I feel accomplished...

I love, love, love to paint. Love it. I like most things crafty...but I really love to paint a room. And, while I have painted a grand total of one scenic oil paintings, my favorite is painting walls...like, in a room. I understand that this qualifies me as weird and, really, I'm ok with that. So, when my family left the country for a year and my mother not only gave me permission to paint various rooms in her house, but actually asked me to do it I was pretty excited. I know this doesn't thrill anybody else, but I'm going to share the before and afters anyway. :)

THE FAMILY ROOM:
Before:





After:


I don't know if you can really tell the color difference in those pics. The room was kind of an eggshell color, very plain...its now a soft green:


I'm almost done with the kitchen which was...well, once upon a time it was a soft yellow, but it had faded to look like the same cream as the old family room. Now it's a robust pumpkin/dark orange color...I love it!

Can the world handle 3 of me???

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

The whole story...

This, really, is more a story of how absolutely amazing and persistent God is than anything really having to do with Ellie. But I find it noteworthy to look at how many times the Lord has brought this family across my path.

So...

In 1998, right after I graduated from high school, we had a family reunion at Lancaster Bible College in Lancaster, PA, just as we had every year since 1980. Since my uncle was on staff at the school, we were able to stay in one of the dorms and use the kitchen and cafeteria. In the dorm we stayed in, in the bathroom, on the door of the stall was a poster asking people to pray for three families. They were three American missionary families living abroad and the husbands had been kidnapped. Although that really all I remember from the poster, for the next few years, even when I wasn't walking with the Lord, I would remember the poster and those families and ask the Lord to comfort them wherever they were at the time.

In January of 2002, I was away at Word of Life and we were participating in the annual Missions Conference. A lady named Nancy Mankins shared her story. In 1989 (I think) she, her husband Dave, and their two kids Sarah and Chad, went to Pucuro, Panama as New Tribes Missionaries. There village was just 7 miles (I think) from the border with the always volatile Columbia. In 1993, Columbian guerillas came into the village and kidnapped Dave along with two other American men who were in the village with New Tribes. That was January 31, 1993...Nancy never saw her husband again. In October of 2001 New Tribes finally received credible information/evidence that men had been killed in 1996. The men had been dead for five years before their families knew.

In April of 2002, Word of Life held a women's conference and Nancy again came to speak. This time she had copies of her brand new book. That weekend was my 22nd birthday...my first birthday without my grandmother and the one year anniversary of the last time I had talked with her. I was dealing with some pretty serious hurt. I figured Nancy would be a good person to talk to about healing after losing someone you love. She invited me to come up to her room after dinner that night. To this day, I don't know what happened. I went up, knocked on the door...knocked some more. She was there the whole night...but nobody answered when I knocked. So, I left a note for her at the front desk with the extension to my room if she happened to be staying through the next day. The next morning, I was feeling pretty antisocial so I went to the early service at church and skipped Sunday school so I could get back to my dorm early and have some alone time. And Nancy called!!! I would have missed her call if I'd gone to Sunday school (which was a WOL requirement for students). We talked for over an hour.

Over the next year or so, Nancy and I emailed often. She really discipled me through a lot of the hard, hurt stuff and I appreciated her so much! My roommate had bought her book and since I knew the lady, I figured I'd read it. At that time, New Tribes wouldn't let Nancy go back to the village, even to visit. By the end of the book, I knew I HAD to go to Pucuro. I had to. It was a passion...I had to go to Panama with New Tribes. That was the very beginning of my heart for South America. I can't tell the story of my journey to Ecuador without including Nancy. But, as things happen, we lost touch. I haven't talked to her in years.

About a year ago Judy, one of the ladies at work, began telling me about this missionary couple she knew. Their 8-year-old grand-daughter had been diagnosed with a particularly bad form of cancer and had, literally overnight, lost the vision in one eye because of a mass behind her eye. The girl's mom had started a blog. Every once in a while, Judy will pull up the blog and read me something about her, keep me updated on her progress. Last weekend, these friends of Judy's were in town and stayed at her house for a couple days. Their grand-daughter is doing particularly poorly now...she may not even live until Christmas.

A couple days after the people left Judy's house, I thought about Nancy and her book and that I should try and get a copy before it goes out of print...but I couldn't remember what it was callled. So, I went to the New Tribes website and searched under her name. I ran across the web page of another New Tribes missionary who was asking for prayer for her friend Nancy (Mankins) Hamm...Nancy's grand-daughter was diagnosed last year with cancer, she wasn't doing well, and that her mother had started a blog...I clicked the link to the blog and it was the one Judy had shown me so many times!!!

For just a moment I couldn't breathe. How ridiculous would it be if Judy knew Nancy??? She doesn't. She actually knows the other grandparents.

It amazes me all the ways the Lord has tied these people into my life!!!

Keep praying for Ellie!!!

Please pray for sweet Ellie and her family!

I don't really have time to tell the whole story of how the Lord keeps bringing this sweet girl and her family into my life...its amazing, really.

Her grandmother, in a way, discipled me when I was in college. It was her (Nancy's) story that the Lord first used to really turn my heart toward missions and South America. To this day, I would give anything to be a missionary in Panama, in the villages where Nancy and her husband served...but, that isn't what the Lord has for me.

Anyway, the short story is that Ellie was diagnosed with cancer the day before she turned 8...just over a year ago. Today, on her blog, her mother (Sarah, Nancy's daughter) asked those who have read and prayed for Ellie for so long to let her go. They know she is dying...it sounds like, maybe, a matter of days.

