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Each week we will provide you with
new words
of encouragement
that will help
you, and us, to see
the markers
that Christ has set out before us.
August 23, 2010
On Wednesday, children in
North Carolina
head back to school. So I can’t help but
think back over the summer and remember the
experiences that we have had. And we have
had a lot of experiences this summer! From
hosting a child from Belarus to camping in
Virginia, canoeing in Minnesota, and having
a summer that has to go down as one of the
hottest in the south, we have HAD a summer.
My daughter went to an
overnight, away camp this summer. This was
a first for her. I knew she wouldn’t have
any issues and she didn’t. She is such a
confident, self-sufficient young lady she
could probably be the director of the camp
next year. She could have done it this year
if she had been asked!
Of course on the way to camp we
were feeling some nervousness. I was
worried that she would bound through the
camp with her boldness and not stop long
enough to enjoy or allow others to enjoy.
I’m sure her nerves were more of the kind
that young girls have ~ Would she have
friends? What would she eat? What if she
got hurt? So is it not just like God to
remind me just who my daughter is? That she
is His and He will take care of her.
I have told you before that I
believe that the Holy Spirit orchestrates a
lot of details in our lives to help us see
Him working. When I think about it, the
whole day is taken up with Him arranging
details. It began with our faucet breaking
the day before. When my husband went to fix
it, it turned out we needed a new one. He
bought a new one, installed it, and the new
one broke, at night, after store hours. So
back he went the next day, the day that we
were all going to drive to
Camp
Tekoa. That is how I found myself driving
to camp with Abby, without the rest of the
family.
As we got in the car, I noticed
that we needed gas. But I got distracted
and didn’t stop at the gas station two miles
from our home. I had a quarter of a tank,
so it wasn’t desperate; I just knew I would
have to stop at some point. When we got
twenty minutes from home, Abby realized that
she had forgotten her flashlight and
pillow. Luckily we were at an exit on the
highway where I happen to know there was a
Walmart. We stopped, got a new flashlight
and pillow, which happened to be on sale and
cheaper than I expected. Then we were back
to driving and the
GPS said we would still make it to camp
during drop off time.
I knew that at any time I would
need to stop and get gas. For some reason
(that would be the Holy Spirit prompting me)
I did not stop at the 20 or so exits that I
could have to get gas. Nor did I get gas at
the station right beside Walmart. And it is
absolutely against my nature to not fill up
on a long trip. I was panicking for my
husband on another trip this summer when I
knew he was running low on gas and I wasn’t
even in the car with him. The “funny” thing
about that is that I somehow knew not to
stop yet. So when I finally pulled off the
highway at this little exit in the middle of
no where, to get gas at this little station
with just two pumps, of course there had to
be a reason. And of course the reason was
one of those things that is WAY out of my
comfort zone.
A car pulled in right behind
me. A woman was driving. A man got out of
the passenger seat. Of course he spoke to
me. And of course all of my instincts to
run and freak out are going off. He asked
me if I had Verizon for my cell service. I
lied. I made up some story about not
knowing my service carrier because it goes
through my husband’s work. At this point I
am near panic, but he is about 20 feet away
from me, so I didn’t dive into the car and
drive away with gasoline pouring on the
ground like I wanted to. And of course he
didn’t believe me that I didn’t have a clue
about my cell phone service. He finally
explained that he wanted to sell the phone
so that he could get money for gas. I said
no thank you and he went inside the station.
At this point is when I
started hearing voices. All those debates
on whether or not you should help the person
on the side of the street or if you are
going to get mugged. In one ear I “heard”
my friend who works for the police
department start going crazy telling me that
it is a scam. The phone had to be stolen.
They were just begging for money. I should
get in the car and drive away as fast as
possible. And so on. But I “heard” my
other friend, who is a nurse, in my other
ear saying that you can’t know. It could be
legitimate and it is not up to us to make
the determination, we just need to help if
we are able to help.
When the man came out of the
station, he once again engaged me in
conversation. My instincts to run are still
on high. The girl inside did not buy the
phone either. Now, I don’t do this. I have
only once before given someone “on the
street” money. But I leaned into the car
and pulled all my cash out of my wallet, a
whole three dollars. And I gave it to him.
He walked into the station paid for three
dollars of gas. The woman pumped the gas.
And that is when my daughter who is watching
this whole interaction, finally speaks up
and asks me what is going on. I give the
short, quick answer and what does she do?
She pulls ten dollars out of her pocket and
tells me to give it to them. This is her
money that a neighbor gave her for watering
plants while they were on vacation. What am
I to do?
So, I gave the woman the ten
dollars and tell her that it is from my
daughter. Then I say “Have a blessed day.”
The woman begins crying and says thank you
while just looking at the ten dollar bill.
I hurry to get into the car and drive away,
trying really hard to not look back. Why?
