God is on the move.

I feel the rumblings.

I have realized something about myself as we’ve traveled along on this journey over the past 2 years. Right before God does something big, or says something big to me I get restless.  I start to feel like everything in my life is wrong, I get irritable.  I cry a lot.  Poor Jed!  I don’t have any explanation for why that happens.  Maybe God is trying to prepare my heart for what He’s about to do or say and instead of reacting in quiet obedience, waiting before Him, I freak out because I love to be in control.  I’m a wee bit of a control freak, I’ll admit.  🙂  I’ve had to give up a lot of control over the past 2 years and while it’s felt great, I’m aware that I still have a long way to go.

For whatever reason, that’s how my frail, far-from-perfect self reacts to the rumblings I feel when God’s about to move.  About a week and a half ago the rumblings began.  For the first time ever I quickly recognized what was going on.  Then I got excited!  God’s about to do or say something big!  I don’t have a clue what He’s up to, but I want to be ready.  As the rumblings have come it has pushed me to prayer and worship.  My times with the Lord have never been so sweet.  I love His ways.

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On Friday night we went to the Regional Vineyard Conference.  As we worshiped with other believers I was remembering the only other Vineyard Conference we’ve ever been to- in Ukraine!

“I want to be there so bad.  I just want to pack up and go.  Who cares about our house?  Who cares about finances?  I just want to be there.”

Those were some of the things I was chatting about with the Lord during worship.

“I feel such urgency to get there.  The need is URGENT.  Those children need help now!  Those Ukrainians doing the stuff need help now!  I just want to go!”

As I was praying for the children I saw a clear picture in my mind that I know was a gift from Him.  I saw a picture of the Lost Boys orphanage like I was looking in at the grounds from the front gate.  All of a sudden I saw Jesus round the corner, walking along the paths.  He had a gentle smile on His face as He walked along, past the eating sheds, past the spot in the garden where we spent time with the boys.  He walked along, touching the flowers, smiling to Himself.  It was approaching evening and I knew that the boys were inside asleep.  I saw Jesus approach the building where they slept and He almost winked at me as He entered the building where He walked among their beds and cribs, touching each one on the head.  As they slept He walked among them, loving them, seeing them, knowing each one by name.

It was beautiful.

He is there.  He sees.  He knows.  Yes, He wants us to act.  Yes, He wants us to be his hands and feet.  But we simply can’t be there yet.  We are working as hard as we can, but we aren’t there yet.  As He winked at me it was like He was saying, “It’s okay, I’ve got this.  You work hard, you get here as quick as you can- but I’ve got this.”

He’s got it!

Jed and I know we aren’t those children’s salvation.  We are just willing bodies.  He’s got it.  HE is their Savior and He is there RIGHT NOW.

Praise God for that.

So, we will keep plugging along, preparing our lives and our hearts for our move.  We aren’t gone yet though, so while here we will do whatever we can from afar.  We will pray, we will give, we will share the children with those who haven’t yet heard of their plight.

Will you join us?

Please pray that as Jesus walks among the boys that they would feel His presence and that the love of the Father would surround them, invading their hearts and minds, holding them close.

How do you move your family to Ukraine?

One baby step at a time.

I’m not much of a baby-stepper.  I’m more of a huge-ginormous-leap-off-of-a-cliff-into-the-great-unknown-stepper.  Thank the Lord Jed is somewhat of a baby-stepper.

This weekend we had our first garage sale of what I’m sure will be many more.  This garage sale was affectionately known as “Phase 1 of the House Purge”.  A whopping 4 days after we returned from Ukraine I started rounding up stuff for this garage sale.  I went through every room and found items that didn’t have a home.  If it didn’t have a home, it didn’t deserve to stay at our house.  It was awesome!!!  I LOVE getting rid of stuff.  It’s so freeing.  Less stuff in the house = less stuff for Mommy to pick up.  SWEET.

The garage sale went pretty well.  It rained most of the day Friday, but that was nothing some coffee couldn’t fix.  The nice thing about garage sales is it kind of gives you an excuse to do nothing all day.  Sure it’s a lot of work to set up, but then you basically get to sit around and chat the rest of the time.  I decided I like holding garage sales.  Our friends Eric and Hannah did the sale with us, and except for the 2 hours when it was down-pouring rain and Eric and I were huddled under the front porch cursing the clouds, we had a pretty great time.  Many items that I once had to pick up, I now do not.  Success!

We’ve been home a little more than a week now.  That was fast!  I’m elbow-deep into diapers, homeschooling, and “happy heart” chairing (our main method of dealing with meltdowns around here.  “Oh, go sit in the happy heart chair until you can change your attitude and have a happy heart.”  Seth and Havalah have spent an unfortunate amount of time in that chair this past week.  Gotta love resetting the boundaries….), and Jed has been back to work since the morning after we landed.  The question everyone is asking us is fresh in the front of our brains:

Gooooood question!  Here’s what I can tell you for now:

1.  We know God wants our family in Ukraine.

2.  We don’t know exactly when we will get there.  We have a couple pesky things like a mortgage and jobs that need to be dealt with.  🙂

3.  We don’t know how long He will want us in Ukraine.  We are open to 2 years or 20 years.  We won’t try to figure that one out on our own.  I know for me personally, I will have to go with the mindset that I am there for good no matter how long we actually stay.  I will have to root my heart there in order to be focused, otherwise, I’m a grass is greener type of gal.

So, for now, we wait on the Lord for His next steps for us and prepare however we can in the meantime.  I’ve been like a crazy person this week purging my house.  If we know we will eventually be leaving, we know we’ll have to get rid of a bunch of our junk.  Why not start today?  I mean really, do I need an entire tote full of nursing school care plans and assignments?  Heck no.  Do I really need doubles of every single picture taken in college?  Probably not.  My hair was really bad then anyway.  I don’t need double the reminders.  I also had chipmunk cheeks.  Really!  I showed Jed a picture and he said it looked like I was storing food for winter in my cheeks.  Gee thanks…but it’s true…I’ll be the first to admit those were not my cutest days.  What else would you expect after 4 years of living in the dorms and a really severe allergy/aversion to exercise? (I hate pain)

Oh my, the things we have saved over the years kill me.  Have you ever gone back and read old journals from junior high and high school?  If you need a good laugh or encouragement about how far you’ve come, read a few old journals.  Oh the humiliation!!!!  As I was sitting alone in my room reading old journals I actually found myself looking around in embarrassment as if someone would walk in at any moment and discover all the never-gonna-happen crushes I had back in the day.   I think I better burn those suckers before Jed finds them.  He’d never let me live it down.

Another step we’ve taken towards preparing for Ukraine is finding a Russian tutor!  We haven’t met her face to face yet, but we found a woman who is a believer who agreed to teach us.  She was a teacher in Russia and has lived in the States for 7 years.  Before moving here she taught English to Russians, and Russian to Russians, but she’s never taught Russian as a second language before.  This should be fun!  We are very motivated to learn and know it is essential that we learn as much as we can in the time we have.  We will meet her next week and get that ball rollin’.

Emotionally it’s been a hard week for me.  I’m happier than happy to be with my kids.  I’m so happy to see family and friends.  All that is wonderful and amazing.  There’s just one problem.  I left a ginormous piece of my heart in Ukraine.  I know Jed did too.  It’s just really difficult to have seen a part of the need and to know it’s still happening today, right this second, and we aren’t there to help.  I’m not saying we are the saviors, or we can fly in and fix everything there with our magic fairy dust, by no means am I saying that.  We just know God called us to that work and we want to help, hands-on, right now.  But, at the same time, we want to continue waiting on the Lord and letting Him guide this thing.  His timing is everything.  His plan is at work and we want to stay right in the middle of it and not make our own way.  It’s emotionally tiring though.  I want to just stick a For Sale sign in my yard tomorrow and be done with it.  Good thing I’ve got Jed to reign me in.

So, that’s where we’re goin’ from here.  We’ll keep you posted as things continue to unfold.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep weeding through embarrassing reminders of 1994-2001.  If you were my friend at any point during that time, shame on you for not telling me my hair was so bad.  On the other hand, maybe I should thank you for looking past my wings, perms, bandanas, Patty Duke flip, and HUGE bangs and loving the real me hiding behind the fluff.  🙂

Good night!