Saturday, October 03, 2009

Bondage or Liberty?

I am reading a GREAT book right now! It's called "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. And this is an excerpt from it! Awesome!

The law says, This do and thou shalt live. - The gospel says, live, and then thou shalt do.

The law says, Pay me that thou owest. - The gospel says, I frankly forgive thee all.

The law says, Make you a new heart and a new spirit. - The gospel says, A new heart will I give you, and new spirit will I put within you.

The law says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. - The gospel says, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The law says, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them. - The gospel says, Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

The law says, the wages of sin is death. - The gospel says, The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The law demands holiness. - The gospel gives holiness.

The law says, Do. - The gospel says, Done.

The law extorts the unwilling service of a bondman. - The gospel wins the loving service of a son and freeman.

The law makes blessings the result of obedience. - The gospel makes obedience the result of blessing.

The law places the day of rest at the end of the week's work. - The gospel places it at its beginning.

The law says, If. - The gospel says, Therefore.

The law was given for the restraint of the old man. - The gospel was given to bring liberty to the new man.

Under the law, salvation was wages. - Under the gospel, salvation is a gift.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Puzzle without a Picture

I love putting puzzles together. When we lived in Costa Rica, Ryan bought me a set of puzzles. It was a box that had 7 or 8 different puzzles, each in individual bags. The box had the pictures of each individual puzzle, and also there was a poster included with the pictures of each puzzle. In order to down size for the move to El Salvador, we only took the bags and the poster. I can't seem to remember where I put the poster with the pictures of each puzzle. But I really wanted to put a puzzle together, and I thought, "how can I ever put a puzzle together without the picture?"

I love that God always wants to show me spiritual pictures through the physical. God showed how often we get "freaked out" when we can't see the picture that He has for us. We think and/or say, well, God there is no way I can do any of this without seeing the big picture. But the fact is, we can. Is it ideal? No. But surely it can be done. How? One piece at a time. To trust in the fact that God has a picture big, and that we just need to work diligently with each piece.

I always start with the straight edge pieces and obviously same colors go together. Once that was done I could see more of the context or structure of the picture. So then I started putting like colors and textures together. More and more I could the true picture.

We can trust God with each individual piece of the puzzle in our life because we trust in the fact that there is a big picture. So just work one piece at a time. Each step or piece of the puzzle is important for the next. Everything is connected and necessary to complete and see the whole picture.

The beautiful thing is we don't NEED to see the big picture! It can be done, just one piece at a time.

Trusting

Throughout all my Christian walk, I have heard the verses in Proverbs 3:5-6 over and over again. I, at times have great times of trusting only in the Lord and not leaning on my own understanding. And other times....not so much.

Lately, I have been overcome with the desire just to trust. Praise the Lord, we don't have anything right now that is huge or trying in our world. But I have really seen even in the little things, just to trust!

I am reading Hannah Whitall Smith's book "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life" (which is an excellent read) and she said something that I just loved and held onto...."The truth is, the only remedy in every emergency is to trust in the Lord. And if this is all we ought to do, and all we can do, is it not better to do it at once?" We don't have any "emergencies" right now, but we daily have opportunities to trust the Lord for something. It has been so awesome just to release everything into God's care.

While truly releasing things into God's care, I find I have fewer things to say. Does that make sense? There is nothing to say or to figure out because I have released it. Is it God's business now.

When I begin to worry or think on things, or lean on my own understanding of the situation, I have started to say..."Satan I know you are trying to convince me to doubt God, so you take these things to God himself. This is His business not mine!" How freeing that has been!

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Going Back to School????

The girls have been out of school for 3 weeks. The swine flu alert closed all schools for 3 weeks. We all have gone a little stir crazy. The girls were sick for a week or so with a cold, which kept us at home to not share the goodness with anyone else. So tomorrow will be the first Sunday back in 3 Sundays. We are ready to be among the living again!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Wisdom from Weeding

Weeding....Sometimes a very overwhelming task. I don't know how you feel about it, but for me, it isn't something I seek after. However, I don't like having weeds in my garden or yard. So as much as I don't want to tackle this task, I know it is necessary. Recently while I have been weeding I noticed some great spiritual principals that are worth holding on it.

