Frigid Doorways, Backwards Water Lines, and Silly Squeaks!

 Last week when we were working at St. Francis Holiness Church which is part of the Society of Indian Missions, Jonathan and the girls and I stayed overnights at Judy Sherman's little house in town. Whoever put the sink into that house had the water lines in backwards so that the spigot gave us cold water when we wanted hot, and vice versa.

Jonathan is not the kind of person who does only what he is asked to do. He also likes to take care of a few extra things, and the backwards water lines bugged him. So there he squeezed, underneath the sink to fix the problem. It was done in less than ten minutes!

Now if only the squeak under the church platform had been that easy to fix! 

That one took some figuring and working! Jonathan had to carefully peel carpet back, saw away part of the platform frame, and place another supporting board or two in the area of the squeak. 

But afterward, even when at least three people stood on the platform and jiggled and oomphed over the squeak, it was quiet.

The squeak had finally been fixed.

But then there was the door jamb at Judy Sherman's home which had been broken into a couple weeks earlier. Not only was the jamb broken, the whole mess was letting in a lot of cold air! Sis. Judy was having to hang a huge robe over the door to try to keep out the cold. 

Jonathan measured and figured and told nephew David how to make our own door jamb since lumber stores were so far away. 

 The guys made the jamb, and then Jonathan and Danny installed it, working in frigid weather. It had been down around zero one or two days, if not colder. 

Just before we left Thursday mid-morning, Jonathan tried to fix the dryer for Tasbah Lavery.

It had been taking two hours to dry a load of laundry.

Jonathan found some sort of stiff wire and poked it down and around inside the lint cavity, pulling all sorts of lint out, as well as running the dryer for a few seconds at a time to blow out as much as possible after he had poked around in the lint.

Outside he made sure there wasn't any lint ball stuffed up inside.  

I like when people do a little extra and go beyond. 

And my hubby is that kind of guy.

He was standing on a piece of property in South Dakota the day before.

Wondering if this might be the one for us.

We've contacted the realtor.

Deer bounded by as we were there, and Danny discovered grouse in the trees down in the draws. 

We ask for Your guidance, Lord.

Show us Your will and Your way.

 Jonathan and Danny wrestled to get the tight gate to close up again. 

And Lord, we need You to open the right door in Your timing.

Day of Fasting and Prayer for Ukraine

All morning my heart is praying.

A missionary to Ukraine, Scott, let us know that today, Tuesday, was asked to be a day of fasting and prayer for Ukraine.

 How human God's people are feeling!

Certainly not divine, or all-knowing, or omniscient, or immortal.

Our mortality confronts us at every turn.

Like a helpless rabbit we are in the face of coyotes and foxes and bears.

 I can hardly miss a meal without recognizing my human needs.

I am as fragile as the hens I fed yesterday--constantly depending on their owners for grain and water.

Gathering eggs is a comfort to me, a common ordinary task that yields something good to eat.  

But this morning, I forego my morning egg for breakfast.

Not to brag, or to be seen by men, but to simply let God know that, just like the helpless Ukrainians,

I am depending on Him. 

"Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength," I read when my Bible opened by my bedroom window this morning. 

But, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord."

Truly, Lord, our hope is in You. Not in the leadership of Ukraine, not in their army or their ragtag bands of swiftly-trained young people. Not in sandbags or weapons or molotov cocktails.

But in You!

"O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come to You." 

And here is the promise I am holding before the Lord today as I join my brothers and sisters in Ukraine in prayer, fasting, and depending on the Lord,

"Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is the Lord." (Jer. 16:21)

Them.

The Russians.

The Ukrainians.

The fathers, the mothers, the sons, the daughters, the grandfathers and babushkas.

The babies and elderly.

The soldiers and civilians.

The presidents and leaders and generals.

Lord, we are asking and trusting that You will cause them to know Your hand and Your might, 

that they may know that Your name is the Lord." 

 

Girls' Choices Make a Difference!

Many girls in Ukraine are choosing to stay in Ukraine with their fathers, husbands, and brothers and learn how to operate machine guns and molotov cocktails, and we read that Ukrainian restaurants have quit serving drinks in glass bottles because they are saving those bottles for a different kind of "cocktails."

