Naked & Utterly Dependent...

In Matthew 18 the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I guess it's a good question if you are trying to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I am not so interested in the question. I have always loved the answer that Jesus gave them. It always made me feel like they asked it just so I could hear His answer.

Matthew 18:2-5

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them and said.

"Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me."

"Becoming as little children." I love this concept. It has helped me from the first time I saw myself in it. It helped me because I was taught that if I came to God as a little child then I was willing to be dependent on Him. I was willing to allow Him the reigns of my life and willing to see Him as the provider of the answers I needed in my life. This is foundational stuff for walking out a life with God, so I have meditated on these truths. I loved them and stored them in my memory as all kinds of examples of "Child Like" faith. Faith that asks God expecting response and having no reason to doubt because that is what a child does. A child looks to those who care for it with no concern for where their caregiver gets whatever it is the child needs, but a quiet and absolute expectation that it will come.

My pastor used to share an example of his child handing him a broken toy and simply saying "Here Daddy, fix this." There was no doubt in his child's mind that Daddy might not be able to fix the toy because that is what Daddy does. He fixes it, he takes care of it and he makes it right. A child walks into the kitchen and simply says to it's Mother "Mommy, I am hungry." That child fully expects Mommy to take care of that problem. That is what Mommy does. She gives you what you need for life. She is the one you tell your need to, and when all things are as they should be, she helps you. When they are right, she can be counted on to meet your need and you do not have to question if she will because it is simply what she does.

Can you see why I loved this? How could you not. To see God this way is to live in the relationship that He designed for us and longs for us all to be in with Him. He is Father and we are His beloved children and His care for us is certain. Jesus went through a great deal to explain this to us. To prove this to us. It is the Father's desire to give us all that we need to thrive and it is to be counted on. What a beautiful picture. What a beautiful truth.

Guess what I did with that while I meditated on it and kept those precious truths well guarded in my heart? I stopped acting on it. Very subtly and almost so you wouldn't notice, I grew up in my walk with God much like a child becomes an adult. You see that small child eventually stops coming to Dad to fix things, and stops asking Mom to provide every need. That child becomes an "Adult" and works for a living and starts to pay Mom and Dad back for all that they have done for them. Rightly so, they tell themselves. That is as it should be. An adult understands responsibility and exercises it to the benefit of others. An adult is a contributing member of a family and a community.

But Jesus said to "become as little children." Last night He and I talked about this. I had all my little pictures safely tucked away in my heart where I keep all my most precious understandings and when this came up I said "Oh yes, yes. I am to be a child before you. I remember lord. I love that picture." You know what He did? He pushed all of those previous pictures away like a broom sweeps away a pile of dirt, and He gave me a totally new picture to make His point.

He showed me a new born baby. Shivering, naked, wet, uncomfortable and crying out a scream of what could only be confusion and frustration. Cold, helpless and utterly unable to care for itself in any way. The baby is at the mercy of everything and everyone in it's midst. I saw that baby and the Lord said that this is how we enter the world, but what we fail to see is that this is how we remain in this world. From the moment we enter this world we need to be cared for and it is God himself who is our caregiver.


His care comes through people more than any other way, that is true so we can often forget that it is really ultimately from Him. Sometimes those people He desires to provide for us through let Him down. That is a shame, but despite that sometimes happening, caring for us is what God does. He showed me that in our attempt to grow up, we enter into an illusion of control. We start to see what we identify as cause and effect, and we think we are getting what provision comes our way because of our own actions. Yet the truth is that provision is from God. We build it up. We store it up and hold on to it. We use it and sometimes we give it away, and all the while we are tempted to think it is all our doing.

Well, we think that if we fail to look to Him and see the truth. The truth is that we are still exactly like that newborn infant here in this world. Without Him we are utterly lost. When I saw this, He showed me how my life was going. How I repeatedly step into this truth of "becoming child like" and follow the path that is laid out for me by Him, and my life is amazing. Then I turn right around and slip back into that illusion of control, and it confuses me.

When I left my country and my culture I opened my life up to seeing the lives of others in new places. What I found out here shocked me. People in the rest of the world are so poor, so in need of provision. They are so in need of a Father in every way. When I saw their poverty and their need, I wanted to be an adult again. I wanted to be responsible for the truth that was in me, and make a contribution to the world as a good adult should. I lost my way. I started to look at my Father and all those He cares for, and began to limit what I asked Him for personally because it seemed right to do that. When there is so much poverty and so many in need, the response is rarely to cry out to God and say "Look at me! I have a need!"

He started to deal with me. To instruct me and inspire me out of these thoughts and back into the truth of our relationship. I would follow for a bit and then head the wrong way again. This process has repeated again and again, and then we ended up in this conversation last night. I am about to turn 40 years old. For whatever reason, I found myself examining my life and it's progress. I can only guess it is because in my brain 40 seemed like a milestone worthy of life examination. When I looked, I saw things I liked and things I did not like. The things I did not like are not powerful enough to be deal breakers for me, but they are a challenge to me because I have to keep them from becoming more than just facts. If I allow them to be circumstances with power to affect my attitude, then I have a problem.

