The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor: he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion–to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

I admit that when I see this, all I see is Burma. I ache for it. Particularly that phrase–“a beautiful headdress instead of ashes…gladness instead of mourning…praise instead of a faint spirit…that they may be called oaks of righteousness…that he may be glorified.”  I may just type it all again, because I can’t type it with adequate ache and passion, and I’m not a fan of all caps shouting. I envision some of my dearest friends from Burma–and I see them, with these beautiful headdresses, full of rejoicing, oaks of righteousness, as a testimony to the glory of God. A testimony to the ancient ruins and devastation of many generations.

My dear friend, Kim, and I have these moments where we’ll admit we really do believe and hope that Burma will be free. And it’s true, our lives are a testimony to it. There is no logic, and it seems so far from possible, but we live in such a way that Burma will be freed, that God is moving in the displacement of millions, and that he is and will be glorified.  And it is the best example I have of hope in my life–because I genuinely believe it. I’m genuinely waiting for it. I genuinely expect it to come.

Another side note–I really want to leave out the phrase “the day of vengeance of our God.”  The whole passage is so wonderfully optimistic–freedom, liberty, comfort, favor, beauty, gladness, rejoicing. But then you have “proclaim…the day of vengeance”. Yikes. I prefer the lighthearted.

I was reading and underlining in my Bible, and I actually skipped that line first. Then I felt it wasn’t right to just leave out a sentence of Scripture–seemed a little choosy. And then as I read it, considered it: it’s perhaps the most important part, to proclaim the truth of eternity and the truth of judgment day. Still not as lighthearted as I’d like, but convicting. We can’t merely rejoice at prisoners being freed, celebrate the comfort of the Savior–it must come alongside proclamations. And the proclamations include both favor and judgment.

How holy is our God? I can’t even wrap my mind around the multifaceted depth of this passage. It’s been mulling my head for days, and pushing me in various directions, causing discomfort and hope at the same time.

[How do you end this? Amen?]

Insurance is a pretty great thing. No, real insurance is a pretty great thing.

We’ve had Blue Cross Blue Shield for individuals until August, when Stephen got full-time at Banana. It was completely not helpful, actually costing us more money to go to the doctor than if we didn’t have insurance at all. Yes, that’s right–the labs and tests at the doctor actually cost more if you have insurance.  They post on the wall that if you don’t have insurance, labs cost between $30 and $100 each test. But ours, with our lovely BCBS plan, were about $200 or more each.  So we paid a monthly premium so we could then pay more at the doctor. A rotten deal.

Then we decided that while we’re on this insurance with Stephen’s work, we’re going to go all out. We got the best, with hopes of it covering our costs for shots, meds, and exams before we leave for Thailand.

We love it!  Stephen got to go to the dentist yesterday for free, where they offered him free coffee and water while he waited.  Then he enjoyed a nice cleaning while sitting in a massage chair.  Wow.

When it comes to universal healthcare, insurance, the debates, the benefits, the costs–it all gets very fuzzy. But I do know that we’re going to go to the doctor, we’re not going to spend much, and we’re going to love it for just a few weeks. I’m already looking forward to my dentist appointment next Tuesday!

I think “six weeks?!?!” is a better title for this post. It all set in this weekend that our plan is to move back to Arkansas in just six weeks.  Oh, my.

We sat down to make a list of all that needed to be completed in these next weeks, while we continue to both work full time and are traveling three weekends in a row. It turned out to be a good fifty items on our list, one of which was “pack everything up”—something that might deserve more than one place on the to-do list.

This, combined with the state of our bank account and the plan to quit our jobs in six weeks, left me up for much of the night. Oh, my.  It’s a brutal collision: the tangible actions of trusting coming to a head with logic, security, and control.

But God is good, so we keep going. And we ask for your prayers!

“Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”    Isaiah 64:4

We had to take our car into the shop last week for some repairs to the clutch. I dropped it off in the afternoon for them to see what it was and it turned out to be worse than expected, so we picked it up three days later and paid a $820 bill.  This was after three days of not having the things I had left in the car thinking I’d have it right back, and three days of borrowing a car from my boss.  This is also just three months before we’re planning to sell the car altogether. Really?

Oh, but it gets worse. We discovered last night the problem isn’t actually fixed, but rather much worse. The clutch had been sticking–where you push the clutch in to switch gears and it just stays on the ground, so you can’t accelerate suddenly or get into any gear, leaving you to just coast to the side of road as smoothly as possible. It’s now sticking much more often and much worse, where it does some shaking and simply dies.

So we’ve borrowed a car, yet again, from my overly-generous, amazing bosses at The Spero Project. (These guys really are great, but they deserve their own post about how wonderful they are, so that will come as I say goodbye in the next couple months and mourn not having them around in the months after that.)  We’re planning to take the car in Monday, hoping it won’t be more money, hoping we’re not being taken advantage of, and hoping for some piece of good news.

I suppose the car really isn’t my point, though. Our car has become a metaphor for me of support raising.

Ever since the car broke, we’ve been asking for help in every direction. If you only have one car, it’s difficult to get your car fixed. You need friends to help you get to the mechanic to drop of the car, you need rides while it’s being fixed, and you need a ride again to pick it up.  All last week was spent borrowing various cars and calling people for rides, generally inconveniencing many people around us. It’s been very humbling to not be self-sufficient, but rely on everyone around us to help out and go the extra mile, all for us.

