We absolutely love our new home and have already been invited over to our neighbor's house for dinner. They are a blessing to have as neighbors. Micah and I (Jen) love riding our bikes to explore our surroundings together and Ben has access to be outside whenever he likes to pick flowers, explore and find treasures in rocks and random trash that he considers to be treasure. In addition to daily life being everything our family really enjoys, we are excited to be only 10 minutes away from the village that God has planted a church in and lets us work in. Unfortunately so much of our work there had to come to a stop over the months due to distance, illness in our family and ever changing schedules of the lives in that village but now a last minute schedule change on their part is no problem and instead of being forced to cancel plans, we now just adjust them. Just today Cameron was able to set a time and change it to evening plans instead due to their schedule.
Micah's one desire was to make friends and immediately God answered the prayers of his heart. In one week, Micah had three boys out front asking to ride bikes and build forts in our carport.
As we prepare for a baby and her impending arrival (unknown, waiting on a referral) we are also looking at the villages we are currently involved in and what changes we will need to make to support a healthy family schedule and continue to work where God is leading us. A book I'm currently reading pointed me in the direction of Psalm 90 and as I meditated on those verses I really held onto verse 17:
"Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands!"
Later while studying the life of Moses the book I'm reading directed me to take notice of Exodus 4:2:
The Lord said to him: What is that in your hand?" "A staff." said Moses
God took it away from there and reminded me that for Moses, his staff was his identity, his purpose, his ability, his bread winning work and while God cast vision over Moses to send him back to Egypt to set captives free, Moses took off his sandals and hid his face but throughout all of chapter 3 Moses kept a tight grip of that staff.
We all have a staff in our hands, the question is what is it? The staff represents who we are, our identity, our abilities, and what we consider our purpose to be. At the same time we pray "God establish the work of our hands," our hands continue to be filled with what we think we are already capable of and who we claim to be.
Like Moses, God is asking us to recognize what is in our hand and then asking us to throw it down.
When Moses threw his staff down, it immediately turned into a snake and Moses ran from it. God directs him to pick it up and when he does the snake returns to being a staff.
God created us and gave us abilities, but in our hands everything we are will always be as impressive as that stick. When we throw down our staff before God and let Him infuse our identity and our abilities and our purpose with His power, we can then pick up that staff with the infusion of God's power and His ability for the work He has established for our hands.
My prayer over our next season of ministry here in Botevgrad is that we will daily look at what we think we are bringing to the table and throw it down, letting God change whatever staff we think we can use and transform it to be the equipping He desires us to have, not so that we can do more but so that God can be seen more.
Exodus 4:5
"That they may believe that the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you."
Thank you for your prayers. You are a part of everything God involves us with here because your prayers are lifted up for the people we come into contact with. You will never know the treasure you truly are to our hearts but please hear our "Thank You" and know that we depend on your prayers and the Holy Spirit working all things together for God's glory alone.
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