While all that is going on, Christian girls in America choose to work with their fathers and brothers, too, in a different sort of war. That war is not won with guns or molotov cocktails. Neither is it won by merely teaching Sunday School and praying and hoping God will rescue sinners from being lost.

It is won by a lot of hard work that isn't always very fun.

Carrie, Hannah, and cousin Candace spent many hours staining hundreds of feet of trim boards for the St. Francis sanctuary. They hadn't known that would be one of the jobs and hadn't brought paint clothes, so they turned their nice skirts inside out to try to protect them from getting stained! Girls' ingenuity!

They didn't let the lack of proper paint clothes keep them from doing a needed job! I helped with that job a little, too, as well as coming up with a menu which all the girls helped cook, especially on the day that I spent working at the SIM office.

While our hearts pray and watch over our beloved friends in Ukraine, we kept working last week in South Dakota.

 Mrs. Patton had a scrap piece of fabric to use to measure and sew a practice valance for the church windows. 

Then she purchased burlap, and Candace especially sewed most of the six valances for the church windows. And whenever Candace had extra time, she helped me fix a skirt and sewed a whole new denim skirt for Hannah. Thanks, Candace! You were a blessing!

Wednesday evening as we tried to finish work at the sanctuary, I ended up on the phone with Stephen Archibald, taking notes for an article for the Indian Vision paper.  

I didn't have the skills or strength for what the men were doing, but I did what I could.

 

Sunday night with her husband gone around ten days, Tasbah Lavery was left in charge of evening service.  Leading a service is simply not her thing, but she did what she could as around 38 lively people crowded in.

Jonathan had been asked to lead the Bible study after the children were taken to their evening Sunday School classes. He led a study about what safety really means, in the wake of what is happening in Ukraine. 

What does it mean when women and children are having to flee a country by the millions?

Yes, in the middle of my heart going out to my sisters in Ukraine, I know that I must also focus on doing my duty here as a mother, a wife, and now a missionary again.

Girls can make a difference! 

Not with guns or molotovs, but with hard work, willingness, ingenuity, and faithfulness.

Chips, Pop, and Candy Bar

When our Mission Helps crew was nailing and screwing and pounding and drilling at St. Francis Holiness Chapel,

it wasn't just about getting the finishing touches done on a new church building that had been built to replace the one burned down a few years ago.

It wasn't just about sawing long boards into trim pieces on the table saw,

and making sure the tongue-and-groove boards fit together right on the ceilings of the two Sunday school rooms and sound room.

It wasn't about just working together with cousins to have a fun time--

even though we did have a fun time! Danny drew on the white board his own version of what he saw happening there!

It was a pretty good rendition of this above!

It wasn't just about caulking hundreds of feet of cracks all around edges and trimwork in the sanctuary and other rooms to try to keep flies from dropping in out of the attic!

 

It was also about listening to stories Mr. Patton told about the church's ministry there, especially to native American children. 

There has been such a breakdown in the family unit among natives, he said, that most children do not know what it is like to actually have a sit-down meal that is home-cooked, nutritious, and family-oriented.

 

While our children and their cousins come from families where meals are regular and nutritious, most of the children the missionaries bring to church live on chips, pop, and candy bars.

In recent times, someone sent some money to the church to use for their Sunday School. 

"What could we use it for?" the church folk wondered.

They decided to purchase a good supply of some kind of meat jerky sticks which they began to give the children on the bus on the way to church. 

If the children hadn't had any breakfast, they would be given a meat stick, and if they were still hungry and asked for another, no problem!

The simple policy of feeding a bit of protein to the children on the bus before church cut down behavior problems literally in half!

Children used to come to church wired from hunger or sugar, but the blessing of the meat sticks is very real.

Sunday evening, Ezra, David, and Candace were asked to be in charge of the service at Winner, at the church where Mission Helps has worked several times. While David led the singing,   

Ezra played the piano.

The three young people sang a couple hymns. 

   

Then Ezra shared a message from his studying the gospel of John recently.

And afterward, church folk served them a wonderful soup and frybread.

Not chips, pop, and candy.

But our hearts go out to those who live in homes where there is plenty of money from the government

but no real structure, no good meals, no Christian influence.

Father, remember the children of native Americans who hunger for real food,

but most of all for You!

w

Sticks Over Windows--and Experts Stumped

 Our Ukrainian pastor friend sent us this photo of the sticks brought to use for window protection at a place for shelter in a Ukrainian village.

