Shall We Dance. . .

Since we have returned to Thailand from America, God has just been so incredible in my life.  In fact, sometimes, I have felt as if I am running just to keep up.  Sadly, one area in my life that has gotten set aside during this time is my blogging.  I say sadly, because I truly enjoy blogging.  I love to share what God puts on my heart, in hopes that it will speak to and encourage someone else.

Here in Thailand I have offered to share my knowledge about ballet and Praise Dance with the girls in the area.  The girls have been so dedicated and enthusiastic!  They have picked up the basics of ballet so quickly.  Okay, okay, I know I sound like a proud teacher, but listen to how the Lord has worked through this ministry. . .

A friend popped into in Youth Group one Saturday, and chatted with Bill and I briefly, while the youth ate dinner.  I talked about how well the girls had done in their first ballet class.  He immediately jumped in and said, “Oh by the way, would the girls be available to perform at an all church gathering the last Friday in September?”

I laughed and told him that they had only had 1 class so far.  He said that was fine, and that he was sure that they would do a great job.  Some of the girls were at Youth Group and I called them aside and told them that they had been asked to dance in two weeks for a gathering of hundreds.  They all started to laugh.  I told them it was true, and they laughed all the harder, saying that they had only had 1 class so far.

I went back and told our friend that 2 weeks was just too soon.  Not to miss an opportunity, he said “Okay, how about if they dance at the following gathering on the last Friday in October?”  I told him I would let him know.

At the next ballet class I discussed with the girls the possibility of dancing at the end of October.  They kept asking me if I thought they could do it.  I really felt like the Lord was saying “Yes, they can do this.”, and I told them I thought they could do it.

And they did!  Two nights ago, they danced in front of about 200 people from Thai churches and from English speaking churches, and they did an amazing job.

In fact, as soon as the worship service was over, the coordinator came over and pleaded with me to have the girls dance at the November gathering.  Not just one dance, but two.  She said she wanted the girls to open the worship service with a dance and close the service with another dance.

We (the girls and I) decided that it would be too much for me to choreograph two dances, teach them the dances and rehearse enough that they would feel that they had done their very best.  So, we are looking at maybe December.

So far, the girls have danced at two churches and the all church gathering of our town.  They are dancing at another church in December, and. . .

Well, we are still working out details about other dancing opportunities.

I have seen this group of girls draw closer to each other, encourage each other and seek to Honor the Lord with their dancing.

Praise God!

"Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!"  Psalm 150:4

Blessings,

April

A Heart Checkup. . .

So the other day after I had been up for a while, I had a mental list of what I was going to do, and then. . .I got a phone call.

I answered the call, and a Thai friend said that some people needed help.  She said that two people needed a place to stay for two weeks.  Hmmm, we were to leave for America in two weeks.  So, I trashed my mental To-do list, and Bill and I went to meet with her to find out more.

She explained that there was a Thai mother and daughter that were going through a crisis, and they needed a place to stay.  My immediate thought as we sat and talked with our friend was, ‘What would the Lord want us to do?’  As soon as I thought it, I knew the answer.  Of course the Lord would want us to open our home to them.

I looked to Bill and our eyes met, and I knew that we were both thinking the same thing.  I turned to our friend and told her that we would be happy to welcome the mother and daughter into our home.  Our friend explained that they only needed a place to stay for 3 days, and that she had arranged for another place about an hour away for them to stay after that.

We asked when they would be arriving at our home, and she said that she would bring them by our house around 10:00 pm.

So we got things ready at home; cleaned, prepared beds and put out towels to welcome them.  At 7:15 our doorbell rang.  (Our ‘doorbell’ is mounted to our gate outside.)  Bill went out to see who it was, and then he called to me.  I had been upstairs, and hurried outside.  I was surprised to see 8 to 10 people standing at our gate.  I scanned the faces from left to right looking for a clue as to who they were; as I reached the last face I saw that it was our friend.  I quickly, said hello in Thai and invited them in.  (I was thinking, ‘Wow, they are early’ and ‘Who are all of these other people?’.)  No one moved, so I asked what was going on.

Our friend explained that the situation had changed and they no longer needed to stay with us, but that they all came in person to thank us for offering to let the mother and daughter stay with us.  I was stunned!

How many times over the years had someone changed their mind, and I had gotten a text or a quick call to say ‘Sorry’ and that was it.

Here all of these people had come in person, to say thank you.  Wow!

Our day had turned out so differently from what we had planned, and yet I was grateful for the heart checkup that I felt I had received.  I know the Lord knows our hearts, but it is good for us to have spontaneous opportunities to really live out our faith and for us to check our hearts. 

