But God had other plans: He knew what lay under the desert land
Ephesians 3:17 Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.
Hebrews 10:24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
I (Debbie) was fascinated by the story my Wheaton College classmate Sue Long told in their last newsletter and am excited to share it with you. It coordinates with the “God Most Loving” chapter in Jen Wilkin’s book, In His Image, which calls us to agape love like God’s: holy, infinite, and costly. “For agape, there is no such category as “unlovable” (page 41).
Here’s Sue:
SIM (at that time Sudan Interior Mission; now SIM International) entered Niger in 1924. Terry and I and my brother Jack will return to Niger in December to celebrate this centennial. SIM’s initial work concentrated on trekking and nomadic outreach. After a decade, SIM asked the French government in Niger for property to establish a surgical hospital among the poorest of the poor in the vast rural areas of the Sahara Sahel. Finally, following 15 years of vigorous discussion, the French ceded to SIM what looked like a wasteland on which to build. It seemed a mockery: “You can try, but you won’t succeed.” But God had other plans!
In July 1950, after a year of French study in Paris, Sue’s parents, Dr. Burt and Ruth Long, landed on a desolate stretch of runway, having leapfrogged across the mighty Sahara Desert to this isolated destination. With two young sons in tow, they reached their new home in a small village scalding in the heat of brilliant sunshine. They would add four more children to the family over the next years.
The village was called Galmi, located far from anywhere, with scrubby bushes, hard, stony ground, lonely thorn (acacia) trees upon which camels chewed, no electricity, and limited water. And HOT. Burt and Ruth had agreed to open the hospital in Galmi as a channel for the gospel and a beacon of hope in a seemingly godforsaken place. Thousands of people lived in scattered villages of the Sahel with no access to medical help and no knowledge of a Savior who offers forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation.
Others had come before them. Two houses and a few other buildings, built with rocks, mud, cement, and tin-pan roofs stood ready to receive the first permanent mission workers. Way down the path from the houses stood the completely empty T-shaped hospital, with cement floors and metal shutters over screened windows.
Galmi became an oasis in the desert after a lake of water was discovered under the property in 1980. God knew the value of the French gift!
You can read the rest of the story in A Family Living under the Sahara Sun, by Sue’s mother Ruth Long, available on Amazon.
Debbie: I’ve just ordered the book. Imagine those thirty years of faithful love and service by the Long family before the underground lake was discovered. Sue says her roots grew down deep into Galmi’s hard soil. Even there, she discovered God’s wonderful love, which propelled her and her husband Terry into a lifetime of service in Nigeria.
Does the soil of your heart feel hard? Your roots growing into his love will make you strong.
Hebrews 4:16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Colossians 4:6 Let your conversation be gracious and attractive.
Between travel and illness, I haven’t managed to post for the last couple of weeks. If you’ve been tracking, though, you know I’ve been studying the book of Hebrews. I’m also reading Jen Wilken’s In His Image: Ten Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character. I intend to use Jen’s categories over the next few weeks, probably in the order she presents them.
Yesterday, though, I was impressed so much by Kamala Harris’s concession speech that I decided to skip ahead to Jen’s chapter 6: God Most Gracious. I’m not good at it yet, but I want to become a gracious person. I’m always on the lookout for role models in “real life,” people who can show me what being gracious looks like. So, Kamala’s speech and attitude and manner caught my attention.
No matter who you voted for, I think you can profit from taking twelve minutes to watch this:
I’ve done so three times already and will probably watch it again.
Graciousness requires humility. It requires caring more about others than about oneself. As Jen says, what people tend to want is not to be treated fairly, but to be treated preferentially. Our love of preferential treatment displays itself in a thousand ways, wanting the best for ourselves. But,
“Christians should have a reputation for playing favorites with everyone except ourselves. As those who have received abundant grace, we do good in abundance. … We should be known as the people who respond to ‘I hate you’ with ‘I love you,’ and as the people who respond to ‘I love you’ with ‘I love you more’” (pages 94-95).
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life (Philippians 2:14-16).
Hebrews 13:21 I fervently ask God to create in you the desire to please Him by doing all kinds of good, accomplishing through your daily activities the things which only Jesus, God’s Appointed One, can equip you for. Such things are especially pleasant in His eyes, for the glory He receives through them endures through all eternity. May it be so in you! (“Consider How the Son Shines!” translation of Hebrews by Ray Elliott)
Last Sunday, October 20th, would have been my dad’s 100th birthday. Thinking about him, I wrote, with contributions from my siblings, a brief synopsis of his adventurous and remarkable life.
