are in transition! Walking out with our kids Obedience! God has given me amazing peace through it all though. The kids were so excited to go State side for furlough, knowing we were coming back, which was the intention. But now that things have changed, there have been a few tears and we have started our good-byes.
Doing a bible study with my ladies on David: a heat like his. She talks about how obedience is better than sacrifice..... or, as I feel know in this season God has us in "OBEDIENCE IS THE SACRIFICE"
please continue to pray with us as transition is hard, no matter the circumstances, for direction of where this move is to (still feel as though we will be on African soil, just not sure where), and our kids!
He gives and takes away......
update on carsten
Many of you have been praying for our littlest man Carsten (aka boose). He spiked a high fever last Wednesday evening of 104.2, the following night of 105 and continued thru the week with high fevers, esp. in the evenings. I called the Dr. here on Friday morning to get him in and could not get through and did not get a call back until 1.45, informing me he was leaving for an early weekend at 2, without a car I was out of luck. Why do my kids always get sick or take a turn for the worse on Friday, late afternoon?
We had friends come for the weekend from Angola. Saturday was Kylea's 10th birthday party in the afternoon and Doug had been gone all day out doing a compassion meeting with one of our regions. Carsten seemed to be feeling better, until the evening when again we were back up to 104+. Sunday morning Doug took the kids and I to church and then took Carsten up to the clinic in the capital city, Mbabane. The Dr. did not find it necessary to do a blood test, but gave antibiotics and MORE ibuprofin. By Sunday afternoon, he had lost his little perky personality and began to really look sick so I called a Dr. in Nelspruit (a great ped.)
We drove thru on Tuesday morning and after an extensive exam, sent us down to get blood work and x-rays. Because we are private insured through the states we have to pay everything up front, ugh! So I had to front $ just for the blood work. As I was getting ready to pay, the nurse came thru to let us know that the Dr. also was ordering a liver function test as he found belirubin in his wee. Poor little guy, they wrapped him up in a blanket like a little burrito and took 3 viles of blood. Traumatized, we then I headed down the hall to the radiology lab to pay, then to have x-rays taken. Back up to the Dr.'s where we were given meds. (different than Sunday), for sinus and ear infection. He requested that we stay in Nelspruit to have a check again Wed. and results on blood work.
Went back in this morning and his lab results were that he had some atypical Mycoplasma pnomonia (yes, I spelled that wrong). Which is not pnomonia. Also, the average child's allergy count is 0-10 and Carsten's is 302.2, so now the blood work is being broken down even more to see exactly what allergies we are dealing with. The liver function test came back fine, ptl!
That is the short version of our last week, thanks for your prayers as we continue to get our little man well again! We are home in our beds Carsten is coughing a lot but the fever is very minimal tonight! Thanks for your prayers!!
Needing to get out!
I am soo looking forward to being home for Christmas! It will be nice to have somewhere to go during my moments of stir craziness. Like today! We currently have a team here from TX. The are doing some ministry/soccer camps down south, a little over and hour away. So with the kids still in school I get to stay home with them (which I usually don't mind, unless we get past 3 days of having to stay at home:) I was going to try and take them today, Saturday, but again Carsten woke up with another runny nose and asthma issues.
Days like today, home with the kids, all day, I find myself sitting here wondering if I am really ready to home school this next year (starting in Jan.). I wish there was a mall or somewhere to go just for an hour or so, but no, there is just Pick n' Pay our grocery store. It is pretty sad when I try and come up with things I need just to get out and go to the store, then end up spending money on pepsi or other things we really do not need.
I honestly do feel strongly that my main ministry this season of life is my family and raising amazing kids, but there are weeks where I am on skype with my parents and wish I could send the kids through the screen for a few days or weeks:)
I am excited to home school, since I do really miss teaching (I have my BA in elem. educ.). So the thought of turning our spare room into a school room and decorating it all up and getting my creativity flowing again, is pretty exciting for me!
I will miss my freedom for tea with friends and stuff! I will need more structure! I will need more patience! Maybe that is why God lead me to do a study on the fruit of the spirit this term before school starts, hmmmm.
He loves us
I am sitting here completely overwhelmed by a new and deeper revelation of God.
I remember when I was dating Doug and just meeting his parents we went to Red Robin and they talked of God and faith all of the time. I was a Christian at the time but in my head were thoughts of, "why is this family so "spiritual" always talking about God and faith, etc. all of the time!!" Well as life has gone on and God has matured me in who he is and who I am in him, I get it!
There is a song by Jesus Culture called "How He Loves",(I challenge you to look it up and really listen to the words). Talks about how he is jealous for us, how he loves us, how beautiful He is and great His affections are for me, if grace is an ocean we are all sinking, I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...he loves us. This is another one of the may worship songs that just "messes me up", in a good way. I am recognizing that if I am not changed what is the point?
My man, Doug preached at our home church here (and did an amazing job). He dug into understanding our covenant with God, and how we really don't get its fullness. He dug into Galatians 3:15-29, and wow! Coming to a new revelation of God and how much he loves us is so amazing to me! The law is our own efforts trying to make ourselves right with God. God gave the law to point out the flaws in us, we use law to prove ourselves holy. The law is not bad, Romans 7:7 “I would not have known sin if it were not for the law”. The purpose of the law is to point us back to Jesus.
My prayer this year 2010 was to truly say “I am in love with Jesus and mean it, not just words but a heart changed and truly in love with my Jesus”. I think that I am beginning to only touch the tip of the ice berg. I see his word for a true genuine love letter to us.
I'll be home for Christmas
We are coming home for Christmas!!!
