He is not asleep

Our precious friends at house church. When we want to leave, these are the people who God has given us to keep us here.

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Psalm 121:1-4

This will not be long--I have to head to the grocery store and buy our stuff for a picnic lunch before we meet friends at the metro for a trip to the Moscow Zoo--but I did not want to let another day go by without a blog. First of all, my family worries if I go for very long without blogging, and also, I actually have something edifying to say.

It's been a rough week. I mean a rough, rough week. Visa problems, friends leaving, upheaval, discontent, and above all, loneliness. By Thursday, the suitcases were out, and we were ready to come home. Let me rephrase that--I was ready to come home. I was ready to be good at something again. I was ready for life to be a little easier. I was ready to be content with life. I was ready to have close friends, and especially for my children to have close friends. But after some conversations, we put the suitcases away and sat down for a minute. What is really going on here? Why are we so discouraged?

When I really sat down to pray about the discouragement, and I mean really pray, not just a cursory prayer, I realized that I had spent a lot of time praying, but very little time listening. So on Sunday morning, I made myself sit for ten minutes and just listen. I asked the question, "God, how can I be encouraged in such a hard place?" and then I sat. I didn't clean. I didn't journal. I didn't listen to music. I just sat. And nothing phenomenal happened. I didn't hear some kind of voice. I didn't feel the moving of His spirit within me. Nothing. All I could think of was "Be still and know that I am God." I'm not God. He is. And He isn't asleep. We aren't alone. We may feel alone, but we aren't really.

And then, of course, we had house church at our home for the first time. After great praise and worship and 2 1/2 hours of studying the Bible, we fellowshipped for another three hours or so. Spontaneous singing broke out near the end of our time together. But best of all, when they came in and took their shoes off, they were glad to be here. The Russians volunteered to lead music and Bible study next week. We had a wonderful time together, the most encouraging time all week. As Marc and I talked about it afterward, it occurred to us that God's gift to us has been these people, these names and faces in whose path He has placed us. When we really, really think about going home, inevitably someone says (usually one of the children), "But what would _______________ do without us?" What would Liliana do without us? or Vika? or Dema? or Sardonna? or Ksenia? Who will lead them to Jesus? We are here. We have been placed in their path. If not us, who? And then we know that we cannot go home. Maybe God will not call us back here after our first term. Maybe three years is all He requires of us. But for this moment in time, we are here, and that is really all that matters. With eternal consequences for people we love on the line, there really are not decisions to make.

And so we stay. And we practice our Russian, and we go to the zoo, and we get ready for July 4th, which is supposed to be rainy and cold here. And we thank God that there are people all over the world, some we know and love and some we have never met, who are standing in the gap for us, holding up our arms because we are simply too exhausted to do it for ourselves. Many, many of you who read this blog are gap-fillers. You are precious to me, dear friend. Thank you for standing in the gap for this tired, tired woman.

Well, it's off to the grocery. Nothing like walking a mile and a half for your bananas to make you appreciate them! Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are encouraged to know that the God of Everything not only does not sleep nor slumber, but is constantly holding you in the palm of His mighty right hand, and that you are looking forward to your trip to the monkey house today. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye