New Beginnings

A new season. A deep breath. And life renewed. New places & faces, and a fresh outlook on… Faith. Hope. And love. It’s here now…and it’s coming soon. I can’t wait to share it with you.

During the last year I started around 52 blogs…never posted a single one. Unfinished thoughts are a thing of the past.

My heart is happy and my soul is well.

Be back soon!

I am Second

It’s been so long since I’ve posted that I didn’t remember my word-press password. Let’s just say I’ve been in a “rut” to keep it simple. But I’m out now..Praise God.. and life is seeming so much sweeter each morning when I wake.

Not sure how many people out there are American Idol fans (well there are millions, but you know what I mean)…For me, last season was the only I’ve watched. I was “drawn” to Jason Castro for some odd reason.  This video helps explain. Enjoy. And if you aren’t a fan – watch it anyway! Please.

Urgent Prayer Needed

This past Sunday, as a church family – we prayer for the persecuted church. Just days later the e-mail below was sent out. Please pray and please also pass along to friends and family to increase the prayer base.

This is a request for prayer for YWAM missionaries and their churches in Orissa , India . The request came from Mable Hurst, an associate of HCJB Global. Please read and make this a matter of urgent prayer.

“Dear beloved sponsors and friends of Good News India ,

We have never seen anything like this. We knew that Orissa was the most resistant and hostile State in India as far as the Gospel is concerned. And we brushed off the continuous threats and harassment we faced as we went about His work. But none of our staff imagined that they would see this kind of carnage…. And it seems to be totally under the radar of the Western Media ….
Let me explain…. A militant Hindu priest and 4 of his attendants, who were zealously going around the villages of Orissa and ‘reconverting’ people back to Hinduism, were gunned down by unknown assailants in Central Orissa last weekend. Immediately the Christians were blamed.. The cry rose up…’Kill the Christians!’ And the horror began…. In the past 4 days, we have first hand witness to hundreds of churches being blown up or burned and many, many dozens of Christian tribals have been slaughtered. For no other reason than they bear the name of Christ.

Night and day I have been in touch with our Good News India Directors spread across 14 Dream Centers in Orissa… they are right in the middle of all this chaos. In Tihidi, just after the police came to offer protection, a group of 70 blood-thirsty militants came to kill our staff and destroy the home. They were not allowed to get in, but they did a lot of damage to our Dream Center by throwing rocks and bricks and smashing our gate, etc. They have promised to come back and ‘finish the job.’

Our kids and staff are locked inside and have stayed that way with doors and windows shut for the past 3 days. It has been a time of desperately calling on the Lord in prayer. More police have come to offer protection. In Kalahandi, the police and some local sympathizers got to our dream center and gave our staff and kids about 3 minutes notice to vacate. No one had time to even grab a change of clothes or any personal belonging. As they fled, the blood thirsty mob came to kill everyone in the building. We would have had a mass funeral there, but for His grace. In Phulbani, the mob came looking for Christian homes and missions. The local Hindu people, our neighbors turned them away by saying that there were no Christians in this area. So they left.. We had favor. The same thing happened in Balasore.

All our dream centers are under lock down with the kids and staff huddled inside and police outside. The fanatics are circling outside waiting for a chance to kill. Others were not so fortunate. In a nearby Catholic orphanage, the mob allowed the kids to leave and locked up a Priest and a computer teacher in house and burned them to death. Many believers have been killed and hacked into pieces and left on the road…. even women and children. At another orphanage run by another organization, when this began, the Director and his wife jumped on their motorbike and simply fled, leaving all the children and staff behind. Every one of our GNI directors that I have spoken to said: ‘We stay with our kids…. we live together or die together, but we will never abandon what God has called us to do.’ More than 5000 Christian families have had their homes burned or destroyed. They have fled into the jungles and are living in great fear waiting for the authorities to bring about peace. But so far, no peace is foreseen.

This will continue for another 10 days…. supposedly the 14 day mourning period for the slain Hindu priest. Many more Christians will die and their houses destroyed. Many more churches will be smashed down. The Federal government is trying to restore order and perhaps things will calm down. We ask for your prayers. Only the Hand of God can calm this storm. None of us know the meaning of persecution. But now our kids and staff know what that means. So many of our kids coming from Hindu backgrounds are confused and totally bewildered at what is happening around them. So many of their guardians have fled into the jungles and are unable to come and get them during these trying times.
Through all this, I am more determined than ever to continue with our goal: the transformation of a community by transforming its children. Orissa will be saved… that is our heart’s cry. If we can take these thousands of throw-away children and help them to become disciples of Jesus, they will transform an entire region. It is a long term goal, but it is strategic thinking in terms of the Great Commission.

