If you read nothing...watch the video...

If you are short on time and read none of what I wrote...at least watch the video and if you ever have time watch Paris Reidhead's sermon "Ten Sheckles and a Shirt" on YouTube or read it online...or listen to it at: www.sermonindex.com
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Here it is 10am and I find myself feeling rather alive instead of feeling like a cat who has been the focus of a dog hunt...ok so that's an exhaugeration but I did stay up until 3 am last night chatting with a future missionary. OH I love I love I love God. Me and this wonderful young woman got to talking and we could have gone on for days. I love fellowship with like minded people. I generally love fellowship period but when you are taking to someone who is on the same page...it's just so awesome.

I had met this young lady before returning to Thailand this last time and was very impressed with her heart for missions. She had applied with a missions group to go to Africa and was waiting to hear back from them at that time. So this last new years eve we were at her church...Pathway and she told me that because of her recent church change...so went from a Baptist Church to a Nondenominational Church that someone had lodged a formal complaint with that missions group because she was no longer attending a baptist church. She was removed from the mission trip...

So as I was talking to her I remembered back to Renee telling me that they had been praying for a young woman to come and serve in their family...as a homeschool helper. And I remembered the things that Renee said were important to her in the person that she had been praying for to come...and I was looking at her. So I told her about Todd and Renee and what they are doing in southern Thailand and what they were looking for and Ashley lit up but said she would pray about it. Long story short...she prayed about it and said she would love to go and last night we talked to the Pruetts and it's a go!

I'm really excited for them...it's very exciting for them and exciting for this young lady too! It really seems to me that God has set this up. When she was told that she couldn't go to Africa she was broken...and little did she know that God had another plan for her. An awesome one at that...anyone who gets to spend time in the home of Todd and Renee Pruett will learn and grow in leaps and bounds from experiencing their wisdom and love.

So things are in action...John is gone with his father for a week. This week they are in Denver, Colorado - so if you live near there...go to: http://www.jglm.org/ and get the directions because these are meetings you will not want to miss...and they are always FREE. I'm excited for John simply because after a month of moving, preparing, going through stuff, traveling and settling in John is finally able to do what God spoke to him and told him to do...travel with his father. So, while I'm sad about him not being here for a week...I'm excited because we're finally here...doing what he's instructed.

The boys took it very hard yesterday when John left...tears and all. I thought I would help them get over it with some candy and JOsiah put me in my place when he said through tears "I don't want candy Momma...I want Daddy!". OH my heart just hurt...but they were ok after about 30 minutes. God is steadily working on my heart - I feel his presence throughout my day and I'm in awe. It's my fault that it isn't always this way...it just feels so good to allow God to be apart of every moment of my day. I keep being drawn back to Paris Reidhead and the story he told of two Moravians...as I continually dwell on what it means to deny yourself...take up your cross daily and follow Jesus...I'll leave you with the story he shared:



And for those of you who can't play that video:
Two young Moravians heard of an island in the west indies where an athiest British owners had 2000-3000 slaves, and the owner had said, “No preacher, no clergyman will ever step foot on this Island. If he’s shipwrecked we’ll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave, but he’s never going to talk to any of us about God. I’m through with all that non-sense.”

3000 slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ. Two young Moravians heard about it. They sold themselves to the British planter and used the money to buy passage to the island, for he paid no more than he would pay for any slave and wouldn’t transport them. And as the ship left the pier at the river Hamburg, the Moravians had come to see the two young lads off. Never to return again for this wasn’t a 4 year term.

They’d sold themselves into lifelong slavery, simply that as slaves, they could be as Christians were these others were. The families were there weeping for they knew they’d never see them again. And as the gap widened and the hawsers were being curled up on the pier, and the young boys saw the widening gap.

One lad, his arm linked through the arm of his fellow raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were ever heard from them… They were these:MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN, RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING.

This became the call of Moravian missions, and this is the only reason for being, that the lamb that was slain, may recieve the reward of His suffering.

From Paris Reidhead’s Ten Shekels and a Shirt