A Good-bye and a Prayer Request

Our church family left yesterday and I will admit, the tears were flowing freely. It is incredibly encouraging to have friends and family visit and fall in love with the kids and staff. To hear their stories of love and friendship and to watch them give their hearts away to all the sweet little kids at BG. It is one of the best gifts God gives us to spur one another on in this journey here at BG. It is also a sad and heartbreaking day when we have to say good-bye again knowing it will be a very long time before we see one another again. I praise God that I have a church family that still loves me and supports me after 4 years of our family being away in Lesotho.




During the time that the Haven team was here, we had a big scare with one of our cats contracting rabies (we are 99% sure it was rabies but have sent the body to be tested to confirm). That same cat scratched and bit my girls 3 weeks before and possibly exposed them to rabies. We have taken them to see a doctor and have begun their treatments for the rabies vaccine. They have had 3 out of 5 rabies vaccines and are taking a lot of antibiotics. I am mentioning this as a prayer request. The shots are very painful for Faith and she is not sleeping the night before the shots and today she was sobbing her little heart out after the shot because her arm was hurting so bad. I keep telling them that the treatment is far better that the alternative, but please pray for them, it is sad to see them worry and be anxious.

Our other 2 cats are acting normal and are showing no signs of rabies, but the vet is still working to get us a vaccine for the cats. If she can get us the vaccine this week and the cats allow us to catch them, we will be able to keep them but if she cannot get the vaccine this week, we will probably have to have them put to sleep for precautions. My kids are pretty attached to the cats and the one we had to kill last Tuesday was Faith's cat and she is very sad to think we may have to get rid of the other two as well. However, she is still being strong because she said, "you can always get a new pet, but you can't get a new person." Well said my little sweetie, well said.

Church Family

We have been spending the week with our church family (plus Betty who is like extended church family and Carol). The team from Haven arrived last Saturday and have been loving their time here at BG. We have been keeping them very busy with special projects as well as having them help out in the houses.
One of my highlights has been the few times where we have had worship time with them. Ron (our new chaplain at BG) has lead a church service and a Wednesday service and we were able to sing and dance with our staff. As I worshiped God with my friends from home, it made me realize how much I REALLY miss being a part of our church family. I love Haven and all our friends there and I love being with them here in Lesotho. I am very thankful that our church loves us, supports us, and even sends us teams to share our hearts and Beautiful Gate with.
This team is different from any of our other teams because this team is hurting so much more. Last year they brought Zach with them and he helped build his sister's Beautiful Garden's house and this year, he is in heaven. We have cried a lot together and we have shared a few good memories of him. Walking through this pain with my friends on this team has been sad and hard, but also good in that we have some closure. It is amazing when God opens doors for us to share from our past and encourage one another and I feel like God has given a few wonderful opportunities for that.
We only have 2 more days to spend with our friends and I know that it will go by way too quickly as it always does. It has been refreshing to live among special friends and I have enjoyed getting caught back up on each other's lives. We have rekindled some old jokes (a few of which are just sooooooo funny) and made a few new ones. We have recreated fun from past trips and taken some good pictures of those. We have loved orphans and widows by caring for the kids and the staff. Mostly, we have served and walked together trying to bring glory to our Father in heaven.

Family time

Our family took a few days off to enjoy some peace and quiet in South Africa. We have team after team and new volunteers coming around the clock until June, so we snuck out while we could to refresh ourselves before the busy months ahead. To say it was awesome would be a huge understatement so I will show you all a few highlights. We spent 3 nights at Corana where Bryan and Elijah tried hunting a warthog, but they did not have any luck this time.

Then we had 2 nights at Ndaka Lodge and that was pretty amazing. I enjoyed some special time with my kids making some unforgettable family memories.

We saw a lot of animal and were about 10 feet away from the lions and the elephant. I could get used to a view like this, but unfortunately, Lesotho does not have game animals, only sheep, goats and cows.We love seeing God's amazing creation and my kids are super awesome safari riders because they had to be up at 5am 2 mornings in a row for the game drive and then stay up late both nights for a night safari and a late dinner. Another example of how African my kids have become, they are quite adaptable.

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse."

Romans 1:20

Reunitied

Our family took a vacation last week so sorry about the lack of postings. I can write more about that later this week.


After 4 years of being here and loving on the kids and accidentally falling head over heels in love with some of the kids, you'd think I would be just fine with unexpected good-byes. I mean, truthfully, they happen all of the time and it is just part of the job.
There is this incredibly sweet little boy that I have really enjoyed hanging out with. I would go to the soft play room just to see him and try to make him smile. He had a very quiet nature, but he also showed a determination that was pretty impressive. Not in a naughty sort of way, but more in an unexpected ability to do something we did not know he could do. He would sit in the same place for hours and just watch other kids, then one day, he got up and just walked! Crazy kid!
Today, his mother showed up to get him and since I was gone for a week, I did not know she was coming today. She has not been well for a long time and her husband is also not well and was unable to care for their son, so he has been at BG for awhile. They are both doing better and were able to come and take their son home today. She spoke so lovingly to him when she saw him and he seemed to know her and accept her. I am happy that they are together again, but I am really going to miss him.
We circled around him and his mom and prayed for them before they left and then I gave his mom a pile of pictures I had taken of her son and a book. I told her that we really loved him and that he was such a great kid and then she began to speak rapidly in Sesotho to me. Thankfully one of our local volunteers was able to overhear and translate for me. She was asking me my name and telling me that she was so thankful for all the love he was shown and that she was going to be sure to bring him back to visit one day and to show him his pictures and tell him about how loved he was when he lived at BG. What a sweet thing to say. I was almost in tears at this point so I said my little goodbye and kissed his cheek for the last time.
Goodbyes are so difficult when we give our hearts away. I am sure all of our volunteers and staff would agree with me on that point. Please pray for this guy cause his family has some pretty big things going on with their health. We are trusting God to care for him now and hope if we meet again, he will be happy, healthy and well loved by his family.