All I could think was, "How much protection will those sticks be?" 

What if all you had was sticks to tack over your windows when the enemy has tanks and missiles and machine guns?

Yet every one of us are about that helpless against our enemies--were it not for our Refuge.

He is so much more than sticks!

He is the All-powerful God!

He is on the side of the weak and helpless and oppressed.

Jonathan read last night (and didn't tell me till this morning) that the R u s s i a n s hit the big TV tower in Kiev, killing five civilians and injuring five more.

"Do you remember the TV tower?" he asked me.

I did not. 

But I did remember the Jewish memorial right near that tower, now called Babi Yar. We understand it sustained damage as well.

 

Yet all at the same time as we are seeing many photos of terrible damage and devastation, we are also reading that it could be so much worse. 

People on every side all over the world are "mystified" as to why things are not worse.

Headlines this morning read, "What Happened to Russia's Airforce? US Officials, Experts Stumped."

"Experts" don't know why there aren't more fighter jets in the sky.
They don't understand why Ukraine's air space is not under R u s s i a n control yet.

They don't know what is happening to the air support.

And some of what they do know is not good news for the R u s s i a n s.

Many jets and helicopters have been downed.

Neither R u s s i a nor the world was expecting this.  They expected far worse. 

It's uncanny.

It's mystifying. 

And I love it. 

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God," is one of my mother's favorite verses. 

God knows exactly what is going on, 

and it just may be that He is part of the mystery that has the experts stumped. 

 https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/air-force/2022/03/01/id/1059173/

Singing in Ukraine--and Kindness in a Parking Lot

 Saturday night I could not get to sleep till nearly three o'clock. 

A heart-rending scene of a weeping Ukrainian father saying goodbye to his little daughter was etched in my mind as we glimpsed it shared on Facebook just before going to bed. 

But after praying and blogging a while, I glanced just a bit at Facebook again, and this time our pastor friend was on live. He and another man were singing with the pastor's guitar.

His time was already late Sunday morning, nine hours ahead of us.

And he was singing. In the church basement that Jonathan's Mission Helps team had helped to finish, he was singing apparently during their morning worship service.

And when he laid his guitar aside, he faced his hearers with a smile. Tired bags were under his eyes, but he faced us with a smile, and he talked about God.

He was speaking in Ukrainian, but I kept hearing the word "Bozhay," which means God. 

It calmed my heart, and I went back to bed and managed to get four hours of sleep. 

And then we began receiving amazing news about unusual things happening in Ukraine that seemed to only come from God. Like the picture above. Our missionary friend Ed Durham shared how a coworker Jonathan had in Ukraine 22 years ago had seen unusual sights in the sky like the one above. There were at least four photos of different "clouds" that looked ever so much like angels. It is our understanding that Jonathan's former coworker actually saw the "clouds" he photographed, even though someone on Facebook claimed that these same photos had been circulating years ago.  

Then we saw this message shared above.  

It appeared that God Himself is fighting, sending angelic hosts. 

One things is certain.

God is very involved and concerned about what is happening. 

Even if Scripture must be fulfilled, God is right in the thick of things. 

He will never forsake His people or not remember their prayers!

And right in the middle of God caring for His people in Ukraine, He also does unusual things for His people in America. My mom in Missouri wrote a few days ago about doing some grocery shopping at a Country Mart. On her way out, Mom smiled at a couple ladies passing her going into the store. As Mom was preparing to load her groceries into the car, she heard, "Ma'am! Ma'am!"

    As Mom turned, one of those ladies was holding something out to her.

"I just wanted to bless you today!" the lady said, handing my mom a wad of bills. Then she turned and went back toward the store. 

    Dumb-founded, my mom finished loading the groceries and then sat down in the car. When she counted the money, it added up to about $60!

"So amid all the terrible news we are hearing yesterday and today," Mom wrote, "there are some bright spots to lighten our days."

Yes, whether in a basement where a pastor was singing in Ukraine while sheltering from the enemy, or in a parking lot where someone just decides to bless someone else,

God is at work doing unusual things. 

Whether shapes of angels in the sky, or human angels actually reaching out to an elderly person,

God's love and care is shared and made known and really experienced. 

Keep it up, Lord! 

Make Your beautiful self known to all!