Thank you Lord, for giving us opportunities to have heart checkup’s, to share Your love and to encourage our faith walk.  Thank you Lord, for occasions where You give us chances to re-evaluate our priorities and to do the right thing.

I pray that each of us would look to the Lord, when He puts a heart checkup in our path.  I pray that we would honor and glorify our Lord and Savior with our response, putting aside our plans for His plans.  Putting aside our hearts to show His heart.  And I pray that we would always say “Yes”, even before we know the question, when the Lord asks us to do something.

Deuteronomy 8:2 - And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. . .

Deuteronomy 13:3 - . . .For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Blessings,

April

A Clean Sweep. . .

Sometimes as I sweep up the floors of our house, or sweep the tiled outdoor area that surrounds our house, I get frustrated.

“Frustrated from sweeping?  Huh?!”  It is true.

You see, in America I always had long handled brooms with stiff bristles to sweep with, and here in Thailand I have a broom with a handle half the length that I am used too and the bristles are wispy.  In other words, the harder I try to sweep the less effective I am.

As a missionary living in Thailand I have learned to watch how the local Thai people do things, and this is what I learned about sweeping:  It is almost like a dance. 

Ah, like a dance. . .I used to be a ballet dancer, now that is a language I understand!

So, as I watched the Thai’s sweep with the short handled brooms, I noticed that they held the broom lightly in their hand as they took a step and gently with a fluid motion brought the broom forward.  The dust was encouraged forward as it softly wafted into the air and settled to the ground in a location in front of the brooms arc.  The dirt just seemed to obey the gentle prodding of the broom, and continued to move along.

Never have I seen a Thai using a Thai broom in a harsh or rough manner.  Which I can tell you, from experience, is a good thing – because it does not work.  Lol!  I have tried to wield my short broom in short, staccato type motions to hurry my sweeping along, all to no avail as the dust basically refuses to obey.

So, I have figured out that I can fight the dirt and dust by trying to make it comply to my way of sweeping, (pushing, brushing fast, with the bristles pressing and scraping against the floor), or I can sweep in a light, encouraging, arcing dance like motion and finish my sweeping without frustration.

Fortunately, I have chosen the wise way of working with the broom the way it works best, and I have found my level of frustration with sweeping completely diminished.

When I think about how the Lord works through the Holy Spirit with me, I see that He gently encourages me and gently admonishes me if I need it.  I am so grateful that the Lord teaches with love and encouragement. The Lord does not usually use the “2 x 4 method” (hitting me on the head with a piece of wood) unless I am stubborn, like a sticky spot on the floor that a gentle sweeping motion just won’t get.

As we work with youth of varying ages at the Youth Center, we nearly always find that encouragement, and a gentle word works best in teaching them.  They are always more inclined to obey and to act in-kind to each other.  So rather than forcing lessons or speaking unkind words, we use the balm of gentleness and encouragement to help them grow into the young people that God wants them to be.  (I actually find this approach works with people of all ages.)

Most people thrive when taught and helped with soft, encouraging words and actions.

I pray that each of us would speak wise words that uplift and encourage, not words that injure and teardown.

Proverbs 31:26 – “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 – “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

John 14:26 – “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

Psalm 143:10 – “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!”

Blessings,

April

I Did It!

‘Did what?’, you might ask.  Well. . .

I gave my ‘will’ to God.

Okay, okay, I can guess what you are thinking. . .“Wait a minute, you are a missionary, what do you mean you gave your will to God?  Didn’t you do that a long time ago?”

Well the truth is, I thought I had!  But praise God for the Holy Spirit and His work in me as I read a book that opened my eyes to the truth.  The truth is that I had not completely given my will to the Lord.

So to quench your curiosity, I will tell you that I had not given the Lord my will when it came to food.

I would constantly ask the Lord to work in me and through me, giving Him my every moment. . .and yet. . .that is not how I lived when it came to food.  You see, I would be loving and obedient to the Lord until ‘the cookies called’, and then all bets were off.  I would ignore the voice telling me to “step away from the cookies”.   I would seek to satisfy myself by eating, even though I was eating for every reason except that I was hungry.  I would eat because I was having a bad day, or because someone was cruel to me, or, or, or.  The list goes on.  There were plenty of scenarios that (in my mind) warranted my indulgence in eating when I wasn’t even remotely hungry.  And the sad thing is, after the indulgence I never felt better.  I still had the feelings that I had before turning to food, plus then I also had the guilt.

