The Peterson Family

Written on October 4, 2009:

My current daily Bible readings are in Ezekiel. As I was reading the other day, I noticed something. Sometimes months pass by before God speaks to him. Now I don’t know for sure if all of his visions are recorded in the Bible or not, so I guess it is possible that God gave him other visions that aren’t written there. But I do believe that this thought came to me for a reason. I really want to hear from God every day, and I get disappointed when I don’t. This helped me realize that it’s ok if I don’t hear from Him every day, and I shouldn’t worry when that happens. It doesn’t mean that I’m not listening good enough, or that I’m doing something wrong. It just means God has decided not to speak to me that day, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.

Written on September 16, 2009:

Yesterday we stopped by the Mosemann dairy farm in Pennsylvania to visit with the Mosemann family, and to see the farm. Wow, that was so cool! We had a great time meeting and visiting with the Mosemann’s, they really made us feel right at home and a part of the family. We also learned alot about what makes a dairy farm tick, and I’ll tell you, it isn’t as simple as you might think it is. This farm averages one new calf each day, and while we were there, one of the cows went into labor. At first, they assessed the situation to make sure the calf wasn’t breach. The calf was in the correct position, so they allowed the cow to try and have the calf on her own, naturally. After an hour or so when things weren’t progressing and it appeared that the cow was having difficulty, they decided to assist by reaching inside the cow and attaching small chains to the calf’s legs so they could pull on the chains when the cow was pushing. Unfortunately there were complications and the calf was stillborn, which was sad, but I guess that’s just part of life on the farm. It was still a neat experience, and I feel that God used that experience to illustrate something to me about our work in Peru.

Here is what God taught me through the experience at the farm:

1.      (The calf was in the correct position, so they allowed the cow to try and have the calf on her own, naturally.) When people come to us asking for help, if there isn’t an urgency and things seems to be normal, we need to allow the natural process to work first, to see if they can do it on their own, maybe with help from the local church or other local organizations.

2.      (Things weren’t progressing so they decided to assist.) If they just can’t seem to work it out on their own, then we should help them out. The assistance they gave to the cow was done in the background, helping the natural process, not going against it. We need to be cautious that we just assist and we don’t get in the way. This is easier said than done.

3.      (Sometimes a vet needs to be called in to provide more extensive help.) Sometimes God wants us to take a more active role and puts us in that position just for that purpose.

Wow, the things you can learn at a dairy farm! God is so creative, I love it!

Melissa

Written on September 4, 2009:

You know my name

You know my story

Still you have taken on the world

Just for me

(From the song: You Know My Name by Detour 180.)

Lord, you know me inside and out, you knit me together in my mother’s womb, you created me. You know all of my good qualities and all of my bad ones, but you STILL took on the world for me. I guess that’s because you knew I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. You loved me so much, unconditionally, and came to earth in human form, so you could take on the sins of the world, my sins, and be the sacrificial lamb so all who believed in you would have eternal life, and hope and strength in you.

Written on September 3, 2009, when we were in the States:

You gotta love technology. We did a skype call with Peru yesterday, with one of the Moms ChildReach is helping out right now with medical assistance for her son. Silvia interpreted for us, we are so thankful for her! Anyway, we found out that the Mom had been going through some tough times, so we wanted to talk to her to find out how she was doing. We were kind of frustrated because we didn’t really get all of the information until a few weeks after it happened, and there were possibilities for ChildReach to provide additional help if it was needed. Her baby had been in the hospital for 9 days and she wasn’t able to work during that time. She has a cart where she sells candies and sandwiches on the street. What income she did get, she had to use for expenses and wasn’t able to replenish her cart. She was broke; she didn’t even have 1 sol, which is about 30 cents, and she was struggling under the weight of the situation. Well, yesterday God showed us His plan. The Mom is a Christian. She attends church and holds a life group at her home every week. When her church body found out she was struggling, they came together and donated chocolate and cookies to help her restock her cart. They also raised money to send her on a church retreat. If ChildReach had jumped in and provided support, we would have foiled God’s plan and not allowed His body to function. It also would have robbed her of the opportunity to go to God and rely on Him during this tough time in her life. Instead she would have been relying on us, on man.