So in my head, I am examining my life. I am seeing the things that bother me and each of them are a direct result of the choices I have made. Choices both Troy and I made together about the course of our life. Those choices we made in pursuit of following God. I was not loving what I saw there. So I presented them to Him basically saying " You brought me here so what do I do with how this feels?" You see, I have so much less stuff then I used to, and things are not as comfortable as they were before. On a daily basis this means very little to me, but seeing this is not so great when your examining your life's progress on a worldly scale of success.

Notice I said "worldly scale of success." This is what the Lord pointed out. When judging my life on a time scale with accomplishment points, I was in serious trouble. If a home, a family and a career are checkpoints on the measure of life's success ratio then I've got very little to show for 40 years. In fact, if those are the markers, then I am my own worst enemy because I chose to give up all of those. I fully turned my back on them and walked away!

Fortunately, God was very quick to point out that He did not create that scale of measure. His scale of measure of greatness is very different. What I have in this life by way of that list means pretty much nothing to Him. What He measures by is the level of my state of child like humility. He told the disciples that "whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." In other words, how much am I depending on Him for? How much do I lead my life? How much of it belongs to Him? How much does He control? How child like am I?

It turns out I am that newborn infant. I am naked and helpless in this world without God to provide for me. I have no job. I have no paycheck. I have no savings. I have very little stuff. I depend on the kindness and mercy of others for everything. If there is no help, I do not eat. If there is no help, I have no provision whatsoever. I certainly make no contribution to the world whatsoever without someone else first giving to make it possible. I am utterly dependent on God. I was not seeing that for what it is. I was fighting it, and turning away from it. I was looking to reverse it in small ways because I thought that would be a good thing.

I was so wrong about that, and my life is so right just like it is. Then as if showing me all that was not enough, the Lord pointed out that seeing the error of my ways would keep me from straying off the path of being that newborn infant. You see, He wants me to remain there so that my expectations will be without fail. He wants me to look to Him just like that infant making my needs known with a cry out to my provider, and literally never having a doubt enter my mind that He will come through. It's what He does. It's what I do. It's how it is, and how it should be.

Join me. It's amazing! I will be honest. I occasionally spit up and sometimes poop my pants, but He always takes care of that for me. He cleans me up and sets me right every time. I don't even have to think twice about it. I don't have to feel bad or even wonder how to be more responsible. I just have to be. I am utterly dependent and unquestioningly obedient because those go hand in hand here, but it gets easier and easier because He keeps proving He can be trusted. So when He sets me on the edge of what seems like a great height over deep waters and floats out in front of me saying "Come to me," I just push off and fly out into His arms.

We are so happy here. I am so very loved. You are too. You are so greatly loved just exactly where you are, but you can know it more deeply and see it more clearly. If you want that then all you need to do is stop trying to grow up, and start trying to be just like you were the day you were born. Naked and utterly dependent with a Father who loves you with a love so great that it's limits will never be found. Safe in His arms. Perfectly cared for in every way.

I have a problem w/ Mother Theresa...

What? Are you kidding me. How can anyone have a problem with Mother Theresa. She is like the most amazing, selfless woman, and she accomplished great things on this earth!

Exactly! Who am I to take issue with her? How dare I even think about casting a criticism her way when I have not made a fraction of the impact she has, but...

I got an issue. I heard a story about her. The world loves this story. It uses this story to illustrate how much better than everyone else this woman truly was. Because the world likes selflessness. In others. It doesn't want to actually be selfless, but the world loves selflessness!

So here is the story in a nutshell. She had messed up feet. They were messed up because she continually wore shoes that were not the right size for her feet. Why? Why did she do this? Well because to get herself the correct shoe would mean that she used some of the valuable life giving resources at her disposal to fix something she could obviously live with. It might hurt her and it might be literally messing up the feet that God Himself created for her, but it was not eating up resources that could be used to feed one more starving child. Touching one more life with the love of God was worth more to her than her own comfort and health. And the world says WOW! That is amazing. That is inspiring. That is selfless!

I say. That is such crap!

John 14:13 & 14 in the Amplified Bible says this:

13. And I will do [I myself will grant] whatever you ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son. 14.[Yes] I will grant [I Myself will do for you] whatever you shall ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM].

I think that is pretty clear. I think it is almost too BIG to comprehend, but it is certainly worth trying! I am pretty sure it covers having a pair of shoes that don't cripple you! I believe that Mother Theresa was an amazing woman. I have an issue with her because I also believe she was stolen from. She was selfless, but she was so stinking wrong about the shoes! I believe that when she got to Heaven it totally didn't matter to her, but it matters to me and everyone else still here and still walking this life out.

