Outreach Announcement: NEPAL!

Our outreach location for the Fall quarter has been decided: We are going to Nepal! I will be leading the team in December, and returning in the last few days of February. There are four students confirmed, and several more praying about joining our team. 

Our DTS teams regularly go to Nepal and serve a network of pastors and ministries there; SBFM has not served in Nepal in several years. We recently received word from a returning DTS team that our contact there was asking about having an SBFM team back, citing that he desired to have a team particularly equipped to do foundational bible teaching. People are responding to the Gospel, but there is not an abundance of local ministers prepared to disciple these believers or build up the church. Our contact understands this need, and articulated it in the form of an invitation to us, at the School of Biblical Foundations and Missions in Maui! It is to this call that we have prayerfully responded. 

I visited Nepal briefly in 2007 and worked alongside our ministry contact there. I am excited to return to Nepal for several months and participate in God's purposes there. Over the coming weeks, i hope to share more about this upcoming outreach to Nepal, perhaps by way of reflection on my last visit there.

Fall 2012 SBFM

Here's my class for the Fall semester- ten students, representing seven nations!They are already a blessing and joy to have with us and i look forward to investing in their lives over these next few months!

Really humbled that the Lord has entrusted us with this awesome group- such a privilege!

push, shove, & help from Above

Tonight we had to transport the class to a church upcountry for a special event, and getting base vehicles together for the task was a bit of a scramble. I got slotted to pile my four guy students into my own car and follow a base minivan that has been unreliable lately. Unfortunately, we should have had the convoy arranged in the reverse!

About a block from the church, just as we were on an incline and about to turn off the highway, my car just lost all power. All the various maintenance lights came on. I managed to pull onto the shoulder. After brief deliberation, the guys got out and pushed the car up and around the little turn off from the highway...only to find nowhere to pull over! A narrow country road with an embankment went on for some distance. As it turned downhill, the guys ran to catch up with me. Long story short, I called our SBFM staff guy, Ben, and asked him to come down from the church and pick us up since we'd ended up a ways away. Meanwhile, the guys decided to pray for my car. "I think we should try and start it" one of them concluded after a minute. I threw him the keys. It readily turned over and we all piled in and drove to the church before Ben got down the church's street. Praise the Lord!

The car was making a noise and the engine light stayed on- but at the end of the night the car was normal and the engine light went off before we were out of the driveway- and our ride home was fine! I am so grateful for God's provision in the midst of my flustered moments beside the road upcountry, and for the support of my guy students: when push came to shove, they were behind me- prompt with strength, and ready with faith. Praise the Lord!

Copilot, my stuffed squirrel, looks on while the rearview mirror reflects my students pushing my car up the shoulder of the highway...

warm welcome: the SBFM barbeque

Tonight was the SBFM welcome barbeque. While the new DTS students are off in the woods on the most challenging of icebreakers- a challenging get-to-know-you camp out- my class is at our school director's house, having a barbeque! Its our way of extending a warm welcome to the students, as well as providing a more subtle environment for getting to know one another. The night features lots of fellowship, local styled food, and a time of sharing our testimonies- where God has brought us and the season in which we now find ourselves. Tonight was a sweet one, for sure- our students readily engaging one another, being wonderfully open about the season they're in, and eagerly ministering to one another when (following our time of sharing) we moved into a time of prayer. I am SO stoked to see what God can do in a group of young people already so quick to engage Him and one another.

Getting started with fresh pineapple, california roll, and some local raw fish dishes called poke (Poe-keh). Myself and the director's wife ( a genuine local girl) could have eaten the entire pound of spicy ahi poke ourselves!

 Next up was grilled teriyaki chicken, rice and tropical salad with toasted coconut and mac nuts- okay, so maybe i go a little crazy with the tropical/local themed menu... but i think a taste of the islands is a good way to start the semester:) As administrator, I plan welcome barbeque- including the budget and menu- and do almost everything from shopping to marinating the chicken! I had a bit of back up this time with our kitchen head making the salad and a banana bread for dessert, and the director's wife making a rich chocolate bundt and a pan of bars: thank you Emmiline and Hoku!