Right now I am reading the book called "Las Mentiras que Las Mujeres Creen" (The Lies that women believe). I have been really challenged to pray and look inward at what lies I have been believing and those that hold me in bondage. Little did I know that God wanted to use weeding as a physical picture to bring about many spiritual truths.

There is no doubt, like I mentioned before, that weeding can be an overwhelming task. And most of us, let's be honest, hate doing it. But we know it is necessary.

We have a good sized yard here and so there are a lot of weeds, because nothing has been landscaped, there was just dirt. So when the rain came, so did the weeds and lots of them. Sometimes I didn't even know where to begin. And so, I started with the big weeds. Some would come out fairly easy and others would take a good tug. It always helped to have had rain the night before because the soil was much more soft. What I noticed when I got a lot of the big weeds is there were many smaller weeds down closer to the ground. So before I could really see the ground I had to clear out the smaller weeds. After seeing a little bit of ground, it encouraged me to keep at it because I was seeing progress.

In my process of trying to landscape, I am using rocks from around the yard to put in specific places. When I cleared away enough of the weeds and saw more of the ground I was able to find this type of rock.

So here are the spiritual things that God showed me in this process. God showed me the weeds are like the lies. In order to have a beautiful or pleasing garden you must get the weeds out. Just like our spiritual life, we can never have a pleasing, fruit bearing life if our live our lives overtaken by lies. But it is an overwhelming task to start trying to address the lies. Wow, where do you begin? As I mentioned the rain the night before was such an incredible help in pulling the weeds, I am certain this watering spiritually is prayer. Praying that God would reveal which lies to begin "weeding" out. Okay, the obvious place to begin is with the big lies, because then you will be able to see the smaller ones. They are sometimes hard to pull out and other come out with much ease. Definitely the easiest way to pull these weeds (lies) is to get your hand around the base, closer to the root. I know I have to get to the root of the lie to be freed from it. Lies like weeds come in all shapes and sizes. You can never see the truth, or all God intended until you get the lies out of the way. Being able to see what is really there, then you can see what is usable. Like I mentioned, I found the rock I was wanted to put in other places around the yard. I found what was usable. God wants to show me all that is usable. I wasn't able to see all that was usable before because of the lies.

Just like with weeds, lies need to be maintained or kept at bay. The beautiful thing is, is that if kept maintained I am much more likely to focus on the truth because it can be seen. A person has to be very intentional to keep truth the main focus. The lies will always be there, but we get to the point those are not what is predominant.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Team from Alabama


A couple of weeks ago there was a team from Alabama. There were such an incredible blessing. Their focus was spent sharing the gospel door to door during the day and then in the afternoon they had time especially for kids. They had piƱatas, games and a time where they heard the presentation of the gospel. In the evening there was a service with music and preaching as well. There was fruit from this campaign and new people attending the church in Cacaopera.

Adventures in Odessy


Adventures in Odessy has been such a blessing for our home. There is a continual battle with watching too much tv and so one of the alternatives we have come up with is listening to these stories that are chalked full of moral and biblical principles.

For a long it was just Avigail listening to these during her rest time, but then Ella began to have an interest in hearing them as well. And to my surprise it holds her attention. She is now asking to listen them. So here they are listening to one of the stories.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Ohhhh, how our girls love the hammock


Our girls spend a great deal of time in the hammock. This night they decided to sit in it together. How cute is that!

We have 2 hammocks in our living room. Because we decided against a traditional sofa with cushions, these hammocks serve like a couch. And they are much cooler than a traditional sofa as well.

The hammock has been good for me because I take time to rest during the day, which is not common for me. Down time is important, or margin time.

