Standing in Awe

It is amazing how God can and does use everything and anything to teach us.  Some of the deepest lies I wrestle with have to do with my self worth and if God chooses to love me or just does it because His word says that he does.  As you know I spend most of my days with about 35 kids.  Like any kid each of them has their good days and their bad days, but I love each of them so dearly even on the worst days.  It recently occurred to me that I think I always believed that there is a limit to a person's capacity to love.  Like there is only so much love that can flow out of a person and eventually it becomes diluted as they try and love more people.  It's like saying that my parents only love me one fourth as much as they loved my brother when he was born because I am the fourth born and so their love has become divided amongst the four of us.  I couldn't be more wrong.  As I get to know each of my kids here more and more, spend more time with the...

Get ready for a multimedia post!  I have so many wonderful things to share with you.  This first: It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of libe...

So I can't remember if I mentioned this, but I went to Honduras last week!  If you are familiar with the Ignite conference, we went for something very similar.  It was a conference for all of the Great Commission Latin America (GCLA) churches in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  The 30 or so of us, including families as well as youth from the church, started the trip off at 5:30am by loading up into a small bus and headed for the boarder.  There are some things about the US I miss and other things here that make me realize how ridiculous our culture is sometimes.  Example: In Honduras they use different currency and you get about 21 to the dollar.  Now you're probably thinking that we would have to go to a currency exchange and get a receipt and all the formalities, but no, conveniently there are men hanging out outside the immigration office with HUGE wads of cash offering currency exchange.  It seems sketchy, and yet I appreciated it.  Simple, strait ...

I heard from my mom today that people have been requesting more photos so here I am basically just going to put photos of a lot of the things I talked about in yesterday's post.  Enjoy! Sunrise Cooking With my kids. The pier and fishing market.

So I promise I will get back to my studies of the promises of God, but today was so uneventfully wonderful that I feel the need to tell you about it. Just like any other normal day I woke up to the birds chirping, the dogs barking, the neighbor girl crying, and cool air biting my toes.  One of my favorite parts of the day is heading downstairs bright and early to make my cup of coffee and return to the fresh air in my room to read and watch the sunrise all while savoring the first cup of coffee of the day.  As the rest of the inhabitants of the house begin to stir we quickly have breakfast and head down the mountain to start another day.  We first go into town to drop off Marielos at the market and the sound of buses and bells signaling fresh baked bread always brings a smile to my face.  Downtown is crawling with people coming into town with goods to sell and heading out of town to work as well as many locals stopping to have a cup of coffee with a friend.  ...

Yes, this is me.  On top of a volcano! You may remember me mentioning that I was taking a class called "New Testament."  One day my professor talked about the major promises of the bible and I took note intending to dig more deeply into these promises and what they mean for me.  I am just now getting around to it, but it has been so good I thought I would share what God has been teaching me with all of you.  The first promise I want to share with you is sustaining grace.   My professor sited this passage from 2 Corinthians 12:9 as primary evidence of this promise: But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. When I dive into these promises I like to break it down and search microscopically for significance in each word.  So, I first searched "sustaining."  I found Psalm 55:22 which s...

One of my favorite things in life is being spontaneous.  Yesterday I got invited to go to a place called "Puerta del Diablo" which translates to "The Devil's Door."  After a long car ride, which for no real reason I found extremely fun, we arrived and it was beautiful.  There were street vendors all around selling "elote loco," or crazy corn, hand made crafts, and there were even carnival rides.  We climbed up on one side of the cliffs to take in our surroundings.  At the top I was talking with one of my friends Mari who has moved here from Ohio.  We were reminded of how huge God is and also had a moment of "wow, we live in Central America!" On the way down Kayla, Josue, and I decided to go on a zip line adventure!  It was a lot of fun and so spontaneous.  Below is a video of me flying away!     I think most of us would like to be more spontaneous.  There is something in us that makes us feel more alive when we are a...