Thirty

So many of you out there have been faithful to ask about Keaton, so I wanted to use the blog to provide this update.  Keaton has brain cancer.  The official name is “Anaplastic Oligodendroglioma.”  Medical treatment has begun in full swing.  He has already had surgery, where the largest of two tumors was removed by the fabulous medical team at John’s Hopkins in Baltimore.   (Many among that staff are now considered true friends of our family.)   The lone remaining tumor is going to be wiped out with a combination of radiation treatments and chemo.  That will be done locally here at Egleston in Atlanta.  We look forward to meeting new friends on THAT medical team.  Thirty radiation treatments have been prescribed and will begin next Thursday 9/13/12.   (Five per week for six weeks.)   The chemo will also begin next week, and will be the oral variety.   These details for treating the remaining tumor were relayed to us yesterday.  Details have to be digested in bits and pieces or else one chokes.

I’ll admit when I first heard that the number of prescribed radiation treatments for Keaton was THIRTY, my heart sank a bit.  There was a physical heaviness pressing in on me – a bit like the flack jacket they drape across you at the dentist when they are taking x-rays of your teeth.  I quickly tried to “take those thoughts captive” and turn to a more positive mindset...because that’s what we’re commanded to do in scripture.

 

“Thirty isn’t so many, really” I said to myself.  But my words rang hollow in my spirit, and I knew it.  Try telling a kid who’s counting down the days to Christmas that “Thirty isn’t so many” and see what kind of reaction you get.  

I have decided that I have tremendous respect for coaches.  Before the big game when the other team is bigger and stronger and has a better record, or at half-time of the big game when the team is not faring too well against the opponent, the coach must use words to change the team’s perspective.  The coach must make “30” seem like no big deal.

I grew up playing every sport available to girls back in ancient times, and while that was considerably less than girls have today, I still learned something very important. There’s something that separates good coaches from bad, something that separates coaches who are actual LEADERS from coaches who simply earn a paycheck.  The good ones, the leaders – actually BELIEVE that “30” is no big deal; it isn’t just rhetoric for them.  Their passion is contagious and they help players BELIEVE that victory is not only possible… it is WELL within reach!  Do they lie about how hard it will be?  No.  But they change the perspective and focus of the locker room  FROM  “how big the opponent is, or how lopsided the scoreboard is”  TO  “how many tools we have available to US to defeat them!”  The  leader coach   BELIEVES in the victory; BELIEVES in and loves his players.

You see, good PLAYERS know truth from rhetoric.  They KNOW when a coach is building them up versus setting them up.  They KNOW fact from crap.  They just do.

When I first heard the number of radiation treatments was THIRTY, all I could come up with was… crap.  So I did what I always do in that situation.  I asked God to give me HIS perspective.  I wasn’t really asking so that I could help Keaton, although that would be a great outcome, I just wanted my OWN thoughts to be more aligned with God’s.  That’s really the whole purpose of prayer. I wanted to be one of those coaches who BELIEVES.

I didn’t get much from my initial prayer.  It was uttered in the middle of Friday afternoon rush hour traffic in Atlanta.  (For those of you who have been there, I need say no more.  For those of you who haven’t, I’ll simply say that sometimes in life it is HARD to be a good Christian girl.)   I was driving one son to an appointment and rushing home to greet the other son from the bus.  The prayer was offered in the middle of a busy day, in the middle of a busy phase of life.  Does it surprise you that God did not respond to me immediately in that setting?  Why should He?  I wasn’t really paying attention to Him.  What DOES surprise me is that He honored even THAT prayer, uttered in THOSE distracted circumstances, AT ALL.  Oh the mercy of our Father!! 

As I woke up this morning, slowly because it was Saturday – the one glorious day of the week I don’t wake up to an alarm – I lay in bed still and quiet.  I just stayed there for a minute.  The clock still started with a six.   (My farm girl roots grow deep, and late for me is anything that starts with a seven.)   I just lay there still for a minute, and God began to answer my prayer from yesterday’s rush hour.  It wasn’t a long conversation… just a few words, but a smile spread across my face and I came downstairs to greet my family.  I grabbed some coffee and my bible and started researching the thought God greeted ME with to start my day.

Thirty.

King David is undeniably the most famous king in all of scripture.  He was known as the “man after God’s own heart.”  He was chosen to be king by God himself… not by the people of Israel.  King David became famous as a  warrior  king.  He led his army into countless battles and had the greatest Win/Loss record of any king in his day.  He collected some interesting trophies from his Wins… but I’ll let you read about those for yourself.

One of the smartest things David did as King, was to select an elite group of fighting men among the hundreds of thousands under his command.  It was his “All Star Team.”  Because he was so wise, and such a good leader, David knew that every good team needs a name to give them an identity.

The name of King David’s All Star Team?   THE THIRTY.   You can read about them in 2 Samuel 23.  Scripture doesn’t tell us the bio’s of each and every one of The Thirty, but it tells us enough to let us know these were NOT ordinary soldiers.  The team captain of The Thirty was a man named Abishai.   (I just call him Abe.)   How did he get that position?  Nothing much.  He just killed 300 enemy soldiers by himself in an actual battle.  Did he do this from the safety of a tank?  (In bible times, those were called “iron chariots.”)   Nope.  He did it with a homemade spear in hand-to-hand combat.  Abe would have been a great O-Lineman.