Avigail in her Uniform

Here is a picture of Avigail in her Taek won do uniform. Like I said in the last post, she is really enjoying doing this. This past Tuesday they had testing to receive the next level (next colored belt), but she said she wasn't ready to test for it. She sat and watched her other classmates test for about an hour. I glad she is enjoying and we will do it until she doesn't.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Tidbits about Avigail


Avigail is growing up so fast not just in height. I am so excited about the questions she is asking and the life lessons she is starting to understand. She is in a very inquisitive stage about the things of Jesus' death and salvation that comes from it.

She said the other day, "mom can you help me with the decision to accept Jesus as my Savior because I think I need help." She can tell you everything about the gospel, but it is not quite personal (yet)!

We told her it would be good if she prayed for God to show her why she needed a Savior. And she has done just that. Every couple of days she is asking more questions. It is such a blessing to watch and be a part of as parents.

On a much different note... Avigail is loving Tae Kwan Do. She gets so excited when she is given the opportunity to count out loud during the exercises in Korean.

Avigail is a really sweet big sister and daughter. We are so blessed to have her as our daughter!

In the picture above she is not drinking anything shady.....it is agua de coco (coconut water)! She wanted the umbrella that came with the water.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

So Easy to Please!


Ella has been asking for little arm floaties for the pool. I don't mean just asking, I mean ASKING. She would ask everyday when she got home from school. She would ask "mom, did you buy "flippies"? My sad response everyday "no sweetheart, maybe tomorrow. The issue is there isn't a great selection because it is rainy season and so the shelves are cleared out of this type of thing. And I wasn't aggressively looking because I had no idea how important it was. I honestly thought it was a passing thing.

Well the other day, Ryan and I were in the store and I walk down an aisle that had swimming stuff. And low and behold, there were some "flippies". And they were 30 cents!! And they were super cute. They are little ladybugs. When Ella got home from school, I said, "hey, I have something for you... she said, "what mommy?" I asked her, "what have you been asking for?" She responded, "Flippies!" I told her, "they are in the kitchen". She goes running in there and sees them, and just starts gushing with thankfulness. She must have said thank you 10 times right then. But the sweet thing is, she hasn't stopped. These are some of things she has said... "Mom, that was really nice of you to buy those for me. Mom, your the best mom for buying me those flippies." Now, I must say that we don't usually receive such gratefulness, but this time was very precious.

That is truly the best 30 cents I have ever spent.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Happy Mother's Day!


I had the tremendous blessing having my disciple, Sarah come to El Salvador for a visit. We had a great time together. We laughed, ate chocolate, played cards, went sight-seeing, ate more chocolate, played cards, ate mangos, went to the beach, did I mention we ate chocolate? Seriously though it was so fun to spend time with my friend.

One thing that was really awesome for me was see how much Sarah had grown spiritually. Over the years we have know each other, we had the great opportunity to go through discipleship, and the woman's study together. What a incredible blessing to watch her grow over the years and now she is sharing with me and offering me advice. What a wonderful treat for me. In a sense, God gave me the opportunity to be her "spiritual mom" for a time. What a blessing to have been used as a tool in the God's hand to have a part in someone's spiritual growth. Nothing makes me more proud and happy to watch someone apply spiritual truths in their life and embrace change and growth. Praise God for giving such great increase!

Sarah, my friend I am so proud of you. I love you tons. And had a GREAT time and look forward to the next time. The beach is calling your name! tee hee

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Cultural Tidbit

Here and pretty much all of Central and South America, Good Friday is celebrated much more than Easter. Everything is closed on Friday and people don't like to leave their house because they think it is a sin. But Sunday is back to business as usual. Very different.

Also, I asked if it was customary to buy a new dress or outfit for Easter. When they looked at me strange after I asked, I thought either my spanish was so bad that they thought I asked if you buy a new dog for Easter or they just don't have that custom. Turns out it is not their custom.

And they don't have a stitch of Easter goodies here. Like coloring to color eggs, no plastic eggs and no candy! How are you supposed to celebrate Easter without all that. Just kidding, we did just fine. They girls were very flexible and they were so grateful for all that we did. Sweet things (the girls).

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Great Poem - unknown author

A friend of mine sent this to me and wanted to share it.

