"The Madster"

Here are a few facts about Maddie......

1. Her Daddy calls her "The Madster".

2. We almost named her Madison Rose vs Madisen Grace.

3. She is often heard saying "why, why the third child, mother"?

4. She is major crabby in the morning and we call her "Jim Lynch" after her uncle Jim who isn't know for talking or smiling too much.

5. Today is "officially" a teenager!!

6. We happen to think she is pretty awesome!

Happy 13th Birthday Madisen Grace

Pushing Part II

The previous post is the closest thing I know to the truth about working in Haiti.

The burn out rate among missionaries in Haiti is three years.

Why?

It's not all that complicated, really.
The needs are suffocating and can paralyze you if you take your eyes off of being obedient, doing only what you are called to do. There is a reason Haitians say "Mountain beyond Mountain".

Here is one thought, mine, for what it's worth......

Haiti is like living life on the devils door step, wondering why you can't seem to break down the gate. When, truth be told, you are only called to NOT let others in the gate. Meeting them before the gate.


We all have our mountain, our rocks, that thing that stands in our way.
This is what I know, it will be important to speak "grace to your mountain....." or your rock in this case.

Pushing vs Moving

A man was sleeping one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light, and God appeared.
The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin.
The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.
So, this the man did, day after day.
For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all of his might.
Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Since the man was showing discouragement, the Adversary (Satan) decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into his weary mind: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn’t moved.”
Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure.
These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man.
Satan said, “Why kill yourself over this? Just put in your time, giving just the minimum effort; and that will be good enough.” That’s what the weary man planned to do, but decided to make it a matter of prayer and to take his troubled thoughts to the Lord. “
Lord,” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked.
Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter.
What is wrong?
Why am I failing?”
The Lord responded compassionately,”My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done.
Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.
Your task was to push.
And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed.
But, is that really so?
Look at yourself.
Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard.
Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have.
True, you haven’t moved the rock.
But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom.
That you have done.
Now I, my friend, will move the rock.
At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in Him.
By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves the mountains.
God calls us to obedience.

Happy.......

I saw more clearly than ever that the first great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord . . . not how much I might serve the Lord, . . . but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers . . . and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been . . . to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning.
Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

- George Muller

aesthetics

Guest Blog: Alyssa Hallaway

"Sometimes we fall down and can't get back up

Were hiding behind a skin that's too tough"

Haiti is a beautiful place if you know how to look at it.
You have to be able to see past the the trash and the rubble.
Smell past the garbage and the rot.
Feel past the rocks in your shoes and your own discomfort.
You need to able to feel the music and the voices.
Smell the food and the trees in the air.
You have to be able to see the colors and the people.
All of these things are wholly Haiti.
Even the garbage.
Yet to get caught up in the way it smells and your discomfort, would be a mistake.
You would miss a rich and colorful people with a rich and colorful culture and history.
You would miss a people who are stronger than any that you have ever met.
You wouldn't see those things about them.
You wouldn't be able to talk to them.
Understand them.
Understand that they feel very deeply and how you can hear that in their loud and boisterous conversations that sound like arguments.
You would not see the blue of the sky or the white of the moon.
Yes, it would be a mistake to get caught up in aesthetics when this place has so much more to offer than a look.

Fabric

Last week, Sam Simpson, with Global Outreach Missions drove all the way to Boston to pick up fabric being donated to us.
He transported it all the way back here to Georgia.
It is now safe and sound in our donated warehouse space.
I have had to pinch myself thinking about all 4000 pounds of fabric that Kathy and Tyler Kangas from Homebound Missions
donated to us for sewing school.
Kathy and Tyler have such a heart for Haiti and helping those in need.
What a gift!

Thank you Sam, Kathy and Tyler!!

We are also working on getting more treadle sewing machines.
If you, or anyone you know would like to donate one to us, please contact us.

Bumper Sticker Conversation

Bumper sticker reads as follows:
"Sorry I have missed church:
I have been practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbiann"

I found it to be humor poking fun at "religion".
He said, it was more literal, finding NO humor at all.

I said we almost crashed into the back of the mini-van.
He said, "he was just making sure this is what it really said".
It was, in fact what it said.

I said, he was embarrassing me.
He said, he had to know what they looked like.
We pulled up along side of them and he slowed down to make his observation.
Turns out to be a normal looking man and wife, mid-forties with a few kids.

As far as we could tell there was no witch, no lesbian, just a family making a statement.
It seems the church has made some assumptions that have not been accurate.
I am guessing causing some hurt.