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.

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!

Running home in the rain

I had been feeling a bit down today, so we went out for a nice summer stroll and as we walked away from our flat we realized that there were black clouds gathering in the sky.

We decided to walk anyways because we just needed to get out. We were really close when it started sprinkling rain and as we crossed the street to get back home it started dumping rain on us. We were laughing so hard as we ran down the steps to get to our flat, the rain pouring down harder and harder. We were soaking wet, but it only made us laugh all the more.

These are moments that make me feel alive and remind me that our G*d gives good gifts exactly when we need them.

Graduation

Our Graduation ceremony  was a satisfactory culmination to an exceptional year!

It is always a risk to allow yourself to love your students, because most of the time, to them, you are just their teacher. But I think that our feelings about one special class were mutual.

Our young class will always hold a special place in our hearts. Throughout our year with them they have won this place with their bright smiles and their eagerness to learn. On Tuesdays, when I would come back from a long weekend, wanting to be anywhere else but there, they would not cease to disappoint me. Their smiling faces and their warmth would always make me feel right at home in that classroom, by the end of the class I would forget those feelings.

I took so much joy in teaching this special class. I teared up when I thought about them leaving us and just how blessed we are to have had them as one of our first classes teaching English. But I was not disappointed by them. I was blown away by the unexpected display of mutual feelings.

They honored us greatly after the graduation ceremony when they clothed us in traditional Cultural attire. One student told Curtis that the reason they did this is that in their culture, a younger person should bestow this honor on someone that they significantly respect. Those kids who brought so much joy to our lives and who we love so dearly, respected us enough to esteem us in this way. I really felt honored. (It did bring me back to an act of kindness by a dearly loved student last year.;) We loved them and worked hard to teach them this year and the rewards for that are not only et*rnal but also rewards that we can enjoy in this life.

I can say that the whole year of teaching was worth it for those little moments, the moment when the students placed the clothes on us and the moments when I embraced some of the young ladies from that class, sharing tears of happiness and sorrow with them. What a joy to know that we loved these students who truly loved and respected us back!

Reflections on a good year

Today we had our class graduation party. It was such a nice time to reflect on what a great year it has been and how special some of our classes have been for us.

It is difficult to express in words how amazing this year has been, but reminiscing with our students today was a reminder of how special all the memories are and how dear these students have become to Curtis and I.

There is a song that we are using for our graduation slide show that says “These are days you remember, never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be one as this, and as you feel it, you’ll know it too, that you are blessed…” I feel that this is so true with the time that we have spent here. These are truly days that we will remember forever! Never before and never since. Even if we continue to teach for years, there will never again be a time like this year. Our first year teaching in Central Asia; it has been an experience unlike any other.

What a blessing this year has been! As we reflected we were able to share about some of the reasons why we came here. 

We were also able to hear some interesting things about their first impressions of us as well! We laughed with some of them about how we were not sure how much they understood at the beginning of the year, we thought their levels were lower because they were so shy at first and how most of them were pretty scared of Curtis and I at first. They were so shy then and now they are so confident in their English abilities. If nothing else, we know that their confidence has been built up and that is a big change for many of them!

Needless to say, it has been an incredible year and we are sad to see many of our students go. Our Father has blessed us so much. There have been many ups and downs, but we can already see fruit in what He is doing here through us, and that is more than we expected from this year. We are truly grateful for all that He has done ☺