The book that I read explained that God made our bodies perfectly, and that if we would just listen to our bodies and eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full we would be just the size God intended us to be.  (Of course there can be medical reasons that some people are overweight, but with me that was not the case.)

The Lord really spoke to my heart and I could see that what I was doing was sinning.  I was keeping part of my life from the Lord.  I had put up a wall between myself and the Lord when it came to my over indulgence with food.  The last thing I wanted was any sort of barrier between me and the Lord.  So I got on my knees and asked the Lord for forgiveness, and asked Him to strengthen me and teach me how to eat like I should.

As Jesus said in Luke 22:42  ". . .not my will, but yours. . ."

The Lord has been so gracious, and the forgiveness has been so freeing.  Some of you may think that obedience means more rules to follow, but I found it to be just the opposite.  I found obedience to be incredibly freeing.  Why?  Because God knows what is best for us.  Gone was the guilt and the shame, in its place was peace and joy.  You can’t beat that!

I immediately started listening to the Lord, and waiting until I was hungry before I ate – no matter what time it was.  And, I stopped eating when I was full.  Sometimes, I would eat just a few fork fulls and then I felt full and I would stop eating.  Other times I would eat quite a bit more before I felt full.

The Lord strengthened me as people tried to coerce me into eating more food, or teasing me about not being a member of the ‘clean your plate club’ anymore.

Not only did I really start to feel closer to the Lord, but the pounds (or kilos, as they say here in Thailand) just started to drop off.  I got the usual questions, “How small are you trying to get?” or “How much weight are you trying to lose?”  But the truth is I did not do this to lose weight.    Of course it was good that I lost weight, but that is not why I changed how I reacted around food.

For me, it was a heart issue.  For me, it was a sin issue.  I needed to address my lack of obedience to the Lord and do a U-turn, and with the Holy Spirit’s guidance I have done it.

Don’t even ask how much weight I have lost, because I do not know.  All I know is that I am enjoying eating so much more than I ever have, because now I really enjoy waiting to become hungry.  And when I do get hungry, I enjoy figuring out what I really want to eat and then I eat exactly that.

I have not given up eating any foods.  (I know from past experience, that giving up foods just makes me crave them all the more.)  In fact today I had a hot fudge sundae.  Yum!  That is what I really wanted, so that is what I had.  I couldn’t finish it all, but what I ate was delicious, and I did not mind pushing my bowl aside when I was full. 

Joshua 1:9  tells us to:  ". . .Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.""

I have had such strength from the Lord during this time, and I have been blessed to be able to share with others how the Lord has done this work in me.

So, I want to encourage you.  God wants to draw you closer to Himself.  God does not want there to be anything that acts as a barrier between you and Him.  God is a Holy, Righteous God, and it is just incredible that He allows – much less wants us to draw near to Him.  So let Him help you.  Let Him strengthen you.

Maybe it is eating that is a barrier between you and the Lord.  Maybe it is how you spend your time.  Reading, watching TV, spending time on computer. . .and yet not finding time to spend time in God’s Word.  The list goes on.  You know what you have let come between yourself and the Lord. 

So, “be strong and courageous”.  You don’t have to do it alone.  Jesus left us with a Helper, the Holy Spirit, and He is always ready and willing to help us draw closer to the Father.

I am praying that you too will give your ‘will’ completely to the God the Father.  Don’t hold back, God’s plan for you is amazing. 

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Praise God!

Blessings,

April

Me (April) enjoying our 3 puppies:  Lil’ Squirt, Alphie & Pumpkin.

I Had a Dream. . .

Last week I had a dream. . .and I actually remembered it in the morning, and I still remember it; which for me is not the norm.

In my dream I was alone and I was walking in a parking garage.  As I approached a vehicle with a shiny chrome bumper, I could see my legs and feet reflected in it.  Suddenly, I noticed that just to the left of my reflection, there was another pair of legs reflected.  The other person reflected in the bumper was wearing a light blue long garment with white stripes, he had tanned legs, and leather sandal clad feet.

I was so startled to see someone’s reflection right next to mine, when I thought I was alone, that I jumped and whirled to my left.  As I looked in to the face of the man next to me, I knew instantly who it was, and I said “Jesus!”.  Jesus got an amused look on His face, and said “Why are you surprised?  I told you I would be with you always.”

I stood in stunned silence for a moment, and then I too began to smile.  Of course I knew that God/Jesus had said that He would always be with me, but I had never thought of it in that way. . .that God was actually walking with me every moment of everyday.

