When we take a leap of faith towards a barely-known way of life, when we seek to raise funding for another to do the same, when we live without a home, car or job, when we spend our days sharing testimony that still is hard for US to comprehend.

Then we’re swimming in deep waters.

We MUST live by the Spirit or we have no chance at getting it anywhere CLOSE to “right”.

When we get scared, when we’re nervous about decisions we’ve made, the tendency as humans is to clamp down on the thing intellectually. It’s to reason it through, ask opinions of the wise around us, and take the course that seems right to a man.

Problem is that God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts not our thoughts.  I don’t pretend to have an inner line to God’s ways or thoughts.  I’ve just finally received the revelation that I’m not going to get close to understanding Him without a constant, unbalanced*, inflow of His Spirit’s counsel.

I’m DESPERATE for Spirit in my life.  Because life is not easy.

1 Timothy 6:6-8 says,

” A God-following life does bring wealth,

but it’s the rich simplicity of being yourself before God.

Since we entered the world penniless and we will leave it

penniless,; if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet,

that’s enough.”

In Uganda, the shoes part is optional.

Psalm 112 was a promise to us in January:

“Unfazed by rumor and gossip

Heart ready, trusting in God,

Spirit firm, unperturbed,

Ever blessed, relaxed among enemies,

They lavish gifts on the poor

A generosity that goes on and on and on

An honored life! A beautiful life!”

We dare to hope that God will and is working that out in our lives.  That He is making us new creations.  That Romans 8:6 is happening in us!

“Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them – living and breathing GOD!”

Yes, we’re taking some risks these days.  And no, we won’t always find that things are as we expected or as we hoped.  Sometimes God let’s us fall flat on our faces after a big risk.  It’s all part of the plan.  But there is a plan! His big plan.

That’s why OUR plan (not always what we do but what we long and hope to do) is:

1) Ask God what He’s up to in our vicinity, our community, our lives

2) Listen with our whole hearts

3) Jump in in whatever way He directs

4) Let Him deal with the consequences

We’re trying to follow Romans 8 as found in The Message:

“So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent.  There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all.  The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life.  God’s Spirit beckons.  There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?“

My wish; for you, for me, for us all, is for our days to be filled with:

“What’s next, Papa?”

We had a sweet day today: church and talks with friends, a quick lunch on the road and our first geocaching adventure as an ode to our techie and never-lost Man!! (What fun it was, dashing through the woods at high speed still in our church clothes and shoes, trying to find the cache before our cell phone battery died!)  Then on to celebrate Father’s Day with my Dad too: a cookout and family time with the cousins.

There is so much I could say about David as a father.  Mushie, mushie stuff that would bore you all and either incite you to jealousy or to tears . . . .  I always tell the kids that I picked David out not just for ME but for THEM and it’s so true.  I said “yes” happily because I knew I could trust him to love, honor and build up our children in all the best ways.

I don’t want to make you cry or bore you with more mush, so I’ll just include a Quinn-Quote from a month ago, when we were talking about a good man and what makes one and how not everyone in the world is good, even some who are popular . . . . .

Quinn pretty much summed it up (as usual) when he said:

“Well, MY daddy is the BEST kind of man:  He’s good looking AND well behaved!”

‘Nuff said.

Yesterday we left early, traveling up to Annapolis to drop of our kids with friends by eight, then continuing up the eastern shore as a twosome.  David and I were in our “new” borrowed convertible with the top down, hair blowing in the wind, and sun on our faces. It was a perfect spring day, and the light in the sky and on the water as we crossed the Bay Bridge and continued up the Eastern shore was amazing.

And only we drive back roads by beautiful water in a top-down convertible with Francis Chan’s Forgotten God blasting on the stereo instead of some kind of crazy music!   It was US, it was sacred, it was a precious moment strung on the strand of our lives.

Together we spent an hour in Philly meeting with World Harvest Mission for final closure of our term with them.  World Harvest has offered us much good: teaching, training and equipping us for our first term of missionary service.  Giving us experiences beyond what we would have imagined with a great team.  I don’t know if any of us knew that they would launch us into dreams of something so much longer and bigger than our time at Christ School Bundibugyo.

For while we are no longer official missionaries with World Harvest Mission as of today, we’ve entered the ranks of the pilgrims and strangers who wander this earth for love of Savior and His lost sheep.  Somehow that feels even more real as we follow that Saviors calling, His hand, pulling us away from this mission and towards something else.

