Prayers and Answers (2)

What a difference a week and a half and some prayers make.... 

Thank you, God, for bringing healing and thank you, family and friends, for praying for Caleb!!!

Before....

After....

"The purest form of love is given with no expectation of return.  

Measured by this standard, earnest prayer for others is a magnificent act of love." 

~ David Hubbard

Prayers and Answers (1)

We've prayed for so many different people and over so many different things this past month and we've also asked you to pray about specific things here.  So many of you have been faithful to love on us through your prayers.  Whether it's for our extended family here in Haiti, our own children under this roof or for family back home you have taken on our requests as your own once again and we are so grateful!

We don't believe in chance but we believe that our Great God is the ONE who answers such prayers.  Sometimes the answers are what we want and sometimes they aren't but one thing we know (and He continues to confirm) is that He can be trusted and that He is good, regardless of his answers.

While I believe God calls us to share our prayer requests with each other (James 5:16), I also believe he wants us to spur each other on by sharing in the waiting and sharing outcomes, too, (Hebrews 10:23-25) so I want to share a little with you today.

Last week when we had the biggest scare regarding Caleb's arm, we circled around him in our bedroom and all together lifted up our prayers to God as a family.  Caleb cried, I cried, and the girls had lots of questions but in the midst of all the emotions and so many unknowns one thing we all knew was that we could talk to the ONE who understood.  When we finished, John just sat and held Caleb for a while and I went outside to pray some more...

I love going out on the back balcony at night... it's quiet and peaceful and dark (except the nights that the moon is out) and I just needed/wanted to talk some more to the only one who completely understood my heart...

I walked from one end of the balcony to the other and poured it all out.  I looked down and through tears and moonlight I saw this...

Yes... seriously...

I stopped praying and ran inside to get a flashlight to confirm what I thought I saw....

The contractors have been working on the balcony for weeks to finish the railing and columns.  This is no doubt part of the concrete scraps but I don't believe anyone here formed it and left it for me.  It's not consistent with any hand formation and it isn't smooth on any side.  I do believe, however, that it is without a doubt, a personal message from the ONE who holds my heart.  

Oh, MY God, YOU are so full of compassion!

I ran back inside and plopped down in the floor next to John and Caleb with the heart in my hand and said, "Look!!!  Look what I found right outside the door!"

Caleb smiled and later said, "It can only mean one thing, Mama... we are in His loving care!"

God knew we would need this concrete heart long before we did.  It was placed in my path... for me... for my family... for my heart that was broken!  (For those of you that know about my unique little heart conversations with God, you know this was without question the peace my heart needed at the time.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll share my 'hearts' with you in another post...my collection has really grown! J)

Caleb is doing much better and his arm is healing more each day!  We are trusting God, still, for complete healing and we thank God for you and your prayers and encouragement, too!  

Today, I am praying for you...  For each of you that reads this, I am praying that you will without a doubt hear/see/feel God's love for you today!  He may not communicate with you the same way he communicates with me but I do believe He wants to connect with you today!  God is a personal God and I believe that we DO find Him when we search for Him with our hearts.  Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "if... you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."
  
P.S.  We'd love for you to share with us what you're finding from Him today!

Update on Wall/Drainage Ditch

Many of you saw our post on FaceBook last week asking for prayer regarding the feud that started at 6am and went on for most of the day last Monday.  Here are photos that will hopefully help you "see" for yourself what we were talking about and some background information about the property...

At the back of the property where we live there are two drainage ditches.  They merge into one and exit at the front of the property. One ditch enters from the road and the other from the "neighborhood" on the back side of the property. 

Not long after we moved in, the wall construction was complete and we had the grates made and put in place to close up the holes for safety reasons.  While it is pertinent for rain water to pass through, it's not for people.

These (2) photos are from inside the wall behind Yehn Yehn's house (on the property).

 

(NOTE: This is the area where men and women were standing and yelling 

when I woke up.)

These (2) photos show the view from the "road-side" of the wall.

(As you can see, the road is pretty high at this section of the wall and we have discussed the need for several more rows of bricks to prevent more from climbing over.)

This is the 2nd drainage area at the back of the property where we wound up having to remove the grate per Mayor's orders.  

These next (2) photos show the drainage area at the front of the property.

We have had a lot of rain lately since there's a tropical depression coming from the Caribbean and the ditches have looked more like raging rivers than the gentle stream shown above but you get the idea. 