He said "AS PRESENTING ALL THAT I AM." Being selfless is noble, but being ignorant of the truth is not. Do I need a Ferrari to preach the gospel in Thailand - NO! Do I even want one? Truthfully, NO! There really are things that are needed and there really are things that I simply want. Can I live without them. Yes. Is that what God wants? Well, answer me this? Will "the Father be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son" if am broke because things meant so little to me that I gave them all up to go and reach the lost? No.

The Father is not glorified by our extreme humility here on this earth when we interpret humility incorrectly. Being too poor to give what you have away is wrong. There I said it. Regardless of what is eating up your personal resources, if there is nothing to give away something is not going right. If you eat up your seed then everyone loses.

I continually ask God for seed. I have no other choice. I have no income outside of the seed that people sow into us. I am asking for an answer to that, but in the mean time He said He gives seed to the sower so I ask. I also ask for the basic things I need for my life. I even ask for the things I would really like to have and can live without. I ask for the dreams I have in my heart to come to pass. I ask for the Nations because He said I could. I ask "AS PRESENTING ALL THAT HE IS." Nothing less is acceptable.

James said we don't have because we don't ask or you don't get it because you ask with wrong purpose and evil selfish motives to spend it on your sensual desires. (James 4:2,3) That does not cover shoes that cripple! This is what I mean by ignorance and misinterpreted humility! Jesus DIED for us. For our Salvation, for our Healing and for our Provision. He meant it. If we don't ask "as presenting all that He is" then we do ask amiss, either for lack of asking or lack of understanding what He truly wants for us.

I ask for things that are NOT necessary because they please me, but it is because I know that Jesus loves me, that He wants my joy to be full and that He is big enough. He is not running out of resources even if people continually are. You should ask. You should learn from Mother Theresa and free yourself to ASK!

He loves you. He wants to be able to present ALL that He is to YOU. Be selfless in all the right ways and let Him.

Not as sweet...or does it matter?

I am daily amazed at how much of our circumstances are affected by our attitude. There is a new lesson in this fact every single day if you are looking for it. I certainly have at least one a day, but my life tends to provide several a day.

We ran out of this special substitute sugar that I was using because I wanted to drink my tea without using sugar. This was not the usual chemical stuff, but yet another one that no one has told me is bad for me yet, but I am sure that revelation is coming. Regardless, we only had one box of it and it ran out. So I had no sugar for my tea.

Tea. Yes. I have been drinking tea. "Why is that?" someone might ask if they knew me. It took me two years to get a coffee pot for my apart"room" here in Thailand. Two whole years I wished I could have a real cup of coffee in the morning like a grown up, but was handed a packet of instant nonetheless. We finally broke down and made the $35 investment in a coffee pot. I spent two weeks completely high on too much caffeine, and totally disrupted my sleep patterns until things settled down. It took less time than that to give up on the coffee altogether because it turns out my husband and I have very different ideas about what makes a decent cup of coffee. Since there is no way to reconcile his version of coffee with anything I desire to consume, I gave up coffee and starting drinking tea. So now he uses the coffee pot every morning, and I get a cup of tea.

Recently we have decided to cut out the sugar in our respective coffee and tea, so I moved to the aforementioned sugar substitute and that ran out. Now faced with a sugarless tea, I did what anyone in my position would have done having already given up the coffee it took two years to get. I drank the tea without the sugar. I did this for the many days it took to get to the store where Troy mentioned that we should replace the sugar substitute. At this point, I realized that I had been drinking the sugarless tea for days now. I also realized that it wasn't a problem. I was resigned to drinking the tea as it was each day so I didn't sit there and note that each sip of the tea I was drinking was lacking that beautiful sweet taste I had come to expect, but instead I just drank my warm liquid each morning and enjoyed it.

I told Troy that I didn't want or need the sugar substitute and that I had been enjoying my tea without it so there was really no point now. As I write these words, I am sipping away on a cup of sugarless tea. It's gotten cold now, but it is still sugarless. That is something I would not have thought possible not long ago, and I learned something about myself. I can change. I knew that, but what I mean is, if I let myself, I can change a lot more than I realized before. There are so many things that we would like to change, but we can't get passed the point of wanting to doing because of our attitude.

Attitude is the determining factor in this case. I saw no point in whining, complaining or otherwise pitching a fit about my morning drink. I just didn't want to start each day that way so I got happy and drank my unsweet tea! It was a process to get to the place where I liked it, and it took an epiphany in the store to realize I could go on like this, but it all amounts to real change for me.

If I had taken each sip looking for the taste that could not be there because of the lacking sugar I would have downed every cup but been dissatisfied. We do this all the time! Not with tea, but with all different things in our lives. We look for what we believe we are missing and can't see how good what we have actually is. It affects our lives, our happiness our relationships. It affects everything. No matter who you are there is something that you don't have that you would like. It is the human condition, but how much of it is necessary for real. Not just because your attitude keeps you from enjoying what you do have or making the best of it.