What can you do? First, please uphold all this in fervent prayer. Second, pass this e-mail on to as many friends as you can. We must get the word out and increase our prayer base for this is spiritual warfare at its most basic meaning. We are literally fighting the devil in order to live for His Kingdom. The next 10 days are crucial. We pray for peace and calm to pervade across Orissa.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please pass it on and help us to get as many people to partner with us on this cutting edge effort to fulfill His mandate: Go and make disciples of all nations…. Prayer works!”
Blessings,
Chip & Sandy Wanner Col 2:2
MBI Team Facilitators to YWAM frontlines

Two things..

It’s that time of year! And I am feeling excited and blessed to be surrounded by wonderful friends and family in this season. “The Great Ornament Exchange!” is something I stumbled upon in Kate’s Blog - and it just made me smile ear to ear. The idea of perfect strangers (not all cases!) giving to and encouraging one another is something I look so forward to participating in. Click on the picture below to join in – request must be in before Thursday evening though! 

Also, the same day I joined in on the exchange from Kate’s blog – I was promted to buy this cd. A beautiful compilation of the Daraja Children’s Choir of Africa and a handful of wonderfully talented christian artists. I can’t thank Kate enough for posting this on her page and recommending it to her readers! It arrived in the mail just 4 short days after I ordered it and as soon as I saw it in the mailbox I ripped the package open and popped it into my car cd player. What a blessed ride to work this morning! I got to work 20 minutes early – and instead of heading into the office per usual, I closed my eyes, relaxed, and finished all 8 or 9 tracks of the cd. Let me just say – the day was promised to be a joyful one after a morning (and album) like that.

I’m posting both of these items to say a big THANKS to Kate and to spread the word/make a recommendation to join in on the “Great Ornament Exchange” and to buy the Daraja Children’s Choir cd!

Oh Happy Trails!

I can hardly believe it’s been almost a month since I last wrote. To be honest, I’m embarrassed. I don’t have a good enough reason for NOT getting on here. While there’s been a lot going on in my life (mainly in my head) I wish I hadn’t let the worries of the day keep me from something I was so excited to start. I am genuinely excited to start blogging. I mentioned in my last note, that lately, I have been in awe of others transparency – and I just love the thought of people coming together from all different walks of life to keep up, gain and share wisdom, and invest in each other. So I’m going to be better at this. At least I’m going to try really really hard.

My dear friend Lauren and I took full advantage of fall in New England a couple weeks back. [This is, by far, my favorite season of all!] And even though we took the longest route possible to get to where we were going, it proved worth it in the end. Lauren and I have known each other since high school and we just get along. We always have. And our conversations [although sometimes about nothing at all] are so much fun. Conversations that are light when we want them to be & deep when we need them to be. Anyways – back to the adventure. We had planned for a while to go hiking. We even marked it on our work calendars. So in an effort to keep plans, we began our trip up to New Hampshire. The day was breathtaking and I am so happy my “allergic to exercise” self made it out of bed that morning. We hiked Mount Monadnock and had a blast pretending to know what we were doing. Unfortunately, our inability to read a hiking map caused us to wander off the path about 3 different times…all the while, thinking to myself “how is it that we are the only people that are lost on this mountain right now??” I’ll be the first to admit that I have thee worst sense of direction – so it’s a wonder my “I just sense this is the way” got us back on track.

 We spent so much of the “beaten path” trip up the mountain, looking down at the ground, that when we finally hit a clearing in the trees it was seemed we were seeing the sky for the first time in our lives. I’m not kidding. I snapped about 60 pictures as soon as I saw blue! We grew increasingly more excited as we continued the trek up – and the trees grew shorter – and as we passed people who were on their way down, we asked “how much longer till we see it!?”. The hike up was only 4 miles [or something like that] but getting lost 3 times makes it feel so much longer! The anticipation climbing up made the climatic peak far better than a good drama. When we reached the top I felt, well, for starters out of breath, but soon followed feelings of utter amazement from the sights I so rarely have seen. New England in the fall is truly like no other place on earth (I am bias obviously). Sad to say…I have lived here my entire life (with the exception of a few months in the Midwest) and I can count on one hand the number of times I have let these kinds of views take my breath away. This certainly was one of those times. I could only stand there and wish I had let myself experience it more. Putting regret to rest, I took deep breaths in and exhaled slowly. I focused on every hill top and pasture on every side of the mountain and I kept thanking God that his hands created it all. In the midst of a terribly hard month – there is nothing like thanking God for every breath and beauty in this world.

It is appropriate to note here, that I brought a backpack along soley for the reason of bringing granola bars and a good book to read (Currently: The Shack). However; being the “non-hiker” that I am, had no idea it would be so cold at the top. Needless to say, I didn’t get to read. [I'm saving that for the next hike - in summer of '09]. The entire way down, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. A successful and beautiful trip up a mountain to marvel at all of God’s glory.  

