Matthew 6:25-34 (condensed :) ~ Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life...or tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
We are currently on the plane while I am writing this...exciting! I haven't written yet on how the Lord miraculously provided a place for us to stay while in Ethiopia. As I think I mentioned in the previous post, we got word of our court date 11days before it was happening. We had already planned a family vacation with my parents & had a 6 yr old super excited for that. We decided to go but cut it short, and looking back, I am thankful we did as we got some quality time with the fam before we left. This left us with needing to find a place to stay in Ethiopia while among doing many other things to prepare while on vacation :) The search for finding a guest house (what they commonly call places to stay in Ethiopia) was heavy. We didn't have a lot of time, but in searching for guest houses we had our hearts set on a few as their mission was to give back to orphans, women, & children. We wholeheartedly wanted to support this...amazing what these people are doing! However, the doors kept shutting as they had no availability. I remember saying to Cole, "if God is shutting the doors on this, then He has to have something great." Earlier when Cole & I discussed coming over to Ethiopia, we envisioned serving while over here...looking around to see where we could come alongside what God was already doing & help. We even dreamed of maybe finding something where we could even come back on a regular basis to serve, and how cool that could be for our family to come back together to do someday. Whether it was an international FCA deal or something else...it didn't matter, but we were stirred by the vision :).
Well, God is so much bigger than we will ever know while here on earth! A consistent prayer of mine is that He would get bigger & bigger to us :) Through a variety of ordained circumstances, I ended up asking a friend who had adopted from Ethiopia in the past for a recommendation on places to stay. She then asked others & got back to me & The Lord began to reveal what He had :)
There is a ministry called Ordinary Hero. If you haven't heard about it, you need to check it out at ordinaryhero.org. About 2 yrs ago, I learned of this ministry as a church in Morton was kicking off their orphan ministry and the main speaker for the kick off was the founder of this organization, Kelly Putty. The Lord used her to open my eyes & challenge me. We were in the beginning stages of the adoption process & I remember thinking that all I could really do was pray for this child that God had, which is powerful, but I wanted to do more, and I couldn't...fervently pray & wait is what we could do. However, Kelly mentioned that night that this was the position that she was in when waiting for her child. But God opened her eyes to the need for ministry to the orphans, widows, & needy in her own neighborhood. I was convicted. We had been living in the inner-city as God had called us to, but we weren't digging into ministry like we knew we should be. I knew God was calling us to change, & so we did. That summer we began a 5-day club in our back yard. This summer will be our 3rd one. Other fruit resulted from this as we now do an outreach at Christmas & are borrowing the Youth for Christ van to take kids to church every Sunday and taking advantage of discipleship opportunities that God is showing us. All God...not us. He opened the flood gates, & it has been a privilege to be a part of it!
Well...this friend got back to me on places to stay & mentioned that another friend had said that Ordinary Hero was opening a new guest house, & we should check it out. I was sooo excited but cautious! I mean this would be a dream!!! I emailed Kelly to inquire about staying there or if it wasn't done yet to just serve as well. Well, we are doing both!!! Go God!!! The life center/guest house is not officially done yet but everything for us to stay there is provided! However, they happen to need our help serving by shopping for decorations to put up inside...seriously!!! They will provide a driver & money & we do the shopping! How cool is that??? And I just happen to love to shop & decorate! There may also be opportunities for us to serve in helping with some outreaches that their team will be doing too! Yessss! Thank you for doing more than we could ever ask or imagine, Jesus! I cannot wait to see all that He has for us unfold once we get there!
God used this to remind us of a lesson we have learned before. However, we clearly needed a refresher. Honestly, we wasted some time worrying about a place to stay. God had it...the whole time. Pretty sure we failed the test, but lesson learned, & we are thankful! It's easy to say something & read scripture about it & quite another to actually wholeheartedly believe it & OBEY! Thank you, Jesus, for your constant patience with us & for using trying times to lovingly conform us into your image. How amazing that you would do that!
On a side note, I have an exciting post coming up as my awesome hubby went above & beyond to make our 10 yr anniversary (today...June 7th) extra special (as if it already wasn't:) Love him!!!
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