Christmas means family!

I have been in Texas this last week. It has been wonderful. As we started getting closer and closer to Fort Worth along I-30 I started screaming and yelling at everything wonderful that I saw; at every minute memory of a park visit or a family mini-trip. And as we got closer to my dad's house I was just out of control. I was sure Mitchell was going to kick me out of the car for being so loud :) He told me to unroll the window and scream out the window but he soon changed his mine and told me that that just made me louder.

I love getting to see my family and everyone. I love every moment of the holidays and getting to see everyone.

I will post more later about how awesome Christmas is! Love you all!

What does death even mean?

How do you say goodbye? I don't mean like when you move far away or travel across the world. I am pretty good at saying that kind of goodbye. These last few days have been surrounded by thoughts of death. On Friday I was told that my step mother's father had some serious medical issues that was most likely cancer. On Saturday a dear friend asked us to pray for her uncle who is only 25 and has prostate cancer. That night she got the call that he had died. Today my father told me that the surgeon that Grampy's problem is inoperable. People who have similar issues general live for three weeks to three months more.

I just sat down and wrote a letter to my Grampy and Grammy and it was hard. How do you say goodbye? I don't really know how but God gave me some things to write. It was hard because I don't think I think the same thing about death as others.

I believe that God's timing and plans are perfect. I believe that death on earth means life in heaven. I believe that absence from the body is presence with God.

I believe Paul's writing in I Thessalonians 4:13-18

"But I would not have be ignorant, brothers, concerning them who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede them who are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."

I believe what Paul says in Philippians 1:21

"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain"

I don't know if I would have the same convictions in the face of my own coming death but I believe that I would. The pain involved in dying is kind of scary but the moment that I am present with God will make all of life worth it.

I think of the Chris Tomlin song "How Can I Keep From Singing" the line, "I will sing with my last breath sing for I know that I will sing with angels and the saints around the throne"

But how do I say that same thing to someone on the cusps of death. How do say these things without sounding insincere or naive or strange?

My God is amazing. He makes the hard things easy and comforts us in the times that feel like they may crush us.

*Update: Last night, Monday the 1st, my grandfather walked through the pearly gates healed and whole around 10:30.

Hoping Place

I wrote a little while back, after I got back from Uganda, about the direction God is directing my life. I wrote about how I now understand that my purpose in life is to make my house a home that is open to anyone that needs a home. I have these big dreams about creating a nursery for when we are blessed with children to love and about designing a super cozy guest room for anyone needing a place of respite. I can see Mitch, Theo and I playing with our children at the park. I see all of these things. I imagine me cooking up a big meal for people who need some food. I hear a tea pot whistle on the stove as I set out some big tea cups to have heart felt conversations on the couch.

It's kind of strange. I see the finish line and I see where I am now. I am doing my best to take steps forward yet there are somethings that only God can do. It is kind of like the "waiting place" from Dr. Seuss' "O The Places You Will Go", kind of. But I am not just waiting on a train to come... or the wind to blow... I am more so in a "hoping place". I have faith that some day soon. I will put to full use all that I have been prepared to do. The bible says "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1.

That is where I am. To the rest of the world that is rushing by at a million miles an hour it may seem like I am standing still and sometimes that makes me feel a little foolish or dumb but it really shouldn't. Does a butterfly feel foolish when it is in a cocoon? Does a seed feel dumb as it slowly grows even before it breaks the soil? No... they somehow understand that this time of hoping, this time of faith, is molding them to be stronger and to bear much fruit. I am not the first to be in this waiting place where faith is required, no, where faith is all there is.

Hebrews 11 tells of many people who only had faith and hope to spur them forward. I want to highlight some of them here. Noah had great faith when he, bearing the scorn and shame of those around him, built a giant boat on his dry land and proceeded to fill it with animals even though there was no sign of rain. I kind of feel like that. I am preparing my home for that which there is no sign of. Abraham and Sarah had great faith when they trusted that God would give them a child even though they were very old and yes they strayed from their faith and doubted and Abraham had a son with his handmade but they soon realized their error and put their faith back into God and He blessed them with Isaac. It says of Sarah that "she judged him faithful who had promised". I love that. She weighed what she had been told against what she knew and what she had seen in her life and around her and knew that God would be true. I feel like that sometimes, like nothing around me should give me any hope towards my dream but I know God and what he has done for me and how he has poured his love out onto me beyond measure and I know that he will sustain me. Hebrews also speaks about Jacob who praised God even with his dying breath. And of Moses' parents. I cannot imagine what I would do if God told me to go set my child into the Allegheny River, let alone the Nile (it has crocodiles), in a basket. I would think I had lost my mind. Surely God wouldn't ask me or call me to do something so bizarre. Yet that is what they did. They laid their new son into the Nile River in a basket and had faith that God would provide and he did. The baby was pulled out of the river by the Pharaoh's daughter. Mind blowing!