There was also a guy on the team named Benaiah.   (I just call him Ben.)   Simply put, Ben was a stud.  When the opposing team had high-profile players, The Thirty summoned Ben to the front.  He delighted in taking down the Sports Illustrated cover boys.   (Scripture called them “champions.” They probably would have been Middle Linebackers or perhaps blitzing Safeties.)   When Ben got done with them, Scripture just called them “dead.”  

Ben did a few other things worth mentioning as well.  Once ole Ben got mad at a lion that had been wreaking havoc on the land.  He chased the lion down – on a snowy day – and killed him.  A stinkin’ LION – in the SNOW.  Did I mention he was a stud?  This one is for you, David Andrews... Ben would have been a great CENTER.   (Thanks for the autographed football from the Dawgs, and for taking the time to encourage Keaton.  We're fans of your character and your team!)

Yet another time Ben, armed only with a big stick, killed a “great Egyptian warrior” who was armed with a spear.  Spear?  No problem.  Ben just took the thing away from the “great Egyptian warrior” and killed the guy with his own spear.

I could go on, but I think you get the point… which is the point God made to ME this morning as I lay still enough to actually listen.  How you interpret “thirty” radiation treatments is all in how you look at it. 

So Keaton, here’s God’s “pregame pep talk” for the radiation treatments that begin next Thursday 9/13/12. 

Because you are one of the smart athletes who can readily tell “truth from crap,”  I’ll shoot it to you straight.  The fact is that there are MANY cancer cells banded together to form the tumor that currently resides in your brain.  God has chosen THIRTY radiation treatments for you precisely BECAUSE that’s how many you need.  Is it a lot?  Yep.  That’s why He gave us the Bible. The stories in scripture REALLY happened – they are all true.  Is it LOGICAL that “Abe” could kill 300 enemy soldiers by himself?  One against 300?  I don’t think those are odds anyone would volunteer to fight.  But Abe wasn’t really alone.  It was Abe + God.  I like THOSE odds very much.  The radiation will be strong by design.  But the fact that God will be with you is the real difference maker.  I know there are alot of cancer cells, but we have THIRTY radiation treatments... and our guys slay 300 at a time.

Cancer is a high profile disease.  It gets lots of press.  It’s famous in fact.  Remember Ben?  He was one of The Thirty.  He delighted in taking out the high profile opponents.  Ben is on our team, Keaton.  Ben is just  one  of the Thirty treatments God has prescribed for you.  I’m starting to like our team quite alot - and I haven't even had a chance to talk about the chemo yet!

So, here are the REAL facts.  The opponent?  Brain Cancer.  Our Team?  God.  Scripture.  A brilliant Medical Team spanning two states.  A strong Christian family.  The THIRTY radiation treatments.  Chemo.  And all of YOU, who make up TEAM KEATON.  It’s six days til game time.  Let’s kick some cancer butt and grab some headlines.  God gets all the glory for Team Keaton!

Many of you have asked for ways you could help encourage Keaton.  If you are still interested, send me an email at marybethcook@bellsouth.net.  We came up with an inexpensive, creative idea that I’ll be happy to share with you! But most of all, we ask for your prayers!! 

Keaton, just so you'll know, as of this morning I'm officially one of those coaches who BELIEVE.

The O Line

I’ve been thinking a lot about “trials” lately.  God sets a pretty high bar in scripture for our conduct in the midst of a trial.  You know the verses, things like “Consider it  pure  joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds…” (James 1:2)  It’s the word “pure” that gets me in that verse.  If it just said “joy”, you could muster up a tough exterior and try to put on a determined face and gut it out... in Jesus name, amen.   But “pure joy” implies something entirely different.  PURE joy summons visions of pom-poms and stadium waves to me.  That’s a high bar when brain tumors are involved, or when there’s a recurrence of cancer before your body even recovers from the last round of chemo, or when your husband tells you and your three kids that he’d rather live elsewhere now, but thanks for the swell memories.

All three of those examples are real issues going on right now with people I dearly love.

I’ve been asking God to give me a RIGHT perspective of “trials” because MY view of “pure joy” doesn’t seem to fit with the names of God I’ve been studying – the very nature of His character.

I’d like to tell you that I tackled it in a very scholarly fashion - you know - hitting the commentaries from the seventeenth century really hard and sorting it all out with the deep thinkers.  But I didn’t do that.  I just prayed and said, “God, I’m seeing such a wide variety of reactions to trials in the people around me – and I’m reading such confusing and seemingly impossible scriptures on the subject.  I know my thinking is probably wrong on this, so will you help me gain a perspective that’s more like YOURS?”   That’s it.  That’s all I did.

And little by little, through a podcast here or a passage of scripture there or some bantering with Him during a jog, He began to help me SEE.  He knows He wired me athletically and created a love for sports in me, so often times He communicates with me in those terms.