This all started before we came to Africa, the first time in 2004. We were in the process and recognizing that we were going to be raising our kids half way around the world (literally) away from family, our home culture and friends. We began chatting with other current missionaries about what they did to stay connected and help to keep their kiddos connected. One family in particular, said that they purposed to come home for a vacation half way through each 4 year term. So we did that our first term with help from the parents :), but Christmas 2005 tickets were cheaper and we were one less on the "Myers Team".
We have continued with that desire to come home for Christmas, this time Christmas 2010! Doug's parents will also be celebrating a pretty big anniversary so their hope was for all of us Myers to go on a cruise while home for Christmas! So they started putting money away for us, if we got home they would help to cover the cruise!
As we have gotten closer and closer we got serious and started looking at ticket for all 5 of us to get home ... Well, $7000 later. Yeah, and that was only the tickets home. We also wanted to get to Cali. to go on the 4 day Mexican cruise with the family and to Leavenworth with my family, the Sollie side. We tucked that one away and thought on it. In May on our 12th anniv. Doug and I got away for 2 nights and on the way had this talk of how that is a rediculous amount of money to spend on a few weeks of just being home. We felt 1. Not real good stewards of our money, 2. That in no way leaves room for God to do a miracle 3. Who has $9500 sitting around for fun! (I know there are some people out there, but not us). Doug and I began discussing that it is not a bad thing for us to go home, but why not trust God to provide it for us, a faith builder for us and for our kids to experience and walk out with us. So we set this amount of $ that we had from previous blessings and money we felt like we would spend from our savings, and then began to pray, daily, for the rest of it, with the kids.
June hit and we were doing our taxes and got a good return. Our tax guy informed us that there was another refund, but because we live out of the states we were probably not eligable for it. Doug, went to the living room and prayed with the kids that if God would provide this money we would use it for our trip home and that it would be part of our testimony .... you guessed it $3000 later we were getting closer to our trip home. A couple months went by and we began thinking where is the rest going to come from.
We just had a team leave us from Montana. The last night of them being here they prayed over us and told us how their pastor told them to over budget for a trip here, they cut out on meals, eating pbj with the kids at the soccer camps and trimmed down on some dinners and informed us the $3500 we still needed to go home was DONE!
We were Completely overwhelmed and honored, by this team, who was lead by Pastor Jason & Heather Bishop, who were one of Doug's interns when we were youth pastors! God is faithful. Though we give up things, he blesses us more than we could imagine!
I was reminded of Ephesians 3:17-21
"So that Christ may dwell in you hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!"
Actually the night the team told us this I skyped my mom and had itunes opened to the song "I'll be home for Christmas". When she answered I did not say anything, but played the song and she began to cry, and after telling her the great news, she cried even harder! (I think she is excited for us to come home or something!)
Intimacy
I have written so many blogs ... in my head, usually in the shower, but they never seem to make it to the computer! LOL!
Each year I try and make some sort of resolution, but simple. In 2009, after coming back for our second term, I was edgy not really sure how long I wanted to do this missions thing! I recongized that I was missing out on laughter, just laying on the floor and laughing with my family. I even had a cute little black and white plaque that said "laugh out loud" and I kept that in a visible spot. Thank the Lord that he is faithful, because now it is hard to remember a dinner where we are not all laughting at one point or Doug and I just laughing together!
This year has been a year of intimacy! For 2010 I asked the Lord to help me truly say that I was in love with him, and really mean it. Not "christianese", but a true genuine love! And he is taking me there. He is challenging me in my daily devotion to him, and it is amazing. My personal time, bible study, church and small group are all lining up in the same direction and He is being so personal.
In a bible study that I lead at my house, we were going through Priscilla Shirer's "One in a Million" and I came to a point where she asked "do you tend to depend on someone else to reveal God's word to you?" followed later by "take the time to commit to obedience, whatever God prompts you to do, be willing to do it." which also goes along with the resounding theme he keeps me pondering and meditating on "obedience is better than sacrafice". From there I felt the Lord directing me to lead our ladies through the book of James (the NT how to book). It has been an amazing season and am loving all that I am learning of myslef and my savior!
a tree
You know when you come across a song that you just can't get out of your head, or better yet a worship song that God keeps bringing you back to, to get it fully into your spirit? This past week I have has some pretty amazing times with my Jesus! The song that United Hillsong sings called "Hosanna" is that song for me, in this season. Every couple of days a different verse of the song seems to stick out to me! Today as I was driving into Mbabane (capital city), sitting at a robot (traffic light), I began to people watch. Thinking and wondering how people could get to a place of not taking care of themselves to the point of homelessness. At that moment the Lord brought a part of that song to mind: "Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your kingdoms cause . . .". I became completely overwhelmed with the Lord saying "I love them too you know".
I know that the Lord called me to Africa to make a difference, but I think the biggest difference he was calling me to was a closer walk with him, and he has used Africa to get me there, though I am still a work in progress!
I am reading through Psalms at the moment and Love Ps. 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
Love all of it, but meditating on God's word and then the visual of the tree planted by the water is amazing to me. As long as I stay in God's word and close to him he will never leave me. There are so many different season's of life! I remember just having Kylea and always being out of church due to feeding or diapers, etc. I felt so exhausted, my pastors wife Cheryl Jamison told me, "this is only a season, life if full of them". Simple, yet profound at least to me. Me or my "tree" may go through many seasons of life looking, sounding, feeling different with each one, yet knowing I am being "watered" is enough to keep me going til the next season weather enjoyable or not!
I so have a tendency to struggle with "the grass is greener on the other side" mentality. Honestly, I do have seasons where I long to be back in the states, back in my familiar culture, family, friends, church, shopping! Yet I have to continually remind myself to keep planted by the water, and see what season he has in store for me next.
just some of my thoughts lately!
