Still I Will Praise You!

                                  
                                              " Still I Will Praise You!"

I had to post this picture on here so that you could see just why Susana has become my inspiration. This picture will forever be embedded in my mind. no matter what may come in my life,  I will think of this picture. She was worshipping Jesus with a song by Matt Redman called,  “Never Let Go”, here are the words to the song:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won’t turn back
I know You are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth


Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on

And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You”



 It is amazing how much we can learn from children. they teach us far more than we could ever hope to teach them. i am so happy for her, she isn't having to look up to him anymore, she is looking at him face to face while sitting on his lap! or at least that is how i like to think of her! please continue to remember this family!

today was spent making a meal for some people in our village. it is a custom here that when someone is getting married, there are God parents that help to pay for the wedding expenses. i am sure my parents would have appreciated this custom! well it is the duty of the family of the couple getting married to make food for the family of the god parents. Which could easily be 200 people. Well, i was expected to help prepare this meal today. it was an all day affair, which just now ended at 9:30pm. i did take some fun pictures so you could see what it is like to cook such a meal and i was given some really wonderful compliments! you know the kind that make you want to slap someone across the face? ;o) okay, so if i were in the united states and heard these kind of compliments you can bet there would be a cat fight! however, i looooove  my people and try to overlook their kindness!

So this is how it went, this precious woman asks me if i have a fake butt. You heard right, a fake butt. Now I don't know if that is the fad in the old US of A but here in Mexico people want to look like Jaylo, so they sell these pillows that give you a little lift. I laughed so hard and then I thought, that isn't really funny. I said, "Uh, nope, all natural!" then she asked me if i was all natural everywhere else. I mean, are you kidding me? i have to lose some weight. I really do. So the big joke here is that my nick name is pumpkin butt. i have grown fond of this little name until today when they changed it and said, it should be...... wait for it.....






WATERMELON BUTT!!!

Can you believe that? I mean, how rude!!! So as you can see, I am having to work on taking these compliments with a smile!  Can you imagine one of your friends saying that to you and still wanting to be your friend afterwards? Oh well, i am still smiling! I must say I did laugh when someone said to Greg, you are looking older now that you have grey in your beard. He hasn't shaved in a few weeks and he definitely has a little grey there, of course he hasn't cared about that grey until today. After that comment he said, I think I will shave tomorrow! :o) Anyway, we had a good day, compliments and all! Hope you like the pictures. Love to you all!! Watermelon Butt! (oh, sorry about the no caps, our computer is on the brink and sometimes the caps don't work.)

It hasn't rained here in many months and probably won't for a few more. So as you can see our backyard is nothing but dust. This makes it incredibly hard to do anything except wash clothes over and over and over again! Those are not rays of sun, it is dust flying up in the air!

It is still pretty cold here at night, but during the day it is getting a lot warmer. These women were cooking by the fire with 3 layers of clothing on, in the heat. Talk about suffrin'!

This little boy was scared to death of Annie and me when we first arrived. He didn't want anything to do with us! He just ran to his mama and hid his face. However, after a few minutes of peek-a-boo, I was able to do this.....

After a few minutes, he was the one taking the pictures and was completely content sitting in my lap!

This is what Annie was doing while I was "helping" cook. She was playing with her friends. This may look like a bad quality picture, but that is actually smoke from the kitchen. I  am amazed that these women don't have black lung disease!

This actually made me a little queasy at first. This is exactly what the pot looked like that Annie fell into when she was burnt. This was the exact stuff she fell into as well. I haven't really been around the making of this since that day and it was a little bit of a flashback for me. We made it through the day without any problems though! Praise God!

Mole  and rice, this is a popular salsa that they put over rice. We actually like it a lot!

This is the meat that they put into the salsa.

At any one point today there were between 10 and 15 people in this teeniny  little kitchen. They all knew what they were supposed to do. This girl here was washing the dishes. I am betting you are appreciating your dishwasher about now, huh?

They do all of that while wearing crazy shoes like this! Makes me hurt just looking at her!

Here is Annie with her friends. She fits in so well here. She has fun no matter where we go or what we do. She is just happy to be with friends.

pray for susana's family

hi friends! as you all know little susana has touched my heart and the hearts of everyone in my family. she was a precious child who God chose to use in many ways in her 4 years on earth. she will not be forgotten!She ran into the arms of the Lord today at 12:15pm,  please be in prayer for her family! you can read their latest entry on their website http://www.howcantheyhear.org/ 

love to you all! missy

Heavy Heart

Hi friends! I hope you are all doing well. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. I was driving down our dirt roads last night going to pick someone up for church and thought to myself, " I never would have dreamed this would be my life."

