When Brokenness Began - Nicaragua 2015

Tomorrow marks one week from the day I stepped back into my home country,

and out of the country where I saw, felt, and leaned on God like never before.

 

So much to process, still so much to work through.

Still so much rawness.

Still so much joy from the people there.

 

People ask if we had "a wonderful trip". 

Yes.  Yes, we definitely did.

It was completely life changing, absolutely incredible, and honestly very hard.

I was stretched and pushed and molded by God.

I grew like never before.

 

We arrived in Raleigh for training Monday evening on July 20th, day that was very much anticipated by yours truly.

 

Our mission began with a worship service, and as I stood there, a huge smile broke over my face.

What joy! 

This is where I belong! 

Worshipping my Creator with youth who have the same drive for Christ that He's given me.

Working with teens on a mission to bring Christ to the nations.

This is where I belong.

I knew that God was going to do something great.

I just didn't know how hard it was going to be to get to that place where he could work in me.

 

After a couple hours, the mission leaders began casting parts in the drama.

I was so thrilled with the role I was chosen for.

I wouldn't have rather had any other part, and I was incredibly happy. 

But when drama training began, I flunked...completely. 

That night I flunked,

the next morning.  The next afternoon, and evening, and morning after that.

 

What on earth was going on with me??

I got acting.

I've been involved with it for who knows how long.

I understand it.

Why was I not getting this??

 

I wasn't getting it because I was the one trying to get it.

I was being overly - yet unintentionally - self sufficient.

God can't use that.

Training started, and I thought I could do it.

I knew I could do it.

But God was like, "Um, no you can't."

And I fell.  Over and over and over.

Somehow everyone had no problem learning an intense 20 minute drama in 2.5 days.

I didn't.

I was embarrassed - humiliated, even.

 

And terrified.  I hated feeling so incredibly stupid, and I did. 

I knew people were frustrated with me, I knew they saw my stupidity.  I knew I had to get my part down or I would be replaced in the drama. 

I was so scared and humiliated that I was sick.

But I had to be broken.  I had to get over that "I've got this" mentality. 

 

God opened my eyes, and then I knew.

I could NOT.  God COULD.

I began to say over and over, "when I am weak, He is strong.  When I am weak, HE IS STRONG."

I've "got" nothing.

God has everything.

When I gave up my self-sufficiency, God came in and restored my brokenness.

Now he could begin work with me, and work with me he did.

Through His grace, I learned the drama by dress rehearsal at the end of the our 30ish hours of training. 

 

Before the last practice before leaving for Nicaragua, we had a service where we'd preform the drama for good friends and family.

But before we started the drama, we took an hour and a half to worship God.

An hour and a half that would change my life.

All the team members stood in the front, and we began to pray over each other. 

One by one, we surrendered our fear, and prayed over our peers - our new family.

It was so incredible... the first time I've experienced something so powerful.

To surrender my fear was so hard, but when I began to pray, I filled with such peace that I never wanted to stop.

We felt God.

 

And when it was time to preform the dress rehearsal, it went so well.

I was so proud to have our family and friends come and see us as we prepared to leave as missionaries.

The best feeling in the world. 

By the time we left the church at 12am, we had a total of 4 hours before leaving for the airport at 3am later that morning.

 

But this was only the beginning of our journey to Nicaragua - we hadn't even left the state yet!

What else God was going to do on the trip was beyond what I could have dreamed.

It was going to be life changing, incredible, and it was going to begin to break me apart.  It was going to start tearing down walls in my life that hadn't realized were there.

It was going to be hard, but God would be with us, and that was enough.

 



The Power of Prayer - Pray with Me for the Mac Family!

I'm a work in progress, people. 

So often I think I've finally learned something and then I turn around and God's like, "Wait!  I have so much more to teach you about that!"

So I'm taught more by the master teacher.

One little glitch I have is that I'm a forgetter.  I'll memorize something for school, and then when the test is over, poof!  It's gone.

But not when God teaches me something. 

I carry the lessons he's taught with me all the time.  And right when I need them the Holy Spirit brings them to mind.

Lately God has been teaching me a lot about prayer.

I've kind of always done it, but it's been only recently that I've really seen the power of it.

And that's been incredible.

To see God work and feel like I'm a part of it is amazing!

 

And I want you all to experience that too!

In 4 days (Saturday, April 4) the Maciaszek's are leaving for China to bring home their oldest daughter, Joy.

 

 

This family is one of the best you could ever meet.

They are genuine, keep it real, love hard and follow wherever God leads. 

In only *four* days they will leave for China to meet and bring home their 13 year old daughter, Joy.

My sweet friend, Ashleigh Stem, and I are organizing people to pray for them while they're gone.

We are asking each of you to sign up for at least one 15 minute time slot and pray for them during that time.

