Afternoon Buzz

It's 3:00. Do you know where your caffeine and sugar high is?

I found mine!

OK, let's hear it. Time to confess! How do you beat the mid-afternoon lull?

The Big Move

I woke up today in a cold sweat. The big moving day is just around the corner. I'm super excited, but have tons and tons to do. My home is a sea of empty boxes that really should be full, taped up, and labeled by now. Hmmm. Wonder what I'll be doing this weekend!

Thanks to Kristi Crook for recruiting and coordinating a move team and trucks from The Vine for me. Unreal. I am blown away.

I'm also going to give a shout-out to some amazing godly men that have beautiful servant hearts.

First, men I have never met before came up to me on Sunday morning and said, "Are you Melissa? I'm on your move team!" How cool is that? And one of the staff members has donated trucks from his equipment rental company for us to use. Dang, I love my church. These precious men of God whom I have never met have volunteered their time to usher me in to the community.

Also, thanks to the Facilities guys at Crown who keep a steady stream of available empty boxes flowing into my office. I also had a love note waiting for me this morning in the form of four rolls of packing tape. Manna from Heaven. They totally rock.

And finally, I can't link you to them because they don't blog, but I have an awesome family and many other friends helping in so many other ways behind the scenes, loving on me and praying for me. It doesn't get any better than that!

Love you guys!

Mustard, Drive-Thru Rage, and Chun King

OK, tonight it’s going to be a little lighthearted, because I’m tired and my hand is covered in mustard.

Yes, that’s right. My deliciously delicate and feminine Bath and Body Works Moisturizing Gloves, usually melded with my favorite equally deliciously delicate and feminine hand cream are, instead, joined with French’s Yellow Mustard. Why, you ask? (By the way, if you’re not asking “Why?” at this point, then I’d be a little concerned about you.) Well, I suffered a nasty burn yesterday on my right hand when attempting to pull a pan from my oven. I spoke to a Pharmacist who is probably still paying off her exorbitant student loans only so that she could tell me that “Burn creams won’t work, but lots of yellow mustard will.” The weird thing is, she’s right. And she's my hero! I’ve been drenched in yellow mustard for two days now. I smell like a hot dog at a baseball game, but my hand doesn’t hurt.

In other news, can we please talk about Drive-Thru etiquette? I have a recurring Drive-Thru experience that really tests my godliness. So let’s just call this my little accountability session for some serious Drive-Thru Road Rage that I’ve been nursing. This, friends, is why I cannot post a “Follow Me To The Vine” bumper sticker or a cute little silver fish on my car. I can’t handle that kind of accountability. Yes, I know, my spiritual maturity is astounding.

OK, here’s the scene. I’m approaching the Wendy’s Drive-Thru to obtain my favorite salad in the entire universe – a heavenly bed of baby greens topped with mandarin oranges, roasted almonds, Chinese crunchy noodles, and grilled chicken. The Sesame dressing…oh, the dressing. Good stuff. And all for under five bucks. I’m so low maintenance – no fancy dinners for me, no sir. Five bucks at Wendy’s for processed chicken and I’m happy. I mean really, why am I still single?

So, here’s the issue…I go to the trouble of driving all the way around the restaurant so that I can properly secure my place in line. It’s ethical, classy and good manners to do so, wouldn’t you agree? I’m sure Emily Post has something to say about this. But there’s always the jerk, er.....uh.....I mean the sister or brother in Christ that decides that he or she doesn’t need to drive around, but can merely enter through the “other” driveway and cut in line. What’s up with that? True story – a purple PT Cruiser (is that really even a car?) used all of the intimidation it could muster to cut in front of me. I’m fighting every urge I have not to make rude gestures (not lude, just rude) to convey that I will run her over in my tiny but scrappy Mazda M3, and holding back every urge to lecture her on the virtues of Drive-Thru etiquette, including the scriptural basis for driving around the building. I’m sure it’s in the Bible somewhere. The trouble is, I work and live in a very small town, so Little Miss PT Cruiser might just be a coworker, a neighbor, or worse, in my small group from church. So, I behave. Well, outwardly anyway. I don't know why this frustrates me so much. Does this bother anyone else, or do I need anger management therapy?

Back to the subject of Chinese noodles...once I released my Drive-Thru angst, I had the coolest flashback while opening the packet of crunchy Chinese noodles with my salad today. Do any of you remember Chun King Chow Mein?

Oh. My. Goodness.

My Mom is going to be miffed at my writing this, so instead of ending with a disclaimer, I will start with one. My Mom is an incredible cook – the best – and she has taught me so much that I, too, am a decent cook. But on some nights, of course, she didn’t “cook” something gourmet and from scratch. Sometimes … (gasp)… she opened a can. The highlight of the week was Chun King night. Chun King was in its own league and pigs-in-a-blanket or cube steak night didn't even come close to the mystique and awesomeness of Chun King night. Chun King was exciting and cool. It came in a cardboard box holding two cans -- one contained the crispy noodles, and the other can hid strange "un- American" vegetables cooked into soft, gummy submission, and a teeny bottle of something called "soy" sauce. Mom toasted the noodles, boiled the veggies and liquid, dumped the mess together, poured over the dark, mystery sauce and -- voila -- Chinese food! As a kid in Kennesaw, Georgia, a town that then only had one red light, it was the first Chinese food we ever had tasted. We were cultured. We were global.

