Saturday, August 28, 2010

Our new home



We have finally gotten settled into our new home! We arrived back home early Thursday morning, about 1:00 am, to find a spotless house with all our things still tucked away into one of the bedrooms. Wednesday morning we woke up and relaxed for about an hour before getting to work. We worked about 10 hours to get everything in our little apartment situated just the way we wanted it. We have accumulated a lot over the last year since every time someone leaves the country they leave stuff with us. We definitely welcome these things, but I couldn’t believe how much stuff we had when we unpacked.
Anyhow, it was a lot of work to relocate and move all our stuff into a new place and become situated all over again, but it was well worth it. There are many benefits to this place, the biggest one being that it is just so much more spacious. I really never thought that I would want to leave our last place since it was just so nice and simple, but since we have moved here I have not missed our last place one bit. I am thankful for the place that G*d has given us now and that the circumstances were perfect for us to come into this place and it was obviously the time to move on and move out of our other place.
Thank you to all of you who lifted this up. This place is really special to us and we look forward to inviting many people into our new home and sharing the good news and just blessing people through what G*d has blessed us with.

Kyrgyzstan



Our journey to Kyrgyzstan was very eventful. In fact I don’t think that I have ever travelled that much in such a short period of time, nevertheless, it was well worth it. There were many beautiful things to see, including rolling hills, an amazing lake which felt more like an ocean and the fascinating capital city, Bishkek.
We started our journey traveling by train to the capital city. There we said goodbye to our good friend Katie, who was the director of our English Center for a time and is now going back to the states to get married! We couldn’t be happier for her, but of course, we were sad to see her go.
Once we said our goodbyes, we got on a plane to Bishkek. We arrived there at 3am and made our way to a wonderful little bed and breakfast that is run by like-minded people. We stayed there for 3 days to get a feel for the capital city and to get our return visa process started.
Bishkek was a lovely city. The streets are spacious and all lined with trees. There are so many nice cafe’s and tons of beautiful souvenirs, many made of felt and a lot of fine embroidered handiwork. After indulging in coffees and cafes and the wonder of Bishkek, we made our way into the wilderness of Kyrgyzstan.
On Thursday we took the long trek down to Naryn which is a city set in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, where one of our former teachers used to work. The taxi drive was pretty crazy, but the beauty was worth it. On our drive there, we saw many traditional Yurts (as pictured above), rolling hills and lots of diverse landscape along which a flowing river streamed throughout most of the drive. We stayed in Naryn one night and then made our way over to Lake Issyk Kul.
We relaxed at Lake Issyk Kul until our visas were ready, for about four days. It was not a difficult wait. We enjoyed ourselves on the beach of this unique lake, which seemed more like an ocean. Lake Issyk Kul is special because although it is surrounded by snow-capped mountians, it never freezes; which is the reason for its name, Issyk Kul means “hot lake” in the Kyrgyz. It lived up to the name because it was a lot warmer than the Pacific Ocean, which is what we are used to swimming in, well, at least Curtis…
After our time at Issyk Kul, we made our way back up to Bishkek to retrieve our visas and then made the long trip back home in one day, arriving early on Thursday morning to our new apartment.
We arrived home to a clean apartment, thanks to the folks who stayed here before us. What a blessing it was to lay our heads down in our new homes after what seemed like a really long journey. Our trip to Kyrgyzstan was fun, but being back in our apartment makes the statement “There’s no place like home” ring more true than ever.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Perfect Peace

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the L*rd forever, for the L*rd G*d is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26/3-4

The world tells us that we can get peace in so many different ways and maybe some of the ways allow us to have temporary peace. But G*d offers us perfect peace. It is a peace the reaches beyond our understanding, so that no matter what happens in our live, good or bad, we can still be at peace. No matter how much chaos there is or uncertainty, we can have peace if our mind is stayed on Him. He is our rock and he never changes. He is faithful and though he brings difficult things our way, He will always bring us through if we just trust in him. It sounds easy, but it can be very difficult when we are holding onto the control of our lives. I have had to learn this here. There is always a lot of uncertainty, but I found out that I can have perfect peace if my mind is stayed on Him and if it isn’t, there is usually a lot of pain and a struggle for control.


