What was the purpose of that!?

So last night I told Cori that I would make up all the fixin's for our salad dinner if she would read a story to me. So she went and got her Bible and I told her I wanted to hear about Elijah. So she was reading this story as I cooked up some bacon for bacon bits and I kept badgering her with questions as she read (I am a very curious person!). Then we got to the part where the widow's son dies. I said, "Now, what was the reason for that whole incident!?" It seemed that everything else had a reason. But this didn't make sense to me at first...here this woman had taken Elijah in and taken care of him and her son, though by having him there, her life was spared. Anyhow, her son dies and her first reaction is "Did you come here to remind me of my sins!? Why has this happened!?" Then Elijah does the laying on the boy thing and praying and the son is raised from the dead. Then the woman realizes that God is really God and I believe it said that she worshipped Him. God goes through such great lengths to bring us to Him. Really, we should be flattered that He loves us as He does...but instead we often complain or bask in our pain. I think of unbelievers that I know and love and how God is trying to draw them to Himself through painful circumstances...but I don't have to look any further than myself. The more painful the situation it seems...the more God wants us to run to Him. And what better place is there to be than in His arms? I guess I just want Him to hold me so close that the rest of the world just fades away. And I pray the same for my loved ones that don't even know His love.

Happy Endings

I am a firm believe in happy endings as I think I have already eluded to in an earlier post. Last night a few of us gathered for the Capital One Bowl where my Hawks took on LSU. All through the game I had such hope for my Hawks to win. When Phil would say "Oh, this doesn't look good." I would promptly look at him and say "But these are my Hawks, they'll make it." In the last two minutes of the game, LSU pulled ahead with a touchdown. It didn't look good for the Hawks and I think everyone in our living room was giving up hope on my Hawks...everyone but me that is. I always hold out for the last possible hope. I am stubborn like that. I looked at them all and said "These are my Hawkeyes, they can SOOO pull it off in 56 seconds if they want to." Well, for those of you who watched the game or at least checked out the scores of this game know that they desperately wanted to pull it off...and they did. They scored a touchdown in the last 10 seconds of the game, actually, the clock ran out of time as they were running down the field. It was the most incredible game I have seen in some time (granted, I haven't watched my Hawks play in the 1.5 years I've been here).

I think that I am a firm believer in happy endings because Jesus made me this way. I mean, if you think about it, Jesus is a firm believer in happy endings, too. I mean, God wrote the Book and told us the ending. I think its so we wouldn't lose hope amidst all the battles that we lose from day to day...it is to bring us encouragement and push us onwards to look at the final ending, where we win and Satan loses. My Jesus loves happy endings. Right now I am in a place where I don't know if this chapter in my life is going to end happily. I stepped out in faith in something and I do not yet know how it is going to go. I have suspicions, but know nothing for certain. This week brought a verse to me. It comes from I Corinthians 15:57 and it talks about how we have the victory through Jesus Christ. As I have also eluded to, I have been struggling with something huge over the last 6 months. That something is ugly and I have tried over and over to escape it. But this week, Jesus showed me that indeed what I have been missing out on is the fact that HE brings us victory. I have been living a life of defeat for 6 months. But Jesus offers a life of victory. I know how I want this chapter in my life to turn out, but it is so far out of my hands...to think it might not end up the way I had hoped breaks my heart all over again. I always hold out hope...many times very foolishly. But its something that I have always done. Myabe it goes with childlike faith, maybe it goes with sheer foolishness. If I look at my track record of the last 6 months, I know that this chapter is not going to end how I had hoped. But yet I cling to the hope that I felt God gave me more than a year ago now. Foolish? Proabably. But that's me. And if it doesn't work out, then I guess that's when I will have to fight again to claim yet another victory. I just long for the day when either I won't be so exhausted from fighting these battles or when I no longer have to fight them.

Please pray for me. God has renewed my hope and my strength this week in a way that I have longed for for 6 months. He has given me victory. But I feel another crushing blow will send me right back to where I was. If that is the case, please pray that I will have the strength to just stand. I just want to be able to stand this time. Jesus is all we need. And He shows us that so clearly when He is all we have. Why put our hope in anything other than Him? Its just not worth it. I long for the happy ending, but realize that we are not promised happy endings until the final end....but we are promised to always have Jesus with us. And that is enough.

Go Hawks!

Thank you for all my Iowa friends and fans for not telling me the final outcome (or anything!) about the bowl game our Hawks played in on January 1st. I am very excited because for tonight, Cori and I have "planned" a bowl party to watch my Hawks play. We have invited several people over to watch with us. I have a nasty cold right now that has me pretty miserable feeling physically...but I woke up with the thought that there are so many things to be excited about in life...more than just watching the bowl game....but that is a good start for today! :) Anyhow...GO HAWKS!!!