Raymond Leroy Elliott, October 20, 1924-November 12, 2008
Birth through age 10, 1924-1934: Born in Independence, Kansas, the second of four boys (Richard, Raymond, Roland, Roger), my father and his family experienced two bitter losses during his first decade of life. First was the death by accident of their baby sister. Second was the loss of their house, foreclosed by their bank for lack of $3.70 to pay their mortgage one month. This sounds unbelievable now. In those years of the Great Depression, the family never fully recovered from the loss of their home.
In his teens, 1934-1944: Dad was a quiet boy, deeply involved in pursuing several interests and hobbies. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to become a printer or a professional musician or a photographer. In high school, he fell in love with my mom, two years younger. One of her earliest memories of Dad was seeing him stretched out on the floor of his living room eating a huge bowl of popcorn, so immersed in the book he was reading he was oblivious to the high-energy chaos generated by his three brothers and their friends. Dad was 17 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The army refused his service because he had clear vision in only one eye. He decided the best way he could serve people would be as a pastor and began a course of study at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Mom followed him there after graduating early from high school.
In his 20s, 1944-54: Dad married Helen Ruth Belcher June 10, 1945; he was 20 and she was 18. They took on an interim pastor role for the summer in a small church in the Oklahoma panhandle. To their surprise, that summer they together came to understand the Gospel for the first time (an amazing story). They returned to Enid, OK, where Dad worked and Mom birthed her first baby, Linda, as they prayed for direction. During that year they learned about and moved to Wheaton, Illinois to attend Wheaton College. Both graduated, Dad completed an M.A. in theology, and gained another daughter, Marsha. He and Mom became interested in Bible translation, initially in China, and when those doors closed, in Guatemala.
Back in Independence, a son, Stephen, was born and Dad’s father died. Dad and Mom joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and completed linguistic training. After “jungle camp” in Mexico—training in living in rustic conditions—they moved to Nebaj, a Mayan Ixil village nestled in the Cuchumatanes mountains of Guatemala, where no other white foreigner lived at that time. I was born a year later, in the middle of a CIA-sponsored revolution against the government of Guatemala, two months before Dad turned 30.
In his 30s, 1954-64: Many stories have been told of how Dad and Mom overcame cultural barriers and fear, won acceptance by the Ixil people, and learned their language, which had never been written down. Dad creatively made a tiny two-bedroom home livable, devised an Ixil alphabet, began figuring out Ixil grammar and syntax, ventured into early translation efforts, and fathered two more daughters, Janice and Sharon. Mom offered emergency medical care in a village which had none. Dad transmitted his love of classical and marching band music and singing to his children through LP recordings. One by one, we children left home to study at a boarding school about four hours away on rough roads. Parents were allowed to visit once each semester and had their children at home only for summer vacation and Christmas.
On a furlough in 1961 in Independence, my younger brother, Daniel was born, and Linda moved to Colorado for high school. Back in Guatemala, our youngest sister, Karen, completed the family. Because Dad and his two sons were born in the same hospital in Independence, and all six daughters elsewhere, we joked that if only Mom and Dad had stayed in Independence, perhaps they would have had more sons and fewer daughters.
Dad with his family in Independence, KS 1961 (I’m in the yellow dress.)
Just missing Karen …
By God’s grace and with careful nursing, almost thirteen-year-old Marsha survived a severe case of nephritis, but her recovery was slow. Linda took a semester off from college to help the family through this time, since Karen was a toddler and Danny a preschooler. Dad moved the family to a house across the street from our boarding school for a few months so Marsha could continue studying and graduate from eighth grade with her class.
Guatemala, May 1965
Danny’s 3 year old birthday: Karen 1; Linda in the US for high school. Dad taking the photo.
In his 40s-60s, 1964-94: Dad was asked to become the director of Wycliffe’s Guatemala branch, which required living in Guatemala City more than in Nebaj for a few years and hindered his own Ixil translation work. Dad cultivated his hobby of photography and designed his own needlepoint creations as a way to get through long meetings.