We have recently read a biography on a woman named, Gladys Aylward. She was a wonderful woman who worked in China long ago. She has a very inspiring story and has made me think long and hard about how I spend my days. If I was back in the states and read this book I would have thought, "Man, what a wonderful woman, what courage, how brave, what purpose she had throughout her life. I want to be more like her." Then I would have thought, " Oh, but I could never do anything like that, I could never live out of the country, I could never learn another language or do anything great like she did."That is what I would have thought if I had read this then. I now think, "Why am I not doing more to reach the lost here? Why am I not spending more of my days telling stories? Why am I waisting so much time? I have been given one of the most wonderful opportunities of a lifetime... to share His Word. Why am I not doing it with more zeal?" These are my thoughts. I am mad at myself. I am busy, don't get me wrong, but I just feel like I could or should be doing more.

 I have been touched by another person lately as well. Her name is Susana Whittaker. She is 4 years old and has been battling cancer. She and her family lived in Haiti and worked with the people there sharing His Word. They are in the states now as she is getting ready to make her grand entrance into heaven. My heart is broken for this family. I mean, really broken. Annie has prayed for her EVERY day and now wonders why her prayers didn't work. We had to explain that sometimes God has different plans than ours. He wants Susana in heaven with him. He wants her to be an angel. She understood this and said, "Okay, if God says it is best, it is." I don't know how her parents are holding up. I just can't imagine and don't really want to, to be honest. I just am asking all of you to pray for them, without ceasing, that His WILL will be done. You can go to their website and see their latest blog entries at http://www.howcantheyhear.org/  I say she has touched me lately b/c I don't want to waste my time on earth when I am sure she would do anything to have another day to do what she wants to do. I need to get busy living! I will do it for Susana. I will do it b/c there are people who want to and can't and I will do it b/c cause I can and I never wanted to when I was living in the US, but now that I am here, I can't think of anything I would rather do with my life than give it to Him. Man, I am deep today, huh? Not depressed, mind you, just deep in thought and not wanting to waste another minute of my life on stupid things. I have to go, got things to do! :o) love to all! Missy

2nd Anniversary

hi friends! my computer is definitely not cooperating and i can't get it to use any caps. so you will have to bare with me. any way, we have had another busy week. we celebrated our church's 2 year anniversary on monday. it was a wonderful time and were so excited to see how much we had grown in 2 years. we looked back at the beginning of our time here and realized we started with just about 6 people and today we have around 40 regulars and we can have up to about 60 if everyone comes. god has definitely done a work in our area. praise him!!

we visted a church in our new area just last night. it is like our church was in the beginning; just a few families meeting together. it was a precious time and we enjoyed getting to know these new believers. we look forward to helping them grow this body of believers in a few months when we move there. please pray that this transition will go well.

on a personal note, we have enjoyed our new puppy! he is so cute and fun and it proving to be quite the smartie! his name is max but we often call him hoodini. when we leave our home to go into town for our weekly shopping we put him in our kitchen. our kitchen doesn't have a door so we have had to find a way to block off the doorway. we have only succeeded to keep him in the kitchen one time out of about 10. everytime we walk in the door he just smiles at us like," yep, i got out again!" the best part of it is he never does anything bad in the house while we are gone. he doesn't chew on things or mess up the house in any way. i keep saying we just need to let him free in the house but greg says it is part of the challenge. of course it is one we are losing! enjoy the pics! love to all! missy

max having some quiet time

he is a little skiddish so learning about haunted hotels kept him up all night!

celebrating our 2 year anniversary

we even had some guest come to celebrate with us! they gave us a wonderful puppet performance!

some of our group

enjoying the puppet performance

how we have to barricade our door for max, he is a smartie!

 

Happy Birthday!

Hi friends! Please wish my precious husband a happy birthday today! He turned 42 today! We had his meal of request for lunch, which was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and rolls. We are going to go bowling in town and then we will be back home for the first night of American Idol. I have no idea when it started there, but it starts here, tonight! Then we will eat the cake that he requested which is carrot cake. I don't know if any of you watch Everybody Loves Raymond. However, if you have ever seen one of Deborah's cakes, that is what his looks like. For some reason... and I will blame the altitude. ( above 7,000 feet) the cake looks so pathetic! I know he is wishing he married Martha Stewart about now. However, I doubt she would live with him here in the village! Then again, I do know some who do! :o) Just ain't me!!

Anyway... I received a call from my parents last night. They said,"So... we read your blog and it sounds like you are depressed." I had to laugh, parents are funny.. they seem to pick up on things that many never will. I am NOT depressed, however I was getting extremely tired when I wrote that post. Which probably made it seem like I was depressed. I do think that sometimes living here and hearing all of their problems and seeing all of their problems can become overwhelming. That added to a lack of sleep was doing me in.