Sitting in God's Will

We have a team from England volunteering at BG for a week and tonight we had the opportunity to share our testimony with them. We get to share our testimony about 8 - 10 times a year because so many people ask us how it was that we decided to move here with our kids. Telling the story really reinforces God's faithfulness and that His ways are not our ways, they are so much better.


This morning I was totally drained and had no motivation or desire to work on my newsletter. I am so worn out and I cannot even pinpoint why. Yes, there are a lot of people in my life who are going through some very hard stuff, but I am not going though anything as hard as them, so why am I feeling so numb?


Retelling the story of God orchestrating our lives to become the directors of BG was a good reminder that even when I am tired, God has me right where I am suppose to be. Even when I am praying for dear friends and family members who are hurting or who need God's healing, I am still right where I am suppose to be right now.


We are sitting in God's will by being here at BG. We are obeying His call and unfortunately, He never said following Him would be easy or that we would always have the energy to keep going. But He did promise to never leave or forsake us. He has promised that He has plans for us, plans not to harm us but to give us a hope and a future. Plans not to leave us the way we were, but to shape us and make us better as we try to shine His glory.

A HUGE answer to prayer!

WOW!!!! God has answered a HUGE prayer request for all of us at Beautiful Gate. I know that I have asked many times for prayer for a little girl here who has special needs. She has been on a feeding tube for about 10 months. She has gained weight and she is looking healthy, but there was concern about her ability to swallow. Over the weekend, we encouraged our staff to give her all her water and formula by mouth and not through her tube. We also increased her baby food quantities and moved her from stage 2 to stage 3. She has done very well with thicker food and it gives us hope that she will be able to progress to normal pureed food rather than baby food.


At the end of January one of our staff members, who had been the little girl's one on one, came to me and said she felt very strongly that all of us staff and volunteers need to come together and pray and fast for this little girl's healing. She said it had been 9 months since the tube had been placed and it was suppose to be temporary. The staff member said that we all need to seek God and ask boldly for healing. We had fasted once before but not everyone who wanted to fast could due to medication restrictions that several of our staff have. She suggested the Daniel fast where we would eat only fruits, vegetables, and nuts and drink water. We agreed to do this fast for 21 days and ask boldly for this little girls healing.


Today, she had a doctors appointment and she came home with NO TUBE!! That's right no tube! The doctor pulled her tube and she is now able to be free :) We have to keep feeding her the proper amounts and being very patient on the days she is a slow eater because she cannot lose weight, but we are on the right path.


God's faithfulness is amazing. We sought Him for healing and He answered with this big step. She needs more healing, but this was our biggest obstacle at this time with her. A few of us will be continuing our fast as a thanksgiving to God and also in expectation of more healing on her behalf. We praise God and give Him the glory because only He could have given us this perfect answer on our 9th day of the fast! We are so grateful for this and our hearts are celebrating God's faithfulness to this precious little girl!

Prayer for our Friends

On Sunday, good friends of ours lost their son, Zach, very unexpectedly. He was a friend to our children, a friend to the children at Beautiful Gate as well as a friend to our staff here. Our hearts are overwhelmed with sadness and I cannot begin to imagine the pain that his family is facing. Please take a few moments and pray for his parents, Keith and Lori and his siblings, Tyler and Morgan, as well as their extended family because he is loved by many.


I have a song that I will often put on repeat when I am going through a time of sadness because I need God to remind me that He is in control, even when things do not make sense. Here are the words of the song.




"I'm Still Yours"

If You washed away my vanity
If You took away my words
If all my world was swept away
Would You be enough for me?
Would my beating heart still sing?

If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives and takes away

If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart will sing to You

When my life is not what  I expected
The plans I made have failed
When there's nothing left to steal me away
Will You be enough for me?
Will my broken heart still sing?

If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives
And takes away

If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart
Will sing to You

Even if You take it all away
Youll never let me go
Take it all away
But I still know

That I'm Yours
I'm still Yours 

This family is the family that first brought me to Beautiful Gate. They lived here for 5 months in 2007 and their hearts are very close to Beautiful Gate. They have visited us and brought teams here for us and have been a huge blessing in my life. If you know them and live close to them, please pray for them, love and support them on our behalf. If you do not know them, please take the time to pray for them as they are such a beautiful family and they will need much prayer to make it through this hard time.