A second furlough, 1965-66, took us to Wheaton, so Dad could complete an M.A. in linguistics at the University of Chicago. Marsha and Steve stayed on in Wheaton for high school. One by one as we in turn graduated from boarding school in Guatemala, the rest of us transitioned to various cities in the U.S. Dad continued Ixil translation work while Mom focused on designing literacy materials and teaching people to read and then train others. Mom invested in building a school in another Ixil village, Salquil, which continues teaching children today. Some years, both of them taught in Wycliffe’s Summer Institute of Linguistics. A brutal civil war (1960-1996) deeply affected the Ixil region of Guatemala in the 1980s, forcing Mom and Dad to spend time in Guatemala City while contributing to relief efforts for the suffering Ixil people.
In his 70s-early 80s, 1994-2008: Dad had a very hard time acknowledging Mom’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. A family intervention when we were together in California for a grandson’s wedding in 1999 forced Dad to accept that he could not safely take Mom back to Guatemala. After some time living with Dan and his family in Wheaton, Dad and Mom moved to a retirement center, Go Ye Village, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Finding the silver lining, Dad said, “Helen laughs at my jokes no matter how many times I repeat them.” Dad cared for Mom until his neglect of a leg wound resulted in gangrene (Dad was diabetic). He did not lose his leg, but while he was in the hospital, Mom was moved into a memory care unit and did not live at home again.
Tahlequah, OK 2004 Dad, Mom, and their eight children on his 80th birthday
With a new lease on his own life after convalescing, Dad began traveling to visit his children and twenty-five grandchildren and participated in a large family reunion in Iowa, where he entertained the kids with his creative whittling. Every day, he called his granddaughter Karis, in and out of hospitals, to encourage her.
In August of 2008, the translation of the New Testament into Ixil was finally published. All eight of Dad’s children, most of his sons- and daughters-in-law and seventeen of his grandchildren joined him in Guatemala for this wonderful celebration. Dad did not feel well while in Guatemala, but attributed this to the travel, joyful stress, and different food of the reunion. On his 83rd birthday two months later, he was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. His eight children and our daughter Karis gathered around him for his last weeks of life, while Dad protested that he had too much to do to take time out for being sick.
Just three weeks after his diagnosis, in the early hours of November 12, with Steve at his bedside, Dad died. Karen had gone home to attend to needs there, escorting Karis back to the hospital in Pittsburgh on her way. The other seven of us sat around his bed for hours talking about our father’s life. We felt he had been snatched away from us too soon. None of us were prepared to lose him. We were just beginning to restore our relationships with him after his years of devotion to Mom, who was too advanced in Alzheimer’s to understand what had happened.
As family and friends, including Karen and her family, gathered for Dad’s funeral a few days later, among many other attributes, we remarked on his sense of humor and love of puns, his resilience, his inventiveness, his thoughtfulness and kindness, and his delight in singing in a barbershop quartet at Go Ye Village.
We are grateful for all Dad gave to us and to the Ixil people through his remarkable life and faithful obedience, and his deep love of Scripture.
Hebrews 12:18, 22 You have not come to Mount Sinai, a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind … and terror and trembling. … No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering.
Can you imagine being part of that joyful gathering, surrounded, buoyed, overwhelmed by thousands of angel voices raised in worship of the Lamb, the Lamb who laid down his life for you?
A couple of years ago, I had a tiny taste of what this might be like. I was standing in worship in my church in Pittsburgh when all at once, I could see into Heaven. I can’t explain this; I can only tell you what I experienced. I felt goose bumps; a depth of wonder I don’t know how to describe. Awe.
And gradually I realized: the angels were singing with us. They sang the song we were singing in honor of the Lord. I wish I remembered what that song was.
The time of worship ended. The vision faded. I was so overwhelmed I had to sit down. After the closing prayer I looked around me. Did no one else see what I saw? How could I ever describe it? Was I meant to share it with others? To what end had God given me this glimpse of glory? Was it for me alone, to encourage me in a time of sadness?
I don’t fully know the answer. Tonight, I feel I am to share this with you. Perhaps you are in a moment of discouragement, wondering whether your life will ever come right. Perhaps this second-hand peek into the reality of God’s “heavenly Jerusalem” will prompt you to ask for your own deepened understanding of the joy-filled wonders that await us.
