Sunday, February 16, 2020

When I Cannot See

          The road to the house was long, narrow, curvy, and steep. There was a thick fog that seemed to hover low and didn’t want to leave. With a car full of laughter and stories, we continued to climb the mountain at a slow pace. The time finally came when we had to park the car and continue on foot. The road appeared to go straight up, but with every step we knew we were getting closer to the destination. I had been told that the view from the top was magnificent, spectacular, simply breath taking. Our group was small, but a larger group awaited us farther ahead. The gate was just ahead and we opened it with great anticipation. Not to say that it wasn’t beautiful, but truthfully, the house wasn’t really what I was hoping to see. The brothers and sisters from the church were enjoying each other’s company while playing soccer, conducting games, and talking. The kids were swimming despite chattering teeth. The wrap around porch would have been a great viewpoint, but the haze covered all the natural beauty that I hoped to witness.

          After lunch, Thalita and I decided to walk up the mountain even further from the house in hopes of a clearer view. As we walked and talked, the clouds seemed to get lower and thicker. Upon arrival at the primary school on the top of the mountain, we were able to see more than 20ft. out. I was rather disappointed and even a bit discouraged to realize that I could do nothing to make the sky clear up. Then, to my dismay, the rain started to fall. Now, not only was I unable to take pleasure in the spectacular scenery, but now I was certain we would have to hurry back to the house in the rain! Thalita and I began singing while we waited under the school shelter wishing the rain would cease. Perhaps 5 minutes later, the rain started to slow down. We contemplated making a run for the house in case more rain was on its way. However, something kept us from leaving. Suddenly, we noticed that the clouds were starting to part and sunbeams were beginning to peak through the clearings. Was all my frustration and disappointment in vain? The clouds dispersed quickly while the sun began to shine more brilliantly. The panorama left me speechless and a bit thoughtful.




How often do I get discouraged because I am only looking at the storm I’m currently facing? Do I let the clouds take away the enjoyment of the blessings that God has placed all around me? To be fully honest, it is easy for me to be discouraged when our nursing school is supposed to be open, but continues to wait for final approval. But I have to stop and ask myself, “Am I letting this little setback keep me from the joy I could experience if I trusted that God will clear this roadblock when He is ready?”


