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.
 

Community ??

2014 was a year full of teams and volunteers. While this was an AWESOME blessing here at Beautiful Gate, it also came with a sense of loss. The loss was that of community for those who are living here longer term. In being busy, sometimes we did not seek each other out to have daily or even sometimes weekly interactions. When Bryan and I first came here, we usually had only 2-3 long term volunteers living on campus most of the time. We also had only 2 -3 volunteers living off campus at a time. Now we have 3-4 volunteers living off campus, 4 long term volunteers in one house, and 4 long term volunteers in another house and that is not even counting my family. Once again I do not say this as if it is a bad thing, just noticing the differences. Having one to two volunteers over for dinner is not as easy as it once was :)


Bryan, Tyler and I are concerned about our lack of community as volunteers so we are going to start up a bible study just for BG volunteers on Tuesday nights. We are going to try to be intentional to build community. It will be an ever changing and ever growing/decreasing community, but we are going to do our best to try to love Jesus more. We want to grow deeper in our love for the One who brought us all together to serve His precious little children. Please pray for us to do this well so we can share and carry one another's burdens. If any of you have any good suggestions for a group study, please feel free to comment on this post so that we have a few ideas. I'll be honest, I have been out of America for 4 years and may not know a lot about good Bible study material or good books that are really convicting and may help us all go deeper with God. Thanks!

Where is my Mother?

What went wrong?
How did I get here?
I don't belong here,
Where is my mother?


This is not my home,
These are not my siblings,
And these are not my clothes.
Where is my mother?


I do not recognize anyone,
I do not know these new smells,
Or the taste of this new food.
Where is my mother?


What did I do wrong?
Was it something I said?
Am I not important?
Where is my mother?


She doesn't want me,
She doesn't need me?
What is wrong with me?
Where is my mother?


The people are new here,
They are kind and friendly,
But I am so confused...
Where is my mother?


I wrote this in honor of a new child at BG who is just not adjusting well. He is deeply troubled for a child as young as he is and I am worried about him. I did find a game he liked today and saw his smile for the first time today (other volunteers may have seen it already but it was my first one), but it has been over a month since he came and he is very sad. I will never know what is going through his head, but I feel like God gave me those words so I can ponder it more and really reach out to this little child.

Safety

On Friday, I had a school meeting with teachers and parents, so I was a little late getting to Beautiful Gate and my friend,Terp, arrived before I got there. I decided to go on a hunt for her because I had not seen her for 6 months, but I was intercepted by one of our staff who was admitting a new child. The new child is an older girl, maybe 4ish, and her mother is not well so she needs a safe place to be while her mother heals. I like when kids come to Beautiful Gate for that reason because it is so wonderful that we can provide a safe and loving environment for children whose parents are too sick to care for them (I do not like that parents get sick only that we can come alongside them in a tangible way). Then when their parent is feeling better, the child can return home and enjoy being with their healthy parent.


I helped decide which home to place the child and we brought her to her new home. I think we accidentally scared her a little because then Terp and several other volunteers happen to come into the home and the girl was frightened by our loudness as we greeted one another as well as fear from our whiteness :) She went to the Basotho staff and was comforted and we all gave her some space so she could adjust to her temporary home.


I did not see the little girl yesterday, but today I stopped by playgroup and she gave me a big surprise. Several of us volunteers went to playgroup and we all were chasing kids and letting them tackle us. I had a few who were having me chase them and then this little girl circled around my waist and wanted me to chase and tickle her. She was smiling and laughing and stayed by me for quite awhile. I had such a nice time with the kids today but it made me feel very special that this new little girl decided that I was trustworthy. It must be so strange to be in a new place with strange people and yet, because the other kids trust us volunteers, she decided that we must all be safe.


Hoping that other new kids will be able to adjust well and feel safe like this little girl and I am once again thankful that God has made a safe place like Beautiful Gate for kids.

Updates of BG and life

Wednesday, we welcomed a team from Australia. Allan has been here for a week to help prepare everything for this team as they are going to be putting the main finishing touches on the Beautiful Gardens' rental housing project. These men are going to be putting in kitchen cupboards and counters as well as wardrobes and other counters in the 7 smaller rental houses. I am so excited for the work that they are doing and it is making the project feel a lot more real. Bryan was able to go out to their work site and see them hard at work yesterday.

Here is an update on Beautiful Gate. We are currently at 60 kids which is a bit low for us, as we have the capacity for 75 kids. I think that this lower number is a blessing so that we have more time to really focus on the kids we have. We have many volunteers right now so we have been able to specialize a little more on specific needs of children, especially those with special needs. Our soft play room for kids who are over 6 months up to walking age has been very successful. BG kids are crawling and walking faster and those who are not are able to be singled out for special attention. Our Ops Manager, Brittany, has been putting together activity centers for the older playgroup kids for days when we have 4 or more volunteers in the playgroup. I am amazed by all the changes that have happened in the last year,

My kids have been attending their new school since mid-October, Elijah has had a big adjustment to attending school and I really feel responsible for his frustrations. There is just such a big difference in homeschool work and expectations and those of a classroom so he was not as prepared as I wish he would have been (I also realize he is technically a middle schooler so some of this may be age related too), I know it will go well and he will adjust, but please pray for him to accept the differences without taking them personally, The girls are adjusting great and doing very well in their new school. They are eager to learn and to please their teachers which is helping them to make their adjustments well,

I am teaching science on Tuesday and Wednesdays to the 4 older kids at the school and I am now attending a ladies bible study on Wednesday morning which I have wanted to do since we moved here, but was too busy teaching, I work at BG on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays now and it is going well. It is not hard to find enough to do, it is harder to stick to the hours I am trying to be available to BG, to the school and to bible study. Everyday is different and a lot harder to stay on track than when I was locked in a room with 3 kids homeschooling :) I am enjoying being a part of school as well as being a part of BG more regularly and am thankful that God has sent 2 wonderful teachers to help.

I am sure you noticed, but after 41/2 years, I have changed my blog's look a little. I updated a few prayer requests too. Hope you enjoy the new look!