I think it’s hard to ask for genuine help in our society.  It’s easier to ask for help with things we know we could do, such as making a meal or carrying a large load. We could take care of it ourselves, but it’d be nice to have help. But when it comes to actually depending on others, where we really couldn’t get it done if it weren’t for the other person, we’re suddenly bashful. It becomes awkward as we admit our area of weakness. We want to be independent and able to care of and provide for ourselves.

And just like our car required us to seek help, support raising requires us to seek help. From the Church around us, yes, but primarily from the Lord himself.  It’s difficult to be in a place where we’re dependent on His help.  When we receive a paycheck, even if it’s through His provision, we feel we’ve earned it and have therefore taken care of ourselves. Support breaks that down, requiring us to admit that we can only get to where God’s called us if He chooses to provide through his people, which are ultimately our friends and family making sacrifices and going the extra mile, all for us.

If you had asked me a year ago, I’d probably tell you I’d never raise support to live overseas. I had always dreamed of moving to the Thai-Burma border and simply working there while we lived among the people and loved a very vulnerable, displaced population.  Instead, God has created a place for us at Partners, where it is necessary for us to raise support. Therefore, it no longer matters if I’d choose to raise support.  Who would?  We’ve been given a purpose in Thailand, and God has given us enough assurance that I’m quite willing to make any sacrifices necessary to obediently get there. So we started raising support and have quickly found it to be challenging, exhausting, humbling, unnatural, and awkward.

And now we’re here, looking at about two months left in Oklahoma City, with an apartment to pack up, a car to fix, and support raising to be done. And in this time, we’re praying our hearts out that God provides above and beyond our expectations. We’re praying he moves in peoples hearts to be behind us, financially and in prayer. We’re praying he provides with plane tickets and bank accounts and all the details we have to remember, but likely won’t, without his favor on us. We’re praying for grace.

Many of you know that Stephen is currently working for a large computer and electronic company. I’ve been informed I can’t use their real name in this post, so we’ll refer to it as “Banana.”   We have a love-hate relationship, which is maybe how many people would describe their jobs?

I’m only writing to give this quick picture of what it is to work at “Banana” over the holidays. Stephen received an email this week to inform us that the blackout dates for asking off are November 13-January 20th. That’s right. There will be extremely limited requests off in this time period, and they gave this list of dates where, most likely, all 105 employees will be working:

November 24th, 26th-28th

December 3th-5th, 10th-12th, 17th-19th, 24th, 26th-28th

Really? They own you every weekend in December.  You have the day of Thanksgiving and the day of Christmas off, but nothing else. How does anyone travel to see their families for the holidays?  How do they expect you to make a career of this?  It baffles me.

[Thankfully, we plan to be saying goodbye to “Banana” at the beginning of this blackout period, and moving back to Little Rock to finish up our support, enjoy family christmases, and hopefully fly out by the time those blackout dates come to a close. Of course, this is all Lord willing– we have a lot of things we’re waiting on his provision in!]

So I’m on this kick now, and I really love blogs. I’ve thought they were fairly lame for sometime now (even when we started this one, really) but suddenly I’m loving it. I’ve started finding friends blogs and following them regularly.

Just now I was checking to see who had updated, and found nothing new since, oh, sometime late last night.  I thought, Really? Some of you haven’t updated since August!

Then I realized I’m not so great at this, either.  And Stephen never even started, like we promised…

So, if anyone is by chance still reading this occasionally, I’m impressed!

Raising support can make days quite overwhelming. And these days soon become weeks, which can multiply, and eventually you have the past three weeks of our lives. The whole concept of our lives and plans depending entirely on God providing through the community around us and not through our day-to-day work: it’s a new perspective.

But then there are days like today, when I’m reminded of what God has already pulled together. I’m reminded that he has already orchestrated a job for us with Partners where we will be living on the border, exactly where my heart rests (in an odd way, experiencing great pain and deep peace simultaneously), and Stephen will be blessed with a role he has been aching to serve in. Although it’s not completely evident to everyone else, for us, it is an indescribable work of art. It is God’s creativity.

And if He can orchestrate all the people involved and all their time frames, why do we question the resources and finances to get us there? It seems there is a disconnect for us when it comes to money, specifically. We seem to have no problem believing that God can orchestrate the people in our lives, but its much harder to trust the financial provision. (Who is we? Maybe Stephen and I, maybe more, not sure.) If God has called us to this position and has created a place for us on the Thai-Burma border, surely we can sit in uncertainty for a short time, push through the awkward social situations of asking, and trust Him as He carries us through.

Our pastor, Paul, put it so well:

“I know that this seems like a huge mountain, but God is in the business of throwing mountains in to the sea.”

It’s not declaring the challenges small, but admitting the difficulty and declaring God big enough.

I find blogging a little intimidating. I never know what is too simple or too pointless or too deep to say. What do people want to read? Perhaps none of it. (Is the whole blogging world a little self-centered?) Either way, I find myself writing and then deleting entries, so who knows if this one will even make it to you. It may just take some time for us to get into blogging, particularly on this side of the world, when there seems less to comment about. My biggest stories of the day were a) the woman at an unnamed superstore who disappointed me in her laziness and b) our evening spent with our dear Karen friends while we packed grocery bags to be delivered to some poor neighborhood kids tomorrow. I tell myself I’ll have more stories to tell in Thailand, but we’ll see.
And as for Stephen, it will have to wait until he’s done working 58 hours a week for him to find time to blog.
So if by chance someone keeps up with this, don’t give up on the newbies too quickly.