If we are the Body......

If we are the Body why aren't His hands healing why aren't his words teaching......

A couple of questions have come up about our plans, how are we going to afford Bible School? and what about Robs health? What is the weather like? Is there a church there? What else will we be doing? What have you done to start preparing the Kids?

Bible school is something I will be doing online and Grants may cover almost all of it and quiet frankly we're not worried about it. I also got the question "Is this something that the agency wants?" No they would take me as I am and when I told them what I wanted to do they were totally excited and it was cool with them for me to finish over seas if I need to.  "Why pastoral studies?" I want an over all education of every ministry that can be in a church and how to get it started. I want a taste of everything so that I can share what I learn. The area we have been called to has no church. They are almost all muslim, and the missionaries that are there and the contacts they have had for Christ are the only church. I plan to be able to not only nurse the wounded but feed the spiritually hungry. I want to be able to do VBS as well as have the ladies over for a bible study. By the time we get there, there may be a group meeting and what knowledge is learned can help it grow. It is also a Calling.

Is there a Church there? not in the village we will be in. It is primarily muslim like I said earlier. God has softened their hearts in the last 9 years and they are not only welcoming but they are trying to find out why these Christians are here and are continuously asking the "Christian Lady" (Petra Wirrell) to pray over their sick.

Rob's health? When we were presented with this opportunity MR. Lane with GOM said if we're suppose to go God will take care of his health. His point was proven this week. On monday we were told that the hernia repair surgery was going to be postponed because his sugars have been impossible to control. They wanted his sugar to be down below 150 on the day of the surgery. He hadn't been able to touch 250 in the past 3 months since these hernias. We tried to do our part and cut out as many carbs as we could without going too low.  About six weeks ago he saw a new endocrinologist and he asked Rob to write down everything he put in his mouth and how many carbs and how much insulin he was using. On thursday he saw a diabetic educator and she looked at his journal and told him there wasn't much more he could do to his diet. Everyone automatically assumes that when you have diabetes you can't have any carbs at all. That's type 2, when you have type 1 even when your sugars are high you have to have at least 1 to 2 servings. She told him he has to for his insulin your body does not give you a bolus amount all at one time like when you give yourself injections. It's not healthy to go without carbs your body needs them to balance with that shot of insulin. She couldn't stress that he was already doing all he could and now it was up to his endo. Last time we made an appointment it took a month to see him. Thursday he called after his DE appointment and she actually had an appointment for the next morning. Rob walked out with a whole new insulin control base and last night he was 116. Today he never came close to 200. They are 2 people that are fighting for Robert and following up every week until he has recovered from his surgery. The last few days have overwhelmed Rob because he finally is getting the education and support that he needed 2 1/2 years ago and to be told he was doing everything right was so encouraging. His surgery has been scheduled for 10/7, they didn't postpone as long as we thought. God will take care of Rob's health now and on the field.

The weather where we will  be, is going to be interesting. The temperature only flunctuates about 20 degrees between 65 and 85. There are 2 seasons dry season and rain season. This jungle village is not far from the nearest city but the road conditions make the 30 mile trip almost impossible to reach the city in under 2 1/2 hours. When someone is in desperate need of medical care that is a deadly length of time. So this hospital is crucial.

What will we be doing other than working on fixing up the hospital and nursing? Rob would love to get a community garden growing. This would not only feed our family but the patients at the hospital as well. I'm sure that VBS's and other community outreaches will be planned and then follow ups will be done and hopefully a church will be started over time of course. We will also see where we will fit in with the team that is there already. We also will be helping to host short term teams that will be coming a couple times a year to help us medically.

Our children know what we have been praying about but they don't really. Robby has a better grasp on it than the others. We have also been trying to teach them that you can be missionaries anywhere. We handed out flyers to VBS this year to all the neighborhood kids and we got 22 children over the course of the week to register. We then borrowed the church van and got them all there. Some of them only came once but it planted a seed. As a result we will be starting a character club on fridays. They will be coming to our house to learn about the Lord and to have some fun. We will be doing this through Children's Bible Ministry who is giving me the materials I need.

