Mercy's Post to her family

Today Mercy is going to share some thoughts about life since we have been back from furlough.

"I miss Oma and Papa. They are the best and I miss Paige and Kelly. All of my cousins are very good. I miss Natalie, Andrea and Charisse. I miss Grandma June, Grandpa Bob, Uncle Bob and Uncle Daniel, Aunt Chris and Uncle Ken. I miss Aunt Amy and Uncle Andy and Aunt Kristin and Uncle Rick.

I wish my cousins could come to Lesotho. There is a big tree that all of us could climb. Faith calls it the heart tree because the branches and leaves look like a big heart. Most of the time we call it the big tree.

I am in first grade. I like first grade. I do math, phonics, reading, writing. Sometimes it can be a little annoying because it is a little hard. My favorite thing about school is my animal encyclopedia book.

I love talking to Grace (one of our super cool volunteers). I love visiting the houses and feeding the babies. I once fed 4 babies at the same meal! I like to help with the little girl mom likes to play with and her name means flower. She is blind, she has beautiful eyes. I wish she could be my sister.

If someone comes to Beautiful Gate they might get called a Makhooa (means white person). I love living at Beautiful Gate except I do not like the frogs. They are very loud at night and so are the crickets. Sometimes they both get inside our house. Aunt Terp is really good at catching frogs so she gets them out.

Today, I talked to Grace while we were in burritos by blankets. I saw a spider on her blanket and she got it off. We made a hammock today, us 3 kids and Daddy. Mine did not work out the best but it was still fun."

xoxoxox
From: Mercy

Needing Wisdom

Emotions are such a tricky thing and I sometimes wonder what to do with them. Living in Lesotho has proven to be too much for my emotions at times because I have feelings of great joy and feelings of complete despair on the same day. It sure can be tiring! Today was not nearly to that extreme,  yet I feel very drained.

Today Terp and I followed Donna (a member of our team from Mississippi) around and videotaped her working with some of our special needs kids. At first it was really cool and amazing to watch her work, but after several hours, it began to feel overwhelming. Terp and I looked at each other and expressed the same thoughts that our staff, as good as their hearts are for the kids, do not have the time to work this diligently with our special needs kids and still care for the 12-14 other kids in their home. I run out of time to do simple things in my house and I am only raising 3 kids!!!

While I am looking forward to having our lovely missionary friend, Mari, come and help out, I realize that there needs to be day to day “work” in order to make an impact with these special kids. Some options are being tossed around in our minds right now and I ask that you pray for us to have wisdom.

You see, God has entrusted these kids into our care and it is not a responsibility that Bryan or I can take lightly. What we choose and how we implement corrective approaches to situations like this, can improve or be a detriment to a child for the rest of their life. Early intervention is the key to success for so many kids. So that is why I sit here with my emotions going up and down. I am happy we have found people to come alongside us and give us sound advice, yet I am overwhelmed by the great amount of need before me. I am so pleased with the progress I have seen in some of these kids in the last 2 months, yet I am fearful of the long road ahead for one girl in particular. I am trusting God and trying to tune out the lies of satan. Please pray for all of us here at Beautiful Gate as we strive for excellence so that God’s glory can shine through the kids He has entrusted into our care. Pray that we seek Him first in all we do so that any successes we have can point to Him. 

My New Love

I know better than this...
I have learned the hard way before...
Yet I still allow myself to do it...

I have fallen head over heels in love with a precious little girl. For the past two months, I have been spending some of my free time working with her. She is over a year old and could not hold her head up. She has little muscle tone, and is mostly if not completely blind. There are many other things that she is struggling with and that we do not have answers for, yet she is the MOST beautiful girl I have ever seen. She rarely cries and her eyes are so intensely lovely that she just draws you in. She finally knows my voice and touch to the point that she does not startle every minute like she did when I first started holding her and my heart squeezes inside my chest in those few instances when I say her name or touch her and she smiles. Oh, God it just takes my breath away.