My 16 year-old nephew is a proud member of the “O-Line” on his high school football team.  I’ve been learning that there’s a certain “code” that these guys follow.  For example, members of the Offensive Line DO NOT wear long sleeves under their football jerseys , EVER - no matter how cold it is outside.  It’s a matter of honor with them. (I’m in the bleachers with hand-warmers and foot warmers and thermal underwear under three layers of clothes, and a parka… and Keaton is on the field in short sleeves.)   Members of the O Line set the training  standard  for the team in the weight room.  They do more sets and reps and they use more weight than anyone else.  They train that way because if they don’t… the defense runs over them like they were “breath and britches.”  Doing time in the weight room helps ensure their ability to STAND in the face of a serious blitz by the opposing defense and helps them protect the members of their backfield.

Are the weight room sessions fun?  Uh, NO.  Muscles shake and burn.  Sweat runs like a river.  There’s no glory in the weight room either.  No marching band or cheerleaders.  No screaming fans.  Nobody doing the wave.  But the weight room is where O Linemen get STRONG.

God has been showing me that we are far more than just physical bodies down here.  We are SPIRIT too, and there are many parallels between the two to help us understand life better.  Our  spirit   must grow strong if we really want to have an abundant life.  How in the world does it do that?  Regular Church Attendance?  Praying?  Having a Quiet Time?  Listening to Podcasts?

Well, there certainly ARE spiritual  disciplines   that must be followed to ensure good spiritual health.  Those things listed above are like spiritual “food.”  We feed our physical bodies every single day don’t we?  Multiple times per day, in fact.  So why do we think we can be strong spiritually if we deprive our spirits of the nutrition it needs?  An O Lineman would be weak if he didn’t  EAT.

But if ALL an O Lineman ever did was EAT… he’d just be a FAT lineman, not necessarily a strong one.  Same goes for our Spirit.  Ever met a “professional Christian?”  You know… the person who knows ALL the answers in Sunday School – and can recite entire passages from Leviticus?  That’s not necessarily a testament of their STRENGTH… it just means they eat a lot.  I might want that person on my O Line, and I might not.  I’d need to know more about them first.

So what do our spirits need besides spiritual “food” to grow  strong,  rather than just fat?  You’re not going to like the answer.

Trials.

O Linemen get through the rigors of the weight room BECAUSE they keep the vision of VICTORY on Friday Night in their minds during every rep and every set.  They visualize pancake blocks and touchdowns.  They know the crowd roars for the tailback who carried the ball across the goal line… but they KNOW, he wouldn’t have made it without the blocking.  A smart and successful tailback, walks to the sideline after every touchdown and slaps his O Line on the back, and says “thank you.”  

James urges us to “consider it pure joy” when we have trials BECAUSE our spirits are getting strong and preparing us for future victory in LIFE.  Do we like the trial?  Probably not any more than an O Lineman likes the weight room.  Do we dread it?  Yep.  Do we mentally focus on the pain the trial will cause?  Oh yeah.

 

But a Christian who wants to succeed in life learns to see the trial for what it is.  Preparation for future battles, future glory.  Strength training.  Without that perspective, we’ll just fall apart DURING the trial and give up before we make it to the other side.  No self-respecting O Lineman quits the team in the middle of the weight room on Wednesday...he's focused on Friday night.  Think about the people you GENUINELY respect and turn to for advice and counsel.  Aren’t they people who have been THROUGH some stuff?  And gained strength and wisdom?  Trials create people with something to offer.

My nephew, the O Lineman?  He’s not at practice this week with his team at Flowery Branch High School.  His physical body has been sidelined, but his spirit is in the weight room.  He’s getting stronger for life, not just football.   He’s doing that through a trial.   This week his weight room is in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  He’s got a brain tumor and will undergo surgery on Friday.  Obviously, he’d rather be at football practice with his teammates, complaining about the heat.  But Keaton is a Christian, and he trusts God during this trial.  Is he scared?  I don’t know… would YOU be scared if you were having brain surgery in two days?  I would be.  But it’s those times when we realize we have NO CONTROL in a situation that our faith begins to pump some serious iron. 

Keaton, if you’re reading this buddy – know that a strong FAITH is the ultimate O Line in life.  So we’ll go through this trial and we’ll have a stronger spirit on the other side of it.  I don’t know what it is that God is training you up for, but I know He won’t waste this trial.  He’s not like that.  He sees the future, and He’s making you into a person with something to offer the world.  Trust THAT, when the rest of this trial gets confusing.  But also trust THIS: unlike the weight room at Flowery Branch, your Johns Hopkins weight room has LOTS of cheerleaders!!

For the rest of you out there… how about we eat some spiritual food together this week?  Let’s pray for Keaton. 

We're Home!

At the present moment, I am laying on my green couch in my own living room.  I just took one of the longest, hottest and best showers of my life.  My husband's welcome home gift to me was a professionally-cleaned house.  Have I mentioned lately that I married WAY above my pay grade?  It's great to be together as a family again.  I am joyful in spirit and weary in body.  Just wanted everyone to know that we made it home from Guatemala safely.  Just in case you are not yet sick of reading these blogs... here's one more entry I wrote on the plane ride home.  Thanks for praying us home.