The students had a great time connecting, being spoiled with amazing food, and relaxing...  but tomorrow they hit the books. The barbeque is a good demonstration of our love for them, and well timed- because tomorrow when they get their first pile of assignments they may be tempted to think we hate them!

heels off

Welcome night is over, my heels are off, and the Fall semester is officially underway! After five hours of running around in heels, I am finally home and unshod- with a great new class of students now filling the rooms of my house. I am thankful that the Lord has brought each of them here; tonight's aforementioned running around in heels actually included a late airport run for a delayed arrival, as a Canadian student was denied entry to the States for two days and finally got through this evening on her third attempt. Praise God she persevered! We are blessed to have all ten of our students, from the United States, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland and Palau, now settled safely here in Maui with us for the next few months. On a lesser note, I am also blessed to have my heels off and be heading to bed...

almost there

We have spent a couple weeks industriously preparing for our Fall semester and now we're almost there! Students arrive in just two days now- crazy. Though there has been a great deal to accomplish, its been less like a wild trail run and more like intently traveling a decently paved road. I really believe that God has supplied our team (I know certainly myself) with an abundant grace and empowerment for the task at hand- thus the impression of our way being paved. Its been a great blessing to sense His resources welling up from inside me during this pressing stretch of the road. And now we are almost there. 

Haha. Of course, there is actually just the beginning, isn't it?

Like five years ago, when I was in Nepal: we left Kathmandu in a minibus to drive for hours along fearsome mountain roads to arrive at our destination- the drop off point for a six day trek in the foothills of the Annapurna range! The end of the road is only the beginning of the adventure. 

We are coming to the end of the steep prep road and have sensed the grace of God in the pressing points of the journey- we are almost there. Now we embark on the real adventure of the school itself, stepping into it with confidence that the God who supplied grace when we were pressed will surely carry us when the trek becomes even more demanding and endurance is called for.

This picture is of a road heading up toward the West Maui mountains. It pictures well a smoothly paved road with a greater adventure rising before it...

smote

I just mentioned to Tom today that i haven't had any serious centipedes in the house since i got back from outreach, when tonight as a girl who is new to the base was sitting with me downstairs chatting, a beast races across the floor. "Oh- centipede..." she remarked as she pointed it out to me. (This house gives great first impressions, i tell ya. At least the girl is familiar with the tropics and wasn't put out in the least.) I leapt up but was too late: it snuck up under a warped baseboard.  None the less I poked my crowbar into the recess and, finding that futile, sprayed heavy duty pest control chemicals into it. "May God smite you if you try to harm me."( I know God made that creature, but its in the space He gave to me- so its out of bounds and beyond its rights.) I released the situation and entrusted my protection to the Lord. (It can be hard to not be a little paranoid as you try to fall sleep knowing that something like that went into your bedroom wall a couple feet away from your head.)  I sprayed chemicals across my bedroom threshold and moved on with my life in peace:)
Just now, less than two hours later, I was just about to turn out my lights to go to bed when i spontaneously did a brief stretch. While bent over, i saw a shape the same color as the floor that looked  like a few inches of tangled of cord under the empty bed in my room. But i just cleaned and i know there shouldn't be anything there. I looked closer. Yep. My enemy lay perishing- and i didn't even have to use the crowbar. He was good and smote.

(I  do not mean to give the impression that the Lord just struck the beast miraculously-  I think that  would disrespect and belittle the skill which God gave to the makers of pest control chemicals, and would unnecessarily multiply hypotheses. Rather, i point out with gratitude that even though it got so far as my bedroom, the chemicals God provided to me worked upon the creature before it had further opportunity to harm me. In this natural and yet gracious way- gracious in allowing me to find the fallen foe so I need not wonder about it as I tried to sleep- God smote the pede.)

I am grateful to go to bed knowing that it is now quite deceased and lost in the fathoms of the plumbing.

don't panic

I fell in love with this image shown below, which in postcard form was plastered liberally around the All Saints church offices back in England. They told me where this slogan came from, and i found the history of it interesting as it has to do with morale in wartime. I bought a handful of the postcards when i left and now have one stuck to my bedroom mirror. This reminder that i see daily is yet another blessing holding over from my summer in England (and comes of course with memories of all my brothers and sisters there so is all the more dear for that association). 

I like that it is headed by an image of the crown. While this certainly carries other connotations for the British, for me it speaks of sovereignty and of just rule. On a daily basis, it is that sovereignty of God that allows me to heed the first exhortation; unless I were persuaded that God is ruling over all, I would panic. The state of the world -clearly an occupied territory- would overwhelm me. But He is on His throne: keep calm. Likewise, He is a God of justice and His rule will not always endure the evil which i see heavy upon the earth- as surely as the sun rises, He will one day set things aright; unless I had this hope, I would lose heart and could not heed the second exhortation: carry on.
I appreciate this reminder both in this deeper vein and in the lighter sense- hearing it remind me both to not panic when i see the impossible situations of life, nor when i see my day planner; reminding me to persevere both in hope of His coming, and in getting out of bed on mornings when I feel a mess. Whether great peace is called for, or just a deep breath; resolute hope, or just a nudge- I often find myself blessed by this now familiar red reminder.

In light of He who sits on the throne, we have every reason to Keep Calm and Carry On, friends.