About Me

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Phenix City, Alabama, United States
I have been called by God to serve Him through ministry to the orphan children of Africa! I have just started this journey! My prayer is that God will grant me wings so that I may swiftly arrive on the field! Please pray for his guiding!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Oh Ye of Little Faith....

Wow, it has been far too long since I have updated my blog and I only hope I can capture everything here that I need to!  The Lord continues to work and bless and point me towards Africa!  I celebrated the birth of my first grandchild last week.  I had wondered, and many people had asked, how that would affect my decisions to go to Africa and I can joyfully report that it has not changed it one iota.  I love her and she is so precious, but God told me to go and I am going and I can not begin to describe in words the peace I have to the very core of my being!  I was chatting with a family member about the birth of Hailey on facebook and she asked if I was still leaving the country and I typed to her, "I know it will be hard, but GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!"  That was all Holy Spirit because it even made me jump as I typed it!  He does know what he is doing and he does know this will be hard and he has an amazing plan for me and for Hailey and for everyone and HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING and I have no intention of questioning him now!

I have been invited by Baptist Mission to Forgotten Peoples to attend Candidate Training in June praise God!  I am so excited to meet the other missionaries and to begin formal training for this journey!  I have been so blessed and encouraged by countless friends and loved ones who are already offering their support, both financially and in prayer!  The week I found out that I had been invited to candidate training had started out rough.  I am starting to really learn what it means to live by faith.  I had and continue to have several needs and some of them more immediate than others.  I had shared this with my dear friend and Pastor's wife who has been an amazing encouragement and she told me to hang in there, that living by faith was new to me, to pray SPECIFICALLY and wait on the Lord, quit trying to figure things out (I can't tell you the joy that surges through me even as I type this).  Immediately after my conversation with her, I could clearly hear the Holy Spirit saying to me, a mustard seed.  That is all I expect.  It's all I ask.  Faith no bigger than a mustard seed.  I took my pen and drew a speck on a piece of paper (because a mustard seed is not much bigger than that) and said to myself, this is all it takes and God will move mountains!  How thankful I am that God's plan perfectly accounts for my limitations!  He didn't say faith as big as a kernel of corn, or an apple, or a watermelon, he said a mustard seed!  I took such great comfort in that!

Within hours of asking God to forgive me for my lack of faith, and after telling him, "Lord I believe  Help thou my unbelief," I received an inquiry about some furniture I was selling.  Did you know that selling your furniture can be a God-ordained transaction?  I didn't!  The individuals that came to look at my furniture were not only wonderful, Godly, spirit-filled Christians, when I told them about my journey they gave me MORE than the asking price of my furniture!  They prayed for me in a way that blessed my heart and soul.  Turns out, the gentleman was a Pastor of a church here in Columbus.  Wow!  On a side note, when I delivered the furniture today it turns out he knew my Dad from Wright's Cafe, knew my brother-in-law and his daughter is my sister's banker!!  WOW!  Our God is good, so great and so mighty there's nothing my God can not do!  I have a feeling this relationship will become a long standing source of strength and prayer!

I also want to share the absolute invigoration of cleaning out my house.  As I began to sell and/or give away my things, I started to become a little emotional about it.  It is so easy to get caught up in the sentimentality of things....THINGS.  But as I began sorting and packing I could so clearly hear the Holy Spirit remind me....Forsake all and follow me.  Forsake all....ALL.   The dear gentleman I mentioned above prayed with me again today and spoke to my dad about having a daughter that was going to a place of "danger".  His own daughters had been in this position in life and ministry.  He said, and I so agree, that there is no better way for a daughter to honor her father than to be wholly and fully and completely submitted to the will of GOD, to want to give, even to her own hurt.  What an amazing thought, privilege, honor.  To be counted among those I have admired and even envied for so long, those who were completely sold out and surrendered to God.  But what I have learned is that there is no glorification needed, there is no honor needed, there is no praise, no compliment.  It is God, and only God, and all for Him and by Him and I am the one who feels so humbled to even be ALLOWED to take these steps.  It is not a sacrifice.  It is joy and peace and love and an absolute THRILL!

So I am emptying myself of things and taking up my cross and following Jesus and wherever God would lead for me to live in this country and in Uganda, and I can not wait, I can not wait....GOD GRANT ME WINGS!