At the time of this writing, we are on our Delta flight headed for home.  It’s a strange combination of feelings – as any of you know who have been on mission trips before.  At this point in the journey, our bodies are running on fumes.  The only way I know to describe the fatigue is “shaky tired.”  Yet our emotions are on overdrive.  We’ve begun to try to process all that we saw this week, and all that we saw God DO this week.  It was NOT an ordinary week. 

Our hearts are filled with anticipation to reunite with those we hold most dear back home, and at the same time, our hearts are already dreading the airport goodbyes with our newest friends.  This team assembled at Hartsfield last Friday as awkward strangers, but at departure time on that same sidewalk in a couple of hours… there will be sadness.  I’d give a kidney to anybody on this team. 

Individual strengths have been on display – it’s amazing to see how God assembles a team.  Some are nurturers, some are take-charge types, some are humble servants always in the background, and some are natural born leaders always up front.  I’ve learned from my two mission trips that you can check your snap judgments of your teammates right along with your luggage and forget about them.  One of God’s hobbies, I think, is shattering our stereotypes.  This week I watched a man I “figured” would be the most detached and stand-offish from the group jump into the kids program during the clinics like nobody’s business.  He blew up 487 million balloons and turned them into animals if he did ONE.  An amazing man.

I watched another member of our team, an accomplished airline pilot, heap praise on a college kid among us who showed the pilot how to fly in a counseling station.  I watched a mother on our team weep repeatedly in a counseling station as the life circumstances of each patient took another chunk out of her heart.  She confided in me later that she believes her emotions are “getting in the way” of her effectiveness.  I beg to differ.  I think it’s exactly why God HAD her in those counseling stations.  How often do you think a Guatemalan villager experiences the tears of a gringo?  Isn’t that a testament of the unity of God’s global church?

It will take me a couple of weeks to “decompress”.  I learned that last year.  My emotions will be all over the place during that time (and not from hormonal swings this time!)  As is my tendency, I will journal my way through those times.  Some I will choose to share with you, and others will be just between God and me.

I wanted to leave you today with one last God story.  I wanted to write it last night, but I just couldn’t.  It was too raw and my heart needed some time to just treasure the moment.

During the final moments of Clinic 4, our last one of the week, I finished up in my counseling station a few precious minutes before the others.  I immediately seized the opportunity to grab my camera and take some shots of a “clinic in action” to share with all of you on the blog.  I hastily laid my Bible and my Journal down on the concrete floor beside my counseling station and ran around the room snapping photos as fast as I could go.  I was thrilled to be able to do that.  Watching the dentist teach the village kids how to brush their teeth was priceless!

Once a clinic is over, it’s all-hands-on-deck for repacking and reloading the supplies and equipment back into the fleet of Suburbans.  It’s a frenzied time.  But that day was different.  The mission team was treated to COLD beverages from a restaurant about a “block” down the street.  We had packed coolers full of lunch meat and bread to eat, but to have a cold Coke to go with it felt like a day at the spa!  We were laughing and talking and sharing stories a mile a minute.  The Guatemalan Ministry staff stayed behind to pack everything up – just to serve US.  When they were done, they drove the Suburbans to the front of the restaurant to save us the trouble of back-tracking.

About an hour into the five hour drive home… I reached into my backpack to get my bible and journal to start studying and asking God what He wanted me to share on the blog.  That’s when the wave of nausea hit me.  I immediately knew in my gut that my Bible and Journal never made it back into my backpack after my “photography shoot.” 

I cannot describe to you to the depth of my anguish in that moment.  The Journal was one I use exclusively in Guatemala.  It had two years worth of Clinic Notes and Devotion Notes from Dr. Hermann’s Worship Time with us each morning.  The name of  every single patient I had seen the last two years in the counseling stations were written in that journal, along with a brief synopsis of their circumstances.

And my Bible.  It was the one held together by heavy-duty Scotch Packing Tape.  (I would have used Duct Tape, but I didn’t want to cover up the words “Holy Bible” on the binding.)  The fake leather is fraying at the corners.  It’s certainly not pretty to the casual observer, but to me, it is beautiful.  Like most Americans, I have plenty of other Bibles.  I have newer ones and bigger ones and ones with helpful study notes.  But THIS was my travel bible.  Anytime I’ve left home in the last 15 years and needed to have a Bible with me, THIS was the one I took.  It’s got six years of BSF notes written in it.  It’s been to every Bible Study I’ve taken, and every Bible Study I’ve tried to lead during those years.

In short, this Bible has been where I’ve been… both physically AND emotionally.  I was brokenhearted in the back seat of that Suburban. 

We did all the things you do when you realize something valuable is missing.  We checked with all the other team members to see if someone picked it up.  We checked all the Clinic Supply Bins, once we arrived back at the Ministry Center, to see if someone had crammed it in there while packing up.  No luck.  It was just gone.  I knew in all likelihood, it had been swiped… perhaps by a child hoping to sell it.