I offer this as a gift, passing on a gift given to me, Heaven touching earth. May the Holy Spirit use it to bless you as only he knows how to do.
Shutterstock: Bruce Rolff
I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne … And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang, “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.” Revelation 5:11-13
Hebrews 1:14; 2:9 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
She did WHAT?!
I was reading one of Karis’s journals, age fourteen. She described a habit she had developed, when she couldn’t sleep because of pain. In the early morning hours, she would slip outside and sit on our front step, watching the sun rise and our neighborhood slowly come to life, greeting and blessing passersby hurrying up the hill to catch buses to their jobs across town. We lived in a sort of rowhouse, fronting directly on the street, sharing walls with neighbors right, left, and back.
A view of our street, our open carport on the left, the step where Karis sat behind the neighbor boy in blue (one of Karis’s closest friends). Karis, center, between Rachel and Valerie, holds her dog Buddy. Dave’s dad was visiting us. See the trees and lake in the middle distance? This is the water reservoir for our part of the city; it now boasts a park and walking track designed by a beloved member of our church. Living near the “represa” was one of the perks we enjoyed–along with our wonderful neighbors, who looked out for us in every way they could. We cherish friendships with them still, and visit whenever we can.
Why did I feel alarm—and outrage, if I’m honest—learning about this seventeen years later?
We lived in a dangerous neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil, where assaults, robberies, and kidnappings were frequent, especially of white, blond children and teens, presumed to be from rich families. Karis knew this. Every one of our neighbors’ homes had been broken into; a teen across the street had been shot; one family’s young children tied up and terrorized; every home robbed … Most of this occurred in the vulnerable early hours of the day. All the horror stories sprung to my mind; our neighbors gathered in our living room seeking solutions. Yet Karis consciously and deliberately exposed herself to harm while the rest of the family slept.
It’s difficult to adequately express the complexity of keeping Karis alive day to day, totally apart from these external threats. On any given day, she could wake up feeling well enough to go to school, and I would proceed with my ministry and household plans for the day, only to be called a few hours later: “We found Karis passed out in the bathroom …” The race across the city to emergency care … the inevitable scolding by her doctor for not acknowledging school was not really an option for a person like Karis. (An extrovert, she hated every single day she missed being with her friends and all the activities of school.)
The cost of Karis care to each of our other children, when so often, for example, family plans had to be cancelled because Karis was once more in the hospital. Christmases, birthdays, weekends spent in one hospital or another. I couldn’t believe Karis would so brazenly add the danger of assault or abduction to her life and ours.
Our family in 1999, Karis age 16
So why did she do this? We didn’t allow our daughters to walk anywhere alone. Not ever.
I took some time to calm down, then kept reading.
Over the course of her high school journals, Karis justified her early-morning breach of family rules because:
She needed those hours away from her pain-filled bedroom. She needed to breathe fresh air and commune with God in the beauty of sunrise, a beauty hard to come by in our concrete jungle.
She needed people. Anytime other people were present, even peripherally, she could focus on them and not on her distressed body. (This reached the point when she was in college that her doctor told us he couldn’t care for her anymore. That’s another story.)
She knew precisely when she had to slip back into the house and her bedroom before others in our home woke up—and figured “What they don’t know, won’t hurt them.”
She wanted to LIVE–and her health limited her in so many ways.
And finally, Karis felt perfectly safe, because she wasn’t alone: her angels were with her. Her angels, Faith, Hope, and Love, whom she could see, whom she talked to and often referenced in her journals.
Hmm, I thought. Perhaps this explains something. I had always wondered why in twenty years there, our house was the only one on our street never broken into. We were the “rich Americans,” the natural target of robbers and kidnappers. And we knew, because neighbors easily made their way into our house to put out a fire while we were away one Sunday, that getting in wouldn’t pose any problem to professional criminals.
Unknown to us, three powerful angels, apparently, resided at our address.
Karis never suffered harm for disobeying our family rules. Each successful escapade reinforced doing it again. And it seems, from her journals, that Karis’s angels supported her adolescent misconduct in this and in many other ways. For example:
Riding buses across town (our “town” was a city of 22 million people) without telling us or asking permission.
Maintaining relationships with people, including guys, she met on the bus.
A whole night spent with her friends in a city park without letting us know where she was. Why didn’t she call when she missed the last bus home after a concert in the park? Because she “knew” we would be asleep and didn’t want to wake us. (We and the other parents, of course, spent the night phone-tagging and worrying and praying.)