Beautiful Christian Sister
'A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ
That a man should have to seek Him first to find her.'

When I say.... 'I am a Christian' I'm not shouting 'I'm clean living,'
I'm whispering 'I was lost, Now I'm found and forgiven.'

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I don't speak of this with pride.

I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say.... 'I am a Christian' I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian' I'm not bragging of success..
I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not claiming to be perfect,

My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I still feel the sting of pain...
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not holier than thou,

I'm just a simple sinner Who received God's good grace, somehow!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Just What I Needed

I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but I'll be the first to openly admit, that this past Sunday while listening to a great message, I got distracted. I know that is hard to believe, but it happened. A verse caught my attention in Galatians 1, that I really needed to see.

Verse 10 says, "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

I have struggled and struggled with my confidence with my Spanish. A huge stumbling block for me has been what people are saying. How they compare me to others and their ability. I believe this is difficult for anyone to hear over and over again. However, clearly I am looking for the approval of men, who am I trying to persuade and/or please, men or God?

Then I remembered other verses that God showed me several months back. When Moses was basically questioning God about his ability (or lack of) to speak to the nation of Israel. God firmly asked him, Moses,
Exo 4:2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.

God constantly needs to remind me that I have somewhat of an ability. I have something in my hand. But, my response over and over again... is much like Moses....

Exo 4:10 And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

And God says, my I remind you, Keeley

Exo 4:11 And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
Exo 4:12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

God says to me: Now go, Keeley. You worry about pleasing me, not men and use what you have in your hand!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Your being so Nit-picky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have come to understand the term nit-picky very well. I never knew before our experience with lice it's origin. Nits are the little eggs that hatch into lice. Hence the term nit picking. Wowee those little guys are hard to get out.

We have a very regimented routine to try to eradicate those little guys.
Every morning I strip the sheets, and put them in a black trash bag and put them in the hot sun. Every other day I wash them. When the girls get home from school, at the front door (no worries, inside) they strip down and I put their uniforms in a black trash bag and into the hot sun also. For their rest time they either sleep on new sheets or I take off the mattress and let them sleep on the frame. Which by the way most people sleep on this here because it's cooler. It's kind of a woven material. Anyway....if they sleep on sheets then I strip those and put new ones on. After their rest time, they watch a video while we check their hair. It takes all of the video to get everything. We wash their hair with tea tree oil in the shampoo. We have tried EVERYTHING!!!!!! We have even tried a Mayonaise treatment. We were so beautiful. I say we, because yes, I have had the pleasure of having it as well. Everything we have read has said it is a hard battle to beat. They couldn't be more right.

Like with all things, there is always good. In spite of all the extra work that this brings, it has also brought lots of sweet things. We get to spend time every day in close quarters with our girls. They love to watch movies and this way we can watch with them and talk about the things in the movie as it happens. I have always read that it is good to touch your kids. Well, they are getting lots in this hour and a half or so. I bet years from now they will look back fondly on this time, because of the time spent together.

And like with all things, there is always a spiritual side. I was thinking about how much work it takes to stay on top of this issue. When I took the picture of Ryan and Avigail, I thought about how often we should and need to sit at the feet of Jesus and just let him work on our hearts, and our issues. You have to be very intentional to get rid of lice. And you have to be very intentional to work on or let God work on the heart issues and the sin issues in our life. You have to show up and allow Him the time it takes to reveal the problems spots in order for Him to take it out.

Hopefully some day soon, we will be able to say that we beat this battle. But there is always maintenance required in order to keep those critters away. Just like there is maintenance required in our spiritual lives.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Estersita!



I can not tell you how many times I have been asked if this little girl (Estersita, Esther) is our daughter. With her blond hair, everyone thinks that she is ours. She is actually the daughter of Ramiro and Eugenia Claros, one of the pastors at the church. Our girls just love Ester. She is so sweet to our girls as well.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

I want that, yes, that right there! Yesterday would be fine!

