Asian Mission

I opened the door cautiously, as it was a few minutes past 10:45.  On the right-hand side was a row of open seats, and I ambled across quietly.  To my surprise, I soon heard a young voice speaking in English.  “Welcome,” she said, and her smile addressed the whole congregation.  I had realized years ago that our church building hosted congregations in 3 different languages, among which only the English and the Spanish I was familiar.  The Laotian-Thai congregation was the one with which I’d never attended, and in recent months, my interest had renewed.  The previous Sunday, in fact, upon visiting the women’s restroom on the far side of our building, my ears perked up to the sound of a new language.  Quite possibly my heart leaped into a cartwheel, and being curious as to whether the Lord was orchestrating once again, I asked the girls there, “What congregation do you attend?”  And there we stood . . . with my heart all aflutter and my eyes probably bouncing up and down in excitement . . . in the women’s restroom, of all possible places!  I talked with one of the girls a little more at length, and it clearly seemed the Lord had provided me a personal escort for next Sunday’s Laotian-Thai worship service.  Next week came, and happy I was to see my new friend again.  More English was spoken than I expected, and I learned that Amen and Hallelujah translate straight across.  They sang “Just As I Am” in their language, and I sang it in mine, and we worshiped the same Jesus.  They opened to Deuteronomy, and so did I.  When they read from Proverbs, I was right there with them.  To hear the different voice sounds and to encounter a new taste of how Jesus' love reaches around the world was wonderfully enlightening and invigorating altogether.  What does the Lord have in store here?  I don’t know, but I love when He walks and when He turns left and turns right and takes me with Him. 

Tachikawa

The smallest of details, even possibly the least remembered ones, He knows how to use.  One such occasion came recently when I met a man in the hospital.  Dealing with bad news from his doctor, this man couldn’t help but spill his guts.  He paused a moment to gather his words, and then his voice shook to tell of his hospital stay being lengthened.  His eyes brimming with teardrops, he began to recount yesterday’s agony.  It was heartbreaking, and I soon realized a layer of anger buried inside his agony and underneath.  Our conversation resisted veering too far from his subject of health.  But then suddenly his eyes lifted, as hope seemed to have spoken.  I had mentioned being born at Tachikawa Air Force Base, and upon that comment, a new-found energy almost leaped him out of the wheelchair.  Practically in disbelief, he double-checked my words, “You were at Tachi?”  I smiled, “Yes.”  He added with vigor, “I used to play ball there!  I was a photographer most of my days, but then we played ball!”  From there, his countenance moved only forward, as he was entirely elated to revisit these fond memories.  I spoke simply some facts, particularly a detail of my life that doesn't even make conversation regularly, yet the Lord blessed the words that their purpose would soar far higher than fact.  With His touch, they lifted a man’s spirit, and we did acknowledge the Lord’s presence before parting ways.  I look now with different eyes at the childhood kimono hanging in my closet, considering how we pray for the Lord to guide our steps and our words, and indeed He does.

The blue car & the idle one

On Tuesday, I asked the Lord to bring people.  That afternoon, a blue car drove into the parking lot and pulled up near the sidewalk.  The driver asked if I worked in the building there.  No, I was simply ambling the public sidewalk in front.  She was in the area to visit doctors’ offices regarding home healthcare and, upon seeing me, was curious.  I explained that I was praying.  I posed, “Are you aware of what happens inside this building?”  She answered, “Yes . . . and I agree with you.”  We talked for a few minutes, and I wondered if the whole scenario was intriguing to her as well, seeming almost that she found herself in the parking lot without having planned to be there.  After she left, a car that had been sitting idle for maybe a half-hour pulled out of its parking space.  First I thought the driver was leaving the premises, but actually he moved closer to the sidewalk to wait, apparently for someone still inside the building.  As he was now within earshot, my sidewalk companion called, “We’re here for you, Sir, if you’d like to talk.”  She waved a brochure in the air, and he inched his car still closer, eventually stepping out to receive her brochure.  I floated high on excitement because I’d been praying for this young man, and I had prayed earlier too for the Lord to bring people to the sidewalk to talk.  Though I’d envisioned bringing people who walked in and out of the abortion center, the Lord brought people in their cars.  Right then and there, I loved the Lord's creativity!  He brought people beyond my scope, beyond my thinking.  I loved the fact that He is bigger than me and that He works many things together at once.  Hey, everybody, put on your pointy party hats!

Up by the bootstraps

On Friday I worked an estate sale.  People came, and they browsed and bought, and I loved being available to help my friend.  Yet something else was happening at the sale.  As customers came and went, there was opportunity to speak Spanish.  I hadn’t anticipated it, yet I found a few Spanish words rolling off my tongue.  Then a few more here and there, and the spontaneity of it was great fun.  It’s not as if I spoke for hours or told long stories or anything, but my friend had never heard me speak Spanish, and she got a kick out of it, and we laughed for a good while.  Some of the customers seemed quite surprised too at my joining in their conversations.  The wonderful blessing overall was that the laughter eased my shoulders, which had been aching with anxiety over an ever-changing list of things, both good and bad, including issues carrying over from weeks before.  Psalm 40 talks about the Lord lifting us up out of the mud and mire, and certainly I sensed the Lord lifting me.  Upon returning home that night, I mowed grass and worked outside with the radio on, soon realizing the Lord was still at work.  Air 1 Radio played “Lift Me Up” by the Afters.  Then came NeedToBreathe’s “Keep Your Eyes Open,” followed by the lyrics of Jamie Grace, saying “Lord, I love the way You hold me.”  Such common things the Lord was using to lift me, as if re-dressing me with new boots that would reset my stance and provide cushion all the way up to my shoulders.  The anxiety seemed to extract from my bones, pulling away from my shoulders and massaging at the same time.  So readily He entered my circumstances, weaving ordinary things to become extraordinary blessing.

A glimpse of Hinds' Feet on High Places

My bones hurt.  I consider it a blessed anxiety, actually.  The pain puts me on edge, but it’s a trembling built upon rightful things.  The gamut of emotions kicked in on Sunday when my husband and I decided to discontinue a particular music role with church.  While I feel quite certain it’s the right thing to do, the decision to depart was arduous and sentimental.  On Monday, we felt accomplished in another way to finally enroll at a nearby gym, but the first day’s leg lunges put my thighs in knots.  At first I thought the excruciating pain made me sad, but later I realized more accurately the pain made me mad because I’d finally been gung-ho with the gym idea, and in one day’s time I was nearly paralyzed in pain.  On Tuesday, a new music rehearsal brought some internal fidgeting, testing my composure to wait and observe when ordinarily I would’ve already dived in.  On Wednesday, I determined that a portion of my strain was due to an added role associated with prayer near a local abortion center, yet a deep breath and a skyward glance did refresh me for the task.  As each event fell into the week, I prayed.  My physical pain intensified, as also heaping into the mix was the immense joy of seeing a friend translate a first chapter of my bus book into Spanish.  And that idea of translation, coupled with a wonderful event associated with this blog, opened some new and exciting doors of conversation with family and friends.  Joy wanted to explode through my bones, yet my body ached to know how that could happen.  I awoke yesterday to the thought of Hinds’ Feet on High Places.  It’s a story based on Habakkuk 3, illustrating how the Lord takes us across the thresholds of fear and anxiety and frees us to climb the slopes toward an almost intoxicatingly joyful view of life.  It’s like Malachi 3, where the Lord throws open the floodgates of heaven to pour blessing so huge that we can't contain it.  Indeed my frail frame this week has felt the weight of merely a glimpse of that enormous blessing He offers through His son Jesus Christ.

A plea from within HEB

Money was tight.  Chemo and radiation had cost thousands upon thousands already.  She’d endured all shapes and sizes of medical procedures.  Now that she was somewhat recuperated, my friend had been applying for jobs, but to no avail.  This particular day called for a trip to the local HEB grocery store.  Whether contemplating chicken or hamburger, or choosing between sliced bread and tortillas, my friend debated the purchase of each item.  Pressure mounted, as she knew her shopping list usually tallied $200, though her purse held $40 less this time.  It was the culmination of all kinds of anxiety.  Finally she pleaded, “Lord, You know how much money I have.  I’ll grab what I think I need, and if it’s too much at the cash register, I’ll just return some.”  So she pushed her basket up and down the aisles, pulling from the shelves what she thought best and looking for the Lord’s peace in the process.  The cashier’s conveyor belt fed each item toward the scanner.  Total = $160 exactly!  I can still see the thrill in her eyes from when she retold the story last weekend.  In her weariness, she had called upon the Lord.  He’d been with her through all the physical agony, and He was with her still now.  For this child whom He loves dearly, and for her husband, her daughters, and her mom, His light shined brightly. 

