So many miles…so few words <3
Hello my friends and may I just say how thankful I am to be sitting here in front of this keyboard and thinking of you all and your response to pray for us as we journeyed to Kenya this past week and a half.
The photo above is a mural found on the beautiful campus where our friend’s three daughters attended school during their years in Nairobi.
I can’t even express how perfect the image describes the hand of God as we saw Him gently and faithfully attend to every detail of the tasks we needed to do to help our dear friend close out, finish up and say goodbye to many who love her and her family so much. There was so much tenderness and so much a testimony of the work they did in Nairobi and among the Maasai during their almost twenty years of service.
You know I am a story teller, but most of the events of the past 12 days are not my story. I was simply one who came alongside and the stories of grief and closure belong to others so I find myself wanting to share what I can while protecting the sacredness of three good friend’s journeys of grief that are not mine to tell.
So I will share some photos and say we made it with a generous dose of laughter, tears, labor, times of refreshing, God’s mercy and God’s grace and all are safely home.
This is us as we settled in for three flights that included a five hour, sixteen hour and then two hour trek home in what felt like a bucket. Let me tell you. This space for that many hours is a mind game.
At one point, I checked our flight plan hoping we were coming to the end and found this…
From here we apparently went over the North Pole, but my mind was so numbed I just pulled that handy little eye patch down to meet my mask and took deep breaths of my own air to calm down.
I may also have clicked my heels and whispered….”There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”
Speaking of home, how thankful we are for things like wifi and WhatsApp….for moments like this…
And I am also deeply grateful for whatever App God uses to always remind me He is well aware of my need to know He is with me and knows exactly where I am. He is so kind to us.
and…
and multiple other times when I would glance at my phone or receive a text and look at the time and you have to remember it is only 3:33 one time a day in Kenya because time is measured all the way to 24.
And so I will close with why 3:33 is significant to me, in case you haven’t heard the story.
I woke in the night many years ago at 3:33 and felt it was for a purpose.
I was compelled to go downstairs and open my bible and as I asked God what to look for I felt it was Jeremiah 33:3. I questioned this as the colon was out of place…I am kind of like that…details…
But there is no Jeremiah 3:33….so 33:3 it was. And obviously I was not knowledgable on anything Jeremiah at the time…so it had to be God that led me there. I would have selected a Psalm or Proverbs if it had been my idea.
And there I found this as I have memorized it:
Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and unsearchable things that you do not know.
Jeremiah 33:3
As anyone who knows me can tell you, google is my jam.
I have odd questions about so many things and I love being able to look them up.
But life and heart and soul questions can not be googled.
Searching for wisdom and guidance, for help in something I have to do and yet have no tool box to dig into….these are the great and unsearchable things of life and that night as a mom of growing children with many needs for help and guidance, God gave me a life verse.
Over the years, I see 3:33 or $3.33 or 333 at just the moments when I need to be reminded that I can call out to Him and He will help me know what I need to know.
He is a good, gracious and kind God.
In all your moments of questions and doubt and lack, call out to Him and He will answer you.
Just quiet your heart and listen in faith for His answer.
He will tell you what you NEED to know….not what you want to know, or wish you could know but what you NEED to know.
Blessings friends.
It is good to be back home and I pray you have been well in the time of absence.
Thank you to all who prayed for us. God answered <3