Troy and I have lived in a small room for two years. I call it the apart"room" because there is no way to give it the name apartment. Even an efficiency "one" room apartment as we know them in the US has certain things. It may be one room, but there is always a bathroom and a kitchen. Turns out the bathroom is essential, but the kitchen is optional. I don't love that. I am frankly and honestly ready for that to change, but until it does I am guarding my attitude! That is because I realize that life can go from generally happy to utterly miserable if I let my attitude run rampant on me! I do not want to wash my dishes in the tiny little bathroom sink. I don't like it, but I do it because I am happy that there is a sink.

We once did our dishes in the tub that we used to catch our shower water so that it could be used to flush the toilet. That is the water that would run down our bodies and then land in the tub. None of us actually remember cleaning the tub before it was put into service as the dish tub, but we rinsed the dishes with bleach water and called the job done! Yes...attitude is everything!

Success and Happiness in life are up to you. It really is that simple. Jesus suffered a great deal to provide for us everything we needed for Life and Godliness. He made the way for our happiness, but it is up to us to do something with what we have been given. This has always been a two way deal. God made us and He had it all worked out for us to succeed. Even when man changed the situation He had a plan. He gives, we take. In the end, it comes down to us taking because His giving is universal and available to all - so the only thing that matters is if we do out part because He already did His.

Attitude makes or breaks anything. Your attitude can get you through ANYTHING if you control it and it doesn't control you. Good attitude or Bad attitude. It is pretty simple. I really am talking about the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of your flesh, but that gets all lofty and spiritual and I will lose some of you. I don't want to lose you - I want you to take this into your hearts and have it help you.



This is my Master Bathroom/Guest Bathroom/Kitchen Sink. This is all she wrote! I just snapped a picture of it and I am pretty proud of myself for getting it on here, but there it is. Immediately to the left is the Toilet and to the right is the Shower Head. It is a tiny bathroom and there is no separation for the floor so whenever we take a shower the entire bathroom floor is the shower floor. It gets old. It has been two years. Would I like to move? Yes, of course! As soon as I can, but I am going to be happy here in the meantime. This situation is enough to make some people quit being on the mission field! This is what I am saying about attitude. Things can be difficult for seasons, but you determine the outcome of all of your difficult seasons by your attitude. I promise! This is a step up from the shower tub!

I was at a friends house recently. They have a whole house. They were hosting a church service in their home, and there were many people there. I enjoyed it because when we have guests they are sitting in our bedroom with us. We only have two desk chairs so that means that some of us have to sit on our bed. It's pretty weird and we only have people over who can handle it, but this day we were at our friends place and it had lots of rooms. There had been food served and there were dishes piled up so I secretly went into the kitchen to do the dishes. I was enjoying it, but I knew the host would chase me out of there if she saw me doing the dishes so I prayed. I told God that I was really enjoying doing the dishes in a real sink, and that I wasn't in there trying to make myself look good so I would appreciate it if he kept everybody otherwise engaged so that I could freely finish the job. As that happened, I asked Him to let this be seed for my future kitchen sink.

After that, He spoke to my heart. He reminded me of the scripture that says that God can give you your own when you have been faithful in another man's. I have always seen that scripture in a negative light because I have been on the raw end of people abusing that scripture to use others for their own means. In this case it was a blessing, but there was more to it than just doing someones dishes for some kind of God credit. I saw my own current sink and all the dishes I did there. It never makes me happy like the real sink I was currently washing dishes in did, but I have kept my attitude in check with great effort. I am always honest about how much I dislike it, but I turn that into a prayer for a new season to come for me one day. There are other options for my response and subsequent behavior - non of them are good for me. I truly believe that sink is coming and God's speaking to my heart that day was a promise to me that He has heard my prayers, my complaints, seen my hearts desire and was letting me know that the day will come when I have a sink again. I am not sure when, but it is coming and I can be happy until it gets here. When it does come I can start talking to Him about getting back the dishwasher! Maybe. It depends on where this is.

What about you? How are you handling those things that try your patience? Is there anywhere where you attitude needs to be forced to the positive side? It will make a difference in your life if you do it. Is there anything that you need to get through that you know will be difficult to change yourself to accomplish, but would be worth it if you succeeded? That's an attitude accomplishment then. You can do it. You just have to be willing to get through each day until the change is there.

Hope this blesses somebody! :)

Right Outside....

News is annoying. I can't deny it. If you watch it for more than 10 minutes you will be totally bummed out. The news can take a faith warrior and turn them into someone who feels hopeless quicker than you can say "where is that happening."

