Raising up a forest

Sarah Beth and her friends Nadia and Sasha...I don't know why they are making moustaches out of their hair, but that seems to be what they're doing.

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, "Give them up!" and to the south, "Do not hold them back." Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made. Isaiah 43:5-7

I don't know about you, but I am having a fabulous morning. We have today off of school, and I have had a nice, long quiet time and two wonderful cups of coffee. Hannah just woke up, and John John is still snoring, which gives me a little bit of quiet to think about stuff. Nice! Oh, if only every morning could be this chaos-free!! Just to complete my idyllic scene--there is fresh bread baking, too. So add that to your picture of what my morning is like. Wonderful, huh?!

Yesterday was the end of daylight savings here in Russia, and the darkness has definitely descended. From now until the end of December, we will be cloaked in darkness for a good part of the day. I actually think it's around January 21st that it starts to get lighter sooner and stay light later, but I'm not sure about that date. Wonder why that sticks in my mind? Because I HATE the darkness. Hate it. I am a Southern girl, and I like my sunshine. So why did God call me to the darkest place on earth? I have asked myself that question a thousand times in the last year, and the answer I come up with time and again is that He is proving to me that nothing else matters but Him--not the darkness, not the chaos of five people in two bedrooms, not the beastly difficult Russian language--nothing. So I've spent some time this weekend thinking about all the ways in which He has proven absolutely enough for me over the last couple of years, and nothing stands out more to me than the absolute faithfulness He has shown with my children.

Picture this: you are thirteen years old. You have a great school, a great church, lots of friends, grandparents and aunts and uncles within a ten minute drive. You have a tremendously wonderful life. And then your parents drop the bomb: we think God is calling us to work overseas for Him. WHAT!!!!!?????!!!! You lock yourself in the bathroom and scream. You declare that you are NOT moving to another country. You pray that your parents get over this madness and come to their senses. But they don't. And little by little, you have to come to grips with the fact that your life is about to radically change, whether you want it to or not. That, my friends, is the tale of Sarah Beth. She had lots of opportunities to refuse to go to Russia. Our candidate consultant gave her a card and told her that if she wanted, at any point, to put a halt to this process, all she had to do was call him. But she didn't. Instead, she chose to live in Prague for six weeks and work for the company in order to get some overseas experience. She loved it, but it cost her many friends in our small town in Florida. And when I became absolutely enraged at the nasty notes they were leaving her on myspace (things like "go ahead and leave; nobody here cares, anyway."), she understood that they were from a small town and were doing the best they could to deal with her leaving. She rarely hears from anyone in the States, but she doesn't worry about it. She has totally embraced her friends in various parts of the world, kids living the same experience she is living. She has lots and lots of friends here--even more than she did back home. She has stretched herself to play soccer, to learn a new language, to take a photography class totally in Russian. And did she do all of that because she's just this tremendous person? No. She's a great girl, for sure, but none of that comes from her own strength. She has very ordinary teenage girl feelings and fears, to be sure. But she knows that God is faithful, and that whatever she has given up to be here and to follow Him, He has repaid in a thousand different ways.

On Thursday, Sarah Beth left on a 14-hour train ride to the Western Ural mountains to work with the Udmurts, an unreached people group who were the focus of the 2007 International Day of Prayer. She went to take pictures for Marc, because she is a tremendous photographer. But she ended up working in the villages with Udmurti women, ministering to them, loving them, and even taking a banya with them. (Don't ask. Just know it's not anything I would have ventured into at 16.) She even spent a night in a different village from her dad. (She was with another MK, and they stayed with Udmurti believers.) Now I'm sure that some of that scared her. It's a difficult thing at any age to venture where they don't speak your language at all and you have only a rudimentary knowledge of their language. (Although, in all fairness, her Russian teacher says she's a magnificent language student. It was her highest grade this quarter, and I'm pretty sure that my Russian teacher wouldn't have given me that high of a grade.) But when I talked to her last night as she was on the train headed west to Moscow, she was giddy with the experience. She loved every second. She's ready to go back tomorrow. The same girl who a couple of years ago locked herself in the bathroom and screamed is now ready to move to the village to work for Jesus. And I would love to tell you that it's because she has magnificent parents, but that's definitely not it. But she does have parents who trusted God to be faithful to them and to her. And He has been so faithful.

I'm sure at times it seems that I am bragging about my kids, and I certainly have a lot to be proud of in each of them, but that's not my intention. I want to encourage you with their stories. We are such ordinary jars of clay, but God has been so faithful to us in the ways He is growing up olive trees around our table. Sometimes, when I look at them in my own strength, I don't see olive saplings--I see weeds! But when I look at them through His eyes, and I trust His compassion and mercy and love for them--I am speechless as I see the people they are daily becoming. I don't know your situation. I don't know about your children. But I do know this--if He can work in the lives of our kids like He has, He can certainly be trusted with whatever your situation is. We aren't the super-saved. He doesn't love us more than you. I pray that today, you would trust Him with your kids and then see the gorgeous things He does with them. I promise it will take your breath away. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that He is raising up mighty trees for you, too, and that your husband and daughter are only a couple of hours away from the city. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye