Been awake since 2am. but what should I do after laying awake for several hours but get up and do something productive. And writing down Praises for answered prayer… is productive… more than that, it is stacking the rock monument higher so you can see it better later… for those times later when you are tired, confused at the waves of life and the darkness seems so near and encompassing.
In the words of John Piper interpreting scripture:
Prayer changes things. It makes things happen that otherwise would not happen if we had not prayed!
1. Yesterday it was pouring rain like a madhouse. I had an alarm on my phone go off that said "flash flood warning until 5:30pm" We were set to move Gina at 5pm, and many of us had been praying since the night before that the rain would stop for the move. I'm not sure any of us believed it would happen. But God- YOU STOPPED THE RAIN at 4:45pm! - it didn't rain a drop here then entire 3 hours we were moving. Thanks for reminding us that you hear us!
2. the First day in Nepal, it was scorching hot. We took a quite terribly sweaty 4 hour bus ride to the base of a mountain we were going to climb. I asked God to bring the cloud cover for the 3 hour hike up the steep mountain. "God, you know what a wimp I am and I don't know if I can do it in this heat." God, thank You for bringing there perfect cloud cover with just a faint sprinkling at first. Yes, it poured at the end, but we were so hot from hiking with packs that no one even put their ponchos on. Thank You! Who is this that even the wind and the rains obey him? The Lord God, Almighty, glorious in his splendor!
3. It stormed all night- the winds pushed over the other girls tent. It soaked through several of the other tents and they woke up in water. I was thinking, "Lord, did we just drive 4 hours and hike 3 more to have it storm so hard that we can't even do clinic? No one will come in this weather, please stop the storm" And YOU DID! The next day the skies were radiantly bright blue without any clouds at all. What you did with them I have no idea.
4. Matt asked me to lead morning devotions for the team on Wednesday and to share the gospel as well for those outside listening. I had been praying before this trip for an opportunities to share the gospel- though my expectations were low considering how the Iraq trip went. When we started that morning, there was a larger than normal Nepali crowd from the village gathering around us-. After the main devotion on the Love of God, as I began to share the gospel, Hari stood up to translate in his loud voice. There were many listening attentively and at the end, Hari, a local Nepali church planter, said to me "I believe this is the first time this village and most of these people have ever heard the gospel." Thank You Lord for the amazing privilege of this!
5. We prayed for our translators and opportunities to love them and be Christ to them. Each day, they heard our testimonies. One day I was sitting with 3 of the Buddhist girls and I shared with them that I had grown up trying to be perfect, but inside I was like this broken building that we were looking at. All 3 of them said to me "We feel like this too! Your story is our story!" Sunita said to me, "Someday I think I will be Christian, though Im not ready yet." She wants to marry a Christian man because she saw such a difference in the men on our trip compared to other men she knows. Thank You Lord for this opportunity to love and share you with these precious women.
6. After the 7.2 earthquake, the roads were blocked in multiple places by the landslides. It looked like this: We were told by multiple sources they would not be cleared anytime soon and likely we would either need to be helicoptered out or hike 12 miles with our packs OVER the landslides- which were still occurring even at that time. We prayed and prayed, planned likely not to get out that day at all… then were told that unexpectantly that CHINESE relief workers had come and cleared the roads! God literally clears our greatest roadblocks in weird and marvelous ways.! Thank You Lord.
There are many more but I am tired again now. You kept each of us safe in the earthquake, even as we hiked back and ran through valleys where rocks were still falling from above. and driving through roads where at any time a large boulder could fall on our bus and knock us off the cliff. It was not our time to go!
Praise the Lord, let all my inmost being praise His Holy name.
What will our God do with our ruins, impossibilities, and most broken places?
