We can make it!

Another video (I'm on a kick).  First saw Mike-E a few years ago at an American Cancer Society/Relay for Life leadership event.  Liked this song immediately.  Never regretted snatching up his CD right away.  This is one of Hannah's favorites, too.  Don't know how many times I've sung over and over to myself, "Alrught. Everything will alright - we can make it."  And it helps.  Love the message that we are all one, different but one.

Nicaragua? Okay...

How do I communicate this without getting too long-winded?  Here goes: As you may know, my daughter Kaylie has Asperger's Syndrome.  She has participated in the special needs ministry program at our church since she was around three years old.  Like she does at school, at church she participates in the mainstream classroom, but when she was younger she had a "buddy" who accompanied her to class.

In 2005, our church began partnering with Nicaragua Resource Network to serve special needs kids in the Managua area (the capital of Nicaragua).  In this culture, special needs children are often hidden away by their families and not afforded the same opportunities as other children.  A special needs classroom was created to bridge this gap and this Agape Program continues to be supported with finances and mission teams from our church.

A recent team pictured with some of the "Agape kids"

While I have known about this program and the girls have helped with service projects geared to benefit this school and these kids, I never really felt called to go serve on-site.  I think I have been in general avoidance mode because I feel inadequate as the mother of a special needs child.  I am not near the advocate that I should be and come up severly lacking when measured against my fellow special needs moms.

But now there is an opportunity for the whole family to go serve and we feel God is telling us to go.  Kaylie, with her loving, generous heart, wants to know if it is time to start packing yet.  She is beyond ready to go (I am excited to see what plan God has for her as she becomes an adult.  I am convinced He has big plans for her servant's heart.)  Hannah, for now, is most excited about the airplane ride.  Jim wonders how we will pay for the trip, but he, like Kaylie, is always ready and willing to serve.  And then there is me.  (Somewhat) reluctantly going along for the ride because I am convinced God is ordering me out of my comfort zone and to face head-on what He has given to our family.  If I am going to serve other special needs moms, I better learn how to be a better special needs mom so I can set a better example.  And I better learn fast and save fast, as the trip is in January.  (That's a lot of betters, so you see why I am overwhelmed!)

This trip does not excite me the way going to Austria did, or serving in the inner-city has, and I have not anticipated it the way I do one day getting to go to Haiti, or Africa, or China.  But I am excited because I know God's hand is in it and I think sending special needs kids to serve other special needs kids is a beautiful idea and will be a marvelous little glimpse of heaven.

Pray for us, please, as we prepare to serve that God would continue to put all the pieces in place.

To learn more about this work in Nicaragua, please visit the Nicaragua Resource Network and the TPCC Short-term Missions Blog.  Thanks!  If you would like to sponsor our team financially the address to send donations to can be found here.

Fear, Part II

What I should be concerned with... (I won't say worried about)

• Who is going to watch my girls in 2 days when they get out of school and the week after that and the other four or five weeks I don't have covered this summer

Sometimes I think my "everything will be okay" philosophy is misplaced. I think it is part of my tendency to procrastinate more than some super-spiritualness I possess. Maybe I should be "worrying" about what I figure will work itself out and letting go what I am worrying about. But I would rather not worry about it or deal with it, so I put it off. I also know it is going to work out and, to be honest, I really am too preoccupied being concerned with other things to add one more worry to my list. So I just don't deal with it. For example, I figure I will deal with the girls going to big, scary Pike High School closer to when we get there. Why start worrying now? First of all, what good will it do; secondly, I don't even want to think about it even if worrying could accomplish anything.

So here I am, 2 days from the end of school, with no clue where my girls will be staying in 2 days. But it will work out. It always does. Just like everything else in our lives, God displays and unending faithfulness that we are so undeserving of - we may struggle, and rightly so - but we have yet to go flying off the end of the cliff. He is so good - it should not amaze me, but it does because I am so undeserving. Woo hoo and yeah God!

Fear

What are you afraid of? Today's sermon was on fear, which is always a timely message. I thought it was extremely cool that 365 times the Bible says "Fear not" - one for every day. How cool is that? I thought I would try to list what I am afraid of to see if that would help let some of it go. I think, except for my kids, I don't worry about the big things, it is the medium and small things that get me. Here is what I can think of right now. Hopefully this list will not be long.

I'm afraid...

• that I will die and my mom will discover just how in debt I am
• that my girls memory of me from their childhood will be solely of me laying in bed with a headache
• of planning activities because when the time comes I might have a headache and not feel like going and will either have to wimp out and cancel or force my way through it
• of making enemies
• of something bad happening to one of my girls (especially some tragic accident that is my fault)
• that I will be one of those people you see on 60 Minutes - doing any thing I should have known not to do - hence I am afraid to step out on a limb or do anything that could be secretly video taped
• that I am flunking this whole "mom" thing (and don't get me started on wife, homemaker, etc)
• to kill bugs because their friends/family might seek revenge on me - seriously, although I have gotten better since becoming a parent and I have my own peeps to defend (I just tell the bug really loudly "God gave me dominion over you!" - because if you watch kids movies, you know that all bugs speak English (sometimes with funny accents))
• that I will never be polished or professional enough to really succeed at work or be taken seriously
• that I will never find my true gift and feel like I am serving God exactly as He designed me to (I know I was born to sing and dance, but I am not a dancer or a singer, which is fine for my Audience of One, but what about the rest of the time?)
• of people judging me and of what people think of me
• that I will not be a good advocate for my kids, especially Kaylie as she learns how her special self harmonizes with this crazy world
• that I will not adequately do my part in discipling my children and raising them to weigh everything they hear/read/see against what they know to be TRUTH

Not necessarily all in tune with the theme, true, but what comes to my mind when I think of what I am afraid of. And all probably stuff I need to turn to God about in one way or the other.

For now, this is all I have to say about this. But in 5 minutes, I am sure I will think of something else.