Catching You Up To Speed

To all those out their in cyberspace who tune in to know what's happening in my life and in the life of The Sky Mission...I wanted to catch ya up to speed. I'll be brief and to the point with it and if there is any questions...feel free to e-mail me (I like getting e-mails). Anyhow, here we go!

• I have a number of opportunities to share about Kenya and The Sky Mission before I leave. I have been raising the support I need for the trip this summer and additional that will go a trip that I will take to survey and purchase land.
• I will go to Kenya for 10 weeks from June 20th to September 6th. On the schedule thus far is helping with a team that is coming to Kenya from my home church (and surrounding churches), visiting a special needs/disabled school and home for a month, and staying with the people of Transformed International for about a month to get more focused information on how to start and maintain a home/ministry (I have been really impressed by the way they run and operate..I hope they can mentor me and show me the ropes).
• I hope to bring goods for Africa and start an Africa Store..so to speak. I will sell the goods for a bit more than I bought them for and the profit will go towards The Sky Mission. If there is any readers who have a forte for this type of endeavor, please let me know.
• I will return to my job next school year and I hope that by summer 2011, I might begin to full time support raise. Whenever I have the monies to purchase the land, it is then when I will make decisions about the move there.

As you know, this is all in the Lord hands. I am trying to not rush the Lord but be sensitive to His timing. He has opened doors thus far and continues to do so. He floors me by His provision and I am excited about all the people that are getting excited about The SKY Mission and how we are sharing in this endeavor together. Piece by piece, the puzzle is coming together.

I ask that you continue to shower The SKY Mission in your prayers. Thank you for joining me in reaching the broken children in Kenya through the love of our majestic and awesome Savior.

A Stubborn 4 year old

Let me preface this story by saying...I LOVE MY JOB! How lucky am I to be able to invest in the lives of these sweet children on a daily basis. I actually miss them during the weekends and think about them randomly and they make me smile. I don't have any kids of my own yet but for now, these kids are my kids.

There is one little guy in particular that the Lord taught me a lesson through a few weeks back. This handsome bugger is sweet and funny...yet can be stubborn as I'll get out. What I didn't know about him was that he doesn't like to take walks...especially if the walk delays playing on the playground. He walked nice for about two blocks and then PLOP!...legs went up and his butt went to the ground. As he was sitting on the ground..bent in an unnatural way...i was using all my tools to get him walking to which he responded "No..play playground." I tried to tell him that playing on the playground would require us to actually get there but no go.

He got up for a short bit (5 steps maybe) and PLOP! again. This time, he was scooting on his bottom down the sidewalk in an effort to get away from me. Since my legs go faster than a scooting four year old, i caught up with him rather quickly. When I did, in the middle of his defiance, he started singing a song that went something like this...."I looooove you , I lovvve youuu, I love love love you Lysha." (It was ELF like..if you saw that movie before). Hahaha..too cute..i almost gave in but I had to stay strong...HE HAD TO WALK..lol. When I could do nothing else, I carried him which was met by him cursing at me under his breath. Eventually, we got to the playground but the consequence of his stubborness was no play playground. Yep, I'm a big meanie..lol.

So how does this relate to Jesus?!? Let me tell you. So often we can be like a stubborn preschooler. We walk nice with Him for awhile but when we don't get what we want or a goal is blocked (through a trial), we plop down instead of trusting that we will get to where we need to be if only we persevere. We might have a resurge of reliance on God but our tolerance for the pushes and pulls of life is not so great and we plop down again. Its then when we scoot on our bottoms, saying we love Jesus with our mouths while not truly believing it in our hearts. All the while not, we are not being the child He made us to be. He didn't make us to scoot but soar.

In our defiance, He doesn't leave us or give up...He scoops us up in His arms and carries us through. We are not aware of this because we think He has left us, so we curse him. Truth is He has guiding us and keeping us from going nowhere.

In His great love, He teaches and disciplines us. He has great amounts of patience for us when we are scooting on our bottoms or cursing Him. He puts up with so much and we can be so stubborn that any human would have thrown in the towel and said.."Peace out!" But not our Lord, His grace abounds. We doesn't lose heaven for our defiance...we get to eternally go to the big playground in the sky.

Thank you Jesus for teaching me so much about yourself and myself through working with these kids!! Sorry for when I am a stubborn 4 year old!! Allow me to learn and change...so i'm not scooting around on the ground. Give me vast amounts of love and patience to give freely to these little ones.