All of the ditches have approximately 3'x3' holes under/in the wall for the water to pass through.  When the rains are heavy, water and lots of trash wash down from the mountains. Some of the trash washed through the grates recently but mounds of leaves, trash and other debris from the street and the community clogged the grates and the water backed up. There are no drainage ditches in the areas behind the property and that leads to standing water during normal rains but when there was extra water it caused a significant problem - and (according to them) it was all our fault.  

Their recommended solution was to tear down part of the wall.  They didn't want to clean up their trash or construct drainage ditches near their houses because no one was paying them to.  After all, they "didn't have any problems when there was no wall there" and their trash could just flow freely into the river.

The argument continued for most of the day between the said neighbors and John, Yehn Yehn (and a few others that stood by our side).  By early afternoon, the local mayor showed up to issue a ruling. His decision was that all of the grates needed to be removed, rebuilt with hinges (so they could be opened during heavy rains) and re-installed. He did not, however, make mention that any others were responsible for their own trash or that they needed to work together to take care of the drainage issues around their homes. 

The perception of many around here is that because we are Americans, we have tons of money and can pay to have anything done. We explained that in spite of the majority opinion, among the trees on the property they do not include a money tree and we obliged to make the other modifications when we could afford to do so. We had to cut out one of the grates (as shown above) where the main flooding occurred and modified the one at the front.

Thank you for your concern and your continued prayers!  It is such a comfort to hear from so many of you and to know that you are praying for us!

This means war...

In a perfect world we would have no enemies but you and I both know this world is far from perfect.

7 days ago I shared a post about belonging called His...Mine...Yours… 

I’d love to tell you that the last 7 days have been a beautiful interpretation of my ‘belonging’ but let me give you a few “highlights” from our week instead.

VooDoo drums have played for 3-4 days at a time and I literally heard them all throughout the night one night.  Not exactly peaceful ‘white noise’…

I’ve suffered with chronic headaches more than half my life but while we’ve been here they have been manageable for the most part.  This last week they were so bad I had to make myself get up and get stuff done.  The last thing you want to do with a terrible headache is serve… no matter how much you love Christ or anyone else for that matter.

John and I both experienced disappointment this last week when finding out that some we trusted just can’t be trusted.  Being deceived always stinks!

I’ve witnessed animal abuse that I can do absolutely nothing about since the animals don’t belong to me and that tears me up inside. 

Yesterday was probably the most miserable, absurdly hot day in church since we’ve been here.  As hot as it was outside, it felt like we walked into a room with A/C when we exited the church.  My tailbone has been killing me where I fell on the stairs a couple of months ago, making sitting almost unbearable this past week so the heat coupled with the thin wooden benches we sat on for 2 ½ hours seemed torturous at best. 

After fixing lunch and clearing the table, I declared a stern “Girls Nap Time” and marched upstairs.  I ‘tucked the girls in’ and headed for my place of solace… my bed.  The one place I have in the house that is mine (and Johns, of course).  The one place I don’t have to share (except with John J).  The one place I have a fan and cushy pillows.  As I lay there -head pounding- I thanked God for this place…my bed!  While soaking up the recycled air from the fan, I closed my eyes and attempted to take a nap in between the usual outside noises.  An hour or so went by before I got up to start dinner.  At bedtime I prayed that today would be a great one and went to sleep!

About 4am this morning (not an hour that I can usually make any sense), things started to make sense regarding all the issues this past week… but what does all this have to do with my enemies?

While my greatest enemy runs rampant I think it’s anything but coincidental that my last 7 days have been full of great trials.  1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

If I have confidence that I am right where I am supposed to be and I had the audacity to share that with you last week then what is the perfect job for one who wants to destroy me?

Yep, to try and make me question my confidence and even my belonging…

So why did things start making sense at 4am this morning? 

Because that’s when I woke up and then started to FREAK OUT… it wasn’t until after I felt something on my neck, grabbed it and flung it across the room that I realized what had just happened…. 

I got up, looked to see what it was and cringed when I found out.

Now would be a great time to tell you that I don’t like spiders, I don’t like crickets, I don’t like ants and I don’t like the other indistinguishable bugs here but nothing that crawls freaks me out more than the demons otherwise known as cockroaches….

