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!