With the combination of extreme fatigue, heightened emotion from four clinics in rapid succession, and the loss of my beloved Bible… I will confess that I sat down in the Ministry Center and had myself a cry.  I was sitting at a table by myself in the common area at the time.  I’m not much of a crier, so when I do… it’s more of a silent thing.  Just tears spilling over the banks and down my cheeks.  In the Ministry Center, there is NO WHERE to go to have a private moment, so I just sat where I was and gave in to the emotion.  Unfortunately, Braxton strolled up in that moment.  He’s not used to seeing his mom cry, so when he realized how upset I was over my bible… his banks flooded too.  We were a pitiful pair!  So we decided to do what we’ve done a lot of this week.  We prayed that God would help us find my Bible.  Our small group family member, Cameron, joined us in that prayer.  THEN we called it a night.

The next day, our team leader (TG) told me that she had told Dr. Hermann about the Bible and he was going to make some phone calls.  I’ll confess that it didn’t spark much hope in me.

Three hours later, word came that my Bible and my Journal had been found back in the village of San Marco!!  Oh ye of little faith!  The very BEST part of this whole ordeal was seeing my son’s reaction to the news.  He immediately connected our prayer to the miracle of finding the Bible.  THANK YOU JESUS!  It may sound like a small thing to you, but to a parent anxious to see signs of spiritual growth in her child… it was a gift. 

At that point, we had no idea how the Bible would make its way back to ME from a village five hours away (it’s not like you can just throw it in a FedEx package and drop it in the mail.)  But I wasn’t even worried about that part.  I was JOYFUL just knowing that what was lost had been found.  I figured it would take a few weeks to make its way home to me in Atlanta.

But our personal miracle wasn’t over yet.  At our celebration dinner on our last night in Guatemala (the Guatemalan Ministry Staff traditionally grills out for us), TG casually strolled up to me and put a plastic bag in my hand.  It was a black bag, so I didn’t immediately make the connection.  But it didn’t take long.  My Bible and my Journal were back in my hands!  I felt like that verse of scripture in Matthew 13:44 that says,  The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.    “How in the WORLD?” I asked her when I finally stopped jumping up and down.  GET THIS.

A 2^nd dentist, (Monica), who occasionally volunteers some of her time to the Ministry, was working with another team out in the villages.  She had called the Ministry Center to ask permission to run a personal errand to the village of San Pablo at the end of the day’s clinic.  Dr. Hermann’s brother (Dietrich) helps coordinate the staff, so he gave her permission to do her errand.  Shortly thereafter, Dietrich was pulled into the communication loop over my missing Bible.  He was allowed to place the last piece into the jigsaw puzzle God was putting together.  When he heard about my Bible, and that it had been found in San Marco... he realized that Monica would be within shouting distance of San Marco as she ran her personal errand.  He just started laughing with joy over how God goes before us and answers our prayers.  He called Monica and asked her to pick up the Bible from the village pastor before returning to the Ministry Center. 

Twenty-Four Hours after praying about my missing Bible, I was clutching it to my chest.  Perhaps having not seen the villages for yourself, you can’t appreciate the magnitude of that miracle.  But I can.  God is personal and loving and He answered the prayer of a weepy mom and two young men who took the time to pray.  The sheer sweetness of it buckled my knees.

You can be cynical if you want to, but I’m sick of not giving God credit for the things He does for me every single day.  I don’t want to live that way anymore.  I want to open my eyes to the workings of my Father in the world around me.  I want to open my eyes in AMERICA.   I want to experience His grace EVERY day, not just for one week in Guatemala.

So as the flight attendants hustle me off this computer, as we make our initial approach back into Hartsfield-Jackson, I want to thank you for praying for us while we were gone.  I value prayer MORE than I did a week ago.  I hope I’ll be able to say that same thing next Friday. 

Clinic 4 - Visual Effects

It's our last night in Guatemala.  It's been an amazing trip, filled with God moments.  There are more stories to tell and more words to write, but tonight I am too weary to blog.  I thought instead I would treat you to the sights of a typical clinic.  You'll see pictures of a pharmacy, counseling stations, doctors in action, the children's program in full swing, the eye clinic, and the dentist giving a hygiene lesson to the kids.  The Guatemalan staff does an amazing job of transporting all these supplies from Point A to Point B!  

Please pray for a safe journey home for all of us tomorrow.  And know that we have prayed faithfully for YOU, our supporters, while we have been here.

Good night everybody!

Keith and Thayer... we're looking forward to airport hugs!!!

Clinic 3: The Other Side of the Lake

Tuesday brought an incredible treat for the Mission Team.  After devotion, we boarded a boat – along with everything needed for our mobile clinic – and LITERALLY journeyed to the other side of the lake.  It brought breathtaking views and was just a surreal experience given all the poverty we’ve been exposed to this week. 

I don’t mean to over-spiritualize it, but I found it impossible not to think of the places in scripture where Jesus and His disciples got in a boat and crossed to the other side of the lake.  I sat on the roof of the boat, with the wind in my face trying to imagine what it would have been like to be on a boat with JESUS.  Did He and the disciples laugh a lot the way our team does when we travel?  How did they decompress after a particularly emotional day?  What would it have been like to be IN the boat when Jesus sat up and commanded the wind and the waves to “BE STILL”?

