Home Again

I told God a while back that I would come home only if He would go with me, just as He promised Moses that He would be with him when Moses was sent back to Egypt. My heart is so much to be "out" there serving, and I'm finally accepting that that's from God. But now, He has sent me home and He is already showing me he is with me. One small thing I'll share happened on the plane home. I always ask God to provide opportunities for ministry when I travel, and he provided several. One was on the way from Atlanta to St. Louis Tuesday night. For some reason I felt like I was supposed to ask the young lady next to me if she knew how airplanes (airliners) stopped. More specifically, I felt like God wanted me to explain reverse thrust to her. Of course, I hesitated a minute, and then thought what the heck; I've got nothing to lose. So I asked her, and she immediately started talking about how she's in school to be a pilot (but still hadn't got to reverse thrust). The question opened a door to talk to her about mission work, and just amazed me how God is so involved in the details of my (and all of our) lives.

I am so happy to see my family (although I still haven't gotten to see all of them) and excited to go back to my home church. I already miss Guatemala and my other Ficker "family" there, but am determined to make everyday here as purposeful as life on the foreign mission field. Roughly, my plans are to take some college classes towards a Bible degree, keep my checkbook in the black, and find places to serve now that I'm home. I'll try to keep this blog updated if life seems interesting enough to share :).

No matter where we are, I know God is interested in our lives. God loves people everywhere, and He is the answer to all of our problems. Each of our lives are a journey. We all come from God, and He wants us to get back to Him. The way is Jesus. He is the guide. In Guatemala when I go to a new place, I go with someone who knows the way. It would be crazy to try to find some of the small villages I've been to without a guide--someone who's from there and knows the way. Jesus is that guide to a relationship with God. If you don't know Him, or aren't sure about where to find Jesus, look in the Bible. Jesus' disciple John wrote in the book of John of how to find Jesus and how to know Him. God's plan is for all of us to know him better. I pray your journey takes you there.

Last Days

This week has been a sad week, just because a lot of what I've done may be the last time I do it for a while. In case you hadn't read on Adonai's blog, I plan on going home soon to continue with school. It's something that has been on my heart for a while, and I feel like it's God's timing that I go now. I'm sad to leave but excited about what the future holds.

So today was my last trip to San Pedro (for a while). We made two flights in for a standard clinic day, but "standard" was a big deal since we thought we would be short of help. Thankfully, God provided Dr. Pedro, Dennis Freed (N.P.), and our friend Misty to help us see the roughly 150 peolple who came. At first hardly anyone came from the surrounding villages; we heard that two men from the village had been charging Q100 (about $$12) for "landing fees" when an airplane landed on the strip. This fee was to be paid by the patients who received help from us or any other plane that came it. Of course this made us aggravated, along with most of the villagers and community leaders, and the culprits were reprimanded. It's just like Satan to throw in little hang-ups like that when God is really moving in a place.

Anyway, we made it back to Canilla just before the rain (yes, it actually rained for about 2 hours in our desert!). Then we ate a lot of pasta, worshiped, and now everyone is heading to bed. So hope you sleep good tonight!

Small Rewards

The apostle Paul taught that "what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen in eternal." I think a good part of that means that even if we aren't "seeing" a lot of results from our Christian labor, it doesn't mean God isn't doing eternal things. (Maybe we should even be glad when it doesn't "look" like things are going good!)

But God provided a few small rewards for me today as I walked the mountains near our Chiminisijuan clinic again with Thomas. He and I set out to visit families (many single moms) early this morning, and I might even say we're getting better at finding people and growing worse at getting ourselves lost! Anyway, in the course of visiting about 7 families who had asked us for food, we had two cool testimonies from their neighbors. One was a young man who stopped by the first house we were visiting. He came over to tell us that God had healed him of some stomach sickness a few years ago after we (I don't really know if I was at clinic then) prayed for him. He said he had spent Q6,000 (about $750) at a government hospital and never got better. Then, he came to us and for Q2 (about $0.25) he got better! Another lady was the neighbor to the last family we visited, and she told us that God had healed her 1-year-old son a few years ago of a swollen arm (sounds like it was an infection). She said, "I came every week for milk, prayer, (and I think) medicine, and my son got better!" She actually said "God healed" my baby. Now I and most Americans whose brain is bigger that our faith want to think of what sickness exactly these people had, and what medicine probably cured it. But they (and at least 10 others I've ran into during my mountain walks) very confidently say GOD healed them. Some I know for a fact were not a result of medicine because we didn't give them any, and even the others were God because Duane, Leslie, and the entire ministry would not be in Chiminisijuan were it not for God calling them!

God does miracles today. They may be obvious, they may be natural results from obedience, or they may not be known to us at all--but when God does the work, it's eternal!