Oh, Lord in Heaven and on earth, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  There was one in my bed?!?  On MY NECK?!?!?   The one place I have that is mine…  my safe haven…  my solace…  NO, it can’t be!!!!   ‘Surely I am just not awake and can’t see all that well’, I thought.  I wacked at it again and again with my flip-flop and then turned the light on to ensure that it was dead and to see where in the world it had come from.  John is a heavy sleeper and had no idea that I pulled the sheet off the bed, moved every pillow (including the one he was laying on), looked behind the painting on the wall, inspected every crack and crevice and even checked the hall, the kids’ rooms and the living area to make sure there wasn’t a trace of another one.  In 7 months, I do not recall seeing a single cockroach in my room before this morning.  Not one!  Downstairs in the storage area is a different story but our bedrooms are probably the cleanest bedrooms in Camp Coq and no food is allowed in them so why now?!?   

For the first time since we moved to Haiti I stopped and said, “That’s it!  I’m ready to go!” 

“God you know I can’t stand those things… and there was one ON MY NECK in MY bed!!!!!”   “Come on, really God?  In my bed?  What am I supposed to do now?  I have NO where to go!  It was my one place, God…”  I wanted to cry… I thought I was going to be sick….  I mean, I have called John to come downstairs before when I was stuck between two walls with cockroaches nearby for fear of moving and them moving towards me.  I do believe I just told John the other night that if one ever got on me that I would die…

Well, I didn’t die (obviously) but a few moments after I beat the thing a few more times I felt for a second like my enemy was here and laughing in victory at my demise.  Within a few seconds things were clear… the disappointment I felt this week, the conflicts with some people that I’m close to, the pain, the heartache and now the disgust in my own house…. it all started making sense. 

I have nothing on the trials Job faced but what if the enemy was trying to make me turn on my Lord and curse him the way he wanted Job to do? 

And what if he wanted to raise doubts about my God the way he wanted to raise doubts with Jesus in the desert (see Matthew 4:1-11 & Luke 4:1-13).  He knows better than to denounce God but you better believe he knows how to throw doubts our way to make us question our place! 

If I adhere to certain food restrictions then I don’t have as many issues with major headaches but simply put, most days I can chose to eat what’s here or I can chose not to eat.  Wouldn’t God provide what’s needed if He brought me here?  Wouldn’t there be plenty of food that doesn’t cause me issues if I am where I’m supposed to be?’ 

My tailbone was fine weeks ago so why the excruciating pain now?  I was doing so much better and not having problems last month… why so much trouble sitting this past week?  I do believe angels cushioned my fall so why recurring pain? 

I would’ve easily argued that it was enough that I had to give up my own pets to be here but having to sit quietly at the abuse of those around me is heart wrenching to say the least.

Right?  Not a chance!

“Our enemy attempts to shift our source of confidence away from God’s promise and toward our performance”, says Max Lucado in A Next Door Savior.  “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.  Hang in there.  Your time in the desert will pass. Jesus’ did.  Matthew 4:11 says, ‘The devil left him and behold his angels came and began to minister to Him.’ Till angels come to you, trust His Word and trust His work.”

We can expect to encounter adversity no matter where we are.  We live in a deeply fallen world so that’s a given.  One of the main problems with having an easy life (if there is such a thing) is that it covers up our need for Christ.  Sarah Young adds, “Anticipate coming face to face with impossibilities: situations totally beyond your ability to handle.”

A cockroach in my bed is a situation that is totally beyond my ability to handle but that and every other challenge I face is the perfect place to encounter my Christ.  When I am at my end, He is there to carry me.  When I am done, He’s just getting started…  Nothing surprises Him.  Not my feelings, not my actions, not even my reactions and certainly not my situations.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not praying and begging that I never have to encounter another ‘situation’ like the one this morning but it does mean that even in the midst of ‘situations’ my doubts don’t take away from His perfect care for me.  I believe that I can say with great assurance, “God, you’re my refuge.  I trust in you and I’m safe!  That’s right- he rescues you from hidden traps, shields you from deadly hazards.  His huge outstretched arms protect you-under them you are perfectly safe; his arms fend off all harm.  Fear nothing-not wild wolves in the night, {or demonic cockroaches}…”   (Psalm 91:2-5, Italics mine)

By a power that far surpasses my own, I was able to get back into my bed and go back to sleep this morning.  I prayed until I fell asleep again but I slept.  Huge battle conquered…  and as bedtime approaches again tonight, I am prepared for war.

How does Satan raise doubts about God in your life?  In your marriage?  In your job?  Within your family?

If you belong to Christ then you, like me, live in the midst of some pretty fierce spiritual battles.  Take comfort in knowing, (as my girls reminded me through song this afternoon), that our God is so big… so strong and so mighty… and that there’s nothing that he cannot do!