Pray for Us!
Pray for Robs surgery and recovery.
Pray that I find a job that God wants me to have to help prepare me.
Pray that our children remain healthy.

"Here I am send me"

All right it's time to lay it all out there. We have something to share with those of you who actually read my blog. A few of you already know because I've asked you to pray for us while we pray for God's guidance. Most of you know that we were called to missions as teenagers and that has been our goal for our life. It's been a journey trying to figure out what God wanted our professions to be on the field and as you all can imagine for a couple years there we thought that our goal would only become a lost dream.

In April (right before we left for Baltimore) we were contacted by a missions agency Global Outreach Mission. They presented us with an opportunity that we weren't sure we could do because of Robert's Diabetes. We told most people that we were looking at assignments here in the states. Wellll that was a little fib because we didn't really know. They wanted us to go to Sierra Leone. We thought "impossible" for awhile but after praying about it and letting them know what our initial concerns were, Rob and I started to get creative on some ways to get refrigerated medication to Africa. We decided that if God wanted us to go He would find the way. Well we got an email about a week later form the VP Len Lane at GOM and he said he had great news for us it WASN'T impossible. In fact he contacted the GOM Medical Missions Coordinator for Africa who resides in The Congo and he said that he has 2 full time missionaries in one of the most rural parts of Africa that have type 1 diabetes and they are fine and it doesn't hold them back. WOW

So what have we decided to do about it? Well in the last few months God has used this time to once again challenge us, but we have clung to Him the whole time. We have decided with hours of prayer that we have been called to pursue this opportunity and we will be mailing our applications this week.   We told Robby awhile ago what we were praying about and how Africa was a possibility but that we would go where ever He wants us to. A couple days later he came to me and said "Mommy we're going to be missionaries to africa" and I said "how do you know?" "Because I prayed for us too and asked God what he wanted us to do and know I feel that that is where we are supposed to go".  In the last 4 months we have waited to turn in our applications because we wanted to make sure that we aren't just pursuing it because we can but we wanted to make sure that it was a calling. Always  having my conversation with Robby on my mind Rob and I started doing research on where it was and what's it going to be like, climate, how rural was the area?, etc.

So now let me give you a little info. Our assignment would be at a hospital in the village of Mokanji. In the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. The country has been ravaged by a war that ended in 2002. After the end of the war the government gave GOM the hospital because they didn't have the money to do the renovations that it needed. The bombs and shooting had left it an empty cement shell with nothing not even doors or windows. The only stipulation was that GOM had to get it up and running as a hospital again. The government was able to provide a nurse for what they call a clinic in a small part of it but she has very few supplies and people die every couple weeks due to malaria and other ailments that she can't get enough medicine for.  The first missionary couple (the Willets) assigned just arrived in January PTL!!! They have already seen God work many miracles. He is a carpenter and she is a pharmasist. They haven't even started work at the hospital yet because he has been focusing on getting their house built and solar panels put up. Most importantly he has been putting in 4 community wells to give the village running water for the first time ever. He says the hospital is too big a job for him to do on his own. They also have been preparing for the next missionaries due to arrive sometime in 2012. One of our concerns was our children and now we know that if we go they won't be alone. Why? Because the Abraham's have 3 little ones that are 5, 3 and 1. One of them is a Nurse Practitioner and one is a Physicians Assistant. What will our jobs be well i think that is kind of obvious a nurse and well.... a jack of all trades who will do what ever is needed to help fix up this hospital and then help maintain it.

What about the people? Well it is primarily a muslim village. God however has softened the hearts of these people and now they come to ask the "Christian Lady" to come and pray for loved ones that are ill. The Tribal chief showed up at the missionaries house the week after they arrived and brought the small gifts of appreciation and thanked them for coming and caring for his village.

What are we doing to prepare? I've decided to keep going in school but this time in a different direction. I have enrolled in Nazarene Bible College and will be working for a BA in Pastoral studies with a minor in Missions. Why? you ask, because there is no church there and I have had this fasination with studying all aspects of ministry so that whatever the need spiritually, Rob and I can work on meeting it no matter where we are. I'll be doing it all online and I start in November. We will both be taking perspectives classes in the coming months and spending a lot of time in the word which has now become habit.