Faith and Mercy love to help me with her and have fallen in love with her too!

To those who have the chance to help her, she is insignificant and overlooked. The doctors will not give a referral for her to be tested so that we know how best to help her. They think she is a lost cause, a future vegetable who would need 24 hour care, but I KNOW my God is bigger than that. In the 2 months I have worked with her, I have seen change and growth and she can hold her head decently now verses nothing at all 2 months ago. She responds to my touch and knows me so there is obviously some recognition and brain functioning. It is so sad and frustrating when you are dependent on a medical referral to go to the next step and they won't give it.
Yet, God has recently provided me with a new friend who is an OT and who has agreed to help me work with her and several other kids who are developmentally delayed and today a team from the states arrived with a pediatric physical therapist who is going to show me lots of exercises to try and brought very helpful tools. God is providing knowledge to help even though I have been feeling miserable about her situation. Please join me in prayer that these exercises will show such improvement that the doctors will change their minds and give us a referral to see a specialist and get a EKG and other testing that is needed for us to really make an impact on this little girl's life. I do not know her story enough to know if she is even able to be adopted in the future, but I want to provide her with HOPE for her future no matter where God places her.

A Good Answer

Last month I posed a struggle that I have been going through with the verses in the Bible that talk about  having to hate your mother, father, brother, sister, or children in order to be a disciple of God. My friend Terp gave me the book, "Anything" by Jennie Allen for my birthday and I have just started reading it. So far it has been really good and today, I read a really good thought from her about those verses.
It reads;
"We know from Jesus' strong commands to love even our enemies that he is not advocating neglecting our relationships or those who depend on us (Luke 6:27) He is saying, 'Wake up! This pursuit of me , it may cost you everything you hold dear, everything you love here. It may cost even your life. And until that life gets small, really small, and I get big, really big, you won't truly follow me. Because loving this life too much will affect your love for me. It also will affect what you are willing to do for me.'"

When I stop and reflect on those words and the thought of not holding my family too tightly, not holding my things too tightly, being willing to give up the things I hold dear and the comforts of living in a first world so that I can put my trust and faith in God. Living completely sold out for Jesus, I cannot even imagine what that would look like. Loving my God so much that every other relationship looks like hatred in comparison. Yet, that is what my life needs to look like for Him. I need to die to my selfish motives and ambitions and put Him first. I need to love Him more than anyone or anything and then I can truly be His disciple. I especially need to love God more than my 3 children who I hold so dear to my heart.
Being a follower of God really means sacrificing, but I have a better understanding of what kind of sacrifice is required of me. God says to love Him first and then to love our neighbor and if we are always putting our neighbors before Him, then we have our priorities wrong. I guess that gives me more to think about so I can be a better follower of my precious Lord.

God's "blessings"

I went to a mountain to spend some time with my friends, but I did not even get to talk to them.

I went to the mountain to watch a sunset, but the clouds came and covered it up.

I went to the mountain to sit and reflect on how wonderful God is by looking at His amazing creation, but the creation He wanted me to reflect on surprised me.

You see, God did not want me to talk to my friends or look at nature, God had some very special little people who needed some love and attention so He brought them to the mountain… to me.

We arrived at Lancer’s Gap to watch a sunset and as we got there, about 20 children from the village walked over to us and sat on a rock near us. They wanted to play with my girls but my girls were a little shy. Elijah and the boys took rocks and used a plastic bottle for target practice and they had such a good time. I sat there in a quandary for a minute. I have friends from England visiting me and I haven’t had much time to spend with them, yet I see 20 beautiful faces looking at me and waiting for me to invite them into a conversation.

I asked them each their name, the grade in school and favorite class. I asked them all which ones were brother and sister and then told them about my kids’ names, grades and about their school. We sat there for a very long time and then it was getting dark. I asked each of them what they want to be when they grow up and got answers like a soldier, a nurse, a teacher, and a police officer. It was so delightful to spend time sitting on a rock circled by a bunch of kids and talking to them all. It also made me really reflect.

