I am so blown away by our God of details. I am so blown away by our God who chooses to show me just an inkling of what HE is up to! I am so blown away by our God that allows me, even if just a little bit, to join him in his story!
My theme this year so far has seemed to be: "Surrender, I got it all covered" - God.
Boy does he ever!
So let me rewind a few months and share how he has been at work.
One afternoon while perusing through my friends facebook status's on my "home" page, a post jumped out to me from a sweet girl I barely know that lives in my neighborhood. It was a link to a blog post. Now, in the adoption world, there are a lot of families to follow and with little time in each day, I'm doing good to check in on them from time to time but when I saw the word "orphan", it caught my eye and with one click, there went the rest of my afternoon.
Quickly, I found myself reading the words of the most amazing family who had uprooted themselves and their precious 3 children, left all they had and knew of comfort and moved to Ethiopia this past September to love on the least of these. The post was a blog entry of their families journey and a simple post sharing with their friends how the Lord allowed them to bring home a little boy for the weekend from an orphanage they were serving in.
Inspired.
Immediately, my fingers got the best of me and before I knew it I had commented not only on my friends post but had e-mailed this couple directly through their "contact us" on their website.
It felt like the Lord was doing all the typing and I was just here ... playing some small part.
Very shortly, like as in within the hour, the husband e-mailed back (and yeah, think 9 hours ahead there, he's good!). We began a dialogue of me asking a gazillion questions and him sharing their amazing story and work. We began to see that we had some awesome God prints I'll call them. Originally from San Antonio (yep, my home), they were now in Ethiopia and in Addis Ababa, where I'd soon be going on both my mission trip and our family on our adoption adventures (twice). They also were working with Somali refugees in the area which was a huge God print for me! As he shared through one of the e-mails about their love for the Somali's, he began to share the stories of that people group and why the Lord had captured their hearts for them. My heart leapt! I knew these stories, because I shared the same love, for the same people ... only they were HERE!
For two years we spent ministering to Somali refugees in our city. For two years we had gone each Tuesday night and not only gained a whole knew depth of knowledge about cross cultural ministry, but fell in love with the precious people that he now was serving. He was ministering to the exact people we had been ministering to here. The exact people group that we knew had for so long been so removed from hearing the name of Jesus. Now that might not sound like no big deal, but believe me .. it's all God. You see, the Somali Bantu are on the list of the most "un-reached people groups" at number FOUR. A half a world away, our two families were serving and loving the same people group, that literally had been"untouchable" for so long. I immediately felt the Lord at work and a connection to a family who shared in so many things we were passionate about.
Not only that ... I was inspired by them.
During our course of e-mails we also began to talk about visiting them and graciously, he offered for the team I was going into Ethiopia with through Visiting Orphans to come into the orphanage they were working in. I was so excited about that possibility, however, I knew that our agenda was already very full and didn't want to press the issue with my team leaders or the Executive Director! I held back but continued to pray each night for this family and their work.
Each night the Lord awoke me ... at midnight. For nights on end, I would awake knowing I was thinking about them. This orphanage. Their work! This was not in my character! I love sleep .. and I never wake!
Doug and I are on the Board of Directors for Visiting Orphans so I had hoped that once our Executive Director returned from leading a team into Uganda that we'd be able to talk with her about future VO teams going in. It appeared there was a great need and the invitation had been clearly extended by Jimmy for future opportunities.
I also had told Jimmy that I would love for our family to visit his family and orphanage on our adoption trips. Not thinking we'd get in before, that seemed like the perfect time! In the meantime, we also began doing some research on how to get the orphanage up and going on a sponsorship program through a partner ministry that we love. The seeds were being planted and now we believed we were to just wait again on the Lord to tell us the rest!
So this is where God really lets us in on his story. Last week during the day I get an e-mail from our team leader calling an "Emergency 911" conference call. Something had gone awry with our travels and our leaders would discuss it with us that night. The end of the e-mail said
"Take 2 flex pills and don't worry" (HAHA)
That night we found out that Ethiopian Airlines that day had canceled ALL flights flying into Addis Ababa on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Our team leader called the meeting as it appeared that in order for our team to get out, we'd need to leave a day early as we originally were scheduled to go out on a Thursday, February 17th. Throughout the call she and her husband shared that they just knew this would be a blessing and that the Lord has something wonderful in store. They knew it would be hard, they knew it may cause anxiety for some, but they also had a peace and knew that he was writing the story. My heart bubbled over and even as they spoke, I began to type out an e-mail to them with this in the memo line: " I have an orphanage we can visit if interested ..."
I then shared with our team leader a little about the orphanage and that we had been invited as a a team in for a visit and to serve. Not knowing how that would be received, I was elated to see lots of excitement and many willing hearts!
God did his work ... God put together all the details!
Within hours, the Lord had not only paved a way for us to have an extra day in Ethiopia, but he paved a way for us to GO and MEET and LOVE the children of this amazing orphanage. Within hours, Jimmy had responded to Visiting Orphans with an exciting invitation to spend the extra day we now had loving on the 137 children his family helps serve there.
SERIOUSLY!
Do you think our God is the God of details. Looking back, he knew all along that he'd cancel those flights. He was already paving out that extra day for our team to have the time in "our" packed agenda to spend where he wanted us to be. Through a crazy stream of circumstance on facebook, he gave me the opportunity to be a part of his story, allowing me to cross paths with this family a 1/2 a world away, to learn about HIS children, and the means through an AMAZING ministry to follow through and serve and love on them in whatever means he'll have us!
He's still writing this story. I can't wait to read the next chapter!
"Surrender, I got it all covered" - God!
Go check out the ministry of this amazing family! You can be a part of their work by supporting them!
Jimmy and Rachel Gross: Heavenly Hope Ministries
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