date with God.

the past few days my husband & I have been painting

not just any room, but our study/reading/PRAYER room

it's an extra room that will hopefully not too far away be occupied, but for now, it's going to make an amazing escape from the world.  A place to cry out to God & pray.

We've been putting painting off but I'm so glad that once I came home from Created for Care he was ready to paint.  Because I had a spiritual experience with a map.  and I'm ready to hang my 4 foot map of Africa and pray.

Created for Care wasn't what I expected.

I expected to be all excited about adoption and mommy hood. {which I am by the way}

instead the Lord took the opportunity with me far away & disconnected to SPEAK to me.
He always speaks to us...but do we always listen??

We had a "date with God" one day and there were a few stations that you could choose, for 45 minutes, have a date with God.  The Lord took this time to REALLY speak to me.  

I started at the "tent of refreshing" and the Lord spoke a word to me from the book of Numbers, yes Numbers.  it said " And Moses said, "Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord."  You see, I've been BEGGING God to give Stephen & I a big assignment.  in Ethiopia.  not really feeling like He was giving me anything... and He was starting to speak...Wynne - it's going to be ME who gives you an assignment.  Just chill out!  These people need ME....not you.

Then I went to the map.
I asked God to surprise me.  I wanted to pray for a country I usually don't.  Well, I landed on India.
which God has been putting that country on my heart, so that was fun ;)
To imagine all the sweet girls in India we made tutu's for a few months ago (here) and thinking of the pictures I JUST saw of them.  getting to pray for them.

then I went to a few other stations, but I was drawn back to the map.
I sat in front of the map alone and cried out to God.
You see, normally in the new year you start to reflect on the year past & make your new goals & such but the first 2 weeks of the new year, I was in Africa.  So I hadn't done that yet....
well God start to FLOOD my mind with images of the past year.
the places I've been & the people I've met.

It's really hard to believe that a girl who had only gone on 1 mission trip "internationally" before (in Mexico...) in 2011 alone went to El Salvador, Uganda, Rwanda & Ethiopia (all the Africa countries twice!).
The Lord worked so powerfully in my in 2011 and I wanted to reflect on that.
To pray for those people I've met and fallen in love with.
I yearn to be with them every day.  To help them somehow, to speak into their lives, to bring them HOPE.
I felt like God in that moment reminded me of something.
of the time we were TRYING to have a baby, and He finally got me to the place of giving it all up to Him.
He reminded me of ALL that he's done since that happened.
and He asked me to give something else up....

my boys.  my dream and want to be in africa every day.
to give it up to HIM and trust that HE can do immeasurably more than ALL I could ask or imagine.
I can't say that I 100% have done that, but I made a good first effort.
the half-a-box of kleenex I went through should prove it.

some of the boys I'm talking about are the ones in the pic above:

Eyob, David, Billinge and Yohannes.

over and over it was that HE was going to take care of them.
He loves them more than I ever could.  He will fight for them, He won't stop until they know Him.  THey are HIS!!!
They need JESUS and not me....wow.  that one is tough for me to swallow :)

anyway, it was amazing.
I want to spend more time in prayer.
I want to hang up my map. and pray.

more to come about created for care :)