“Let the little children come to me,” the words of Jesus. Children are a blessing from the Lord. How sad is it that so many parents have forgotten that. They spend their days working long hours to buy things that their kids do not even need to be happy, their kids just want them to sit and listen to them, show that they care. Groups of mothers gather together to display a badge of honor about how “hard they have it” rather than enjoying this precious time with their children. I am not saying that I enjoy each and every minute with my kids like I should, but I do spend a lot of time with them trying to do the things they are interested in and just loving them. I encourage all of you with kids to enjoy your blessings, discipline them when they need it of course, but really enjoy who they are because you only have 18 years to really lay a foundation of love and caring in them so they can go into the world confidently knowing they are loved and encouraged by their parents. For those of you who are still waiting for your child, the adjustment can be hard but never forget that they are a blessing, a gift from God Himself.

The children of Lesotho are teaching me so much and one of those lessons is that a kid does not need stuff to make them happy; they need love and a listening ear. They need to know that someone thinks they are special and believes in them so they can go out and achieve their dreams. They need someone to choose them over the other adults around and sit with them and tell them that they have value in this world. I thank God for His many lessons that He is teaching me on my journey here in Lesotho.

Homeschool update

I thought I would give a little update about something new our kids are a part of here in Lesotho. While we were away on furlough, another homeschooling family moved into Maseru, working with MAF. She and a few other mothers began to get together once a week for a homeschool co-op. Once we arrived back from furlough, I got in touch with these families so we could join.

On Thursdays, 3 of us moms have been taking turns teaching our kids. We meet at the Maseru Sun pool for 2 hours of swimming and wow my kids have improved greatly, even Mercy who was not swimming at all till this year. Then we go to the "teachers" home for lunch and 2 hours of class time. It is so much fun to see other moms and their teaching styles and to teach other peoples kids too. I am loving this! I have decided to teach some music appreciation and science. The experiments are a ton of fun for the kids and I have always struggled to do it with my 3 kids and now I have other people depending on me too so it is easier to plan and follow through with science experiments.

A prayer point is that we are considering the idea of starting a small christian school in Maseru because our kids are loving this so much and we are all seeing the benefits of coming together to teach our kids. One of my new friends, Anna, is willing to coordinate the efforts and is working on it with her sending organization. I am talking with a friend who has expressed interest in seeing a christian school in Maseru and seeking his help. I would like prayer for guidance, wisdom, and favor from God in this process as we want to do what is best for our kids, but it is not a small task. God is good and we are trusting His leading as well as His timing.

My Valentine Gift

I am such a sap! Today we are celebrating Faith’s 9^th birthday and it is such a joy to share life with Faith. I never knew a kid could be so obedient, thoughtful, compassionate, kind and imaginative, but God has made Faith very special. Her heart toward others is so beautiful and I thank God for who He is molding her to be.

I put a few photos of her on facebook and immediately got a few comments from mothers around the world whose children have been touched by Faith’s kindness and friendship and I literally almost began to cry. I KNOW as a 9 year old, I was not anywhere as thoughtful and compassionate as Faith and it amazes me that at the young age of 9 she really understands the need of a friend to those around her. She chooses the least of these, the underdog, the one who is different, and the lonely one sitting out of a group as her friend. I am amazed by that spirit of love.

There have been times when I have been fearful that our time here is ruining my kids because of the difficult life of those around them, but moments of reflections like birthdays are great times to look at who my child is becoming and see how God as used the tough stuff not to harden their hearts, but to grow their heart more deep, more real, more insightful and more like His. I have noticed the same things in Elijah and Mercy, but I wanted to dedicate this post to Faith because she is shining the Light of Jesus to the kids here at Beautiful Gate as well as to the volunteers, teams and missionary kids around her and it is her special day, her birthday. Thank you God for the gift of Faith because she is such a precious gift to our family!