Surprisingly enough my in-active body wasn’t all that sore in the days that followed. It figures that two days after, a company trip to the bowladrome would make it so I could hardly walk or lift my arms. Really? Do people really pull muscles trying to bowl?? Well folks, I sure did! Enjoy the pictures! I have a feeling you’ll be hearing from me again soon.

 

His power is made perfect in my weakness

Hi All,

Here I am! Finally blogging. I must say…it feels fun! There is something so wonderful about writing what’s on my heart and knowing I will look back on the words someday and see the Lord at work in my life.

 

In more recent days, I’ve attempted to keep a journal – but the amount of time I spend in peaceful reflection, sadly, is no comparison to the time I spend multi-tasking on my computer.  I remember devotedly keeping a journal in my adolescent years. It makes me smile thinking about it now. I would write page after page about silly things. What on earth could I have possibly written about? I stopped abruptly when my mother got a hold of one. Turns out those “silly” things weren’t so humorous to her. Looking back, at times I wish I had kept a paper trail of my young adult years. And there are times I believe it is a blessing I didn’t. Either way – I’m in such a place now that I rejoice at the opportunity to be genuine and honest with anyone and everyone! About where I am and where I ultimately want to be.

 

There have been countless times when I have found myself so overwhelmed by the blessing of transparency. Transparency in the words of friends, loved ones, and in some cases, perfect strangers! Admirable transparency. Real words and real lives that touch others in so many ways. Ah! I am just so blessed [thank you all!]

 

It figures that the first day I decide to publicly document my life – is a day filled with not-a-lot of good. In fact, the last 24 hours have been just rotten.

 

It started late last night in the midst of a conversation with the man I love so very much. There are currently (and somewhat permanently) 800 miles between us. After two years of dating (and wooing!) in the same city, trying to maintain the relationship we had then is trying at best. At times I’m so sad I don’t want to get up and face the day without him around. And sometimes I just miss him too much that I lose sight of everything else. But most of the time it is that I don’t show him the love that he so greatly deserves. The time we do have together (whether on the phone or a weekend here and there) is spent trying to catch each other up to speed– and not spent loving each other and just having fun! I know God wants us to be apart at this time. And I know he has great plans for both of us, and while I hope his plans for me include Jason, I can’t expect them to.  Our lives look so very different than they did when we first met. We were hopeless romantics, without a care in the world, until the world got a hold of us.

 

After a sleepless night, my dear friend (co-worker) and I found ourselves in a horribly tough situation at work. One of the women we work with absolutely lost it. She was burning with fury from the very moment she entered the building. During our weekly team meeting she brought some issues to the surface that were burdening her and in turn created a hostile and unbearable work environment. This is a woman who always has been extremely difficult to work with and even be around. I am reminded every morning on my way into work to love her, and when she acts out, love her more. And I believe those were my intentions on the drive in today. By the drive home, I was ready to burst with anxiety and confusion. I wanted to cry and scream the entire way home (and I just might have if I weren’t so concerned about what my fellow commuters would have thought about me). Just cried and screamed all the way home. [It probably sounds like I’m making too big a deal of a “bad day” at work –it really was worse than I could have ever imagined based on the events leading up to it]

 

Instead of crying out to God, I sat and spoiled my heart at my desk and let anger run rampant in my heart. It took over my mind. There it is. My weakness. I felt uncomfortable and disrespected. I felt helpless and unable to love. So I just sat there…boiling up. They say the tongue is an overflow of the heart. And I am convicted daily of the sharpness of my words. I didn’t have kind things to say about her to other co-workers who had experienced the blow. I couldn’t even formulate words TO say to her.

 

The words of 2 Corinthians 12:9 were laid on my heart during the drive home. That – His grace is sufficient for us. His power is made perfect in our weakness. What a wonderful reminder. And just as I was merging off the highway I looked ahead and saw the biggest, boldest rainbow I have ever seen in my entire life. What a promise!

 

I met with our pastor’s wife immediately after work tonight. I couldn’t help but pour everything out on the table (I have a tendency to do that) and she couldn’t have encouraged me, loved me, or embraced me more. Her advice always comes from a heart that is fervently seeking the Lord. I could not have asked for a better friend to console me than she! I thank God everyday she and her family were called to our small little church in this teeny tiny New England Suburb.

 

A friend of mine, whose written and spoken word has touched my life immeasurably said, “I believe that God puts people and places and things in our lives to remind us he has not forgotten us, and that he is actively pursuing us.” What a blessing.

 

“We may run, walk, or stumble, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way”

 

Whew! It is time.for.bed. First blog…not so scary after all.