Monday, January 27, 2020

Marathon Training and Lost Sheep



            Once upon a time, long ago, I got suckered into running a half marathon. For those of you who have trained for a race, you know that it takes a lot of training to be successful. People usually start months beforehand to prepare for the big day. Although it is possible for some people to run the full marathon with little preparation, they are usually suffering the next couple of days. The last month of life has felt a bit like a marathon for me. I’ll share just the highlights from the journey.
            Christmas was only a month ago?!?!? That sounded weird in my head when I wrote that. It seems like an eternity ago. It was quite a pleasant day spent with friends and “family”. My ND family spent the day visiting, sledding, and riding in a one-ox-open sleigh. Although it was nothing fancy, it was probably one of my favorite Christmases to date. That weekend after Christmas I frantically packed up my little bunk house, loaded my car, and headed east to meet up with some friends who were driving to GYC (a youth conference). Early Sunday morning we headed east in hopes of getting ahead of the coming blizzard. As it happened, we didn’t actually beat the storm, rather we stayed in it almost the entire day. Praise the Lord the only setback was a temporary parking job in the ditch! As our two-vehicle caravan neared Louisville two days later, we parted ways. I made a quick trip to Ohio to unload some of my belongings while the bus made its way to The Ark Encounter. GYC was a big blessing, not only for the spiritual revival, but also for the chance to see some friends. I returned to Ohio to get ready for the next phase of life.
            Monday, January 13, 2020, almost 7 years exactly since I moved to Belize, I moved to Colombia. The trip was fine; no incidents to report. In conjunction with MOVE (the school where I worked in Belize) we planned to have a summit for missionaries. I have never really used this word to describe an event like this, but basically it was a time to inspire and equip missionaries who are out in the field now. Although it required many sleepless nights and stressful days, I am thankful for the blessing it was to us all. I look forward to being reunited with all my new friends when we go to heaven if I don’t get to see them before Jesus comes back.
            Sometimes it is hard to know why certain things happen, but I have to trust that God has a better plan even if things seem to go in a different direction than I planned. Thursday morning, the day after the summit, the MOVE group was going to be heading to the airport at 4 am. I woke up to make sure I could say goodbye to them. My other friend, Yaneth, was planning to leave at 5:30 to get a bus to the city. I didn’t have my alarm set, but I happened to wake up right about that time. As I got out of bed, I noticed that Yaneth was just about to start walking down the hill to town. I asked her if she knew how to get to the bus, but she didn’t seem 100% sure. I told her I would walk down the driveway a bit until I could show her exactly where to go. It was such a pleasure to walk and talk with her since I had been so busy the previous few days. We made it to the paved road where I could send her along her way. I gave her one more hug then turned back home with Sirena, our dog. Sirena wanted to continue to follow Yaneth and not return home with me. We tried and tried to get her to come back with me but she only wanted to accompany Yaneth. Suddenly, we heard a motorbike coming around the corner. The paved road is very narrow and curvy; it is hard to see someone coming around the corner. Since it was still dark out, I made sure to move to the far side of the road so that the motorbike wouldn’t hit me on the inside of the corner. Turns out that another motorbike was coming from the other direction. Sirena went to chase the moto on the far side of the road and ran right in front of the moto on my side. The driver hit her square in the side and crashed, throwing both the driver and the passenger to the ground! I quickly ran over to two people on the ground. The boy who was driving got up quickly, but the girl with him was only shouting, “My back, my back hurts”. I knew she couldn’t stay in the middle of the road because the traffic would run us over since we were still on a curve. I moved her as best I could to the side where the water drains. Not knowing if she had serious damage (neither were wearing helmets) I stabilized her head and had Yaneth call back home to my friend, Oscar, who is an EMT. As we waited for Oscar to arrive, I started talking to her to get her to calm down. I told her who I was and about the summit. I asked her questions to make sure she was staying with me. Finally, Oscar arrived with his medical supplies. He did an assessment of her and asked her various questions. He found that nothing seemed to be broken, but advised her to go to the hospital to get a final checkout. We prayed with her and Yaneth got her contact information. I don’t know what happened after that, but I’m sure she had lots of questions following this little accident: why me? who is this gringa? what is she doing in my country? why did she stay to help me? In reality, I will probably never see that girl again on earth, but I pray that perhaps because of our encounter she can get to know God and we can meet in heaven. When I got home, I could not find Sirena. I knew she had to be hurt, but unfortunately she had not run home. After worship, three of us went out looking for her. We called her name repeatedly but still had no sign of her presence. As I was wandering up and down the driveway calling her name, looking in the brush, I could only imagine Jesus looking for one of His lost sheep. I have only known Sirena for a few days now, yet I didn’t want to give up searching for her. I can’t even imagine what God must feel for someone He created who is lost. It must break His heart to know that He can show His sheep the way, yet the sheep decide to stay lost. It is my prayer that in the midst of all the busyness of life we never forget that we are here to be His witnesses.






Blessings,
Katie

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Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Blessed Despite My Unwillingness