I have felt so incredibly blessed by that dream, and the way that the Lord has reassured me that I am never alone.

I have shared my dream with some people that were going through a really hard time, and I have been blessed to see how the revelation that even when they felt alone. . .they really weren’t, impacted them.  To see the Truth of the realization register on their faces and the peace that seemed to transcend what they could have imagined during their time of trials in their lives, was amazing. 

It so remarkable for me to share my life with other people, and to realize that God can and does use our experiences to encourage others. 

It is so humbling. . .and all I can say is “Thank you Lord!” for allowing me to be part of Your work here in Thailand.

Hebrews 13:5 - "for he (God) has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.""

Matthew 1:23 - ""Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us)."

Galatians 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Matthew 28:20 - ". . .behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

2 Timothy 4:17 - "But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed. . ."

So, I encourage you to share your life with others.  You never know how God can use you, in the lives of others.

Blessings,

April

It’s Incredible. . .

I love how the Lord, gives me new understanding of His Word even though I have read it before.  In reading the Bible recently, I found myself looking at some of the scriptures in a whole new way.

In John 13, here was Jesus on His last evening on earth, and it is fascinating to me how He chooses to spend His last evening and with whom.

I mean, to be honest, if I knew that I was going to die tomorrow and that a close friend was going to setup my murder. . .basically, that person would be the last person I would think of spending my last evening with.  Personally, I would seek to surround myself with family and close friends.

But. . .How did Jesus choose to spend His last evening on earth?  He surrounded Himself with His 12 disciples.  Note I did not say 11 disciples.  He did not post a guard, giving them strict instructions not to let Judas in.  In fact His treatment of Judas was just as He had always treated him, with love, caring and compassion.

Even though Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him, He still chose to spend His final evening with all of His disciples.  They ate together, they prayed together and Jesus – the Creator of the world washed the feet of His disciples.  He humbled Himself, and just as lowly servants would do, He washed their feet.  Jesus washed the feet of all of His disciple’s.  He did not skip Judas.  He did not ridicule Judas, or give Him ‘the look’, or tell the other disciples who was going to betray Him.  It’s Incredible!

In fact, when Jesus said that one of them would betray Him, they all looked at each other wondering who it was.  Hmmm, that tells me that Judas acted (at least on the outside) like the other disciples.  Judas had already decided in his heart to betray Jesus, and yet no one could tell from his demeanor that those were his intentions.  The other 11 disciples did not all spin around, pointing and staring accusingly at Judas.  There were no ‘Oh yeah, we knew it was Judas’ comments made.

I wonder how many people are sitting in church pews looking the part, but in their hearts they don’t even know Christ.  God knows our hearts.  He knows whether we have given our lives to Him, or whether it is all about the perception of others and showing up for an hour on Sunday.  My heart hurts thinking about those that don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  For me, there is no greater Joy. . .than knowing and loving Jesus.

As Jesus sat surrounded by His disciples, did He dwell on that fact that He would endure horrible pain, torture, humiliation and death the very next day?  I think many of us would be self-centered had we been in similar circumstances, and yet Jesus shows us that we should humble ourselves and be God centered and other’s-centered no matter what the circumstances.   It’s Incredible!

What a challenge to Christians, to live a life that reflects those same things. . .

Being Humble. . .truly humble, not ‘Hey look at me.  Aren’t I humble?’.  (a.k.a. – not humble.)

Being Servants. . .not looking around to see who will serve us, but us looking around at how we can serve others.  Without fanfare.  Quietly, and with the love of Christ in our hearts, serving others.  Without looking for a ‘pat on the back’ or accolades for a job well done. 

Colossians 3:23-24 "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ."

Giving Grace. . .Jesus gave us undeserved Grace.  Can we rise to the challenge and give undeserved grace to the people around us?  To the people that we have decided don’t deserve grace?  Yes!  With Christ in our hearts we can!

Loving one another. . .Giving and showing love to one another, without expecting anything in return.  Jesus loved Judas knowing that he would not thank Him for the years of love, time and devotion that Jesus showed him.  Jesus loved Judas, because God the Father wanted Him too.  Jesus tells us in John 13:34  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."  After that commandment there is no ‘but’, there is no ‘except’.  We are to love one another, as Christ loved us.  Period.

It’s Incredible!

John 13:

Vs 1-5 …when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.  During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,  Jesus… rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ...

Vs 14-17 “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them...”

Vs 21-22  …Jesus…testified, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."  The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. ...

Vs 34-35  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

This is just part of the story; I encourage you to read all of John 13.  It’s Incredible!

Blessings,

April