You can always tell

This morning as we were all heading to our classrooms to start off the day, I was outside with Cori talking with my Coke in hand. Not even 8am yet and I've started the Coke. Then another elementary teacher came out with her Coke. And then another! We clanked our Coke bottles in celebration of this Friday and laughed that you can always tell an elementary teacher. :) A serious need for caffeine first thing in the morning just to keep up, especially on the Friday of a week that has dragged by.

I also read this from My Utmost for His Highest for today....it really struck me. Justifying any pain is one of those things that are part of my "self-will"...by holding onto it, I hurt Jesus. Wow, that was a revelation...I mean, I knew it, I think, but to have it so clearly stated was an eye opener. Check this out. It made me think, just wanted to pass it on.

"Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever."

Weird

So I realize just how heavy my last few posts have been...and whereas they are a good reflection of how I feel, its time to lighten things up for anyone who bothers to read this. No one needs to be weighed down, laughter is the best medicine...all that stuff...

So here are some strange things for you:

1) The anti-motion detector street light on our way home. Seriously, we walk near it at night and the thing shuts off!! Usually 9 times out of 10. Weird.

2) Our maid is terrified of our cat Bob, last week when we came home, he had escaped from the bathroom somehow and she had been on our balcony for 7 hours, too scared to come in because he was loose!

3) Senegal had Tabaski a day after the rest of the world had it. Also very weird.

Like a Skin

Like a Skin
By Sara Groves

A butterfly can just look back, flap those wings and say oh yeah, and never have to be a worm again
The snake gets tired of being him, he wriggles from that itchy skin, leaves it lying where’s he’s been, moves on
And I am longing for something tangible
Some kind of proof that there’s been change in me

Feels like I have been waking up, only to fight with the same old stuff
Change is slow and it fills me with such doubt
Come on new man, where have you been?
Help me wriggle from this self I’m in
Leaving it like a skin upon the ground

Help me leave it like a skin upon the ground.

Home Sweet Home

Iowa in January is miserable cold. My dad hates the cold. I love it, though I think these days I would freeze to death as 70 degrees is now cold to me. There are so many things I love about Iowa...to me, flying into Chicago from here last summer, seeing the midwest was the most beautiful thing to me. Some people think I am crazy for that, but seeing the farmlands all divided and crops just starting to grow...it just called out "you're home" to me. One of the big question marks in my future is where I am going to live when I get back. My family is in Iowa and I miss them dearly. My friends that I have had since first grade are mostly all in Iowa, but they have almost all moved on in their lives, getting married and having babies and such. I feel like my place at home has been sort of "weeded-out" as I have gone upon this 2 year absence. The U.S. is a big country, full of different options. I feel like "home" will always be "home" for me, but it is no longer my place. So where to next? That is the question. Florida? South Carolina? Do I really want to leave the Midwest? Is it time for something completely new in life? Is it time for a new chapter? What does this new chapter include?

Remember

A friend shared with me yesterday some really hard things that she has been going through. She told me that when she looks to the future and is saddened at how things are working out, she looks to the past and remembers what God has done in her life...the times when He has brought her out of things that would not have been good for her (Psalm 77). When I look to the future I see nothing but a huge question mark that only seems to get bigger with each passing day. I am face with a choice. I can become anxious about the growing size of that question mark or I can look to the past. In the past I remember times when God has brought me through times I didn't think would ever end. All to His glory. When I remember the past and what God has done, the growing question mark doesn't look nearly so scary.

Ok, so this one was better...Oliver is in Cori's lap and I have Baby (a prophetic name, she is tiny!) and Bob (who still wasn't in a good mood as you can tell.)

Cori and I desperately tried to get a good pic of us with the three cats...but they were NOT cooperating. Baby (white cat) doesn't like to be held, Oliver (middle) was not being agreeable, and Bob (orange cat) was just in a bad mood...an ongoing hostility with Bob and Oliver...so he bit Oliver's ear and I was getting scratched while trying to hold onto both of them and take the pic!

We were literally in the desert...I think I have had enough sand to last me a lifetime!! This is Cori and I.

Paris-Dakar Rally...I thought you boys might enjoy this pic. :)

Paris-Dakar Rally

Today was a new adventure...and I finally got to leave the campus for the first time in nearly 6 months!! I guess I should technically say, I got to leave Dakar. :) Anyhow, we ventured out before the sun rose to watch the end of the Paris-Dakar Rally...it was a definite adventure. I will try to get some pics up tomorrow...and if you want more, I'm going to be putting them on my ofoto album this week, so I can certainly send that to you as well! Anyhow...I learned 3 things today...1. don't ever wear flip flops when trying to wade through a desert. 2. don't ever smile at a helicopter in the desert. and 3. americans really do drive crazy!! :)

What am I doing?

