Amazed and humbled

Yes, again it has been a while since i blogged, to be truthful i dont know what this space is suppose to be, our life downtown has turned into ordinary life, where crack houses, swat teams, homelessness, and dave on our front porch is normal. It is. Seeing our neighboorhood on the news a lot lately, and thinking I know these people, seeing pan handlers on the exits of the highway and saying hi to them because they are our friends...normal There has been many days especially since having Landon where Kevin and I are asking God is this going to be the place where we raise our boy...and we dont have that answer we are just trusting and waiting and trying to faithful in the small, giving thanks to God for this opportunity to learn and seek His Kingdom with some special Kingdom seekers that love Jesus and are willing to give up anything...for the JOY set before them. Yesterday, God in His kindness did the most amazing thing for our family and i sit still amazed with tears. Because really it is with this specific person where all our story for global missions started and should of ended but God kept fanning a flame in us. Eight years ago our family was attending Mars Hill Bible Church... in the bulletin they were looking for homes to host some refuggee africans for a summer... I remember Kevin and I going back and forth, curious about such an adventure and then thinking we have our hands full with our four small kids at the time, fyling to sporting events and school events...wondering what it would be like to have a teenager in our home...week after week the announcement was in there, and i remember praying God if it is still in there next week I will call... I called and yes, that summer eight years ago we welcomed Asria into our home...As I was preparing for her, it was all dreamy about what it would be like...and the we picked her up late on a friday night...and our whole household was turned upside down. I had a teenage girl in my home that didnt speak english (or so we thought), she was a beautiful girl, long black hair, dark skin and huge smile. She came with head lice that took two weeks to get rid, her poor mouth was filled with cavitities, and needed so much dental work, she came with attitude and she knew how to work people and manupliate.

And me I just wanted to love her and mother her...At one point we had an intervention with her and said that she would have to leave our home if she didnt change and become more managable...come to find out in the intervntion that she was fluent in speaking English but this whole time she pretended that she couldnt speak or understand anything we said. She said that she loved being in our home and would change... I lost 20 pounds that summer...I spent so much time praying, crying, questiong God why He would let us have the "trouble girl" in our home out of 13 kids that came, guilty that I brought this chaos into our home... As my friends were all at the local pool, hanging out together and making memories, my time with my kids were going from home to home and hanging out with other families who had these refugee kids in their home. I felt like we were on a missions trip that summer in my own town, in my own home...we learned a bit of Arabic, we learned a lot about what life was like in the refugee camps in the Sahara Desert, hardly no vehicles, camels was the way to transport, no computers and big tents were their homes...my kids played soccer and swam at the beach and went to movies with all these african teenagers... and our eyes were opened to the muslin world as all these kids were muslim.. three times a day we would find asria kneeling down toward mecca and praying to allah. asria was also the ring leader of the other kids, as soon as she was around her friends they would follow her and she would make them laugh and they do anything asria did...then she would come home with us and be so defiant. Seven weeks into this, i was exhausted...no breakthrough whatsoever, my kids, I thought were ruined, it was so lonely, my friends couldnt understand why we would let a muslim in our house. i had spent everything i had with asria... . ...and then with two week left break through started to happen... little by little... where her presence in our family was becoming more and more enjoyable... it was time for her to go and i remember the morning packing her up...she was really quiet...we drove to mars hill and she got out of the van and went to her friends...i got out too, and was talking to the other host parents, she was laughing it up with her friends...and then the greyhound pulled up and the suitcases were loaded and it was time to say goodbye... in my heart of hearts I thought this girl cant wait to get out of here, a quick goodbye and off they would be riding in the sunset to never see her again...asria looked back and waved to me and started climbing the steps of the bus... i started walking to my van...and i turn around and asria is running after me and she just clinged to me and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed...got back on the bus and waved with tears until we couldnt see each other anymore. i sobbed all the way home asking God what was all this, really it was the hardest thing our family had ever done, the first time that we said yes to opening our home to a stanger...and in all the mess, tears and ugly something beautiful transformed...a miracle happened in my heart in my families heart...we said yes to God, and in the end we got what we didnt expect...more of God/b>...finding the pearl of great price...and that was where our hearts, which should have been so turned off to global missions, was broken, changed, humbled and refined to love a forenign people in a foreign land. we flew over the saharah desert when we went to africa 4 years ago, and i remember looking down on the soil thinking, I wonder what is up with asria...and havenet thought about her since. ...And then yesterday...God gave us an amazing gift that we had no idea would bless us so much... ...Asria called on the phone...eight years later...she calls... from the sahrah desert, in her tent where there are no computers, or cars...she called to say thank you...said it was one of the most amazing summers...she kept a letter i written her before she left which had our phone number on it...seriously...she still lives in this refuggee camp which is a world away... i cry as i type because that summer i thought was a disaster, i was at my lowest, it is a reminder that He just wants an obediant heart it is testimony to our loving God...He uses us in our weakness. ... Today she is a momma with a precious 4 month daughter, she is married and she said that she thinks of our family often. that is mind boggling to me. ...God is reminding me that there is a war going on a big war, for souls...He has created each of us with for a purpose...how often do we get caught up with fighting little battles that take our eyes off the big battle that is brewing...how much time and enrgy do we take to fight for things we think are entitled to us, or how we think our lives should look or go... ...God used Asria yesterday to turn my eyes back on the big battle... for lost, the poor, the oppressed, the least of these, his heart for the whole world. God also reminded me that when we are called to something...we need to obey...the rest is up to God, He does the growing. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus, how can we think there shouldnt be...Seek first HIS Kingdom...Commit your ways to the LORD...Be about the Fathers business. Lay your life down, love your enemies, do not avenge for yourself says the LORD...we dont fight with the sword but by love...Love given to us in CHRIST...live a low life...it God's way... Its what Jesus did for me for you... He became nothing... Jesus you are so merciful...Free us up and show me the battles that Im fighting that have no eternal gain...Keep fanning the flame for your CHURCH all over the world and where the workers are few and the harvest is great... then send us... Only God could write that story above...So lets Abide, so we can love and then lets go...