The thing I love most about mission trips is that the Bible seems to come to LIFE before my very eyes.  I was soon to experience another example of that in the clinics.

When we arrived, there was a sense that this clinic would not be like the others.  I don’t know how to describe it really.  The village was just “rougher” – there was a tangible sense that light was not present.  Despite the fact that the landscape of the village was beautiful nestled by the lake, the air had an oppressed feel to it.  The children appeared poorer.  I watched the children brutalize each other… I don’t mean just children at play with a little rough-housing.  I watched older children kick younger ones while they were on the ground.   It was pitiful.  The workers in the Children’s Program drew the hardest duty during Clinic Three. 

But they were amazing.  It’s a beautiful thing to watch light enter a dark place.  Somehow by God’s grace, organized games actually occurred.  Hugs were given out in abundance, and smiles were given freely.

Back in the counseling stations I had two memorable experiences.  We were set up in an actual school, rather than the village church for this clinic.  Both my highlights of the day were teachers.  The first was a lady named Lillianna.  Pay careful attention to her name.  She was a first grade teacher at the village school.  She had a gentle smile and teddy bear earrings in her ears.  Quintessential first grade teacher, a beautiful lady, and as lost as she could be.  But God provided the right conversation for us to begin.  I told Lillianna how much my own first grade teacher had meant to me personally, over 40 years ago.  You see, my mother died of cancer in November  of my first grade year in school.  My teacher, Mrs. Housend, was amazing.  She went so far above and beyond the call of duty for me that year – I never went more than an hour without a hug from her.  If my pigtails weren’t straight when I arrived at school, she fixed ‘em for me.  Mrs. Housend’s first name?  Lillie Ann.  How incredibly COOL is that?  God speaks to us in ways we can understand.  He basically sent me a billboard in the counseling station that day.  By the time I had finished my story, Lillianna was at ease with me.  We then entered a conversation about the gospel very naturally.  The Spirit moved in those moments and Lillianna is a new sister of mine in Christ.  Praise be to God!

The second highlight of the day was with a male Kindergarten teacher named Juan.  Remember how I told you that the Bible seems to come to life for me in Guatemala?  Juan knew quite a bit about God.  He credited Him as the Creator and the Author of Life.  Juan was a praying man, but he did not know Jesus.  As God would have it, Juan was bilingual.  Not only did he speak the native Mayan language of the village, he was also fluent in Spanish.  THIS fact enabled me to put a Spanish New Testament in his hands.  We opened our bibles together to the book of Romans, and God allowed me to escort Juan down the Roman Road.  I’m sure you are all familiar with it, so I won’t repeat it here.  But those six verses of scripture, scattered throughout the book of Romans, opened Juan’s heart to the gospel.  He enthusiastically accepted Christ as his Savior.  As we finished praying, Juan said, “Thank you for coming to our village.  I have never had a bible.  And today I learned something new and exciting.”  - My mind went to the place in scripture where Priscilla and Aquila sat Apollos down and explained the WHOLE gospel message to him.  Before that, Apollos’ knowledge of God was GOOD, but incomplete.  (It’s in Acts 18 if you’d like to read the story for yourself.)

As Juan departed, I put a bookmark in his new bible at the book of John.  I told him that God had written a letter in the bible just for him, and he should start his reading THERE.  He smiled a big Kindergarten Teacher smile as he walked away, his new bible clutched to his chest.

God is Great.  The village school now has at least two lights shining in its midst.  We boarded our boat physically weary, but uplifted by all that God had done in the village that day.

Clinic Two - Are We There Yet?

Monday was a really long WEEK, but sometimes I think God issues a physical challenge to us in order to help us see how weak our Spirit truly is compared to the pull of our Flesh.  I don’t think He does it to condemn us, but rather to help us grow in our dependency on Him and in our understanding of how UNholy we truly are.

We began our day with a devotional that reminded us that we, as Christians, are used by God to be GUIDES in the world to others.  We studied the story of Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts chapter 8.  I love the VERB in verse 30 of that passage.  When the Spirit of the LORD told Philip to approach the chariot of the eunuch, it says that Philip RAN.  Oh that we would be the kind of followers of Christ who would RUN to obey the promptings of God!  But all too often, I (speaking only for myself) spend so much time analyzing whether or not the prompting was actually from GOD, that I miss the window to run, walk, or ACT at all.  Or worse yet, I know deep within me that a prompting IS from God but talk myself out of acting on it because of fear.  (Fear that someone will think I’m weird, or think I'm “too much” or just fear that it will take more time than I am willing to give it in the moment.) THAT is called seeking your "glory" from man rather than from God.  Crap.