How does God assess all that? Some mysteries, we will only understand in Heaven. But once we’re in the presence of the Lord, they probably won’t matter anymore.
Romans 8:39 Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the airport, I saw a toddler harnessed to his mother, who also pushed a baby in a stroller. And then heard a passerby say, “That is so wrong! Treating a child like a dog!”
I reacted differently. I thought, “Oh, that is so smart! The child won’t experience the terror of getting lost and separated from his mom. And navigating the crowded concourse, she doesn’t have to worry so much about losing him, while also caring for her baby.”
Perhaps my positive response is linked to the challenge our mission team has given to each of us, to summarize our life story (60, 70, 80 years of intense living) in 35 minutes for our teammates. This begins today, as we are gathered at a Quaker retreat center on the beautiful coast of Oregon.
Twin Rocks at Rockaway Beach, OR Shutterstock: Cynthia Liang
As I’ve thought about my story, the phrase “tethered to God’s love” seems a perfect summary statement. All kinds of forces, both external and internal, have threatened my relationship with my Father. Yet here I am, at seventy, more attached to him than ever. Not because of me, who would so easily wander or run away, but because he holds onto me—while at the same time giving me enough slack to move “on my own.”
As I’ve thought about my life, I’ve recalled numerous times when I’ve not even been sure I wanted to continue living. Everything felt just too hard. But God intervened each time, through people, through circumstances, through his Word, through the Holy Spirit’s comfort. He kept on holding on.
Psalm 92:8-15 But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever. … The godly will flourish like palm trees … in the courts of our God. Even in old age they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green. They will declare, “The Lord is just! He is my rock! There is no evil in him!”
Psalm 90:10, 12 Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty. … Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
After my 70th birthday on August 16, I went into a bit of a funk. (Do people still use that expression?) Thinking back on it, I realize several dynamics converged during the weeks between that day and the lovely August 31 birthday party my son and daughters so sweetly planned for me.
1. I was still grieving for my friend Donna who died suddenly and unexpectedly June 30, and for my friend Carolyn who died of cancer August 19.I realized that once we’re “old,” these losses become more frequent. And at some point, will touch my own siblings, my own family. I didn’t want to accept this reality.
2. Coming down with Covid on my 70th birthday was custom made for making me feel “old.”
3. I took longer to recover my energy than I thought I should have. I took my four-year-old granddaughter Talita to a favorite park and barely managed the ¾ mile walk to the waterfall, with lots of stops along the way. As I sat on a rock while she played in the creek, I felt overwhelmed by the feeling that this is what awaited me as I grew older, this sense of helplessness to do what I wanted to do; of my tired body not cooperating with my mind and will. I resented it, despite knowing in my head I didn’t “deserve” the good health I usually enjoy while so many others I love deal with limitations all the time.
Talita and Liliana at the party, faces painted thanks to our friend Suzanne.
4. Dave and I went to the park where we usually walk three laps at a fast pace several times a week, about 3 ½ miles. He had Covid too but walked all three laps. I inched along (it seemed) for one lap, then had to sit and rest. Then at turtle-pace I made it back to our car. I felt frustrated and angry. This is not me. Who am I, if I can’t do what I want to do? You know, Lord—I’ve told you this for a long time—I don’t want to become dependent on other people, taking up their time and energy and resources. Especially I don’t want this for my kids.
5. I was grieving the outcome of the so-hoped for elections in Venezuela, where daily, conditions were (and are) going from bad to worse. So many people prayed, and believed … yet here we are, with Maduro’s opponent now being called a traitor for running against him, with a warrant out for his arrest. Where was the energy to keep trusting and keep praying for relief?
6. I came to the point of dreading my birthday party. I knew people would be kind and say nice things, and I didn’t feel like I deserved that. I slipped into some kind of alternate reality in which I was a non-person, knowing that none of what might be said was true. I thought, “Dave could go in my place; I’ll stay home.” It didn’t matter that old age is a blessing (consider the alternative) and that everyone walks through this sooner or later, or that so many people, even my own sibs, have health issues and limitations I’ve not had to deal with. This was happening to me! I had to face up to it and learn for myself how to age faithfully.
