July 4

It is 8:03am here and 12:04 am in USA, so Happy Independence Day! I remind you that our country is nothing if we are citizens of heaven. We are not of this world. (that doesn't mean we avoid bbq, flags, and fireworks!) but our lives should show what we prioritize and where we have our identity and JESUS is primary for those who love Him above all else.
I just want to encourage people to give their lives. Whatever that means and God shows us. I know that I have loved Jesus when I was a failure, when I was ashamed, when I have been criticized or rejected. And I have loved Jesus when I was successful, when I was proud, when I have been praised and accepted. Jesus never changes. Christy Nockels sings, "When the shadow of sorrow comes, I will stand on the only One I know, is the Rock that never changes." (or something like that--it is an old song) and in old days when I thought Kevin was just seven and he had a mysterious lump in his cervical spinal cord (in his neck) that I cried out, Lead me to the rock that is higher than I! and I made it through the time that was ominous. Or when Laura lost Brandon, or times when Steve and I did not seem to have a sure foundation. God is a sure rock. He is a sure provider.
With everything, I shout for His Glory! My God is a consuming fire! I pray we would see the eternal and LOVE GOD. I pray this would empower us to forgive men, serve others, love others. I know I come asking for money. Well, I'm giving all I can and we are working on creating a way for the support for the work here to come out of the community itself. I don't like asking for money and Americans don't really like to be asked! Upper class Americans are very independent, take care of themselves, expect others to take care of themselves, too. The poor, however, cannot take care of themselves. They just can't. Those who are successful in this life consider that to be a problem the poor should solve for themselves. God has called the rich to give and to give abundantly. But who in America even thinks they are rich? No one! Ask the rich people you know. We are all paying off our debt. Then we go into debt. Paying ourselves first. You are not alone. I am there, too. See my hair? unnecessary, right? so don't think I'm pointing the finger with malice (as in Isaiah 58) My pointing finger points back to me. When I see what these people live on, it makes my poor days look like luxury in ultimate! they sleep on dirt with cockroaches in their cups, children dying from preventable diseases, and they come to church and worship the God of Heaven and praise Him for what they have (some of them do.) God loves them. They have it bad now but God promises that the rich who have it easy now will not have it easy in the next life. Because our riches rot us. I have hated those verses because the last 10 years have been moving me into an arena of rich I never asked for. It makes sin in my heart come out that I preferred believing was absent. I see the sick sin of materialism griping my heart and squeezing me, so that I seriously want to buy a beautiful purse that becomes so beautiful in my eyes as if I NEED it. I want to buy gifts for others that they don't need so that they'll be happy when we are all so fat with happy that we are exploding and need to buy storage or rearrange our closets so we can stuff in more junk. Our garages are brimming and we keep buying more. Each Christmas, we give each other even more stuff and our children more toys! the children here have no toys AT ALL!! Not ONE TOY! not even rattles! Medine and I had to look all around for RATTLES and in a GIANT western style store in the third biggest city in Kenya, there WERE NO RATTLES FOR BABIES AT ALL AND ONLY ONE CHOICE ON TEETHING RINGS! I think of how even in my low income days I had an ENTIRE ROOM filled with toys for my children to play with===and the three of them (and then four when Nicole came) slept in the other room on bunk beds.
here? Nothing. No dolls for any of the girls. No trucks for any of the boys. No balls. They might have balls at school, but just one or two. They often go without school supplies. I don't see how they make it in this situation. How do those children do their homework? They just have to learn by sight and not by writing. How many women in our country buy special clothes for each holiday, special Christmas sweaters with snowmen or special dishes and plates with santa? They use very broken dishes here. They eat with their hands. They have one room homes with a dirt wall making a separate place where you sleep and almost nothing in those rooms. they will have benches and low coffee table or maybe a couch and some chairs. they sleep on the floor or sometimes they have a raised wood bed with an old foam mattress that really creeps me out sometimes. Oh pray they have mosquito nets because most don't. But then they work into the sunset and dusk when the biters come out and they are up in the morning before light. ---out of the net even if they have them. Pastor Joseph tells me that when he gets up in the night to pray, he sees his son peter has wiggled out of his net in his sleep and he has to put it back over him.
They make bricks by hand in hopes of selling. They grow food in hopes of selling. They weed people's sugar cane for a dollar a day---weeding in the big sugar cane all day! ugh!
But in the USA, while you are watching TV, movies, and listening to Music (that's me), you are out of touch with the ways you could serve others and keeping yourself so busy that the Holy Spirit dare not interrupt. and even when HE does get through, what do we do? We feel helpless. We act like victims. Because we feel like it is not our fault and we can't help everyone and it is not good for us to worry over such things (no, it is not. we must ACT)
I know. who is going to even read my blog if I write such things? Who is going to listen when I speak the truth and it hurts? I isolate myself by running my mouth. I get rejected for speaking the truth.
But God can do this work without me and without my money---yet I joyfully give and give. I love to give. I don't want to give to the rich! I don't want to buy my children 10 things they don't need! I want to give a child here a chance to go to school. I don't want a safe retirement, I want to spend all I have. I am so thankful that my husband is getting JOY in giving the abundance God has given us. I pray others will be looking at Jesus and doing the same around the world. I pray you will find a place where people need you and give. You don't have to give to me, but stop giving to yourself.
Please, the world needs Americans to give and give thoughtfully.
When you give to the elementary school gift wrap fund raiser--what have you given?
again, those children in our country (even the poor ones) have opportunities that children in India, Africa, and other countries with abject poverty will never see unless you find them and do something.