Because I did not want to know (well I did
want to know, but knew that I shouldn’t want
to know) whether or not they used it to get
more gas. Abby then proceeds to quiz me for
the next hour on how far they could possibly
go on ten dollars worth of gas. She is
wondering whether or not they will be able
to make it to their home. I battled with
skepticism, fear, anxiety, leading of the
Holy Spirit, and whether or not I should
have looked back.
I’ve come to the conclusion
(this is where you will say, “no duh.”) that
I will never be able to fully reconcile this
experience in my human mind. I fully
believe that I was led to that gas station
by the Holy Spirit at that exact moment in
time. Whether it was for the benefit of me,
my daughter, or for the people in the car, I
will likely never know. But God had a
plan. I was part of that plan and I did the
best I could at the time to fight against my
world formed instincts to run away.
- Donna
August 16, 2010
Бабочка
(Ba-ba-cha-ka) ~ that is butterfly in
Russian! It is one Russian word that after
this summer I will probably never forget.
Butterflies are such an awesome symbol of
the resurrection. Whenever I see one
floating on air around my backyard it is
like a silent prayer of peace to me.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me
that this summer while Natasha was staying
with us I saw more butterflies than I have
seen in total all my life. I’m not
exaggerating either! There were butterflies
in the backyard almost every day. They were
around when we were camping in the
mountains. There were hundreds of
butterflies along the trail when we were
horseback riding and one even flew across
the lake when we were boating. I even have
a new butterfly bush growing in one of my
gardens that I did not plant and guess what
~ it always has two or three butterflies on
it.
I could just pass all of these
butterflies off as just a coincidence of
nature. Maybe the rainfall and sun mixture
was just right this year for the butterfly.
But I’m not going to. My heart falls into a
great sense of peace when I see these
butterflies. I am choosing to believe that
God is communicating with me. I believe He
is reminding me that His resurrection does
not have borders. His word is for everyone,
no matter what language we speak, where we
live, or the amount of money in our
wallets. He died for us all.
Natasha is home in
Belarus now with her two sisters and her mom and dad. It is difficult to
communicate at this point because we must
use snail mail. But for now, I feel peace
whenever I see another butterfly floating
around the backyard. They remind me that
even though she is on the other side of the
world, she is safe in God’s hands.
- Donna
August
9, 2010
While Natasha (the child we
hosted through ABRO) was staying in our home
there were times of complete frustration and
anxiety. Most times it was because of the
communication barrier, being that she speaks
only Russian and we only speak English.
There was often a message that either she
needed us to understand or vice versa. And
I have to laugh every time I think about it
because there are times when I would just
nod my head like I knew exactly what she was
telling me and move on. I can only imagine
what she is telling her parents about us
right now because she has to believe things
about us that are totally incorrect.
People constantly ask me how we
were able to communicate. I now do know
about 20 Russian words and I have to admit
that Natasha has over 200 English words.
But we began by drawing lots of pictures and
using
our Russian ~ English Dictionary. Then we
moved on to the online translation programs
that are now all across the internet; which
worked even better once we got Russian
alphabet stickers for our computer keyboard
so that she could type back to us. At that
point a lot of the frustration disappeared.
Looking back at this process I
can’t help but think of God trying to speak
to us through the Holy Spirit. There is a
huge language barrier there and it is even
more than with us and Natasha because we
knew for a fact when we had a message to get
across. We knew when we had to listen and
we made every effort to understand. How
often do we do that with the Holy Spirit?
How often do we make every effort possible
to fully understand what He is trying to
tell us? More likely, as we
frequently did with Natasha, we just nod our
heads like we get it, and go on with life
not completely getting it.
- Donna
August 2nd, 2010
Recently our family was given
the gift of hosting a child through the
relief organization ABRO (www.abro.org).
I never expected to do this. In fact, years
ago when the program came to our church, I
remember thinking that it was a great
program and that I admired families that got
involved, but I just knew that it wasn’t an
opportunity for us.
So, I have to tell you, it
completely surprised me that neither Mike
nor I hesitated when we were presented with
the idea of hosting a child. It seemed to
be a given that, “Of course we would.” In
the five months leading up to the children
arriving in the
United States I never got anxious about the
cost or the logistics. God had granted me
peace; and I can tell you 100% it was God
because normally I am a freak about money
and organizing! It was clear He wanted us
involved because my usual anxieties never
appeared
In our Sunday school class we
recently discussed the concept that every
action has a reaction. If it is an action
that we choose, someone reacts to us. If it
is an action someone else initiates, we
react. And it is the same with Holy
Spirit. If He initiates an action, we
react; even if sometimes that reaction is
non-action. I believe that the offer to
host a child was an act of God and for once,
we reacted in a God honoring way and He
blessed the trail that we walked with
Natasha, our child from
Belarus.
- Donna
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