Change is never easy.  But by now this change is.  By now we are completely convinced of the choices we made.  Of the hard decision to leave behind an amazing spot in the East African jungle that changed us for over.  The choice to walk away from something good because we know He has something better (for us) planned.

If I’ve learned anything these last four years, it’s that I only want to be exactly where He’s telling me to be.  Nowhere else.  And ALL THERE.

If I can not listen to the whisper of the Spirit, and obey, I will be lost.  If I can not lead with an integrity, vision and passion born from His voice, His dreams; I will gain worlds only to lose my soul. Nothing is more important than following hard and close after Him.

After our meetings at the Sending Center,  we had a precious time of fellowship with our friends from Uganda, the Chedesters.  Their long drive to see us, their open and vulnerable conversation, their warm hugs and the mutual sharing about our futures as we both head in new directions with new mission agencies, these gave us even greater courage.

These are the gifts of our 1st term as missionaries: people.  American, Uganda, and others; so many beautiful people who have taught us so much, shared their precious hearts with us, and turned us into new beings, a little more like Him.

Thanks, God, for these last four years.  Good times, hard times, desperate times.  Laughter, panic, tears, hope.  Feasting, prayer, fasting, dance.  We grew.  YOU grew us.

Here is our altar of remembrance.

We will remember.  And we will thank You.

Last weekend, we headed south for a whirlwind trip to North Carolina.  We had friends to see, trunks back form Uganda to pick up and grandparents to say goodbye to before our trek out West begins.

The Clarks hosted us for an amazing day at one of their favorite places: Hanging Rock State Park.   Loren and John are warm, kind, generous, adventurous and fascinating people with a big love for the outdoors.  We learn new stuff every time we explore wilderness with them.  They are a gift of our time in Uganda, friends we made on the team, and we thankful to find that they are still friends here.  That we connect even without a shared mission or shared team.

Loren was gloriously nine months pregnant and hiked the trails as well as I did!  Their three year old Brian reconnected with us all.  We climbed, we splashed, we ate, we were approached by a snake, we saw and got cold and savored wild blueberries.  It was a GOOD day.

PierceUpdateJun10

Faith.

It reads strong.  Beautiful.  Confident.  It’s a word that stands up tall and speak softly but firmly.

Faith can be like that.

But not always.

Sometimes faith is holding on amidst mental and emotional exhaustion.  It’s believing that even the “fallen through the cracks” feeling I carry is part of the Master’s Plan.

It’s waiting longer than you expected.  Living in chaos for more months than you hoped.  And knowing that even the year or two or three ahead won’t be simple, or  straightforward or all that peaceful.  But it might still be really good.

It’s knowing that He’s willing for me to cry, that He doesn’t mind my questions and my confusion.  That even tear-filled eyes: yes, even bloodshot eyes with no tears to cry, can glance into His.  And He will still smile that strengthening smile.  And I will look away from His beauty, His strength.  We can not look long into such eyes.

Battered Belief says that the faith road is not simple to walk or easy to find.  It doesn’t come with clearly delineated signs and highway distance markers.  It comes with precious gifts falling like silver sparkles from the sky.  It comes with fog.  It comes with drizzly, low-visibility days.

This too is testimony.  I state here for The Record, that the ruthless trust path, my choice, is sometimes marvelous, amazing and miraculous.  And sometimes startlingly unclear and overwhelming.

Just for the record.  Just to testify.

May 29th, 2010 = 12 whole years of one-ness

That one-ness leads to a whole lot of joy.  Sometimes a whole lot of pain.  Making two, one, is like getting a broken arm to heal back up.  It’s good, and right, and God’s plan.  But there is pain and restriction of movement and waiting involved.  I’m glad I’m doing it with David.  Cause I don’t know if I could manage with anybody else.

As the Five for Fighting song says:

” I bruise you, you bruise me; we both bruise so easily.

Too easily to let it show.  I love you and that’s all I know.

All my plans keep falling through.

All my plans they depend on you.

Depend on you to help them grow.

I love you and that’s all I know.”

Being one comes at a cost.  It’s precious, and fearful, and hard and good.

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  Still.

12 years after the celtic dancing and the antique Rolls Royce.

What can I say?  We’re blessed.

I hold his hand tight.  I cry, many times.  And we keep working our two broken selves into each other.

Becoming One.