Will my hands stay lifted?

I don’t know what I’m doing.  I feel like I am lost, stuck between two worlds.  Part of me is mature and ready to take on life, but part of me is so afraid of what life holds that I just want to crawl into bed and not come out.  I have so many questions without answers, so many thoughts but not the words to say them, fears but not the knowledge of how to conquer them. 

I struggle with not having answers.  I like knowing what’s going on and being in control of what is happening.  As life moves on I am realizing that I have less and less control.  I am okay with this and I know it is a good thing as long as I am giving God the control.  I am really trying to figure out what God wants me to be doing, but I’m struggling.  I know this is partly due to the fact that I don’t spend nearly enough time with Him. 

I was reminded tonight that God doesn’t need me to DO anything for Him to love me.  He loves me as I am (which I am so thankful for because I have issues!).  But as I love God I will do what pleases Him.  I will love the people that He loves and help the people that His heart breaks for.

I was challenged tonight by some Kutless songs.  “If You washed away my vanity, if You took away my words, if all my world was swept away, would You be enough for me?  Would my beating heart still sing?  If I lost it all, would my hands stay lifted, to the God who gives and takes away?  When there’s nothing left to steal me away, will You be enough for me?  Will my broken heart still sing? ”.  Those words are so challenging to me.  Is God enough to satisfy me if I lost everything and everyone that I love?  Would my hands still stay lifted with a broken heart? 

God is enough for me.  I can do life because I have God with me.  I may not know all the answers but I do know that life is worth living.  God gives good gifts now.  Take a minute to enjoy some of the blessings that God has placed in your life. Kiss the little kid that might get annoying, wash the dished that you are blessed to have, and hug your mom.  You never know what tomorrow will hold.

My heart is overwhelmed when I think about Josiah, Lydia, and Isaac.  They are such amazing little kids.  Tonight as Lydia said a prayer before she went to sleep she thanked God for her food.  Isaac thought it was funny that she was praying a meal prayer at bed time.  I told him that we can still be thankful for our food even when we aren’t eating it.  I said that we can be thankful for the breakfast we will eat tomorrow morning.  Isaac then said “If we are still here in the morning.  We might be in heaven.”  I love that these kids understand spiritual things. They are going to live in Togo as missionary kids in a couple of months.  God, please bless them and be preparing them for the experience that they will have.

I am Wowed by God

 

I am so excited about what God is doing in my heart and I want to tell you about it! 

I have had some crazy days with many God sightings in the last couple of weeks.  There have been sleepless nights, fears, tears, convictions, joys, smiles, laughs, times of growing and stretching, and many memories. 

I was at Roxbury Holiness Camp at the beginning of August with my family and I think God was preparing me mentally and spiritually for what I would experience the rest of the month.  I had an awesome time of reconnecting with friends and soaking in God’s truths. 

Victor and I are both excited about missions and feel that God is calling us in that direction.  So the Monday after Roxbury we went to the mission office to talk about the MDP (Missionary Development Program) and missions.  Afterword I asked the question that I knew the answer to but was never voiced, “When you say you want to do missions, do you mean long term?”  “Yes.”….

Now I am going to be completely honest with you and say that I felt like crying (and I later did).  I had fears, and lots of them.  And I had the American dream.  I really don’t like the American dream (at all!) but as a little girl you get these ideas of the “perfect” life and it is hard to let them go.  I know that I would not be happy with living out the American dream because I would get restless.  I know there are better things to spend your time and money on, things that will glorify God.  But it was still hard for me to embrace that.

Now I am making it sound like I might not want to do missions and this is not the case!  I would love to do missions and I know that God has called me to that.  Those were just the first thoughts that went through my head when Victor and I both said, out loud, that we want to do long term missions.  That brings everything to a whole new level!  Makes it more real. 

We talked about this a lot, we cried, and we prayed.  It was then getting late and I needed to go home because I worked early the next morning.  We say, “Good night” and I am on my way home.  Little do I know what is around the next corner.  I was the first person to get to a one car, car accident.  There is just one guy in the car and it must have just happened.  My first thought was, “How can I get away from here?  Because this is scary!”  I am able to come to reason and make my first 911 call.  I don’t want to go into more details because it was an unsettling experience for me.  I later talked to an investigator and he said that the guy was released from the hospital that next morning and is doing fine.  He was also charged for DUI. 

But any way, that experience right after the long term missions conversation was a lot for my little mind to handle.  I was so afraid that night when I got home.  I talked to my mom for awhile but then she went to bed and I was the only one awake.  As I was lying in bed not sleeping I was experiencing fears I didn’t even know existed.  I want to describe it as crippling.  I was afraid of the dark (which I never was before) and I was afraid of being alone.  I was afraid of losing the people I love or being far away from them and doing life alone.   I was so afraid.