The thing is. We live the news. We live in headline horror on a regular basis. I don't want people to be depressed or discouraged, but I do want them to know what is happening! I especially want them to know what is happening where I live and work. I care a great deal about the people we are called to. I don't want them to die. I don't want their governments to be unstable or be run by dictators, but they are. I live the news so not watching it doesn't really help me. It's there when I go outside or when I speak to my friends living under regimes who use terror as a daily tool. Where injustice is rampant and life is NOT fair.

I don't want people to know about it for MY sake. That doesn't help me at all. What that gets me is a large group of well meaning friends who want me to quit what God has called us to do so I can be safe. That is not what my life is about. So, no. It is not for ME that I want people to know what is happening all around me to the people I love.

I want them to know because I want them to help. I want them to care and I want them to use the faith they have been building up sermon after sermon to utilize the gifts God has given us all. I want them to think that supporting us or figuring out a way to help us in some way is something they can and want to do. Watching the news is pointless if it's purpose is gathering information that saps your faith and strength. It can be useful if you become active with it! If it moves you to respond to it by doing something that causes a positive change in the life of someone who is a victim of today's headlines. In that sense, a world full of bad news becomes a world full of opportunities to put love into action!

Living in the news has taught me that I won't be able to stop every bad thing from happening, but I can have an impact! I choose to have an impact. It may not make headlines, my impact, but it makes a difference in peoples lives and that is why I believe I am on this earth. To spread the truth, hope and reality of Jesus! That means I live in the news and I counteract it with acts of the Love of Jesus. So take that - faith sapping news!

Last minute plays...

Like a hail Mary pass to the end zone that would win the game, that kind of last minute play. Those are awesome when it's your team and they win because of it. They are not so awesome when it's the team you are playing against and you lose because of it. That's sports though. You win some you lose some.

That is NOT how it is with God. We have already won! We are the winning team. We had an opponent and he was defeated. So why are we still playing the game? Mostly because we forget. We forget that we have already won. We forget because life is sometimes very similar to those sporting events we like to watch. Without even realizing it is happening, a contest is set up and we find ourselves in a game. Playing for keeps. Pitted against a vicious opponent who cheats whenever possible. We find ourselves in this game, and start to play because it is the natural thing to do. It somehow doesn't surprise us to find ourselves in the game. However, sometimes when we see that last minute play by the enemy our hearts rise up in our throats and we think "Oh Noooooo."

It's a lie. We get scared when we forget that it is already decided in our favor. This game is over. It was over before it started if we actually show up with our whole team. We are already the Champions, my friend. We do go on fighting, but we know the end! So what about those hail Mary passes in the last moments of the game? Sometimes we are offense and Jesus is the quarterback. We win! Sometimes we are defense and the devil is the quarterback. What then? Our defense is the best! That is what then!

It is up to us. We can lose the game if we choose to. We can leave our defense on the sidelines. It makes no sense whatsoever, but people do it all the time. Not me, but other people. My defense is in play here. The formation is tight and each step is a symphony of perfection. This pass will not succeed. It will not score. This game is mine!

Recently I prayed to God and asked for something. It was big and it was special. It meant a lot to me and it was for someone else so it meant a lot to them as well. I was blown away by how quickly and how easily God came through with the answer to that prayer. It was a blow out of a game! No doubt. I was on the offense scoring away and the devils defense didn't even show up for the game. It was trip after trip to the end zone. Cha Ching!

The score racked up quickly and easily and now that the clock is just about to run out the other team has shown up. There has been some comeback by the opposing offense. It's actually a game now, and although none of the previous points I scored can be taken away from me, there is a last minute hail Mary soaring through the sky as I write these words. It was not thrown by MY quarterback. I am on the defense here. I am ahead, but not by enough and this would seal my loss!

So what does that mean to me as I watch that ball soar through the air and threaten all that I have been rejoicing over for the entire game? For me, it means I look to my defense. I have the best defense ever assembled! I have the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. There is nothing getting through that defensive line. So is it fun to watch that ball soar through the air? No. I can't say that it is, but I can count on my defense. I can trust it. Just as my offense was perfect, my defense will not fail.

There is no surprise in this attack if I think about it. My opponent never quits so why should I expect him to lay down and take the loss. Why should I think that just because I am ahead there will be no fight? That is not very wise. Yes. I have already won this Victory in Jesus, but in this crazy game called life we walk these victories out because our defeated enemy still wants there to be a game. He flails and tosses those hail Mary passes and hopes to win some even though he is a loser.

I am not giving up. Even if the ball is caught when it gets down to my side of the field - it is not going to be in the end zone and my defense has got this. Right down to the one yard line, I know my defense will not fail. There is no sneak in this already defeated quarterback playing against me. His moves are old and tired and well understood by my defense. I am winning this game. My team has done a great deal to get me to this point and there is no quit in us either. Like I said - We WIN!

What! It's been a year since I posted!