I read a quote that said “Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of G*d whatever the conflict my be.” On wikipedia it says “Peace is the result of resting in a relationship with G*d.” (taken from Naked Fruit’ by Elisa Morgan). This is the truth and I have experienced it firsthand. Have you?

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Unless a grain of wheat...


It says in John 12/24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” I must constantly be reminded of this. I needed to do this to make the decision to come overseas and I continually need to do this.
In verse 25 of the message it says “Anyone who holds onto life just as it is destroys that life.” In other versions it says “Whoever loves his life loses it.” Well, I was doing just that. I loved my life too much. I had plans. I saw my life going a certain way. But G*d made me realize through a lot of pain and struggle that he wants to do something bigger with my life. He was stretching me and changing me and I thought “why am I feeling this way?” I pleaded with him to change me and he said in his still soft voice, “I am.” I finally let go and gave it to him. It was extremely painful and freeing to let go.
What was I doing? I was counting the cost. Contemplating the ways that I wanted life, the things that are better back at home, the difficulty of being away from family and friends. Paul says in Philippians that we should count our lives as nothing. I wasn’t doing that. My life was something to me. It was important, but what I didn’t understand is that it is important to G*d too, that is why he is challenging me so! Because he knows that if I hold onto the scraps of what I want out of life, I will never get the treasure that he has for me.
These are the things that I was holding back from G*d. What are you holding back? How are you counting the cost of serving him?

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Ask for the ancient paths...


“Thus says the L*rd: “Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6/16
Many times I think to myself, “How can I know what G*d wants?” This passage says that I must look and ask. Then when I find it I must walk in it and I will have rest?!? That doesn’t make sense logically, since following G*d is so difficult, it seems like we should constantly be trying if we want to “be h*ly as he is h*ly.” But this scripture tells me differently, when I find the way I must walk in it and I will have rest. I know this to be true because when I am walking in His ways I have so much more peace, my soul truly feels at rest. But, when I am doing what I want, because of the excuses that I make, such as “He hasn’t told me what to do, so I will just do my own thing and wait until I hear something loud and clear…” I feel extremely anxious and unsettled.
But when I look at the word of truth and follow it, that is when my soul is at rest, that is when I feel peaceful. I know that when I am not doing what he wants me to do, it is not because I don’t know, it is because I don’t ask him, because sometimes I think it will be too hard or I am too comfortable just doing whatever I want to do. But when I ask and walk, I am never disappointed. My soul feels at peace within me because I know that I am following the commands of the king of kings and because he has made me that way. He has created me with a deep longing for him and when I ignore that longing too much, I feel it no longer…
At the end of  this passage it also says, “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”
That is what the people of Israel said to G*d when they walked away from his commands and that is what we say when we allow our consciences to be seared. So much of the time we rebel against G*d. He said of the Israelites after they walked away from Him “They shall never enter my rest.” If we do not follow his commands, if we do not soften our hearts, we will never enter his rest. It is a fearful thing to stand before the living G*d and find out that in your life you hardened your heart to his call. It is not about a pr*yer that you pr*yed once. It is about a life serving G*d, walking in the ancient paths. Sometimes my selfish heart forgets that.
David later spoke in the Psalms about this and he said,”Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
This is my pryr for you. Do not harden your hearts. Do not be like the chch of Laodicea who was lukewarm or the chch of ephesus who abandoned their first love. Search your hearts today and look for the way, ask for the ancient paths and walk in them.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Moving!


It has been a long time since I posted anything, but I thought it would be appropriate to write something as we close the chapter on the last year and begin the new one with some positive changes.
I am feeling excited and sentimental at the same time. We are moving to a much bigger flat with a lot of great qualities that will help us to house guests and host many parties! But yet we have so many good memories here from our first year of living life overseas. I feel sad to be leaving this place that we have called home for the past year. We have gone through many ups and downs here. But after all, in our new place, we will actually have a dining room to sit in!
It feels good to be doing something new at this point because since we have been married we have lived in one bedroom apartments with no nifty additions. This apartment is much more spacious than anything we have lived in before. It is funny to note that we were really against moving at first when our school told us that they thought it would be a good idea for us to look for a new apartment. We felt so at home here and everything had a place etc etc. The place we have now really is nice. But G*d really provided a great place for us and as soon as we saw it, we knew it was the right place.
We are now in the process of moving and will have everything moved out by the end of the week! I will post some pictures as soon as we geteverything settled in our new place!