            Have you ever been asked to help someone out at some future point in time and responded with an “I’ll pray about it” answer, hoping that the person would be appeased with the fact that God could work it out if He willed but really wishing they would forget to ask you again? Did you ever go home and just kinda “forget” about doing said nice deed? But have you ever said that and then God really did work it out despite your lack of inclination? How did you feel then? Did you cheerfully do the duties that you promised you would pray about? Well, obviously I am asking these questions because it happened to me. And I want to tell you how good God is despite my big mouth!
            At the end of my blog in August (wow, that was a long time ago!) I was recovering from a bloody nose I got (figuratively speaking) when God seemed to slam the door shut in my face. I was unsure of the exact reasons why He had closed all the doors, but I had to trust that it was in His perfect plan for my life. That is way easier to say now than it was at the time. Anyways, I ended up staying in Houston at Reach the World Next Door missionary training school for two months. The irony of this all was that originally I had not been able to be there because of prior commitments, but with the recent change of plans/broken nose on the slammed door I just happened to be free as a bird! The timing could not have been any more perfect. Sound familiar? Well, I was there to help just as the classes were getting ready to start. This allowed me time to share what I have experienced and give advice on where I have seen failure and success. Also, this was a good time to weed eat!!!! Not that I enjoyed it more than all the class planning sessions, but… At the end of September I was really feeling a pulling at my heart to return to my North Dakota family and work at the church school (which I had been offered a job earlier in the summer but was going to Asia, but since that changed I had more open plans). While I was working at the church school, I got a call from a local public high school asking if I could help translate for a student who had just arrived from Mexico. He spoke very limited English and the teachers spoke little or no Spanish. I was called on a Tuesday, went to interview with the school on Wednesday, and went to my first day of school on Friday! For the first time being hired to a “real job” I think it was rather quick. So on a cool October day, at the age of 26, I attended public school for the first time in my life. Talk about culture shock! I was surprised to find out that just about a week after I started the translating job two students arrived from Indonesia. They did not speak English, and unfortunately I did not speak Indonesian. But Google Translate does! So I started learning the “type frantically fast in simple English” language so I could communicate with them. I would not recommend learning and depending on this language, but it works in a pinch. Then I got the email asking to go on a mission trip to Asia. I wanted to go so bad but replied that I did not feel it was the right time, but that I would pray about it. I had just started a new job and did not have money to buy a flight or hotels so I kinda just wrote it off as a “NO”. Life continued as normal (remember that normal for me is probably crazy for most people). A few weeks later another email was sent asking again if I wanted to go to Asia on the mission trip because there was funding for my whole trip. A little embarrassed that I had not really committed it to prayer, I responded that I would ask my boss at the public school if I could leave. I figured the worst he could do is reject my request. Much to my surprise, he right away told me to go. There was no hesitation, but only reassurances that if I was ever back in the area they would be happy to hire me again if possible. That left me about two weeks to get my visa, flights, and travel plans ironed out. Oh! And all the Christmas gifts for the nieces and nephew finished and sent off. No biggie! This time I really had to pray that God would get stuff done for me. So two weeks later I had a visa, plane ticket, and a cleaner sewing area.
            The trip to Asia was a rekindling of my missionary spirit. God knew that I needed to go there at that particular time. I was in charge of organizing the interviews and photos of all the workers for our ministry in the country. I got to hear their struggles, trials, and victories in their work for the Lord as medical missionaries and church planters. I got to hear plans for future areas of training for missionaries as well as industries to keep these training centers open. I can say that I am truly blessed to be able to look forward to having a bigger family reunion in heaven one day soon. As the time came to a close in Asia, we all said our sad goodbyes and headed home.
Unfortunately, just a day after my arrival in America, my roomie from Asia and I both got sick. Even though we were hundreds of miles apart now, we were both experiencing the same problems. The worst part was thinking about the upcoming trip to GYC. I was this close (imagine my thumb and pointer finger about 1mm apart) to staying home and skipping out on GYC. But God had other plans for me. He let me feel somewhat better the night before I was supposed to leave for Phoenix just so I would get into the car and start the 32 hour trip without the possibility of turning back. I would like to report a smooth road trip, but I was miserable. I was either freezing or burning up and felt nauseous almost the whole way. Praise God none of my Christmas dinner was reviewed in the car. Finally, we arrived in Phoenix with but few hours of sleep.
One of the best things about these big conferences, besides the spiritual revival it brings, is seeing all your friends that you didn’t know were going to be in attendance. When I got asked to work the booth I wanted to say “no” but somehow the words that came out of my mouth sounded a lot more like “sure, I can”. Throughout the weekend I was working at various times in the booth and that is when I could see that God was using me despite not wanting to be standing at only one booth and not visiting with friends. All throughout the weekend I was surprised by what God continued to do through my unwillingness:
1.                    I had just finished talking to a person about missions when Antoine told me that I needed to meet his friend, Florence, and pray with her. I shook her hand and started small talking with her. I found out that her niece, early 30s, had recently passed away. Since the passing of her niece, Florence had come to really know God. She had been pushing Him away despite her niece’s efforts to bring her back to God. Not until the youth was gone did Florence find her passion for God. She decided at the death that she was going to take the Bible and make it her life. Florence is especially passionate about spreading tracts and literature to all those around her. She asked if I knew of any place where she could buy more tracts to hand out. Fortunately, God had assigned my roomie (from the mission trip to Asia) to work in a booth handing out tracts for free. I took Florence to the other booth and explained how she had become so fervent in her work. She was beyond thankful to be able to receive the free literature. She then asked if I would pray for her. As she poured out her heart to share the struggles she was facing with her family life, I knew that it was only something that God could change. As I started praying for her, I could feel that she was also lifting her thoughts and prayers upwards. At the end of the prayer, she was crying, thanking the Lord for bringing us together at just that time. And to think I didn’t even want to be in the booth that night!
2.                    This time I wasn’t working in the booth, but my friend got pulled in even though it wasn’t her turn. As I waited for her to finished talking with someone, a girl approached me to ask if I knew anything about where artists could get involved in missions. I knew very little, but offered my assistance in taking her to a few other booths to ask. She accepted and we headed off to some of the other booths. I approached the Little Light Studios (LLS) booth in hopes that they could give her guidance while I went to look for charcoal ice cream and BBQ tofu! Immediately the LLS director took her in and started talking with her. I merrily went my way to appease my growling stomach. When I returned to our booth to get my money a few minutes later, the same girl greeted me again. She wanted to thank me so much for helping her find the LLS ministry. She told me that she was an introvert and preferred to be in her home away from people, but at the same time she wanted to be able to serve God. Preaching and teaching was not her style, but art was. She was then able to find her niche in the missionary work. We prayed together and she thanked me again. And to think, I wasn’t even supposed to be in the booth that night.
3.                    Friday is the day that GYC gets to be involved in outreach. I was going to go out, but then decided that I would stay with my friend who felt very nervous about doing door-to-door work. We made the decision to be intentionally praying for those who went on outreach. After we prayed specifically for people in the various groups, we decided to go get food for lunch. We passed by a hotdog stand that was selling veggie dogs. We stopped and chatted with the vendor then shared a My Language, My Life card with him. After getting our dog, we said our goodbyes. Then we went to the Mediterranean restaurant that we had planned on. The young boy working the register was so friendly and helpful. We ended up talking with him for at least 15 minutes while our food was being prepared. In that time we could see how passionate he was to study how to better help those who were less fortunate than he was and those who were not as blessed to have good families. We also found out that many of his family members in the Middle East could not speak English. It was the perfect opportunity to share another My Language, My Life card with him. He and the rest of his family (who also worked in the restaurant) were very pleased to receive that tiny card. And to think, we weren’t going to be a part of outreach!
4.                    The trip back home was long, but somehow it was a little more pleasant than the ride to Phoenix. We stopped at a gas station about midnight looking for a place to fill up (and empty). As I started chatting with the girl working there, I noticed that she was about to finish the book she was reading. When I got out to the car again, I told the others that I wanted to give her something better to read. After we found a book to share with her, I suddenly got nervous. I didn’t want to share it with her anymore. What if she thought I was weird and crazy (both might be true despite what she believed)? I said a short prayer with my friends and headed right back into the station. I talked with her for another moment and then presented her with the gift. She gratefully accepted the gift being offered. Then came the next hard part of asking if I could pray for her. I was expecting that this girl who had just been swearing moments earlier would be quick to reject my offer, but much to my surprise, she accepted. Then she opened up to me about her uncle who recently found out he has cancer. We prayed together and with smiles on our faces parted ways. I don’t know if she has read the book, but I can be sure that she had the opportunity to read something more uplifting. And to think, I didn’t even have courage enough to offer her salvation that I am given freely.
So as I reflect on the last few months of my life, and at the whole year of 2017, I have two specific prayers that I want to offer up to God:
1.     Lord, please help me to be more willing.

