One more Day until Departure Date

Shalom everyone!

Looking forward to a peaceful day tomorrow with our local SAM family after many details fell into place today.


The final packing is in progress and the letters are ready for signatures tomorrow. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who have sent messages with their prayers for me and for all of us.  You are an encouragement to us and we do have a sense that this visit is a group project; certainly not just us here in De Pere! In fact, we have had so many things donated, we can't fit them into one suitcase and are exploring the options to get them all there as inexpensively as we can.

I am as ready as I know how to be, looking forward to all that will be happening soon! I am tired but it feels important to try to gather these thoughts together for you here.

I would love to include several songs here that have spoken to me this past evening of all that the Spirit has been doing in my life  and among us in SAM over this past year.  I see a way to insert a video but not an audio file...

Well, if you know me and us here, you know that we have been very moved by Marty Goetz's worship music with his inspired presentation of so many psalms.  Last night, I noticed that there is a sequence of songs that seems to fit my experiences though I didn't even know yet what was coming, as in having an opportunity to go to Kenya.  I am not sure that I can even put it all into words but I will give it a try. Perhaps you will recognize a similar process in your life?


Have you heard these songs?   Sanctuary, Show Me Thy Glory, Search Me O God(Psalm 139) and finally Psalm 131.   YHWH has taken us through a difficult year where many challenges came in all shapes and sizes for all of us here but He has also brought us through them with a clearer sense of our identity in Him and a sense that the things He has been preparing us to do are much closer at hand.

It seems as I reflected on that past experience of purposely choosing to go right into the heart of a hurricane, that this experience of going out to Kenya is much easier as a result of what was learned them; both by me and by our community. (By the way, that's where I met Jann, the banner creater--who was gracious enough to share her room when my reservation ended with no openings in sight.)

Then, I experienced some anxiety both before and after I had already made the choice to go and arrived only to find that the hurricane was going to be a factor I couldn't escape.  But I was blessed in obedience and came to that peaceful place right in the middle of the circumstances.  Now I am in His peace before I have left my front porch.  There is some kind of progression of finding peace WHEN something is happening, to finding that peace BEFORE anything happens. Or have you found as I have, that you may KNOW this experience yet have trouble remaining in it? Moving from faith to faith;  stepping up the stairs, choosing to rest in our past experience of His faithfulness and NOT drop back down at the first sign of dark clouds on the horizon. And certainly not dropping back down into the "soup" of unbelief at the bottom (for those of you who will recognize a discussion a while back. :-) )

Any challenges we meet will best be overcome first behind our eyes and between our ears so that we can then walk them out in that perfect peace and confidence of Who we are and Whose we are  in Messiah.  When I first said last fall that I understood I was supposed to go to Kenya, I fully expected everyone else to chuckle and say this was as impossible as it seemed to me. Instead, they all confirmed that it was right!  Only one person--not in our community-- has said something along the lines of: are you nuts???? though many have commented it sounds scarey to them. I was excited at first to hear that an experienced traveler might be going with me, though I also had a sense that it might end up being just me. Does it seem to anyone else that when our Abba asks something of you He does it in such a way that you must make some personal decisions that only you can make; whether anyone you know and love goes with you or not?

For me, each of these occasions over the years have involved a going out on my own, and only then being blessed with company; so I am understanding this venture as a prelude to many more of us "going out" some day soon.

In this current situation,  I am not going into wild country where there are no believers. I am only going to meet people I have never met in person to a country I have never visited, nor ever even expected to visit! Conditions there are expected to be quite difficult and I appreciate the wise words several have spoken, about the preparation for seeing such poverty. I fully expect to find joyful things and heartbreaking things. I fully expect that He will show me through His eyes what He wants me to see as He sees them; and that this will not always be easy, as it hasn't been easy walking with many people through resolution of their personal traumas, nor my own.

•   These songs reflect first, a sense of being in service for a long time, looking for that spark of renewal that can only come by His Spirit. We can't manufacture it in ourselves,no matter how hard some people may try to "drum it up"  but we can pray and ask Him for that gift of overcoming faith for which none should boast, as it is indeed His gift to us.  Just as the father ran to meet the returning prodigal son, so can we be confident that our Abba will run to meet us as we turn more deeply into Him.It is already more than 5 years ago when I recall praying that I just didn't have anything more to give and that He would have to do whatever was needed for the person in front of me.  I distinctly understood the response to be:  "There will be many more wounded and hurting people."   My first reaction was something like: "I don't think You heard me. I don't have anything left to give!"     Again:    "There will be many more wounded and hurting people."  The only way out.... is in...to Him.  I think--I know-- He was waiting for me to come to the end of my shabby resources so HE could more fully enter in! I must decrease and He must increase: sounds familiar, doesn't it?

• Then the certainty that nothing of any value can be accomplished without our Messiah going before us and with us. That process involves His searching of all of our beings, to know us and to try us so that we come forth as gold. So many people flinch and turn back when the testing becomes difficult yet this is so often exactly the place that He has been leading us right into!  Just as His power was shown so decisively when the Israelites had their back against the sea, so does He delight to take us to our personal seaside haven, or seeming trap, only to turn it around as blessing and growth for those who honor Him and His ways. 
• Finally, in quietness and confidence we rest in Him as a baby rests and trusts his mother.  When this confidence is met first in our spirits before we ever walk into a situation it makes the actual walking out of it almost anti-climactic!  

So may I saw with the psalmist, I have quieted my soul and calmed my troubled heart and have found my rest in my King and Messiah, Yeshua, as I am about to walk into the paths He is leading me to across the big pond.

Watching and praying as we enter His Shabbat Rest!
Barb