Elevate-Haiti: How can God be glorified in this?

We had a team come down recently that made a huge impact on my family and me. It was a very large team of 26, 8 of which were from ages 13-18yrs old. Their goal was to come down and dedicate a bunch of benches for the Titanyen Baptist Church that they had fund-raised for. They were dedicating these benches to the wife and mother of 4 who had died one year ago of lung cancer. This woman was in her mid 40's, never smoked, and yet died of lung cancer. She and her husband lived to serve God. They led very large Bible studies and conferences for marriage, women, and men. They served and loved God as a Kingdom Couple.

The husband and 4 children came down with their support group. His parents, one of their children is married so her spouse, their mom's best friend and her family, and others that had been a part of their journey. They all met every Sunday for months before they came down to Haiti. They would pray together, seek God's will for this trip (not theirs...this part is tricky), and support one another as they prepared. They felt that besides dedicating these benches, they wanted to bring support and love to the missionaries on the Global compound.

They came up with a Valentine's dinner for the spouses. It was a beautiful meal. They gave little gifts, we played fun games, and they shared their wisdom on marriage and serving God. I have never seen a team do this so successfully. They came to serve and to love...and they did.

We were blessed to be able to spend the week with them. My children adored the youth. They played with them, listened to them, and just spent time with them. When they left, my kids cried. They have had a lot of teams come in and out of their lives in the 17 months we have been in Haiti, but this one made an impact.

One of the ways they impacted me was through encouragement. I feel like this can be so easily overlooked. One of the ladies spoke of the woman who died and said what she was really gifted at seeing a person, seeing the gifts that God had given them, and encouraging them to live in those gifts. This woman was a leader in her community but she would say, I don't have anything for you. But the Bible does. Lets look at it together. I love this. I want to be used by God to be an encourager.

These ladies left a book for each of us called, "Red Sea Rules". It talks about Exodus and how the people of Israel where put in a tricky situation by God. How he led them out of slavery to a place by the Red Sea. This was a place of hopelessness. The sea was before them, the mountains beside them, and Pharoah and his army coming up behind them. They were stuck and could not get out. The book goes on to say that He did this so that His name would be glorified. And it was.

So often when a situation gets challenging I find myself praying, Lord, get me out of this. Make the hurt stop! But after reading this little study book, I just don't think that is how he wants me to pray. The book says that instead of praying to get out of a situation we should be praying,

Lord, how can you be glorified in this situation?

I don't know about you, but this is a game changer. It has nothing to do with me, and I am sinful and selfish and I like to make things about me. This has everything to do with God and bringing glory to His name.

I am practicing this with big and little situations. I am finding that this mind change affects everything in me. My entire body relaxes when I realize that God put me in the situation and He is with me. He is just looking for me to glorify Him in it. So my job is to search for ways to glorify him. Sometimes it is just by being loving when I don't want to or by letting the situation be (I'm a fixer and so often He wants me to just wait on him).

I am so grateful that God will never be done with me. This life is too hard without Him and as He teaches me to lean on Him more every day, I feel like I can get more and more glimpses of what Paul wrote when he said, I can be content in any situation . :)

Glory to God.

Prayer:

-we have a mission trip from Nov 7th- Nov 14th 2015 open to our supporters. If you are interesed, please fb message or email me @ imslandj@yahoo.com. We would love to have you!

-prayer for homeschooling and raising teens. :)

-pray for unity for our compound and that we hear God's direction