It isn’t like that here.  The volume on God’s voice seems to be turned UP… probably because the everyday American distractions are muted.   Here we are DESPERATE to obey the promptings of God – ANY prompting – because as we sit in a counseling station knee to knee with a Guatemalan villager, we realize we have NOTHING to offer and NOTHING to lose.  If God doesn’t speak to us, and if we don’t act… absolutely nothing of value happens.  At that point the trip is reduced to a really bad vacation.  Our mission trip is absolutely focused on introducing Christ to people who do not know Him.  But it isn’t just about getting villagers to “repeat the sinners’ prayer” – it’s about being a guide to them on their journey, at whatever point they happen to be.  We aren’t offering religion.  There’s an abundance of that in the villages already.  We are trying to introduce the ONE God in the entire world that seeks relationship with His worshipers.  Sometimes they don’t need an introduction.  Sometimes they already know Jesus, and instead just need an empathetic listener, a hug, and a word of encouragement to stay connected to God.

Monday was a 14 hour work day.  After devotion we loaded the fleet of Suburbans with everything we needed for three medical clincs and two overnight stays in the villages.  It was a mountain of supplies, cots, and sleeping bags.  We drove – FOREVER.  The journey was not for the faint of heart.  We drove on narrow mountain roads; the face of the mountain on one side, steep drop-offs on the other.  The road itself reminded me of old M*A*S*H reruns on TV.  You know… the ones where Radar O’Reilly had to drive the jeep while dodging bullets and potholes made from bombs!  I can’t vouch for the others, but I can testify that my own prayer life deepened significantly on the trip.

English Translation: "Dangerous Curves!"

We arrived in the village at long last, weary – but with a full clinic ahead of us.  I am ashamed to admit that my heart sank when I saw the size of the crowd waiting for us. I knew it would be hours still before we could rest.  Remember in Matthew 14 after Jesus learned that his cousin, John-the-Baptist, had been beheaded?  He was looking for a solitary place to grieve and to pray so he got in a boat to escape the crowd.  Yet when He arrived on the other side of the lake, the crowd had beaten Him there.  Scripture says that Jesus looked on the crowd with COMPASSION. – I wish I was more like Jesus.  When I looked at the crowds in the clinic waiting room, I began calculating how much time stood between me and my cot.  (Not my room at the Ritz – just my cot in an open room shared with 21 other people.  Somehow that deepens the degree of my selfishness.)   I didn’t see PEOPLE, I saw inconvenience.  Mission trips aren't just about the people we come to serve.  The trip is also very much about the relationship of the missionary with her God.

I immediately felt ashamed of my internal response – afterall, this is exactly what I had signed up for as a member of a Mission Team!  I asked God to change my perspective and fill my heart with love for His Guatemalan children who were likely weary themselves from waiting all day for us to arrive.  And THEY were also sick.

It was a Mayan village – meaning that each counseling station needed TWO interpreters: one to translate English into Spanish, and another to translate the Spanish into the specific Mayan dialect of that village.  It sometimes felt like an exercise in futility!  But being in a counseling station is not supposed to be an exercise of human performance – good or bad.  It is simply about being AVAILABLE to God in the moment and having intimacy with Him so that you can HEAR His voice prompting you with questions and insights.  Besides, I’m pretty sure God knows ALL the languages, and thus isn’t bothered by our translation struggles.

Around 10pm (body clock time), I met a man named Nelson.  He came to the clinic seeking help for severe back pain.  He needs an MRI – which means he needs a miracle.  The nearest hospital is in Guatemala City… hours away from the village.  He can’t afford the transportation cost to get there, can’t afford a place to stay upon arrival, and certainly can’t afford the test even if he COULD get there.  Nelson hasn’t been able to work for over a year because of his back pain.  Money is a problem for the family, and Nelson believes his wife has lost respect for him.  They have a 7 year-old son.  Nelson is a Christ-follower, the real deal.  He continues to plug in to the body of Christ in the village church each week.  He takes his son to church to make sure he hears TRUTH.  His wife has stopped going to church with the family. 

Nelson asked us to pray for his back to heal – but more for the restoration of his family.  He is a humble servant who believes God has a purpose for all this suffering in his life.  (At some point in the counseling station, I became the soul-sick patient and Nelson became the missionary.)

So is Nelson’s case hopeless?  I might have been tempted to think so a few years ago, but not anymore.  Nelson simply needs a miracle.  Dr. Hermann is fond of saying that “our prayers will never cause God to do anything He does not want to do.  But some of the things God LONGS to do – He will NOT do unless we pray.”

Case In Point: Same Clinc.  Same Tired Crew.  Dr. Hermann had a patient with a lump in her breast - maybe a cyst, maybe a tumor.  She needed a miracle.  She got one.  Following a time of  prayer, the lump was gone.  The pain was gone.  God chose to heal that lady.  There are so many stories like that during the clinics, it begins to change a person’s viewpoint about miracles.  (Well ok, it has changed MINE.)  Does God still do miracles?  Oh yes sir… He absolutely does!  (I hope someone out there who may be reading this blog - and needs a miracle of SOME sort - will be encouraged by that.  Americans need miracles too.)

I don’t know why SHE got a miracle and Nelson did not.  But it ain’t over yet.  In Luke 11:9, scripture urges us to pray with persistence.  “And so I tell you, keep on asking and  you will receive what you ask for.  Keep on seeking and you will find.  Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.”    So tonight, as I type the words for this blog, I do so weary in body – but strong in Spirit for Nelson.  His situation is NOT hopeless.  But I need you to pray WITH me.  Let’s believe God for that miracle, understanding that God sees a bigger picture than we do and that God’s timing is perfect.  But we are His children, and He lets us ask.  Please… join me in the asking.

