Live Out Loud - Adventures of a mom

Yes, you didn’t misread the title.  Personally, one of the biggest things God spoke into my life while in Trujillo was the fact that I had gotten lazy about discipling and showing spiritual discipline to my own kids. What I saw in Peru As I saw how kids were able to, through the IncaLink ministries, learn to not just love God, and respect God, but to also develop ‘spiritual muscles’ in the form of Bible verse memorization, relays on finding Bible Passages, Reading the Word out loud, with pride, and with conviction and talking about things that come from God, I felt God was giving me a glimpse at my own life. Flashbacks I felt I went through time…and one of those girls was me.  I remembered how more matured Christians had invested in my life to show me about what being a disciple was all about.  I remembered how God used these people to show me vulnerability, community, but most of all, discipline, hard work, and focus.  They pushed me to study God’s word, to develop spirit

God is always at work.  The issue is whether we are developing an ability to see what He is doing. I’ve been asking God if He might use me in a cross cultural setting again after all these years being a stay at home mom and learning what missional living is and isn’t locally.  But for a few years now, the answer seemed to be “stay put” Then this year, as I started asking the same question again, looking forward to summer plans, our church’s missions team contacted me and asked me if I would consider leading a team to Latin America. As I thought about it, and prayed about it, the time seemed right and after a few weeks of thinking, praying and discussions with my husband, we decided to say yes.  Even though I could see how He had been preparing the way – my eyes have seen so much more about what living on mission for God here locally is in the last few years – my faith didn’t seem strong enough to just go.  After all, this happened right before I had foot surgery, and I wasn’t ev

This short term missions trip is more than learning from God.  It is more than learning about team building.  It is more than just growing spiritual and it is definitely more than just doing some ‘good work’ so that we can report our trip was ‘worth it’ One of the things we continue to feel called to is to partner and share.  Sharing and partnering is humbling.  It reveals in us our desires to control, our pride, and our impatience Sharing and partnering with others has been challenging to me.  I’ll be honest.  There has been many moments where I let frustration and my sinful desire to ‘do great things for God’ take over me.  But over and over again the Spirit prompts me to fall down on my knees and to surrender it all to Him.  All of it. And then, one night, as I got home late, I saw a piece of paper and some stickers beside my bed.  The kids had gone to bed and I didn’t get to say good night, but my daughter had managed to say good-night through a note. The note said, “D

I started this post on Day 1 of our STM but never got a chance to finish  it…. ************** It has been a crazy 24 hours.  Last night our team met one last time before our trip and we spent some time just praying.  I was reminded of the book of James and the admonition to pray with the right motives, to submit to God,  and to the promise that Satan will flee from us if we resist him.  We prayed that God would use us, and that if it meant for God to put us in uncomfortable situations, so be it. Little did I know that in following 24 hours my faith would be stretched beyond expectations and that I will see a glimpse at the Lord anew, in new light, in more depth Our son had been increasingly complaining of stomachaches in the last couple of days.  Although at first we thought it was his normal ‘tummy aches’ I noticed that they seemed to be getting worse.  By Thursday noon (I was supposed to be on the flight to Peru Friday afternoon), a day before my departure to Trujillo