I am floored that it has actually been a whole year since I posted anything on this blog! Granted it got easier to ignore since I had no real reason to believe that anyone was reading it. Which is evidenced by the fact that no one has mentioned it to me in more than a year.

I spent a little bit thinking about it and made a decision. I decided that I need to keep this up for the silent readers who happen upon the website, get sent to the blog and actually read it. I imagine that they do so without ever telling me they were here, and that I am failing them by not updating this blog so they can be a part of what God is doing in our lives. So for the sake of glorifying Jesus, I need to update a whole years worth of serving Him!

The last blog I posted spoke of returning from our 2009 trip to America so it is easy to start from there. We arrived excited and ready to express the love of God through our actions! We were funded for an amazing project and ready to head to Myanmar for it's completion!

Unfortunately, we had been funded for the actual work, but not for our costs in going there and actually being there while it happened. We simply assumed that if God funded the project for the work to be done, then He would get us the money to go and do it! That is exactly what He did of course, but it was 2 months later than we planned for it to be.

By now it was August of 2009 and we were finally headed to Myanmar to begin the work that we had been believing to be able to do for the whole of 2009 thus far. It was a great feeling to finally be going and getting to start. We don't do the actual construction work ourselves when we do a project like this. In fact, when working in Myanmar we do very little that would have us be seen in the public eye. These projects help not only the homes, but the people who get hired to do the work and we see that as a win - win.

As I said, we keep a low profile because this is not a country where anything else is possible. So we serve God in 2 ways when we work in Myanmar. We work for another organization and we fund our own projects. We spend our weekdays working for a local organization on a volunteer basis, and then while we are doing that the local staff accomplishes great things for Jesus. We love the way that works out, and we have seen it grow as has our ministry because of it. God is so much smarter than we are, and it always pays to do what He says to do when He says to do it.

So here is a picture of the main project! This is a water tower which we built for a very special home that we have come to love and support in every way we can. They used to get all of their water from an old rusty hand pump. We replaced the old hand pump, motorized it as well, built a water tower, got water running to the house, to the out houses, to several staging areas around the house and put in a working kitchen sink! Glory to God! We also built this large cement square tank, which is actually a bathing area.



You can see it better from this picture below. This takes water from the tower, stores it in a second location and allows several children to bathe at once. By Pastors count at least five! This was not an option before. They had a small round cement bowl that was where they got all of their water, did all of their bathing and clothes washing. This was located in front of the house where the whole neighborhood could see. We arrived on one visit to find the pastor fully covered in soap bubbles out in front of the house. He had not competed his bath before we arrived. He had a little wall built out of very thin split bamboo weave, but you walk right past it to get to the front door. Now they can all wash up behind the house for more privacy and certainly more dignity when foreign visitors arrive. Outdoor bathing of this kind is the norm here so that is not such a shock, but I will post the before and after pictures of the old area so you can get an idea what I am talking about here. He is pointing to the spigot which feeds a smaller tank so this water will get warm in the sun which is very nice for skinny little ones who get cold easily.


This is Thiri! She is our Myanmar Director and the apple of God's eye. She runs the show and makes Jesus famous. She makes us look great in the process and we know that God has great plans for this young woman beyond doing that. In the mean time, we are honored that she is working with us. She is standing at another staging area for water. This is where all the dishes for this home are washed. There are at least 28 people being fed from here on a regular basis so dishes pile up and this is a vital area for them to have water available.


Here we have a kitchen sink. This may not get your eyes teary, but trust me when you have never had one before it is a glorious thing. I myself have been without one for 2 years now and do all of my dishes in a very small bathroom sink. Trust me when I tell you this was seed! This is the Pastor and Director of the home and his lovely wife. I am not giving you details about them and that is on purpose. Not that it really matters because they could be found from this alone, but I pray that it never becomes an issue. Please agree with us in prayer for their safety and protection, and in the mean time I will mention no names. Look at that smile though! You would think that he was the one who does the dishes!


Here is the before picture I mentioned above. This was the old hand pump. This is where they all had to do everything that had to do with water. They could pump out a bucket or a tub worth, but it started here and was brought elsewhere. The bathing was done here also.


This picture below is the after picture of the original area. There is a new hand pump as well as a motorized pump but they don't always have electricity so there has to be options. There is a spigot here as well so they can use the water from the tower if they need it. This is now a designated area for washing clothes, but with 18 children needing to get ready for school at the same time it probably still gets used for bathing some.


Another great thing that came with this project is that they now have running water in the outhouses so they can refill the buckets to flush.


Here is a shot of the motorized pump. Like I said it requires power to use it, but the home also has a generator that can be used to power the pump if needed. So there are three ways to get the water out. There is no such thing as counting on one way to do anything in this country.


Last but not least we do try to offer something to the home besides handouts. We purchased a camera for the Pastor which came in very, very handy later so that was clearly a God idea. We did offer some financial assistance for food costs for the home, but we also asked that they get more meat into the diets of the children. Two goats were purchased and here is a rather amusing photo that was taken for us to show us how great they were.