Have you ever wanted something so bad... (and as they say) that you could almost taste it! Maybe it's changing your spiritual condition, or maybe being out of debt, or maybe your body style. All of these things require being intentional and disciplined to change them. And they don't come overnight. Well, I feel this way about learning to speak spanish. I want it so bad. I want to be able to speak well right now!

Many other missionaries that have been on the field for many years have said that being able to speak well does not happen for about 4 years and fluency does not come for 10 to 15 years. Wowee!

I am in the process of learning how to be patient and content with where I am at. So as I wait, I am doing all things that I should be. I am being intentional to read, speak, write in Spanish. It will come... or the Lord will come back!!!! Then I'll be able to speak, or it will not matter anymore.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Our House,,, is a very fine house...."

We are so blessed to be finally in our house. I think I have gotten all but 2 suitcases unpacked and we are pretty much settled. There is still a lot of things that we need to buy, but we have to pace ourselves a little bit.

One thing that has been interesting, is that we had our dining table made and it was much cheaper than it would be to buy in the stores. In the states is is always more expensive to have something made by hand, but here usually it is the opposite. So we are actually going to have quite a bit of things made. We will end up spending much less doing it this way. It's actually kind of fun, because I'm going to have a headboard and bedside tables made and it will be just like I want it.

The girls are loving the house. There is a lot of area for them to play, not only inside but outside as well. They just play and play for hours. We have cows right behind our house and I think they have named a couple of them. They scream and wince every time the cows go to potty. Such city girls huh? Maybe that will wear off some day.

One down side to this area is scorpions! I have killed 2 so far, one in the girls room. Yikes! The bugs here are plentiful and interesting. There are lots of types of bugs that I have never seen before.

Overall, we are LOVING our new home. And now we are excited about getting out of the house to talk and build relationships.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Candy Land Anyone?


We have been playing a great deal of Candy Land in the last month. I'm so glad we brought it, it almost did make the cut. It was a last minute decision, actually as we were walking out the door for the airport I made the decision to stuff it in. We have certainly used it this last month. The kids here love it.

One day the girls and I were playing and Chester, one of the dogs here, was jealous, or wanted to play, but just laid down right in the middle of things. So needless to say that particular game was over. Chester won!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Our School Girls


Aren't they so cute in their uniforms????? Oh my goodness I just want to squeeze their little cheeks.

The girls have done really well going to school and adjusting to their new routine. We have had just a little bit of tears from Ella, but overall it is so much better than our transition in Costa Rica. I am certain that it helps that they are only at school for a total of 3 hours.

I don't know if you are able to see it or not, but we received a wonderful gift we think from school. Look real close at their hair. Yup, that's right, lice! We did our first treatment tonight and hopeful we got it all. Everyone here was very casual about it, because it happens every year when school starts. I wasn't feeling very casual about it at first. Yuck! That's just gross! Oh well, there's much worse things, huh?

Sweet Sleeping Girls

I don't know if you are able to see this picture very well or not. I didn't want to the use the flash because the girls were sleeping. They are sleeping in the same bed while we are staying at Alvin and Ninfa's house. Obviously it is very SWEET to watch them sleep together.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Just Waiting

We are patiently waiting for our house to be ready to move into. We are SO blessed to be staying at the house of a great family in the church. However, we are very ready to have our own space. We have been told that our house will be ready in 2 weeks. I'm secretly hoping it will be sooner.

God knew what we needed when He opened the door to stay with Alvin and Ninfa. We have lots opportunities to be around people. So that allows for more talking. In this time of adjusting, it is easy maybe to close yourself in a room and not talk to anybody, because of not understanding what people are saying and them not understanding what I am saying, but we have lots of opportunities to see people all day.

We have been blessed with the girls having Paola, 10 year old daughter of Alvin and Ninfa, and 2 dogs to play with during the day.

We have been blessed with lots of help. People have been very generous with their time to help us get things set up here. There is a lot involved in setting up life in a new place, must less a new country.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Little Ella

Little Ella is not so little... Even to now she seems so much bigger than in this picture.

Ella has a great sense of humor, generous and very emotional in both directions.