La Taza

Our last hope had been the coffeehouse on McCullough, and now it’s closed.  We had the proverbial Y in the road—musically, that is.  I wanted to veer right, my husband wanted to go left, and the McCullough coffeehouse had been our single remaining common ground, ever since the guy at the guitar shop mentioned it.  And now that it’s closed, what to do?  Proverbs 3 says to lean not on my own understanding.  Though I had specifically prayed this last year, I didn’t fret now about the why of it all, nor did I feel hurried to fill a void.  Interestingly last Saturday, a new thought came to mind.  What about La Taza?  A friend mentioned their coffee, and in turn I wondered if they hosted music.  One phone call and one short drive later, we stepped foot into the fun La Taza world of mocha, jigsaw puzzles, Scrabble, and conversation.  Music was our connector.  Actually I could see how our year-long wait on the coffeehouse idea had built an eagerness in me to set the phone call in motion and pull some song charts together quickly.  No second-guessing at this point.  La Taza was quaint and laid-back, and we loved it.  It’s easy to start wondering now about what the Lord might have in store for this new venue, but then again, I don’t want to jump too far ahead.  I stayed up late last weekend reliving the blessings at La Taza.

God, my banker

Have you ever sensed God speaking to you through someone else?  This week I was inspired through the voice of a particular man.  From the moment I met him, I felt blessed.  We had talked probably 5 minutes, and suddenly he threw in a zinger.  “Let God be your banker,” he uttered.  I had mentioned nothing to him about the dollar signs dancing in my head.  Ideas about books, and music, and coffeehouses, and questions of how financially they could all work together had felt cluttered in my brain.  This man’s words zeroed right in to quell any worry.  In a sort of teaching mode while he spoke, his forefinger pointed in the air and then at me, so I was sure to hear.  And what set the whole stage for me to keenly listen was his earlier comment on planting seeds and watering them and scattering stones.  At first I thought of 1 Corinthians 3, but the part about scattering stones I had recently read in Ecclesiastes.  Interestingly I had taught on those exact verses a couple of Sundays ago, so my attention was certainly drawn, as if looking up to find myself sitting in the Lord’s classroom with Him personally teaching me in the moment.  Simply I had entered the doors of the hospital that day, unaware of how the Lord would connect me in conversation.  Forever He is weaving His goodness amongst and within.

Boldly from a wheelchair

“Does anybody have praises to tell about?”  The lady at my table smiled to tell the whole room, “It’s Wednesday, and I’m happy to come to church!”  Refreshingly, and very simply, she was right.  Her gentle voice matched a unique contentment in her eyes, both seeming to reach far beyond the circumstances of her wheelchair.  And her words had given me reason to pause.  This week has been different.  Kind of quiet, in fact.  A phone call to a friend with Crohn’s disease set me in a pensive mode.  A phone call to a friend dealing with dialysis set me pensive again.  Prior to those calls, I had sat with a friend at an infusion center downtown, my eyes being opened for a closer look at the processes of blood replacement and liver transplantation.  Each moment held its own reason to ponder and be thankful, and I loved the availability the Lord had given me to serve—waiting for my friend and being so glad for her to regain some energy, entertaining the little boy at the clinic who loved to eat Skittles while waiting for his grandpa, talking with the lady making a cross-stitch bib while waiting for her son, and overall being thankful for the many who donate blood in order for all these to receive.  All in all, life has appeared more fragile lately.  I look forward to some friends coming for dinner on Saturday, realizing they too have dealt with fragility in the form of cancer.  It’s a Psalm 46:10 week.  I can sit still and know God.  As my table-mate reminded me last night . . . it’s Thursday, and I’m happy to have come to know the Lord!

The book of Job + $1.10

In San Antonio, $1.10 buys a seat on the bus.  Yesterday I wanted to meet my husband close to where he works across town, and then we’d drive together to church.  I paid my $1.10 on the 648, chose a seat near the front, and began reading the book of Job.  Poor Job is having a hard time, and actually that’s a huge understatement because Satan is afflicting him intensely.  I’m reading where Job is losing his livestock, his servants, and his family, and suddenly I hear a man’s voice and look up to acknowledge him taking the seat behind me.  He had recognized my Bible’s columnar pages and smiled to say he enjoyed reading too.  Genesis was the book that really made him think, he said.  He elaborated a bit, and all the while he spoke, my heart was leaping to realize this was no ordinary bus ride.  I was sitting in the midst of the Lord at work.  He was transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.  As an orchestra conductor might cue the clarinets alongside the violas, the Lord had cued my new neighbor and me to meet on the bus that afternoon.  Only the Lord’s orchestra is exponentially more vast.  He brought joy into the hearts of 2 people who until recently had lived in distant parts of the world.  Yet never is the Lord far from His children, nor is a day with Him ever humdrum.  Especially in those occasions like Job’s when the afflictions of Satan excruciate, we find peace in knowing the Lord is near.