So, I ask you to pray for this family...Nancy, her husband Gary. Ellie. Ellie's parents, John and Sarah and Ellie's brother, Ethan who, I think, is only 5 years old.

I'll tell you more of the story later...

Oh...for Ellie's more complete story, read their blog: Ellie Skees

I'm in love

He is a beautiful, sweet boy...dark skin, black hair and light eyes. As I type he is turning exactly 24hours old.

And, I am claiming partial nephew rights and dibs on any non-family babysitting needs.

By the way, his name is Nathan Eapen Abraham and he tapped in at 9:52am, November 12, 2007...7lbs 13oz (smaller than they expected, I think) and 21 inches long.

Seven and half years ago, when I first moved to Georgia, Nathan's daddy, Prasad, had just moved here as well. (Side note: it's a little odd to refer to Prasad as a dad.) He and I and a few other folks became fast friends. He was like my brother. I remember thinking, years ago, about how hard it would be to watch him get married because nobody would ever be good enough for him. Ever. Nobody.

A few years ago...2004, I guess...I met Mary. She's pretty great. I don't really remember becoming friends with her or her family...just being friends. And, at one point, thinking how hard it would be to watch Mary fall in love and get married because nobody would ever be good enough for her. Ever.

And then I found out she and Prasad were dating.

Mary and Prasad set a high standard for how to do dating, engagement, wedding and marriage well. It has been and is such a blessing to watch them and know them and learn from them.

And, now they have a sweet boy!!!

P-fro and Mary D...I love you guys...I'm so proud of you and I can't wait to watch your little guy grow up!!!

(I'll post pictures later...I spent some time at the hospital yesterday, but nurses/people were in and out and then it was time for Nathan to eat so I really only took one picture. I'll get more. :))

Missionaries to Peru...

A good friend who is a student at UGA is writing a paper on the effectiveness of missionaries to Peru. She asked me the following questions, and what follows those is my response. (I am blocking out a couple of names of people that I specifically mentioned.)

-How do you feel about missionaries, and how do you think the presence of missionaries has affected the Peruvian culture and religion?
-Do you think missionaries are effective in their efforts in Peru?
-What do you think Peruvians think about missionaries?

I think missionaries of Jesus in Peru are desperately needed. The economy in Peru is in bad, bad shape. Four years ago, there was enough gold in the decorations of the main cathedral in Lima to pay thePeruano national debt four times over…but the overwhelmingly vast majority of the population live on so little income, Americans couldn’t comprehend. Four years ago, there were 300,000 kids a year on the streets in Lima alone…that doesn’t even count the country areas that even Peruanos consider poor. The hearts, consciences and memories of the Peruano people have yet to heal from the Shinning Path destruction of the 1980s and 90s. These people need to see the love of Jesus lived in front of them in ways we could never understand as we sit in our comfortable homes. But, I’m afraid that too often American missionaries go to Peru with American culture rather than Jesus. We think we need to fix their economy and their culture before they will listen to Jesus. The reality is that they need to see and experience the love of Jesus before they will take to heart our desire to help them with everything else.

I think, in a lot of ways, our American mentality gets in the way of our ability to effectively share what we have come to share, especially in the outer areas that are still very much Indian and tribal. We know what works in our communities and cultures at home and we try to manifest those same programs into ministry in Peru. They don’t work, missionaries get frustrated or lose support because of a lack of definitive change in the people and they leave which results in the communities and villages having a culture of religion that is an amalgam of things they have been taught over the years. In the polytheistic cultures of the Indian tribal villages, the God the missionaries brought becomes just another God in a list of deities the villagers must appease, rather than the villagers understanding that He is the one, true God who is the giver of all they have.

Are missionaries effective? I don’t know that my answer to this is suitable for a research paper. The Bible says that God’s Word never returns void, so if we are teaching God’s Word, yes we are effective because God will use it. Also, I have to say that I have seen so many times in my own life…in Peru and Ecuador and even here at home, that God works through us, uses us, in spite of ourselves. That is one of the great mysteries of God, that He desires to use us when it would be so much more profitable and easy to do it Himself. Are missionaries effective? Yes, but it is not the missionaries themselves, but the Holy Spirit using what the missionaries are doing and saying to convict and draw the nationals to Himself.

My experience in Peru is that the Peruanos think of American missionaries as rock stars sent from God above to impart great programs. And I think maybe they get as frustrated as we do when those programs don’t work. I don’t think I’ve spent enough time there (all at one time) to really know the answer to that. I know how excited they have been to see me as part of a missions team, but would we not do the same if a group ofPeruanos came to our small community to build us a new church building. (That is, of course, if we could put our arrogance aside long enough to think they might could help us.) But, I have seen how they look at *missionary #1* as though he was Gabriel himself sent with a message of the great spiritual prosperity to come if you simply became a brother or sister in Christ. I’ve also seen how *missionary #1* accepts and perpetuates such adoration from the nationals. (Sorry if that’s ugly, but that’s what I’ve seen of how he treats and talks about the nationals in *the city he works in*.) I’ve also watched how the nationals respond to *missionary #2* who, although not Peruano, is from a neighboring country (one Peru has sparred with in the past, but neighboring all the same). Granted, *missionary #2* is a different man altogether from *missionary #1*, but I think the evidence is clear. The New Tribes Missions philosophy of missions is genius. Take Jesus to the people. When they know Him, teach them to know Him more. Teach the nationals to be pastors and missionaries to their own people. And get the heck out of the way so God can work incredible things in the lives of the people. A national knows best how things work in their own country and community.

Do these people need missionaries? Yes. But, not forever-missionaries. They need missionaries who will teach the people to be missionaries themselves and take Jesus to their own people.