Our house has a maid's quarters. This is a room with a bathroom
that is for a maid to stay if she lives with the family. We use it
to store stuff that we don't readily need or stuff we don't know what
to do with including spiders and cockroaches; it reminds me of my own
heart. When I give a tour of our lovely home I breeze over the
maid's quarters—it is a mess and you don't really care about seeing
our dust, our various random items and aforementioned spiders and
cockroaches. The same is when I am surrendering my heart—or parts
of it—to God. Lord, come see the upstairs—the view is nice and
the breeze is fantastic. Try the hammock. The maid's quarters? Oh,
You don't want to see in there. Just spiders and cockroaches.
Keith Green has a song called “Rushing Wind”. He invites the
rushing wind to blow out the dust from temple, himself, and to be
found faithful through trials. Lord, I long to have the courage to
invite You to do that. To truly invite the Lord to prepare me to be
a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. In order to do that I
need to open up the maid's quarters of my heart and mind. Let the
wind rush through and sweep away the arachnids and the undesirable
strongholds that grip me. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, 'He is the source
of your life in Chirst Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our
righteousness and sanctification and redemption.'
Now, if you come to my house, please don't ask about the maid's
quarters. It is just an analogy and I have no intention of actually
cleaning that place up. My heart, on the other hand, you can ask
about. We sure do covet your prayers as we work on the de-dusting of
those unseen areas that living overseas, that living as missionaries,
that living on Earth can be easily created.
As a bit of report of the work we are doing with Makarios, we have
completed a seven-week summer session and look forward to a bit of
time off before we start preparing for the 2015-2016 school year.
There are many changes at the school that include no less that 6000
details that just may actually get tied down with the wonderful help
of the VERY BEST staff on this planet. We had a few students accept
Christ through the weekly VBS's that the groups planned!!! It was a
wildly busy, but great summer! Makarios also is seeing 3 outstanding
ladies leave our ministry for what the Lord has next for them. Each
of these ladies, Miranda Wauson, Imani Folkes and Kelly Case, all
brought amazing talent and passion for the Lord to the work on this
island. They are and will be very missed!!
As far as what is up with our family, Sam will be entering first
grade. Levi who turns 5 on Friday (7 Aug) will be entering
kindergarten. Sarah will have to wait to enter the Mak School as she
is only 2 and half now, so Joe will continue to hang with her and
work on her alphabet and guitar skills. I will continue to be
principal at the school where our focus this coming year will be
excellence in teaching. If you are a teacher or administrator and
are interested in helping us strive for excellence, PLEASE let me
know.
If you are interested in supporting our family financially we will
certainly appreciate it. We are currently about $1000 short in
monthly giving. That is only completely terrifying if your God isn't
the God 'My Pockets Are Profoundly Deep and so is the Generosity of
My People' Almighty. Has God been nudging you to give to missions?
Maybe He was calling you to help us close that gap a bit. Here's how
you can:
https://makarios.webconnex.com/missionary
Many, many blessings to y'all. Thanks for reading our little,
not-monthly or even bi-monthly, more like every-three-monthly blog.
We are grateful for you faithful folks!!!
