Praising

I love living in Macas. I love teaching and I love my students and fellow teachers. What a blessing it is for me to have the opportunity to be here, serving Jesus as best I can,  and learning a new culture and how to walk more closely with my Jesus. I am daily reminded of my insufficiency and His Great Sufficiency and Provision. 


Learning to wake up everyday knowing I must get on my knees and ask for this provision has been a journey of much spiritual growth for me! And because I am a stubborn girl sometimes, The Lord has had to teach this to me the hard way. But I am learning to be thankful, grateful, for those lessons...without them, there would be no learning and growth! 


This past week, my Grandaddy Loftin passed away. When I left home in June, I knew this would probably be the last time I would see G'Daddy, but the realization of this last week was a tough burden to bear. I think being so far from home, not being able to fly home for the services, has made the news a little easier to deal with, not feeling the full effects until I get home probably. But Oh, how I have longed to be home with my family, to sit, grieve, and comfort, just be there to encourage. The Lord had other plans in mind for me here, for reasons I may not know until I am with Him.

On another friends blog, I read a quotation from a newsletter written in 2002 by Elisabeth Elliot (who is my favorite author) about missionary Amy Carmichael:

When I was fourteen I learned of an Irish missionary named Amy Carmichael whom I never met—a down-to-earth mystic whose beautiful writings captivated my imagination. She had gone first to Japan, where in her room she had two words written on the wall: Yes, Lord.

Through the providence of God she went then to South India, where, as an itinerant evangelist, she soon discovered the evils of the Hindu temples where little girls and boys were used in unspeakably wicked ways. At first she could not believe such treatment of innocent children but soon discovered that things were far worse than she had imagined. She prayed earnestly for their deliverance and was able, over some fifty years, to make a home for many of these children. She wrote, “I would never urge one to come to the heathen unless he felt the burden for souls and the Master’s call, but oh! I wonder so few do. It does cost something. Satan is tenfold more of a reality to me today than he was in England, and very keenly that awful home-longing cuts through and through one sometimes—but there is a strange deep joy in being here with Jesus.


“Praising helps more than anything. Sometimes the temptation is to give way and go in for a regular spell of homesickness and be of no good to anybody. Then you feel the home prayers, and they help you to begin straight off and sing, 'Glory, glory, Hallelujah,’ and you find your cup is ready to overflow again after all.”


This week, I've been feeling that "home-longing" cut through me, but I have also felt that "strange deep joy" in being where Jesus wants me to be. What a beautiful love! I am praising Jesus that He has brought me to Macas to teach these precious children about Him. And I have deeply felt the prayers of so many friends and families at home...THANK YOU. My cup is very full of "Hallelujahs" and is ready to be poured out again. 


Thank you dearly for your sweet emails and encouragement during this ugly-beautiful time. The Lord has taken the ugly and is making it beautiful. G'Daddy is in Heaven, free from his burdened, earthly body and is rejoicing with the angels around the Throne! What could be more beautiful?! He might even have a pocket full of tootsie rolls and a Coke in his hand! :)