Manna From Heaven

Maybe the title is a little exaggerated, but that's kind of how it felt yesterday.


Allow me to back-track for a second.

In Jericho Ministries, we live by faith. Full-blown "I know God's going to provide for those who are faithful to Him" faith. It's an awesome thing.


Really it is. Let's be honest, at the beginning it made me nervous. Living on faith involved a lot of praying and a lot of me just sitting back when I really wanted to jump in and "fix" things. But I have learned to realax and allow God to do what He wants to do.

Jump ahead a bit to last week when it came time to pay the staff and the bills and buy groceries for Jericho School and the Jericho family of 26+. We were getting down to the bottom of the barrel. But I was a little oblivious to this, so I didn't even really have the chance to pray or sit back and be a bystander.

But an innocent bystander I was! I spend my day off tutoring at a bilingual school run by my friend Jaime's in-laws. I had stopped by on Monday and they had asked if they could buy some chicken for the Villa. Heck yes I said (we can always use more chicken). The next day on Tuesday, I stopped by and was shocked when they starting loading bags of groceries into the back of the pick-up truck!

A 10-lb bag of pancake mix, powdered milk, rice, sugar, spaghetti, etc, and not just one chicken- but 5! It was a huge blessing to say the least...but we're not even to the best part.

My next stop was to Jericho to pick up the Tony (the engineer for the road, and Elvia's husband) who was going to be coming back to the Villa with me. So while I waited for him, I proceeded to tell Saira (our office administrator) and Norma (the school cook) about this donation.

I asked Norma if she needed anything for the school because we had just bought groceries for the Villa on Sunday and she followed me out to the truck where her excitement only grew. She asked for the spaghetti noodles so she could make spaghetti for the kids on Wednesday. Did we have sauce she asked? Sure enough, another bag was full of it! And butter, meat, and cheese? We uncovered those in other bags as well.

By the time we divided the food, Norma realized that she had enough for meals for the rest of the week and there was still quite a bit of food for me to take to Villa! I didn't realize how big of a blessing it was for her (and the kids) until I opened the refrigerator and cupboards at Jericho School...empty.

Norma had been praying about what to do for meals all week because there was literally no food to cook with.

How great is our God! It was such a wonderful reminder to me that God answers all of our prayers, even if they may seem trivial. And it was fun to be able to be part of the process. I was completely in the dark as to why God had blessed us with so much food, but He knew the end result.

Sometimes we put too much trust in ourselves and when we try to control the show, we miss out on so many of God's miracles. It's when we live by faith and put complete trust in God's will that He reveals Himself to us and shows us what He's really capable of. I LOVE seeing that!

Thanks for continuing to pray with us at Jericho, we love seeing God's blessing pour down on us like manna from heaven. And I pray that you have the opportunity to see God's daily-miracles. Thank God that we can live by faith and not sight.

Home

Michael Buble sings a song entitle "Home" which is a about a young person traveling around the world and experiencing life, but having a deep yearning to return home.

There's always been something in this song that has spoken to my heart, and the lyrics came into my head so often during the days that I was traveling. People would always ask where I was heading, and no matter which direction I was heading I would always answer "HOME".

Home. What a beautiful word. I was so blessed to have had a wonderful childhood and I have many fond memories of my home. And now I have made a new home in Honduras with people that I love and that love me in return.

How do you define home? The place I grew up, where my roots are? Or the place where I keep residence, where I live and experience day to day life?

One line of the song in particular has the lyrics "let me go home, I'm just to far from where you are, I want to come home."

I have no reason to complain. I am so very blessed to be so well loved in both of my homes. But sometimes this causes excess problems...wherever I am, I am away from loved ones.

When I stepped off the plane in Honduras, I was greeted by Elvia and four of the boys who ran for hugs and then told me everything that I had missed in the two weeks I'd been away. What a wonderful feeling to be a part of the Jericho family!

And so, without rambling further, I will end the post. I am blessed beyond words that God had called me to Honduras. And although I am always missing someone, there are two wonderful words that never cease to put a smile on my face. And I am lucky enough to hear them no matter where my plane lands...

...welcome home.

Writer's Block

I've had writer's block the past month (or two).

It's not so much that there isn't excitement...we definitely have our share of that. But usually by the time I get around to turning my computer on, the excitement has worn off and I just can't seem to get the words out.

And so I have decided to try something new...a thematic blog of sorts...something that should have been done A LONG TIME AGO. I'm going to blog about the people around me. I mean, I've been writing about them for over a year, it's about time that you meet them!

So here's to my new project for the month of June: introducing you to the people that I love, intermixed with the "adventures" of living with a dozen children up in the mountains!