A GRAND SLAM

The Part Mitchell Wanted, "Chief Executioner"

A few years ago we had a speaker at our family conference who suggested that we keep a blessing book as a family.  We did do this for a while and it did give us a better outlook on life.  As a parent I had to try not to critic my children’s suggestions for a blessing for the day.  Looking back my children saw the blessings written in my writing and thought I was a little strange.  I had to explain that I was writing their blessings word for word.  Some favorites: “Lydia didn’t have to do hard stuff”. “We had electricity most of the day.” “Emily had a little bit of patience with her knitting and Mr. Friendly (her parrot).” “Austin got better fast from a stomach ache.” “The air-conditioner doesn’t bang on the bottom of the seat anymore.” “Mitchell got the part he wanted in the “Mikado”. And my favorite, “Valerie went with Rod out on a date even though he was grumpy.”  I don’t know if that was mine or Rod’s blessing but I was rolling on the floor laughing after reading that one.

Well when something really great happened and we could see that God was really moving we could declare that God did a Grand Slam.  Well today God did a Grand Slam for me.  Rod got very sick last night with some strange pains in his torso.  He could not get comfortable and I wished so badly that we had a lazy boy chair that he could sit in to hold his head while he sat up. Rod was feeling better this morning at least not in as extreme. Today I went to help my friend as she packed to move.  She had a lazy boy that was already sold but the new owner had not picked it up yet.  As I was leaving with the big MAF van she said, “Why don’t you take this chair?  I don’t think …. Is even here right now and you can store it for him until he gets back.”  Well I took it but felt a little guilty and decided to check on the new owner in case he was still around.  As I pulled into his yard I noticed the travel van getting ready to pull out of the driveway.  I pulled in and asked him if he wanted his chair as he sat in the travel van.  He said that we could keep it for him until he returned in a few weeks.

Modeling the Blessing!

I was so excited.  God provided a way for Rod to rest while he recuperates from this “virus”.  God is good, all the time!

There are Giants in the Land, Spiritual Giants!

CMO, the Caravan that Rod flies, early one morning. 

Rod came home from a trip to Lomela a couple of years ago to tell me about his experience.  He had taken a government official to a remote village in the center of Congo to see how the road project was coming along.  There were two missionary friends out there that Rod was sort of sent to hang out with and stay with overnight.  These men were brothers who had been raised in Congo and lost their father in the 1964 uprising.  They too had been working on this road project because they wanted to see "their" village have better access to the outside world. One brother had developed diabetes and his wife, who was a nurse had given up traveling with him.  The other was fighting cancer and wanted to see some of his projects completed as long he could.   His wife was also a nurse and had given up traveling with him.  So Rod sat with them in a hut waiting for the rain to clear so they could take a dugout to the other side of the river to the house they would sleep in.  While they waited the sun set and by the time the rain stopped the tropical forest was pitch black around them.  Of course the clouds covered the stars so there was even less light.  But the man with the dugout was ready to take them across.  Rod, being unsure of the guide’s ability to see in the dark used his pen light to try to see the other shore.  The pen light was good but not THAT good.  So there he sat in the middle of a tributary river of Congo, in the pitch dark, with two elderly men and a guide and a rower wondering if they REALLY would get across.  They did successfully get across and had a semi-good night sleep (after all it wasn't really home).   

This is actually the Wamba River another tributary river of Congo.

There are some hard things about being a missionary and I am not talking about the sleeping conditions, but one that we are facing right now is saying good-bye once again to friends. Our dear friends, one of the brothers and his wife, are packing up and selling their belongings because his cancer is getting worse back in America.  His wife continues to work here but may need to leave at any time.  It is people like these who make me feel like I have walked among spiritual giants in my years out here.  They are two of the many who have served faithfully in this land, seeking to teach spiritual truth for all to hear and faithfully sticking with it through the good and the bad, even cancer.  We are going to miss them terribly.  This friend has been a leader in our church we serve in and worship in here in Congo.  His dream has been to get a plantation near his “home” area in the middle of Congo producing rubber again and giving them the ability to ship the rubber down the river and to the larger cities to where is can be sold. 

As I write this I think of many different missionaries who have left the country recently. Many have left for health reasons.  Some have left because it is very difficult to understand the people here and it is easy to let anger and frustration take over.Even in these circumstances, I know God is at work.  His church here in Congo continues to grow. 

Letting Go and Letting God

We just thoroughly enjoyed visits from our numbers two and three adult children, Emily and Austin. Our oldest, Mitchell, had to stay in America and work. From what I hear this is common after graduating from college, the freedom to travel becomes less than before.   It doesn’t seem to get any easier letting them go each time.

Emily is finishing school this month and then will head on to Thailand with the mission, Remember Nhu.  This is my daughter who easily slips in to being my right hand woman when she is home.  We accomplish amazing things together because she is such a hard worker and so willing to help me with my brain scheming ideas.  Over and over I kept reflecting on some parents’ comments as I was getting ready to go overseas with my husband 22 years ago.  So often we would hear the words, “My child could never go overseas to serve God because I can’t handle it.”  Oh, the temptation to tell my daughter that she needed to come and serve near me was on the tip of my tongue over and over.  We have similar needs as Thailand right here and we could use more workers.  But a still quiet voice kept saying, “You will bind your daughter from a great blessing if you hinder her from going.”  I would then remember a sermon I heard several years ago when a pastor compared parents who are unwilling to let their children go as missionaries to the Israelites who refused to go into the promised land when God had sent the 12 spies in to check out the land. They cried out, “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword?  Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”  Numbers 14:2.  As a result of their rebellion, the Israelites ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years while their children watched them die off.   And so, with my blessings I took her to the airport to fly away on Wednesday Evening. 

My heart is grieving for all three of my adult children today. Lydia, Rod and I are having trouble keeping back the tears.   I believe I will see the boys, or should I call them men, in a year when I go back for Christmas next year for Austin’s surgery but I don’t know when I will see Emily again.  It is an unknown factor which only brings a need to increase my faith in my great big God.  I am not afraid of never seeing her again but I just would like a date of some kind and looking at scriptures, God doesn't give dates.