Don, our pastor from Ni River in Virginia, has been doing a series about Impossible Joy. Impossible Joy is experienced when we have faith that God exists and we follow those “fleeting thoughts” in our head that are from the Holy Spirit, and we trust and follow Him into the unknown. We had the opportunity to see Impossible Joy first hand today, in July. She was so fired up she was infectious. Even though she is struggling and going through tough times, she has faith in God. She knows He is with her, and He will help her be successful, as long as she does her part in striving for a better life. She has a plan, she has goals, and she is thinking about her future and the future for her children. She knows she can’t do it alone, and she trusts that God will somehow make it happen. We were intensely blessed to talk with her. We thought we were going to be the ones encouraging her, but instead, she encouraged us.

Lynn keeps saying that we thought the easiest thing to do would be to help people, but that actually has turned out to be the hardest thing to do. How do you REALLY help people appropriately? I would say this has been our toughest lesson of all so far, and we are still learning. Sometimes God calls us to help in material ways, sometimes in spiritual ways, sometimes just by encouraging people and giving them counsel, and sometimes we are the ones who receive the help and encouragement. Isn’t God awesome!

Happy New Year! So far we are off to a great start! It feels like this is going to be a year of revelations, getting closer to God,  and getting more clarity on His will for us and Hannah’s Home. Very exciting!

When I look back at my journal, I see so many great things from God that I just have to share, so I am still posting entries from last year. Hopefully I will be caught up soon!

Love and blessings,
Melissa

 From my journal, written on September 1, 2009:

I have been starting off my quiet time with God by listening to Hillsong United’s Album “United We Stand” in Spanish. I would go down to the orphanage and spend an hour or so singing, praying, listening, journaling, reading the Bible, etc. Lately I have felt God is showing me that I can spend this time in other ways too, like when I am seeking Him to help me write a blog, note or newsletter. The staples are prayer, reading the word, and focusing on Him. Some days a time of praise and worship is sprinkled in. Other days it’s more intense Bible study or encouragement for a friend; sometimes it is 30 minutes, sometimes it is hours!

So I guess the lesson here is: Don’t put your God time in a box, don’t put limits on Him.

Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays from Perú! It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas. The stores are having sales on pools, patio sets, and beach stuff, the City of Lima is busy painting bridges, sprucing up the highway for beach traffic, and it’s getting sunny! Hopefully everybody is looking forward to a Happy Happy, Merry, Merry Christmas season. We always feel like we’re in a rush, but don’t ever seem to be able to get things done fast enough; the new year is right around the corner! With what’s left of 2009, we should be able to have most of the construction completed on Hannah’s Home. This means 2010 will begin our next phase. With this new season come new challenges and new adventures so we would appreciate your prayers and support. We will be working with lawyers and accountants, putting handbooks together, figuring out guidelines for hiring personnel, expanding budgets and everything that is associated with that, exciting stuff, huh? We pray that God will bring us the resources necessary to make this next phase all that He wants it to be, to continue in the direction of getting Hannah’s Home open in a professional and exceptional manner. (1 Corinthians 3:12-13: ¹² Anyone who builds on that foundation (the foundation of Jesus Christ) may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. ¹³ But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.)

We are so looking forward to the many blessings God has in store for us in 2010 and anticipating the day God has in mind for opening. We really appreciate your powerful and prayerful support. We pray God blesses you as much as He has blessed us!

