While serving on the board of EQUIP, we had a
With God in control, life bends, takes peculiar
leader from YWAM (Youth With A Mission) present
turns, and then leads you to the places He ordains. Some-
their strategy for evangelizing the world. Before develop-
times they are predictable and other times completed un-
ing the plan, they did exhaustive research and discovered
expected. A baby never came and after several years the
there are four key questions every person longs to have
dream of having one was surrendered. It’s a choice to
answered.
trust God and believe He knows best.
Who am I?
Life keeps rolling and it roars with the stuff that refines and perfects. Seasons come and go and as I get
Why am I here?
older, I find the transitions between each season are the
What is going on in this world?
sweetest. Old things pass away and new ones give birth.
How do I make a difference in it?
No matter what happens, I hold the words of James close. I am quite clear on the difference it makes when I do in-
Since that time, I think about those questions often and discuss them in my quiet conversations with the One who knows well the answer to each of them. In the past two years,
deed, “Count it all Joy!” When I deliberately make that choice to accept where He has me and follow His lead,
On that trip, a radical crazy-kind-of-love consumed us. We fell deep into a sea of pure and faultless religion.
God splashes back love in waves of ‘joy unspeakable.’ In June 2010, Dale and I took
I've been more in awe than ever at how God masterful
our first mission trip to Haiti.
reveals the answers. In His response to me, I’ve found
We went with a team of eight and we were the first ones
life-changing joy at the holy intersection where His de-
to ministry to 70 orphans who were rescued from one of
sires and mine collide.
the most desperate slums in Port Au Prince. Like so many before us, we thought we were going to minister to
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give the desires of your heart. – Psalm 37:4
them, but the love they poured on us was overwhelmingly greater.
My husband Dale and I thought early in our mar-
On that trip, a radical crazy-kind-of-love con-
ried life we would have two children. Christ occupied
sumed us. We fell deep into a sea of pure and faultless
center stage from the beginning of our life together and
religion. To this very day – its current carries us back to
while this was our plan – we were always open to what
Haiti. So compelled by love, we can’t help but go and go
God might have in store for us.
often.
In 1988, we built a new home and while it was
Before the December 2011 mission trip we were
under construction, we visited the work-site often. It was
called to lead, our mission coordinator asked to meet
fun to take our tiny daughter, Zoe, through the framed
with me. I thought it was to review the trip plans. But
shell. We’d point out her room and then show her the
God used that meeting to completely upend the life Dale
baby’s room.
and I were living.
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Praise and Coffee | Spring 2013