All this is mostly written out for me to process this strange place that I am in. I suppose that I have been in this "hoping place" since returning from Uganda. While in Africa I had a specific purpose and I knew what I had to do I was constantly surrounded by it. Here I am waiting. Here I am building a boat in the dry season. Here I am trusting he who has promised. Here I am putting all my love and joy into a basket and praying for the best (figuratively of course).

Maybe you are in this place too... just like me. I want to encourage you. God has done amazing things in my life. He has pulled me from dark places. He has blessed me beyond belief. And He has used me in amazing ways to bring glory to His name. I have fed and held the orphans of Africa. I have clothed those without clothes. God has used me to love and to teach. Have faith and God will use you in ways that at the end of the day leave you exhausted, humbled, in awe and completely excited for what comes next.

"In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began"

Titus 1:2

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith;"

2 Timothy 4:7

"Faithful is he that calls you, who also will do it"

1 Thessalonians 5:24

"And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

Galatians 6:9

"In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by an action, is dead."

James 2:17

"For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently"

Romans 8:24-25

"You are my refuge and my shield. I put my hope in your word."

Psalm 119:114

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer"

Roman 12:12

Soul Searching

Something that I was reminded of yesterday in church was that our relationship with God isn't just a *poof* now you understand everything. It is a wrestling, like Jacob in the desert. The hard questions and even harder answers grab onto you and wrestle with you all through the night and just as you think you are getting the upper hand the question reaches down and hurts your hip (well maybe not exactly but something like that).

I think that if all of us would be a little bit more real and actually embrace that we have questions and really allow our selfs to soul search for the answers we might all be a little better off.

So many questions run through my mind all the time that I don't know what to do with. I don't know how to interpret them, process them, and share them.

Questions like:

God why do you allow people who were so close at some point in time to walk so far away from you that just by being out of your light they seem like totally different people?

God why don't I always feel held and understood?

How is it that coming to You and following You has put me in such lonely places?

and even questions that I don't feel like even really talking about like:

God why do you allow women to get pregnant that are just going to have an abortion or who aren't going to properly care for their children when there are so many women trying desperately to have their own children?

Will it all be worth waiting for?

I used to even wonder if I was going to get bored in heaven. I used to wrestle with that question. I used to say, in my head, well I like living for Jesus but I don't know about that whole eternity stuff, it just seems to long. But I wrestled with it (more so it wrestled with me) and as I read a book, The Shack, I started realizing that heaven is about unity it is about the opposite of loneliness it is fulfillment and family and togetherness.

Or when Norah came to Acacia Tree just a frail skeleton with baggy skin who if you would try to look at her, her eyes would roll back in her head and she would shut down I really had little hope. I would question God. How could you let her suffer like this at the hands of those who are supposed to love her? How in the world will she ever make it? Because to tell you the truth to me she looked more dead than alive. I carried her to the hospital and as I was sitting in the van waiting to take her in I heard wailings start, the wailings that are called out when someone dies. Then they rolled the body by the car covered with just a sheet. The pavement was very uneven and I could see the now lifeless body shake with each pot hole and divot in the road underneath it's improper covering. I saw his empty feet sway from side to side. I saw them bring out the bed the now dead man had been lying on and place it in the sun to disinfect it. Just like that he was gone and the hospital was making way for the nest sick patient. At the same time I saw a big black bird land on the ground at the hospital which in Uganda is an omen of death waiting to take someone away, as I was told by Diana. I was terrified. Everywhere I looked it seemed that death was coming down around this little girl. I didn't understand. I wrestled with the seeming injustice. God if she isn't going to make it just call her home so she won't have to suffer anymore.