When will we go? Well it's going to take us at least 2 1/2 years to raise support so I think it will be at least 3 to 3 1/2 years. By then I should finish my degree which takes 39 mos.  If we could go tomorrow we would. Nursing will be my job. Being an ambassador for Christ will be my life.

What do we need from you? Prayer

Jesus asked Simon in the book of John "do you love me" and then He told him to "feed His sheep" and he did this 3 times. I know that this is my Call not only to take care of physical hunger and needs but to "feed" Christ's sheep spiritually as well. Why because I love Him for what he did for me and the World and He has made this a desire of my heart.  Nothing is impossible when God is on your side.

meg

Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!!!!!

Tomorrow is September 11th.  Where was I 10 years ago? I was 16 and I had returned just 3 weeks earlier from Kenya. I had been on the mission trip where I met Robert. We flue into New Jersey from Ethiopia and than we dispersed to our connecting flights home. I think I remember flying American West but to think that I had walked those terminals just 3 weeks before made me sick. It was 6 am on the West Coast when the first airplane hit the World Trade Center. My mom came in and woke me up and said "Meg something has happened you need to come watch this". We went into the den and there was footage on and I remember even how upset the reporters were and how they didn't know what was going on just as much as we did.  And about 20 mins later we all watched in horror as the second plane hit. I had wrapped myself in a blanket that Rob had bought me before we left Kenya and it was the most convenient of comforts. No one spoke our hearts were breaking for a country as those towers fell I found myself in prayer for the families of those still inside. I couldn't keep my eyes off the tv I remember curling up on the floor in the fetal position wrapped in my blanket and just watched and cried. Everytime a new report came up about the Pentagon and then Pennsylvania my prayers shifted.

In the days following a patriotism I had never seen before engulfed our nation. Phrases and Flags were everywhere. "One Nation Under God", "United We Stand", "Let's Roll","God Bless America" and more were painted on windows of buildings, and put on bumper stickers. I couldn't help but think how many souls would be saved because they cried out to God? At the same time I wandered how many actually knew what it meant when they said  "God bless America"? And the biggest was how long it would last before America turned it's back on God again? What good could come of a tragedy of this magnitude? Every year in Churches around the world people step into a church around Christmas and Easter to do their "Christian Duty"and to help them feel good about themselves. These people may have pain that is hard to face and they can't stand to step in Church other than twice a year. What good came of this? There is now one more time a year where people now find themselves in a church or in a place where hope is given and prayers are sent heavenward. For once this day is not about feeling better about themselves but about looking up. Up to where the Towers used to stand and Up to the only God who cried along with our country that fateful day. Up to the only God who has held the victims families as they were overcome with grief. Up to the only true God who through mans transgressions  has, is, and always will love us.  
       Last  week we sang a song to my sister in law as a joke and was reminded how human we are. It's her birthday tomorrow and we started singing a very funny version of "happy birthday"
Happy birthday, Happy birthday buzzards flying in the air, people dying everywhere than the laughing we were overwhelmed with stopped when we realized what we had just sang. I almost cried when she said I think enough people have died on my birthday".  "Your right" I said and we all nodded and what was supposed to be a joke ended up being a moment of silence for those lost that day. Very Humbling.
      Tomorrow will be a day we can remember where we were that day but for us it will also be a celebration of life with a birthday dinner at our house and then a concert at church in the evening. Tomorrow WILL be a good day. Can you imagine being a Christian American taken hostage and being with your Jihad captures during 9/11. Martin and Gracia Burnham watched as 40 Jihad cheered and had pride when hearing what the terrorists did that day. We have an amazing God who does not require us to kill to get to heaven. The crazy thing that hit me hard when reading Gracia's story is the reality that Jesus died for those high jackers as well as me. They will spend eternity in hell for their choice but the reality that Christ died for EVERYONE is hard to grasp.  Makes me only want to answer the call sooner.

Thank you God for loving even me.