Thanks, Mom. Chun King rocks. (Well, when you're a kid it does, anyway.)

Faces

These little faces sure do make it hard to leave for work every day!

You've Got Mail

I got my first letter from Zipora today!

OK, so that's like the best thing I've ever gotten in the mail in my whole life!

Her counselor helped her fill out an activity and information sheet for me, including the names of her family members and her favorite things.

Her favorite subject in school is "singing is my best subject".
Her favorite food is "meat and rice".
Her favorite color is "bright yellow".
Her favorite game is "skipping the rope".
Her favorite Bible Story is "the time when God created the whole world".
Her favorite song is "Baby Jesus, I love you".

Her mother's name is Asayo, and she is 32 years old.

A personal note was also included, along with some drawings. Her counselor was very kind to create a "legend" for me by numbering the drawings and identifying them for me. Some of them were a bit hard to decipher. =)

Her dream for the future is "to become a teacher".

Her prayer request is that "I grow taller and study well".

And her sweet little signature is pictured here.



I'm feeling so blessed right now.

It Is What It Is

I struggle with being content. I am in the midst of great moves of God in my life in every single area, and I am blessed beyond measure. Yet even still, I struggle with this thing called "enough". I was in prayer a few nights ago, in such a sweet place and connection with God. I mean the kind of prayer that takes us into the presence of God as if He were sitting next to us. I was staring straight into His face, and pleading with him to..."Make your grace enough for me...Make your grace enough for me..." I so earnestly longed for that place of contentment only found in the grace He offers so freely to someone so wretched. His response was not long or complicated. He simply pointed me to the word is.

In that moment, my God whispered a Scripture to me that is one that I know by heart and is one of my favorites. I've read it a hundred times. It's the Scripture for my blog! But this time, I read it differently than all of those times before.

He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you..." (2 Cor 12:9)

Wow. I don't have to pray that He would make His grace enough for me. He cannot make His grace any more sufficient than He has already made it. All I have to do is get up and believe it, and I will, every single time and without fail find it to be true.

So may we remember that God's promises are. Period. They are ours to claim without question or hope that He will deliver. Because He always does.

I think I will lay my head on my pillow tonight...full of "enough".

Zipora Iyabo

I would like to introduce you to Zipora Iyabo. Isn’t she beautiful? Zipora lives in Uganda, and I am sponsoring her through Compassion International. When I went to the site to choose a child from Uganda, as soon as I saw her, I knew she was the one. After I completed the application for sponsorship, Compassion sent me a file with more details about her (LOTS of details). I chose Compassion because they are not an organization to which you simply send a check and only receive generic communication and information back. Compassion is in the village, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and runs child development centers that provide the children with education, Christian teaching and activities. I can get specific information about how she is doing, how to pray for her, and what is going on in her life. This is why I chose Compassion –they really work hard to facilitate building a relationship between sponsor and child.

So, a little about Zipora…

She is five years old, with her sixth birthday coming up on September 25th. Her favorite thing to do is to play her drum and sing. She also enjoys playing with other musical instruments. Her counselor says that she is quite the “teacher”… she loves to teach others – even the adults! =)

You are probably aware that although Uganda’s government has since stabilized, up until a few years ago there were remaining tribal wars. Just as things were starting to settle down, Zipora’s mother’s village was attacked by a rival tribe. As a result, her mother was raped and became pregnant. Zipora’s mother also has AIDS. Zipora tests negative for the AIDS virus; however, she is at great risk because of the rampant nature of the virus in this country. (AIDS has orphaned tens of thousands of children in this part of Africa.) Because of her pregnancy, Zipora’s mother was shunned from her family and was forced to move to another village. Her mother is raising her, alone, with no family support, in extreme poverty – beyond anything we can imagine. Her mother (I don’t know her name yet) works when she can as a peasant farmer and laborer in the village, earning approximately $6.00 per month. Zipora and her mother live in a “hut” made of mud-bricks which is often washed away during their rainy season.

Would you please join me in praying for this precious girl? I’ve shared with many of you that I have felt an unshaking pull toward Uganda in the past five or six months, but I’ve been putting it on the “back burner”. Finally, last month I stopped running, and God led me to Compassion where I found Zipora. And, about a week ago I received an email from one of my professors at Liberty who is gathering a team of 15 people to travel to Africa next year for a short-term mission assignment – specifically to Uganda. Go figure. If that works out, then Compassion would arrange a meeting for me and Zipora while I am there. How cool would that be?

Please pray that our relationship would further enforce what she is learning through the amazing counselors at Compassion -- that she matters to God, and no matter what her circumstances may be, that she has a purpose specifically and uniquely designed by Him for her.