A bit melodramatic, yes? I can imagine eyes rolling. By God’s grace I did one positive thing: I told close friends what I was feeling, the struggle I was in. Just saying it out loud let me laugh at myself and gain perspective.
By birthday party day, thanks to their graciousness and prayers, God freed me from my pity party. My children were so generous, my friends so lovely, the surprise of out-of-towners I didn’t know were coming so heartwarming … It was all wonderful, and I’m deeply thankful for the love and generosity of family and friends.
Val, Dan, and Rachel even had brigadeiros (chocolate) and beijinhos(coconut), candies always part of Brazilian birthday parties! Valerie made me the lovely photo blanket. And … So many other special touches. Lots of behind the scenes scheming by all three of them.Today, by the way, is Rachel and Brian’s tenth wedding anniversary. Time goes so fast!!
I’m able to believe again Psalm 92:8-15–which the psalmist credits to GOD’S faithfulness, not our own. It’s been a favorite hope and life-giving passage since I turned 65.
And able to turn my attention back to what God has put in my hands to do.
Acts 11:1-4 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So, when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized himand said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story.
When you are criticized or misunderstood, do you ever wish you could tell your whole story? Surely then, whatever happened would make more sense to the person who has jumped to a premature conclusion! But telling the whole story requires the other person to listen, and that’s not something easily come by, right? It requires time, and patience and attention.
Fortunately for Peter, his critics weren’t distracted by their phones or the latest news cycle. They took time to listen. Verse 18 tells us the result:
When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.
This was a major paradigm shift for them. A game changer. A huge “But God” moment. It wouldn’t have happened if they had not been willing to take time to listen, with hearts open to understand not just what Peter was doing, but what God was doing.
Have you noticed that when you tell your story, you understand it better yourself? Perspective emerges that isn’t possible when we keep our stories inside our own heads.
September 4-8 Dave and I will have the privilege of participating in a biannual retreat with the IMT (International Ministry Team), which is our formal place of connection and accountability with our mission organization, One Challenge International. Our team leader just notified us that we will each be given half an hour to tell our story, a quick overview of our life journey. What an interesting task, to choose what to include in thirty minutes from seventy years of living! Knowing my teammates, I expect we’ll be thrilled by God’s faithfulness, and our love for each other will deepen.
Perhaps you don’t have a context in which you can tell your “whole story.” But what if you start with thirty minutes? If someone were to listen to you for half an hour, what would you want them to understand about your life? What stands out to you? What particular incident illustrates what God has done for you and through you?
Perhaps in thinking about this, you’ll realize you would like to share a particular But God moment with those who read this blog. If so, please let me know. If the challenge of writing it down is what’s stopping you, call or text me or email me, and we can plan a time to do it together. I’m confident that when you do this, you will encourage both yourself and other people. And you will give glory to God.
Take My Life by Frances R. Havergal, sung by Chris Tomlin
But God walks (and flies and plays and swims and dances) with us
James 4:14-15 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? … What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
It was Dave’s and my turn this year to plan our annual family vacation. Our family wanted a beach. As Dave and I scheduled our flight to Orlando, I told him, “We have access to our BnB at 3:00. So, let’s fly early and shop for groceries before we check in. We can prepare dinner before the rest of the family arrives.”
It seemed so simple.
Each of our four family units (totaling seven adults and four children ages 1-6) made their own travel arrangements from Pittsburgh to Florida. To summarize what happened, a story I may write someday as a humor piece, by the end of our travel day, for a variety of reasons, members of our family got stuck in Chicago, Baltimore, Charlotte, and finally, Tampa, before eventually arriving in Orlando.
All the boarding passes Dan received in Charlotte before he finally managed to get on a plane!!
And then each of us had one issue or another with the rental cars we had reserved!
Orlando airport, waiting on rental cars. And waiting. And waiting …
Dave and I arrived at our BnB, without groceries, not at 3:00 p.m. but at around 9:00 p.m. Other family members trickled in after that. Supper was Moes (“So many chips!”), picked up by Rachel on one of her drives between car rental agencies. In a mix-up, before we left the Orlando airport, she handed me to eat on the hour plus drive to the coast the children’s bag (with gluten free options for Caleb) instead of our order. The total list of our comedy of errors deserves a humor tale!