So that was our "Big Project" which took the first half of 2009 to accomplish. It was totally worth it and I would wait every single frustrated minute I waited to do it all over again.

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The rest of our time in Yangon is serving with Myanmar Compassion Project. This is an amazing organization that has us come to their country to work as consultants. Troy does IT work for them and I do Accounting. We train people and perform our own projects for and under their ministry. This is our Monday through Friday and we raise the money we need to live, eat and get around while we live and work for them. Every second is worth it and we consider it an honor.

So MCP is who we work for when we are in Myanmar and this is what they (and we in part) do when we work with them. They are a pharmacy, dental clinic, medical clinic and mobile medical team. They work as a support organization for children all over the country. They do so much more than this, but I have spoken about them before on here so I will just show you a few pictures so you can get a sense of how awesome they are.

Here is the office we go to. This houses the Dental and Medical Clinic and the offices for the organization. We work upstairs in the left side window. The one that is closed of course because foreigners can't do good work without a little cool air. The truck you see in the picture is the one used to send the Mobile medical teams out to hold clinics all over the area. Children are diagnosed and protected through the diligent efforts of these amazing doctors who are all here as missionaries serving Jesus through their skills and talents.


The founder of this great work is Dr. Dal. He is simply a great man who loves God and serves his people in humility and with with great dedication.

Here is a picture of the inside of that building - this is the pharmacy.

Here is the Dental clinic - it is a full on Dentists office.

Here is the Doctors office in action. There is no picture of the operating room, but it is just off to the right from where they are.

Here is the part of the office where all the cool stuff gets done. This is the accounting department!

Auntie Wendy

Nuam

Moon Kyin and Uncle Dal


And here is why I was there and what I trained these amazing ladies to do themselves!

The operations of MCP run hand in hand with an American Ministry known as Asia Heartbeat. It is run by Dr. Bill Greiser and He is the reason we were invited to stay and continue to work in Myanmar back in 2008. Here is a photo Dr. Bill. He and his wife Edhena are another reason that Myanmar will be part of our hearts for always!

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We arrived in Thailand again in October and began preparing for our return to Myanmar at the end of the year. As time passed though it became clear that this was not happening. We prayed and sought God earnestly. He instructed us that what He wanted us to do was to start taking Thai classes, and that learning to speak Thai was a priority for us so we obeyed and wondered what would come of our Christmas plans.

Here we are being diligent at Thai class.

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We had to take a Visa run to Laos to renew our ability to stay in Thailand. We thought that was going to be taken care of by our trip to Myanmar, but since we were clearly not going anytime soon we had to do this instead. We found ourselves in Vientiane, Laos for Thanksgiving 2009. We had our holiday meal on the bank of the Mekong river and ended up buying food for a group of very precocious street children.



We had a great thanksgiving and headed back to Thailand only to discover that the Visa we thought was good for 2 months was, in fact, expired now and we were given only 15 days in Thailand. So we had to come right back to Laos and get a new Visa. That trip was not the happiest one. Troy ended up falling and getting a terrible concussion. After an overnight bus we ended up spending the day in observation of a hospital near the Thai - Laos Border.

It was not my favorite experience here in Southeast Asia, but the nurses loved Troy and they were very, very good to us.

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Since we had obeyed God we were not sure why it seemed like the children would not be getting any Christmas, but God amazed us with His plan! Not only did the children get the best Christmas ever, but He used this as an amazing time of streamlining our vision and directing us.

Our Myanmar Director Thiri was fully funded for our Christmas Project 2009 in just 2 days time through a facebook campaign, and we never stepped foot in Myanmar. She did a way better job than we could have hoped for! There was a Christmas party for the children where every child received a present and fun bag with candy, there was a stove top and gas tank purchased for the kitchen of the home, there was a trip to the zoo and there was a neighborhood outreach for New Years!

It was God all the way! Here are just a few photos - there are so many! We were overjoyed with what God did, and we would have loved to have been there for all the fun. In the end we know it isn't about us. The children were blessed and Jesus was lifted up!

Here are the bags ready to go out. Each child and staff member got a coat.

There was also candy in every bag because it just can't be a party without candy!

Here is Thiri leading the passing out of the gifts at the party.

Here is Pastor and his lovely wife wearing their gifts. This is a man who had eight children of his own and has now taken in 18 children more. It took us 5 visits to the home and I finally asked which children were his biological children because we could never tell. They were all treated the same and that was one of the major reasons we have continued to do all that we can to be a conduit of blessing to this amazing couple.

Here is a series of photos of happy, coat wearing, candy eating children!

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Here is the stove and gas tank that was the Christmas "project" portion of things. Last year they all got school bags and a new (and second) outhouse, but this year it was coats and stove!