Yet we covered her in prayer. As I tried to feed her I prayed that she would take the milk because most of the time she wouldn't. As I held her or tried to even look at her I prayed that God would renew her spirit within her to have even a shred of hope. As we would bathe her we prayed that the terrible memories that seemed to be making her scream in terror at the thought of being around water would leave her alone. As I would lay her down to sleep I would pray that the demons that were surrounding her thanks to her island's witch doctor would stay away from her dreams to allow her to sleep in peace. We hoped against logic and prayed against seemingly insurmountable odds. Add this amazing and tiny little girl slowly began to thrive. She doubled in weight. She began to smile and laugh. She began to not only drink milk but to eat solids. She started sleeping well, the bad dreams were gone. She even was able to bathe without screaming in time. And now praise to God she is home with her family that now has seen the love of Jesus first hand, Jesus brought their daughter back from death. I had already left Uganda by the time she went home but I saw the picture on the Zemba Kids facebook page and the look on her father's face is priceless. The suffering is terrible but the joy in healing is greater.

When it all comes down to it. None of this really shakes my faith for long because as I look back to my past and the way my life has gone I know that nothing but the blood of Jesus has protected me and blessed me in uncountable ways.

It's not a sin to question and wrestle and figure things out. On the contrary, I believe that it makes your faith stronger because then it isn't just answers from the preacher it is answers from within yourself that have been tested with fire.

I boldly follow God because He boldly leads me, there is no other way to follow Him.

Visiting Africa

Though I am thousands of miles away I visit Uganda frequently. When I lay waiting to fall asleep at night I find myself on the red dirt roads. I find myself smelling the mix of muchomo, flowers, and fruit that flood the streets of Entebbe. I even smell the stinky silver fish and miss it. I practice walking to different places in Uganda so that I won't forget and will be ready to hit the ground running if ever I go back. Some nights I go through my small repertoire of Luganda and beat myself up when I can't remember a word (for example last night I couldn't remember the word to stand up). I think of a specific time that I said every little word that I can think of.

At night I walk through the markets and go to the beach. I sit by the pool and watch the kids play in the water. I think of Benja's sleepy smile. I think of Norah's infectious smile. I think of Sadie's tootsie roll legs. I think of Sarah Bella crying at the dinner table after she said something that we all thought was funny. I think of Rayah prancing around in a tutu and her clappy shoes. I think of Robin and Blessed and Sarah cracking jokes and eating popcorn.

I know it is silly, maybe, but I can't help but go back there. I can't help but dream of holding the babies. I can't help but love them and pray for them and dream about them. Something about being there and giving special care to these children and learning about the culture and seeing all the beauty that God has put in Africa has my heart kind of stuck there.

Pittsburgh is a place

With how many delays Mitchell and I had I wasn't sure that Pittsburgh really existed.

We have now been here for 2 weeks. I have been busy unpacking, all but about 5 boxes are unpacked now. I have also painted the master bed room a delicious chocolate brown (or Michelle-Obama-nude if you heard about all the hub-ub about her state dinner dress being called "nude" by her designer)

Our yard is a bit out of hand but I am working on it. I have also planted basil, cilantro and garlic.

Today I ran errands then made boiled eggs, pasta sauce, tuna salad, and hot sauce.

Our first Sunday we tried a church that was almost 200 years old. The community was great as well as the message but there wasn't anyone around our age or stage in life. This Sunday we tried a church that had a "self-help" message, as I like to call it. The community seemed good and they have a great children's ministry but I don't think it is the church for us.

On Monday night Mitchell and I went to a Bible study at the In the Blood Tattoo Parlor in South Side on Carson Street. It was very encouraging and we met two young married couples and few single people too. We are going to go to the church that they are associated with, Hot Metal Bridge. I am excited about the possibilities here.

Please pray that God shows us a church group and friends to have. Also please pray that He shows me my purpose here. I have good days and bad days. Today was a good day but yesterday...hmmm... not so much.

I love you all and miss you.

I will end this post with one of our sweet babies from Uganda that I miss severely!

Post Something

I haven't posted... so I probably should... I don't know what to post so I think I will just post pictures that I like.

Train outside of J Cafe in Portland, Oregon last fall

Door at Jump Theatre in San Antonio

Sweet baby River at the theatre... very sophisticated young man (son of this lovely lady)

Our future home with shutters and flowers in Pittsburgh, PA .... if everything goes well

Sweet Emanuel from Nuevo Progresso, Tamualipas, Mexico last year. His big brother Cesar gave me a yellow and white bracelet that he made

Painting I did last fall. It was inspired from a painting that I saw in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope.

Caroline with her sweet new rescue puppy, Rascal.

Pretty architectural detail in Tolar, TX.

Cloth diapers hanging on the line in Entebbe, Uganda.