I am still having pain due to my stupid Shingles and this doesn't help matters any. So.. last night I decided to stay home from church and rest with Annie. HAAAA! I have to laugh even as I type that. If you only knew what I had planned. I mean I was all bundled up, cozy as can be on my couch playing Crazy 8s with Annie when the phone rang. "NOOOOOOOOO!" It was Greg. He said that the people who own the home where we have church weren't home yet. It was an hour after the time we say church starts. People don't generally come until then anyway but no one was there, not even the owner of the house. He said, " So I am going to wait about 20 more minutes and if no one shows up, I will come home. However, IF someone shows up, can we come there?" Like I am going to say no. Oh how I wanted to . So.... about 10 minutes later (after I had done a tornado clean up in the house) about 10 people showed up. By the end of our study... there were about 45 people in my house. LOVELY!!  ;o) So I promised Greg I would never not go to church! He just laughed. It wasn't horrible but after we swept and mopped and disinfected the bathroom, I slept like a baby! So... I guess I will try and snuggle with Annie tonight! Or... maybe not.. who knows!

I love you all!! Missy

Tired

Hi friends! I am sorry I haven't been on here in a while. I just get so tired lately. It seems like we are going all the time. Greg is gone one day a week as he is trying to prepare for us a new home to live in. We are looking forward to moving to our new village in then next 4 or 5 months. Our new home has proven to be quite a challenge to get it livable; but Greg is doing a wonderful job of finding the people and buying the supplies to finish this house. Please pray for him as he travels each week to and from our new village.

I have also started a women's prayer group each week and it is going wonderfully! Once a week some of the women gather together and we pray over just about everything. From drugs in the village, to financial burdens, to health issues, to unruly teens. Just about the same things you pray for in the states. Well... all except for the drugs in the village part. ;o) Recently we have had to pray over a new issue. There have been some prostitutes being brought in from the larger city and they are creating a brothel. It makes me sick to my stomach for the village and for these women. They are truly slaves. Please pray for them.

Many of you have asked about Lupita. She is still at her home and she is still praying for a miracle. She is truly begging God for a way out of this situation. She still has no desire to get married. The guy I mentioned who is addicted to drugs is her brother and he is doing ok, I think. However, their father who was a recovering alcoholic and hadn't had anything to drink for almost 2 years; drank all weekend long. This family is being hit at every angle possible. Please pray for them. They are all suffering miserably.

The believer who was baptized a few months back, who is blind needs your prayers as well. Her daughter (who was also baptized) has run away. We know where she is and she is safe. The problem is that she was the main caretaker of her mother. Now there is no one to cook for her and wash the clothes and generally take care of her. She receives dialysis 4 times a day and she helped with that as well. So... her sister and I have been called on to help. I have now learned how to administer dialysis and if I need to do so, I will. It is amazing the things you learn in this profession. We are also rotating on who makes her meals.

Greg and I are getting tired. Everywhere we turn someone needs us. We need you to pray for us; for energy, for rest and just in general! Thank you, thank you! Without you, we just simply couldn't do this job! love to all! Missy

Village life

Okay so some days I have so many things to write on here I don't know where to begin. I see some of the saddest things here. Women who work their fingers to the bone all to be smacked in the face for not having dinner ready when their husband gets home from work.

 I watched this woman walk down the dirt street today. She was pushing her wheelbarrow that had about 3 loads of dirty clothes in it, her laundry detergent and her little 2 year old daughter in it. Now I have tried to push a wheelbarrow down our streets and I can get about a block without my hands and arms killing me. They just work so hard and my heart really goes out to them. This precious little woman who was probably no more than 18 years old not only had to walk down the street about a mile, once she got to the end of the street she had to wash all of those clothes by hand while keeping her daughter occupied. Then she had to put all of those WET clothes back into the wheelbarrow and walk home again.

 I did 3 loads of laundry today, I did them while I was watching tv, sitting on my couch and eating a snack all at the same time. Somehow I just feel so sick when I think of how easy I have it and how hard they have it. Please pray for my friends. Their lives are TOUGH!!

I know many of you ask how things are here. Well.... it isn't like it is on the border, but we do have our problems. We have problems with drugs. It seems to be a growing problem and we are seeing that it is affecting many of our young people in the village. One of our friend's sons came by the other night and was asking us for help. He said he was addicted to a certain drug and had been for 5 years. He is only 20. He mentioned to us that he was unable to go one day without smoking this drug. This is a very hardcore drug and from my research is almost impossible to get off of it without professional help.

We asked him if he was open to receiving professional help and he said he was. We were encouraged by this and prayed with he and his wife and  they left. He said he was going to talk with his mother the next day and see how she thought his father would react to this news. His father has a very explosive temper and he was afraid of what he might do.

The next day his wife came by the house and said he decided not to tell his family. He said it would only bring heartache to his mother and he knew his father would kill him. He said he was more fearful of his father killing him than of the drug. He has been having chest pains due to the continuous use of this drug. He is trying to stop using this drug on his own. Please pray for him.

As you can see my heart is heavy as there are always people close to my heart that weigh heavy on  my heart. All of your prayers are needed and appreciated! Love to you all! Missy