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The fun wasn't over for them though. There was also an entire day at the Yangon Zoo! This is a really awesome zoo by all the wrong standards because the animals are close by and you can feed most of them. Things that would be out of the question in other nations seem to be the bright idea of some enterprising chap here in Myanmar (Burma). The good news is that there were plenty of chaperones and no one fell into the open pit of poisonous snakes. So we are thrilled!

Here is what we mean about the snake pits. This is not the one we are talking about because these are Burmese Pythons and we are talking about the one full of Cobras. By the way here we just call them Pythons. (Being this is Burma)

This little guy is questioning the sanity of this place in this shot.

Would you like to pet a Hippo? You can actually feed these which is why they have their mouths open to them like they do.

Here is Thiri in blue being full of the love of God and enjoying what she put together for these little ones.

Thiri organized lunch for everyone and brought drinks and snacks with her to the park to make sure it was a day filled with all the things it should be not just a day the orphans got to do something out of the ordinary.

All in all is was an awesome day!

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The rolled over from 2009 to 2010 and we have had a an amazing start to 2010. I am afraid it is not full of pictures, but there are a few so I will share what I can. We have had such a wonderful time with God these first few months into this year. We have continued in our Thai classes and just now have stopped as we did some traveling and are headed to the United States from April 26th through July 26th 2010 for a big fund raising push!

We have continued to follow each and every leading of the Lord being careful not to allow anything that might be our plan to override His. We are blessed and ready to see some of the things He has spoken to us about coming to pass in our lives.

One opportunity we had to share the love of Jesus early this year was with a young lady who was being abused by her partner. He had already left her for another woman, but would return to rape her and take the money she earned working. He would ambush her outside where she lived. We were aware that she was being beaten, but did not have any means or opportunity to help her. Eventually the door opened after he put her in the hospital and nearly killed her. We were able to get her moved out and into a new place that he did not know. We payed her deposit and first months rent and gave her a chance to begin again.

Here is a picture of some of the injuries after he put her in the hospital. She had a
serious head wound and that is what got her hospitalized. The cut on her hand was
where he tried to cut her throat and the bruises we from being hit and falling.

Here is a picture of her in the new apartment. Her face is protected because she is a more than just a beating victim and this is the proper procedure for rape victims.

This is our Bangkok version of the story of the good Samaritan and there are many more just like it going on all around us every day. We felt lead to get involved here and it was not only a witness to this particular woman, but to many people we live with everyday.

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Since 2010 has come, we have also taken another Visa run. This time to the Thai - Burmese border so we have been able technically to go to Myanmar this year, but it was only for two hours. That was a very good trip for us where we connected with other missionaries and were refreshed and did our own encouraging.

Soon after it was time for the annual meeting of the missions organization we became members of when we arrived in Thailand. These meetings were held in Chiang Mai, Thailand and we spent several weeks there. The group is an Australian based missions group called Christian Outreach Center. This is a God connection for us and these meeting were lead into and finished off with some other meetings that we attended both here in Bangkok and up in Chiang Mai. We spent a solid couple weeks in amazing and anointed meetings and are very ready to head to the United States to share our vision for the things that God spoken to us about.

Here are a few pictures of the meeting in Bangkok, Thailand

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Our only project besides Thai class and traveling for Visa runs and meetings in the start of this year 2010 has been for a young Christian leader from Myanmar. This coming July 2010 she is headed to a combined church conference and missions trip to Manila, Philippines. She needed to raise $1500 to do it and she sent us a letter asking for support. We had nothing to sow at the time so we went to the Lord and asked Him to provide seed to the sower.

He lead us to tell people about Nway Nway and what she was trying to do so we did what He instructed. In two weeks she raised $320 and we raised the rest! She is going to her conference and she is amazed at the love and grace that the Lord has shown her. She is a testimony of faith as she continually steps out to believe God. She refuses to be limited in her life or her walk with Jesus because of where she lives or who her government is. She is an amazing young lady and the fruit of this will reach far and wide.

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This has been an overview of the highlights of the last year and the start of this one. There has been so much more than what I have posted here. There is no way to encompass a year of living with His light shining through us in one single blog post. We have attempted to give you an idea who we are and the types of things we do, but there is no simple picture and witty blurb for the ministry of the Holy Spirit as he reaches out and touches our lives and the lives of the people around us.

God is amazing and a life with Him is full of wonder, joy, peace and grace beyond most of our understanding. We love what we do and where we are going through Him. He is the author and the finisher of anything we try to accomplish out here in Southeast Asia. He is in charge and we simply follow Him. Jesus is everything and those are not just words or we would not be here doing what we love to do.

Thank you for reading through this. If you have gotten this far I am impressed and say thank you for your interest. We appreciate it. We would also appreciate your prayers and if possible your financial support. We can't do any of this without help. God Bless You. Follow Jesus and you will eventually follow your dreams.