Why So Downcast?

I woke up at 4:00 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep.  Just had a heaviness in my heart for the afternoon I knew was ahead.  Our tradition on Sundays in Guatemala is to attend church at Vida Real, Dr. Hermann’s home church.  THAT was awesome.  The sanctuary was filled to overflowing, the praise and worship TUNES were familiar so we just belted them out in English right along with the Spanish crowd.  Braxton stood in the aisle at one point to RECORD one song in particular… Mighty to Save – his Daddy’s favorite!  It wasn’t as good as Shea sings it Honey, but it was still awfully good!  Know that we were thinking of you the whole time!

After church, we had lunch in Antigua and then headed to the Orphanage.  THAT was the source of my heavy heart this morning.  Last year, the orphanage trip was emotionally the most difficult part of the week for me.  It’s hard to see row after row of cribs, and literally hundreds of kids in one compound that the world has labeled as “unwanted.”  The mother in me struggles with that. 

Given that my day started pretty early, I grabbed my Bible and started reading in the Psalms.  Not really knowing where to start, I just turned to the place I always turn when I’m feeling blue.  Psalm 42: “Why are you downcast O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”   A little further down in that passage, it says “My soul IS downcast within me,”  I’ve always appreciated that inclusion by the Psalmist, because sometimes – even though we are COMMANDED to rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS – sometimes a person’s soul is just dad-blamed downcast ANYWAY.  It just IS.  The Psalms are FULL of our real human condition.

The passage goes on to say, “therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon…”  For reasons I can’t explain, I never really made it past that phrase.  I meditated on the fact that the scripture is urging us to remember God’s PAST faithfulness to us, and to be ENCOURAGED by that.  I thought about “the land of the Jordan” – all those GREAT Bible Stories about God parting the waters of the Jordan River so the Israelites could cross over into the Promised Land on dry ground.  I recalled how the Israelites took 12 stones from the bottom of the Jordan to make a monument to God’s faithfulness.  Who could forget the battle of Jericho, right after they crossed the River?  Amazing stories of God’s power flooded my mind just from the mere mention of the words “the land of the Jordan.” 

I paused in my Spirit and just thanked God that He has a plan and a Promised Land for each and every orphan that I would meet and hug today.  I stood up from my spot in the dining area of the Ministry Center – which was obviously not crowded in the wee hours of the morning – to go get another cup of coffee.  I sat back down, ready to move on to another Psalm.  But my eyes kept coming back to that one phrase listed above.  Can’t say that I’d ever paid much attention to what came AFTER the words “the land of the Jordan.”   Maybe it’s because I had no idea what “the heights of Hermon” even MEANT.  But today it drew my attention over and over again, - I could NOT seem to turn the page, despite my desire to do so.  I finally relented and followed the cross-references to Deuteronomy 3.  After backing up a couple of chapters and reading, I learned a few interesting things.  Remember how God gave the Israelites SOME land “East of the Jordan?”  That’s really what “the heights of Hermon” is talking about in Psalm 42.  But some of the specific wording really caught my attention. 

“At that time, we took all his cities.  There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them.  All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars.”     As soon as I read that sentence in Deuteronomy 3, I had a flashback to last year’s orphanage visit.  See if you can figure out WHY my mind flashed back to that picture…

This picture is the view from INSIDE the Baby/Toddler area of the Orphanage.  The gates and bars and walls keep the little guys segregated from the other areas of the compound.

God is busy showing me this week that He is BIGGER than the things that worry me.  He is BIGGER than the things that make my soul “downcast.”  He is BIGGER than the hopelessness of orphanages.  I think He was making a point to me with that scripture about the high walls and gates and bars that He is working a plan right NOW for those orphans... not just for their FUTURE "Promised Land."  We heard a cool story today from one of the orphanage workers.  She's an American in her late 50's - recently divorced.  Lived her whole life in Alabama.  Now she's devoting HER life to making life better for these orphans every single day.  - God is BIGGER, and He's working NOW.  Gates and Bars and Walls are nothing to Him.

He is BIGGER than the things back home that tug at my heart this week while I am in Guatemala ( a beloved mentor with a cancer recurrence, a best friend caring for aging parents with health challenges, a nephew with some scary symptoms that require neurologists and too many ambulance rides.)  OUR job is to invite Him into those places with our prayers, and to RESPOND in obedience when He gives us marching orders.  Today my orders were to get off the bus in the heaviest rainfall I have ever experienced in my entire life. 

We couldn’t play outside like we did last year – so we just took the party inside.  We were NOT going to be deterred.  It was SO worth it.  I think these pictures will attest to that.

Tomorrow we depart for three days in the villages.  Please step up the prayers for this part of our journey.  We won’t be back to the Ministry Center until late Wednesday night, so it’ll be Thursday before I get to post another update. 

He’s BIGGER.  He IS.