That was Sunday. Monday, our son Dan tested positive for Covid. He spent much of the week in bed. On Friday, which happened to be my 70th birthday, I got sick, though I didn’t test (positive) until we got home to Pittsburgh on Saturday evening after getting up at 3:30 that morning to make our flight in Orlando. That’s another story.
Back in Pittsburgh–wiped out. And so happy about our wonderful vacation!
AND I think every member of our family would say we had a marvelous vacation week together. So much joy. Such special memories, including a wonderful dance performed for me for my birthday by Valerie and the kids (including the one-year-old!!) to the song Beloved by Jordan Feliz.
Making memories
So much beauty: the ocean, sunrises and sunsets, the kids advancing in swimming skills, sharing over meals and games … Dave even let me beat him at ping pong. No hurricanes, despite Caleb’s prayers–he thinks Pittsburgh weather is boring. And though we had some injuries, everyone made it home intact.
Back home, between my bed, the couch, and the kitchen table, to the sound of my hacking and blowing, I’m working hard to get everything together to submit Campfire Song Storiesto the publisher. It was due, supposedly, August 15. Working with five illustrators, one of them in chaotic Venezuela who hasn’t figured out yet how to get her pictures to me, and one singer, and six stories in one volume, is a bit complex. And pure joy. I am so very grateful for the talents of each of these wonderful people, ages eleven to thirty-something, each one an answer to many prayers and not a little anxiety along the way.
One of Clara’s illustrations for the lullaby that ends Campfire Song Stories. Clara is twelve.
Caleb lost one more front tooth in time for his first day of first grade today. Valerie’s arm injury from a rogue ocean wave will require an MRI. And now Brian has Covid …
John 20:30, 21:25 The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. … If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.
Our mission organization is called One Challenge International, often OC for short. Our mission colleagues David and Cherie just sent the following story in their monthly newsletter. I’m posting it with their permission. Jesus’s disciples are still witnessing miracles!
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In our OC office in Johannesburg, a library and bookshop are maintained for leaders to borrow and purchase materials for their growth and development. Recently, we learned of a story related to those books, one we believe you’d appreciate – and thank God for as well. Our OC office in South Africa received the following email:
“Dear Leadership at OC-Africa, “My Muslim name is “Mohammed” [name changed], I was born and raised in a Muslim family in northern Mozambique. I was raised in a religion that hates Jews, Christians, and all white people. I was trained by the Isis in Somalia to fight for Allah in Jihad. I have been studying Islam since I was a little boy. In Islam the doctrine of slavery and terrorism is regarded as the most rewarding service for Allah. Killing Jews, Christians and all white people in the name of Allah is the only assurance a Muslim can have to enter Paradise.
“For 20 years I was in Somalia & Sudan for training in Jihad. I was trained to use all kinds of guns, grenades, swords, knives, etc.“…God rescued me before I committed any acts of terrorism and murder. In the year 2005 after my training in Sudan & Somalia by Elshabab we visited the nation of Kenya…we were living in the coastal town called Mombasa where there is a growing population of Muslims. We met some missionaries at the beach in Mombasa and I was given a box full of Christian books. [The] box and these books had a red sticker of OC AFRICA.
“These books have transformed my life and God uses the books to give me purpose and direction for my life.I have now officially changed my name to “Joshua” [name changed again].
“I have lived as a refugee in many African countries because I was running away from radical Islamic terrorists who were hunting my life so that they could kill me. I came to South Africa 13 years ago as a refugee, but life was difficult…I lived from one shelter to another. Sometimes I slept in the streets when I did not have any money to pay for the shelter. I started buying second-hand books and I began to feed my spirit with the word of God…I have learned to trust in God. Your books have taught me Experiencing GOD.
“…God gave me a vision to reach 532 million Muslims in Africa and to equip the Church globally to reach Muslims. …By the grace of God, we have already planted churches in the rural areas in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.”
“Only God knows how that box of books wound up, from Johannesburg, in the hands of “Joshua” in Kenya. All we know is that the Lord has used them to change this man’s life and to birth a ministry. Join us in thanking God for “Joshua,” for books, and for OC Africa’s library and shop!“
(Debbie) What acts of Jesus have YOU witnessed, in your life or someone else’s? I invite you to write it down in one page and send it to me (debrakornfield@gmail.com) to share the encouragement! Your story deserves to find its place in the record of God’s wonders.
Debra Kornfield 