October Details and Discoveries

Is it already half way through October already?!?!?!

Hello from Honduras again! If the past month has flown by at the same pace it has for me, I assume that this update will come as a surprise, but I am so excited to update you on what the Lord is doing here.

I have been gazing longingly at pictures splashed with the golden rays of fall in Colorado and missing being home for this season. Please make sure you enjoy every falling leaf for me, I am with you in spirit to enjoy the crisp autumn air and pumpkin spiced lattes!

There are some key repeated Spanish words I want to teach you for this update that will help me summarize and communicate better:

Llena (yena)– full

Aprovechar (a- pro-ve- char)– to take advantage of, to make the most of, to use to the fullest

Sabiduria (saw-bee-dure- y-a) -- wisdom

Espiritu (Eh- speer-y-too)– spirit

Agradecida (awe-graw-de-see-da) – thankful

My time has been llena in this season, full to the brim of relationships, laughter, challenging conversations, prayer and worship, joy of the Lord, and peace that passes all understanding. I have been able to aprovechar each day in living it to the fullest.

I asked you to pray for sabiduria in my past update and I have seen the Lord answering in amazing ways – ways way beyond myself. (more on that in a minute)

The Holy Espiritu has been revealing Himself to me in new and exciting ways. I have prayed for a long time to understand this personhood of my God and I am just beginning to feel the drizzle of the downpour that I know is held in the cloud of the presence of the indwelling Espiritu of God.

I have been learning gratitude on a whole other level as I study and allow the Lord to challenge my heart and attitude to be agradecida to the Lord in action, in word, and in spirit….knowing that this transforms circumstances, days, and lives in a big way when lived out in community and challenged by the schemes of the evil one.

I started out with the word llena because of the fullness I am seeing and feeling right now, I know it’s going to spill over in this update, and I hope that it will be encouraging and “filling” to you in whatever circumstances you are facing right now.

(yes, I just hit page number 1 and I’m just now ready to start….you guys are always so amazing to stick with me through the novels I write – Thanks J)

In my care group the past couple of weeks I have noticed a theme that the Lord keeps bringing to my attention involving the Holy Espiritu. There was a quote in the book we are reading about prayer that really hit me.

“Maybe you are going through a struggle in your life. A tragedy strikes you or someone close to you, and you’re hurting. So you go to God in prayer, and you ask him to comfort you. Do you realize what God does? He doesn’t give you comfort, instead He gives you the Holy Spirit, who is called the Comforter. The Holy Spirit literally comes to dwell in you and puts the very comfort of Christ inside you as you walk through your pain. Suppose another time you are making a big decision in your life, and you need help. You have a couple of different options before you, and you need guidance to decide which way is best. So you ask God for help. But He doesn’t answer with guidance. Instead He answers by sending the Holy Spirit, who is our Guide. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, the Helper, the Guide, the very presence of God living in you. This is the great promise of God in prayer. We ask God for gifts in prayer, and he gives us the Giver. We ask God for supply and He gives us the Source. He puts His very power in us so we might have all we need to accomplish his purposes in this world.” (David Platt – Radical Pg. 58)

Something I have come to realize is that my prayers reflect not the expectation of the Holy Espiritu, but of God’s provision of what I ask. I don’t know or understand the Holy Spirit very well, but as I am learning to seek HIM in prayer, not the things he provides, I am coming to know a whole different God, the one that abides in my heart and is full of every good thing, ready to spill out of me in the confrontation of any need. This is changing me at the very core of who I am.

This week at school I hit some hard walls with students. One is very argumentative and wants to blame all his problems on me, which works well for him because his mom is a lawyer and tried to sue the school and teacher last year based on the “unfair treatment” of her child and “malpractice” of the past teacher. As I deal with this child and parent I am filled with the knowledge that the Lord is my defender and that He has completely equipped me for the work He has called me to in this child’s life, there is no reason to fear. I have the Holy Espiritu to guide me in the best way to handle this. He gives me grace, patience, sabiduria, and strength to love this child….how exciting to live in this way, and in a way that truly impacts my kids as they see GOD living and breathing in and through me each day, each moment as I call on His Espiritu.

Another student was caught cheating this week and lied to my face 3 times, even though she had revealed herself a liar without even knowing it. She kept falling to the cycle of sin as her lie grew bigger and bigger and eventually trapped her. When I see roots of evil and sin reaching so deeply into a child’s heart is hurts me, but there is also a passion in me that is stirred…a passion to see the truth revealed and the evil one defeated and I have been receiving a vision from the Lord in the work He desires in the heart of His children. As a teacher I get the special privilege to partner with the 20 children in my classroom through joys and trials, through triumphs over the sinful nature and the revelation of sin and the process of overcoming and encouraging, correcting and guiding. I am so agradecida for this task, but I realize the gravity of it as well and desire to take it seriously.

Note: What a picture of every believers daily walk with the Lord in community….I pray for more sin revealed in all of our lives, and more partnering with one another to overcome. We need to lay aside the complacency of accepting one another’s sin and looking past it, we need to speak the truth to one another in love and claim God’s victory with visions of His glory in one another’s lives.

There are so many more stories to share, but these are some I need prayer and want to share with you as I journey. I love the kids God has given me, and I am excited to keep sharing with you all God’s work in and through each of them….and through me.

As I walk through this season I am agradecida to God for each joy and triumph, each hardship and struggle. One of my mentors shared with me that life never really follows the high and low pattern, but more of a “railroad track” analogy of the good alongside the bad, always balancing one another out, but we get to decide which side of the tracks we ride on. A thankful heart truly is a happy heart. God is showing me this truth each morning as I wait on Him to give me perspective and fill my heart with that thankfulness that shines forth, no matter how strong that other side of the track is pulling on me.

So, to summarize the fullness(llena) that I just dumped on you, I am aprovechando this time the Lord has given me, but ask for your prayers to continue in this Espiritu with a corazon agradecida(thankful heart) and the sabiduria that the Lord has given me through the personhood of Himself in my heart and mind.

Thank you for your prayers. Be challenged to weed out sin, call on the Holy Spirit’s fullness in your heart, and choose thankfulness and watch the transformation of the living and breathing God in your hearts and lives to make the most of every opportunity….for the days are evil.

(I hope the Spanish words were not too confusing, but I have to aprovechar every teaching moment -- lets face it, we could all use some more Spanish in our lives ;)