2.     And when I am not willing, please still push me and guide me along Your path that You have already planned out for me so that I can learn to trust more in Your perfect plans for my life.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Tabu (tam-bu)

            Each country has a culture: some more unique than others. Fiji is a country full of culture and traditions. This last week I had the opportunity to be a part of a very unique tradition that does not happen much even in this country.
            Death is such a harsh reality on this earth. It does not care who you are or what you have. One year ago, unbeknownst to me, my village chief died. Although I had not arrived in Fiji at that point, I was able to see some of the results of his death. All were prohibited to fish in our bay for one full year after his death. On April 27 we as a village celebrated the opening of the bay with a huge fishing celebration. Preparations began many days before; some were sewing new outfits, others were gathering and cooking, while the men went into the bush to find the vines and branches. Everyone participated in the event. Very early Thursday morning the action began. A team of strong swimmers dragged the ½ - ¾ mile long vine rope to the outskirts of the bay. By 6 AM most of the villagers were on the beach or in the water taking part. The village was divided into two sides and placed on opposite ends of the rope. Commands were given by the appointed leaders in the boats and on the rope ends to pull, wait, and rustle the rope. After hours of pulling in the two ends, the end was coming into sight. The fish were being led into and trapped in a small area. The only thing left to do was wait for the tide to go out and leave the fish imprisoned in the shallow coral reefs.
            The time had finally arrived. The excitement was growing as the head leader explained what was to happen: the first fish were to be caught and divided among all in the village. Shouts and cheers arose as the first spears were thrown! All hands were put to work as fish were being speared and thrown onto the uncovered coral. Men, women, children, and grandparents worked diligently to get all the fish into the boat. After the boat was filled to the brim, the waters were opened for personal fishing. Instantly, everything became free for the taking. Some used spears and nets while others used rocks and hands to capture the last of the fish caught in the low waters. Happiness could be heard and seen even as the rain began to pour down upon all. But the festival did not end there. The people went back to their homes to prepare for the afternoon ceremony. Beautiful dresses, tops, and sulus of brightly printed materials were to be shown off. There was an abundance of food and fellowship as the afternoon progressed. Gifts were presented to the deceased chief’s family in honor of his service to the village. The festivities continued on late into the night as stories were told and memories recounted.

            This may have been a one-day event, but the memories will stay with me forever. I got to see a village made up of different tribes and religions come together as one united family. This is my family.