Come Away
It has been a long time since I have posted anything. As I just started writing this post our electricity went out. I am so thankful when we have electricity. Electricity in Honduras is a blessing when it works and we have learned to function when it does not. I have found that as nice as electricity is, having water is better. Water is life. Electricity is a convenience. Water is a necessity. I love clean water the best of all. We have been on the community water in the past, and were thankful to have it, but when we got clean water, we rejoiced.
Last month the electricity went out and our generator wouldn’t work and so we asked for the community water to be cut on until we could get the generator going. I told the girls, don’t drink the water and then I forgot and promptly chugged a big gulp of the community water. I panicked when I when my taste buds were alerting me to a rancid flavor in my mouth and I thought “What in the world?”, as I swallowed the bacteria infused flavored water. I don’t know why I didn’t spit it out. I started praying over my stomach and wondered at how my neighbors had been fairing over the last years. Did they have water? They did. Do they have pure water? They don’t. They have become accustomed to the water. The water they have is adequate and they are thankful, but it is not the best.
I think about how Jesus changed my life. Did I have life? I did. Did I have a good life? I did, but it wasn’t the best until Jesus stepped in and clean up areas I had grown accustomed to having life. Oswald Chambers says, “The good is the enemy of the best”. I pray the best overtakes me, and the girls from this Ministry.
January we had a baby arrive at the farm. Our little 15 year old had a beautiful baby girl named Alondra. She is the best baby in all the world. We are so thankful that she arrived healthy and the mother has recuperated totally from her surgery.
In January the girls were registered for school. We have kids in the bi-lingual Abundant Life Christian School and we have a kindergarteners temporarily in the public school down the road and our girls and the girls from our community that used to go to our school, are going to the Lenca Public High School. There have been huge transitions, just getting everyone where they are supposed to be in the mornings. The High Schoolers have to be at school at 7 and leave at 12:00 and on alternate days at 1:00 pm. The Jr. High girls go in at 7 and leave at 1:00 and on other days 1:30 or at 1:55, dependent. Then our Abundant Life girls go in at 8:00 and leave at 3:00. The little girls get out at 12:00and the 1st grader gets out at 1:30. I had to make a flow chart just to be able to tell Don Chilo the bus driver how he needed to pick everyone up. Mix in the fact that we are carrying lunches to the Abundant Life girls and the Jr. High Girls, it is pretty lively around here. I couldn’t figure how to even have our devotions (Circulo) in the morning, because the girls were leaving at 6:30. I felt like our whole life had been flipped over.
While we were trying to figure all this out, my mom died on the 8th of February. I was in town with Rosa getting things together for her wedding. Because we got a late start that day, I didn’t think we would get anything done, but we ended up getting everything that we needed for the next week and for Rosa’s wedding. I was waiting for a guy with a hundred pound sack of potatoes to show up when my phone rang. God knew I need to get everything accomplished that day.
I received the call from my oldest daughter, and immediately I tried to start remembering the last conversation I had with my mom a few days before, and the last time I saw her and what we talked about. When I got to the mission the girls were eating and I headed straight for my room. I was thankful, that I had a moment to myself to process, the grief and the arrangements you have to make when something like that happens. I left the next morning for the States. I thought I would go and get right back for Rosa’s wedding, but I didn’t.
Thankfully, Wesley and Suzanne Jarrard and Katrina Bethea decided to come early before their team arrived. I had no idea they were coming or that I would need them to be here, so that I could go, but God knew. . We had gotten most of the wedding stuff done on February 8th, when I got the call about my sweet Mom. After I left the mission, we had Rosa’s wedding and teams, back to back. Chris Briles came to perform the wedding. Rosa had Mr. Tim give her away. Rosa's dad came and that was a healing thing. I kept telling the Lord that I needed to get back, but He knew. every area was covered. He was taking care of the ones I loved and He was doing it with other people. He is faithful on every level. The girls and the teams did fine and I was thankful that God sent his best. WE were covered by His grace in every area.
God has been confirming so many things lately. One is that I need to stop more and come away. There is a lot of activity around here. With two infants and 35 girls there is always something to do or is waiting to be done. However, somehow, I need get off from that never ending trail and come aside. Moses came aside, the Bible says and he was able to move and lead a million and a half people through a desert. I only have around 40 folks in a beautiful mountainous area, and I am scrambling all the time. I have to stop long enough at a filling station to get filled up. I can’t just drive by and hope that I have enough gas to get me through. I have to stop and pay the price to get my spiritual tank filled up. I can’t just continue to drive by the source of fuel and hope that it gets in there somehow.
Thankfully here in Honduras, they check your oil and water and all the levels in your car when you stop to fill up. But there are areas in our lives that we need to let the Lord to check on. My tank was extremely low. I had been asking the Lord to help me find a time to go and get refreshed, but there just didn’t seem to be a time. Then when my mom died, I thought, “This is not what I meant”.
I was thankful that I was able to be with my siblings and family members to walk through our grief together. In times past, while on the mission field, I would hear about a family member passing after the funeral. I was so thankful to have the opportunity to be with my family.
The last few days, home in the US, I was invited to come to a reunion of a group of ladies that used to meet for Bible study 30 years ago. Our Bible teacher, Sylvia Evans, was there, and it was so good to see all of my “older prayer partners”. It was even better as the Lord went through the room and ministered to all of us. I was transported back with my love of God and the Love of his Word. I will forever thankful for this strong group of believer’s who took me under their wing, so many years ago, and showed me how to study the Bible and point me to Christ.
I got home in the middle of a team from Wesley and Suzanne’s church. It was the first time their pastor, Rusty, came here to PTC for a visit. His wife Denise had come to the mission a few years before. They ministered to the girls and our community. On the last night, I asked them if they could talk with me and they said, “Yes”. We walked down from the church in the pitch blackness and I stopped at our bus and said, “Come into my new office” I knew I had to get creative to be able to come aside and pray without interruptions.
I think God is calling all of us to get creative about how we find time with Him. Suzanne Wesley, the mother of the founders of Methodist Church, would throw her apron over her head and the children and her God knew that was her time with Him Our country and our families need us to do this, but I want to make it my priority, and not just squeezed time with the Lover of My Soul into my hectic schedule I pray that God continue to help us find a way to Come Away with Him.
Blessings from the” I AM Going to Come Away” Honduran MoM.
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