I was praying but it was really hard for me to feel comfort that night.  I had to remind myself that God was with me and that I will never be alone.  It is times like this where it comes in really handy to have some of the major truths memorized.

I have since then, with the help of my friend Jesus, been able to overcome most of my fears.  I still have some but I think they are healthy fears and I’m not too concerned about them.  So this was a big God sighting for me, overcoming fears. 

I have many more stories I would like to share with you but I must go to bed.  I will share them another day.

I want to encourage you because our God is a good God!  He is faithful and able to accomplish immeasurably more than we ask or can even imagine!  Think about that for a minute…. He can do more than we can even imagine!  I can’t even imagine that. :)

How I Have Grown

I have now been back in PA for two weeks and the reinculturation is going well.  I thought it was going to be really hard to come home but so far it hasn't been too bad.  That's not to say I don't have sad days where I miss my little kids in Honduras though.  I still think about, miss, and pray for them but I don't have a deep depression about not being with them in Honduras.  I can definitely tell that lots of people have been and are praying for me through this whole process, for which I am very grateful. 

As I was trying to figure out what to share in this update I had no idea what to put in and what to let out.  So I will just share a couple of high lights and then try to post more stories later. 

One of the reasons I wanted to do the STEP program was to get out of my little comfort box and do something that would require faith.  Something where I would have to totally rely on God to get me through.  Something to test my faith. 

Well, I can now say that I jumped way out of my comfort box and lived by faith.  There were many nights where I prayed, "God, I have no idea how I am going to do this, but with you I can."  And He came through every time!  Not always in the way that I was expecting but He always worked it out.  I learned to fully rely and depend on Him for everything I needed.  I learned to persevere when it would have been much easier to quit and go home.  And I learned to rest and have peace in the only One who is peace.  Oh, and I also learned Spanish!

Another big thing that has really been sticking out to me since I got home are the under privileged kids and youth.  I can not get the picture of Elvin living under the bridge out of my mind.  I liked working with kids before I went to Honduras and while I was there I loved working with them.  Now I have a passion to love on the kids that don't have anyone to love on them.

My challenge now is to figure out what to do with this passion.  I don't want to lose it, but right now I'm not really sure how to use it.  I was reminded of the story of Jeremiah this morning. God pointed out his calling and gifts but didn't give him a location right away.  So now I need to find a ministry of some sort where I can work with kids or youth.  And I am thinking locally right now because I don't have any strong feeling that I should go elsewhere.

You can be praying that God would continue to define His call on my life and that I will be in tune with Him so I can hear what it is.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support through this whole experience!  I have had a blast!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Week!

Time is winding down in Honduras and our last 2 and a half weeks are really full so I need to give you a quick update.

The Campo was our most recent accomplishment and we all have lots of stories from there.  We were in the middle of nowhere land tucked in between beautiful mountains.  The days were nice and warm but the nights got chilly.  We stayed with a really great family and didn't want to leave them when our week was over.

Anyway, our main goal in going was to do a Bible school type thing in 2 schools and then do door to door evangelism in the afternoons.  The Bible school went really well and they loved the drawing of The Prodigal Son and then the next day a puppet show of The Good Samaritan.  We let the pastor and a couple of the Hondurans do the prayers and singing because we wanted them to be a part of what we did.  We handed out coloring sheets for them to color and even the old men like to color. :)

The evangelism was a challenge for me but I accomplished it!  It was very difficult hiking conditions and the second day was pretty discouraging for me.  I didn't want to go back out the last 2 days.  But I did and I'm glad that I did because I had a good experience the last days.  God definitely helped me through those days because we were doing a survey and then presenting the people with the gospel story ALL IN SPANISH.  This is difficult for me in English but I did it in Spanish!  That was a pretty good feeling.

I don't have time to talk more but shall give you more details later.

Thanks for praying for me through this experience!

My Birthday in Honduras

Hi Friends,

Today was my first birthday in a different Country without any of my immediate family.  I had a nice day though. This morning when I came out of my room right before the kids went to school I sat down on a soccer ball and Sofia ran over and sat down on my lap.  I whispered into her ear "Do you know what today is?"  She didn't remember, so I reminded her it was my birthday.  She then got very excited and ran into her room and got a present for me.  She gave me a bracelet and 3 pairs of earrings!
It was then time for them to go to school.  As Sofia was walking toward the door she turned around and ran over to me and gave me a kiss and said "I'm going to miss you when you leave."  I love her so much and am going to miss her when I leave, even if she does annoy me a lot.  haha

But anyway, this is a post asking for prayer.  We are getting ready to go to the campo next week.  I am going to be glad when that week is over.  We are going out into the middle of nowhere to evangelize.  We will be staying with one of the pastors out there.  We will be doing a Bible school thing for the kids and then door to door evangelism.  All in Spanish...  I am a bit nervous about that.  So you can be praying for us.