The last few days have been interesting where my Bible class is concerned. We have jumped off track onto something I saw as being infinitely more important than doctrine...and that was simply the Gospel message and also discussing Islam in light of that. The previous 2 days were spent trying to simply hammer out in simple terms what the Gospel message is. I gave the kids the Roman Road and we walked through that. Today I tried to compare with them who Muslims say Jesus is with who Christians say Jesus is. I think it was a bit over their heads. I guess that is part of teaching. Sometimes lessons are great, sometimes they flop. The previous two days, though, I was stunned by the way Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers...one of my students was shocked when I said that we all sin. She also didn't realize that she had to make the decision herself, but instead had understood that her mom would make it for her. It has been discouraging to hear some of the comments made...and then others of my kids understand the Gospel message so passionately and clearly and they long for their peers to get it. But I'm trying to get across to them that we have to relate that with gentleness and respect as I Peter 3:15-16 talks about. Its an interesting week. So many factors...and such precious lives. Makes me wonder if I'm really cut out for this job...sometimes I wonder if I really know what I am doing. Do you ever feel that way?

The Monkey

Cori's cat, Bob, and I have an ongoing battle between us. My friend Kasey sent me a little stuffed monkey for Christmas...it's very cute and soft. Bob thinks so, too. The first night I had it, I put it on my table in my room and he repeatedly jumped on my table and carried it off with him. However, now he has become far more sly. Last night he sat in view of it while I took a "nap" and did not make a move...just looked lovingly at it. When I got up to see if someone was at the door, he made his move. I saw another of our cats, Baby, looking curiously at something and knew instantly what had happened. Bob has a fetish with my monkey. It's disturbing. Today in chapel we learned that the monkey was the wisest animal in the jungle...maybe Bob is trying to get some advice. Anyhow, it is an ongoing battle...I think maybe he is winning.

A New Beginning

The campus is noisy with the sound of students running and playing again. The classroom is a wreck after some hard core learning going on and I am sitting here just trying to catch my breath after a full morning of teaching. This morning when I woke up, my heart was all askew and troubled with the day and what was coming...namely, teaching again. So I sat here before the kids came in, in the quiet darkness of the morning and read through some chapters in Genesis and then read this out of my devotional on hope: "Notice in Psalm 118 that the rejoicing comes before the gladness. The rejoicing is in God making the day, not in our finding something to be glad about. " Each day is a gift to us...and some days may not present terribly obvious "little joys"...but the reason we are to rejoice in the days is because God has given them to us...not necessarily because we have some little thing to make us happy. Though those certainly do help. :) It has been a good first day back...I have enjoyed the kids like I never did last semester...it is truly a new beginning...in so many areas of my life. :) I am just thankful for a new day to rejoice in. :)

A Good Work

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

Hope. There is so much hope in these 26 little words. God has begun a good work in us, and He will complete that work. Just like when I trudged up a sand dune in Idaho with my 3 cousins a few years back, we would take a step and though we kept moving forward, often we would slip backwards a little. When we got nearer to the top, the incline increased and it felt like we were going straight up...I wanted to fall over and just let myself slide back down that hill. But instead, we forged onward...just like God does with us...He keeps working in us to bring about this completion...this completion of making us more like Him. And when we got to the top of that sand dune we just sat and watched the sun begin to set...and it was a beautiful feeling of knowing that we had the victory over that dune, it didn't beat us. And with God on our side, despite small setbacks, we know in the end we will have the victory. We have to hold to the hope that God will complete what He has begun in us. Grace and hope hold hands to bridge the valley of despair.

High/Low

Low: Harmatan (the season where it is dry and the wind blows the sands from the Sahara here, making it hard to breath and constantly overcast looking.)

High: Midafternoon Pauses (a time when you get to go home and nap bc everything is closed up anyway for the pause!)

Weakness

I had to go sit in a meeting from 9-3 today. I used to tell my mom that I would never be in a profession where we had to sit in meetings bc I get more antsy than my students do when I have to sit and pay attention for long periods of time. Anyhow, it wasn't bad as I figured and food always sweetens a long meeting.

At one point our new assistant director said "If we didn't have weaknesses, we would be perfect. And if we were perfect, we would not need God." I have no idea what the context was (did I mention I tend to be a little ADD?!), but I got to thinking about it in my personal life. In the last 4 months I have seen weaknesses that I have that I didn't know were there to the extent that they were. Initially, this was very discouraging to me. Last night as I was driving home from the airport, I got to thinking about what to do about these weaknesses and the verse in the New Testament hit me like a brick..."in your weakness I am made strong..." We are weak and God can be glorified in that. I can smile a little easier realizing that God loves us inspite of our weaknesses and has told us that He will give us the strength to do the tasks He has set before us.

I guess the meeting was worthwhile afterall. ;)

Merry Christmas from Cori and I. :)

Something new...

Good Morning...

Today is a new day...thank the Lord for that. I wanted to try setting up my own website...supposedly I learned how to do it in college...I guess that is why they say "cheaters never win"...a friend did it for me. :) Joel has been visiting me for the past few days...he leaves today. We are going to go do something now...this may become an addiction. :) Have a good day all. ;)