Isaiah 9:6
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas,

Lynn and Melissa

Written on August 22, 2009:

I am reading Isaiah 37 today. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, has a reputation of destroying the surrounding countries and it is heard that he is coming to Jerusalem. King Hezekiah turns to the Lord in prayer, telling Him all about what is happening, asking Him to save Jerusalem from Sennacherib, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that the Lord alone is God. The Lord speaks to Isaiah and tells him that because King Hezekiah prayed about it, He will protect Jerusalem. The Assyrians will not even come there. So the angel of the Lord goes to the camp of the Assyrians and kills 185,000 men, which causes the king to turn back and go home.

I think this gives us another example of how we should pray. When King Hezekiah was faced with a huge challenge and threat, He went to the Lord.

He first exalts God in verse 16:

O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

In verse 17 he asks the Lord to hear, see, and listen:

Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to reproach the living God.

In verse 18 and 19 he goes into some detail about what is happening:

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

In verse 20 he makes a request and asks that it will exalt God:

Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God.

Written on August 21, 2009: 

Our consistent prayer is for God to give us His knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and strength, in all things, in all decisions that need to be made, in how to handle situations and how to manage people. I’ve been reading a book called “Prayer and Missions” by Helen Barrett Montgomery. The book referenced Colossians 1:9-12, which is a letter that Paul wrote to the believers in Colosse:

 ⁹ So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. ¹⁰ Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

 ¹¹ We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, ¹² always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

Boy does that verse fit! I do feel like we are being “strengthened with His power, so we can have a higher endurance and patience”. To be strengthened with His power means He has to tear you down first. Think about how muscles grow: When you lift weights it tears the muscle down, and when the body rebuilds the muscle it is stronger and bigger. I feel that God is really working in me, tearing me down so He can build me back up again. So He can mold me into the person He intended me to be. And in the process, He is not only strengthening me, but also giving me His wisdom and understanding.

When I spend my quiet time with God, I usually can put aside most of my thoughts about what I need to do that day and just focus on Him, but there are some days when I really struggle with it. August 18^th was one of those days. I gave in to my thoughts and in my journal I actually wrote down a list of eight things that I needed to do that day, and then I wrote this:

I find it very hard to focus on God and not let my thoughts get in the way. I really crave to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God; like I felt that day some brothers and sisters from our church (Shalom) came and prayed at Hannah’s Home. My prayer today is just to give up all of my thoughts and concerns to God. I pray that He will quiet all the thoughts that are in my head, and make His voice loud and clear.

I really hate those days! When I have trouble focusing and I feel like I can’t hear God’s voice or feel His presence. I wonder why that happens. Does it happen because I don’t have control of my thoughts and I just can’t hear Him? Is He withdrawing from me to test my heart, like He did with Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 32:31? Is He taking a step back just to see how I’ll do on my own?

The good thing is: As long as we continue to seek Him and listen for Him, He will speak to us again. So if you find yourself having a day like that, don’t worry, don’t give up. Keep reaching out to Him and He will reveal Himself to you again, when it’s time.

Written on August 14, 2009:

 I’m reading Amos 1-5 today. It talks about how the Israelites have continued to worship other gods, commit evil acts and reject God. Amos 4: 6-11 says that God withheld rain in some places and sent rain in other places, but the people didn’t return to Him. It says He sent a plague among them, and still they didn’t return to Him. He tried many times to get their attention by causing them other problems, but they still didn’t listen. In Amos 5, God is telling them that if they seek Him, maybe He will be gracious to them, but if not, He will send them into exile. Up until this point in history, He has given them so many chances to repent and change their ways, and He has just had enough.

I try to imagine what it is like for God. He sees the big picture, the map of our lives that shows where we’ve been and where we’re going. He can see very clearly where we should be going, He has it all mapped out. He must get so frustrated with us when we don’t listen to Him, when we don’t ask Him for guidance and help, when we don’t trust Him and have faith in Him. When He can see that we are getting off track, He tries to flag us down by putting trouble in our path. Thankfully he is persistent and He doesn’t give up easily. He keeps trying and keeps trying and continues to give us the chance to realize we are on the wrong path and change our ways so we can get back on track.