Thanks for your prayers!

~Emily Joy

It's March!

I have so many things I could tell you about!  I have had some hard days but lots of good ones too.

I have been thinking a lot about my spiritual gift of mercy lately and how I am supposed to use it.  For a couple of days I thought it would only cause me hurt because when someone is sad and hurting I usually hurt with them .    There are a couple things going on at home (in PA) that I don't understand and I am hurting for my family there.  And then you have Honduras...I can't even begin to tell you about all the hurting people here.  We have been around lots of kids that have been sexually abused and it tares your heart up.  They are such special kids and it makes me mad when I think about people hurting them so much.
So as I am hurting for all of these people and confused as to why all of this has to happening I have been praying that God would give me peace.  And He gave it, little by little.  But I am at peace now.
While we were on vacation in Nicaragua I remembered how my spiritual gift of mercy can be used.  As we were laying on the beach looking at the stars one of my girls was really struggling and having lots of unanswered questions.  I was able to just hold her hand and cry with her.  After word she said "Thanks, it's nice to have someone to cry with when everyone else is happy and having fun."   Even though I had on idea what to say to her I could still be a comfort by just being there for her.  So I can encourage and comfort people when they are hurting because I can hurt with them.  Even though I have never experienced most of what is making people hurt I think I can still provide a little comfort and encouragement because I am willing to let Christ speak and work through me.

We had a great time on vacation at the beach and we got our visas renewed with out any problems.  So we are now legal in Honduras for 90 more days...yeah!

Evi and I start our last week at Casita Kennedy on Monday.  I am going to be so sad when we have to leave that place.  I love all the kids so much!  There is one family that I especially want to take home with me.  The 3 little boys are so cute and I love them so much.  And they have 2 older sisters that seem pretty nice but I haven't gotten to interact with them that much.  So I would have to bring all 5 of them with me so they wouldn't get split up....Do you think I could fit them in my suitcases? I am thinking not... :(

I still have a little bit of a cold but it is getting better.  Thank you for your prayers.  You can continue to pray for health and safety.  You can also pray that I would be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and ready and waiting when He wants to talk to me.

Serving and loving God's little children in Honduras,
~Emily

Lots of changes

Hello amigos!

Life is Honduras is going well.  There have been lots of changes in the past couple weeks though.  Some good ones and some hard ones.  But God is definitely growing us all through them.  

Spanish class is officially over.  Yeah, no more homework!  I will miss not learning how to communicate better but I am still learning on my own.  It was nice to have a change in the schedule.  It was getting kinda boring doing the same thing over and over.  

So one of our other changes was staring ministry.  We have now completed our first week of ministry at Cedar, an old folks home.  It was sad to see all those people in such bad shape.  But I am glad we got to work with them.  I am pretty sure they don't see that many visitors.  It was a stretching experience.  This week I was challenged as to why I was loving these people.  I love people because I want to be like Jesus, but Jesus loved people just because He loved them.  I want to feel a love for people just because I love them not because that is just what I am supposed to do.

Another change was Ben going back to PA.  The decision was made by the STEP directors who believed this action needed to be taken to keep unity within the team, as well as to help him and keep the focus of the STEP team on track.  We are now just a small team of 4. Please keep the team here and Ben in your prayers as we all adjust to this new arrangement.

Melanie went to Nicaragua last week and is coming back on Saturday.  She is gone for 2 weeks and we are just a small group of 3 girls now.  We miss her lots but are glad for the opportunity she had to go reconnect with some of her friends.  Only one more week with out her!

I would also like to report that we almost gave a guy a heart attack with out beauty.  Two days ago as we were walking through Centro we saw a guy that acted like he had never seen a white girl before.  As soon as he saw us he froze and all he could say was "Oh...my...god"  His face looked so funny!  We continue to get lots of kissing noises made at us.  And it is pretty much all my fault now because I am the only blond while Melanie is gone. 


I got to chat with Laura and Rachel while they were at college today.  It was cool to be able to talk to both of them.  Sorry you didn't get to talk to me mom!  But you were not answering any of your phones... I ask Rachel to recruit people to send me mail so don't be surprised if she asks you to send me a letter. :)


I don't know what else to tell you but if you have any questions feel free to ask!


You can continue to pray for safety!


Thanks for your prayers!
~Emily