We have a list of things to pray for for  anyone who wants to see it on the site.

Please, friends, lets step forward as the body of Christ and pray for this precious family!

 

Please sign up here: Prayer for the Mac Fam.

Thank you!!

 

 



My Prayer - Answered!

This is a school paper that I wrote as part of my creative writing class.

I want to share it here, as I feel it shows my heart towards my sister.

 

Though this is about Bethany, I want to make it very clear that I feel the same way about Kaden, and that he is every bit as much of an answered prayer and blessing.

It was because of the assignment requirements that I do not mention him in this paper.

That being said, please enjoy!

As I gaze down at the treasure sitting contently in my lap, I become keenly aware of something. My dream, my hope, my prayer, has been answered.  I think back to the years of waiting, hoping and dreaming that slowly slid away as I waited.  Even now the truth has yet to penetrate my brain.  My dream has been realized, and yet I fail to realize it. “Do you know who that is?” I ask, twisting one of her braids in my finger. 

“That’s baby me!” She exclaims, recognizing the picture. 

“Yes,” I say, “that is baby you.”  I stop there.   Her two-year-old mind isn’t quite ready to take in the words that have been collecting in brain.  The day will come when we both will be ready; she will be ready to hear, and I to tell.  I want to be able to tell her adequately how cherished she is.  How she is the answer to years of prayer.  How she helps to light the spark that sets the fire in my heart alive.  Her story isn’t mine to tell, but I have a role in it. 

As I have a role in her story, she has a role in mine.  My story goes back to the early years of my childhood, and creeps on up to today.  It goes back to my three-year-old self praying at night for a baby sister.  It goes back to my eight-year-old self longing for a baby to love.  It goes back to my twelve-year-old self, trusting that my prayer would be answered.  And it comes up to today, as my answered prayer sits in my lap. 

So many times I have taken this for granted.  So many times my selfishness doesn’t recognize the miracle of her.  I get caught up in the day-to-day living and fail to make the most of every moment.  Love is a choice that I must make, and today I choose to make it.  I choose to embrace every stage, every day, and every opportunity.  It is not a one-time decision, but one that I must make every day.  I have made my choice, and I choose to love. 



Prayers and Pictures

Kaden's prayers are so cute!  When we pray together, he normally wants to get in on it and

will ask to pray.

Most of the time is prayers go like this:

 

Merci Jazwi (thank you Jesus for)

Momma, Papa... Brittany, Brandon... Momma,  David.... Defany... Brittany...

Mrs. Tomico... Gandy... Papa... Pop... Brandon, Momma, Papa... David... Brittany...

 

Normally by this time Brandon is cracking up, and Kaden interrupts himself and will

reprimand him before continuing.

 

...Brittany, Papa... Momma... David... Brandon... Gandy... Momma...

Brittany... Pop... David...

 

and we continue like that until we finally decide to help him with the Amen.

Yesterday I was able to get a few really cute pictures of Bethany.

She is in such a sweet, content stage right now, and it is so easy to get pictures of her laughing and smiling.  I need to get more of Kaden, but it's kind of hard because he's so active that most of the pictures are blurry.   Anyone have tips on how to get good pictures of active 3-year-olds?

 

 

Kaden

When you look at this picture what words come to mind?

Maybe joy,

trust,

love,

acceptance,

peace.

Kaden is loved and accepted.  He trusts and loves us back. 

We have been enormously blessed that he had always seemed to trust my mom and dad, and that he loved and trusted the rest of us so quickly.

His sense of right and wrong is amazing.

He knows what is wrong,

he wants to do right.

and when he does something wrong feels very bad about it.

Once after getting into a scrape with Brandon, he felt so bad about it that it was all he talked about.

At dinner he kept explaining it to my dad and me (we weren't there at the time) what had happened, although we didn't ask him.

It bothered him so  much that he still mentions it days afterward.
I'm so glad he understands, and that we were blessed with his wonderful personality.

 He is one sweet little boy! 

 



6 Months! But Sick:(

Today, Bethany Jilma Solange Mikolo Gilbarte is

6 months old!

That is quite a long name for such a little girl!

 

I hoped it would be a nice, fun day for everybody,

but Bethany is sick.

so pitiful!

 

Last Thursday she started to get sick, and by Sunday night she was really, really bad.

She was coughing, wheezing, and had trouble breathing.

The doctor said she had a respiratory sickness,

one that couple last up to six weeks, and is very contagious.

It is so hard when she is feeling rotten, and you can do nothing about it.   Please pray for her healing.

But thankfully, she is doing a little better, and even gave us one of her smiles.

Sickness aside, here is the post I hoped I would be able to write:

 

Bethany.

I remember the day we saw her for the first time so clearly...

That morning my dad told me that a new orphanage had just received a two and 1/2 old little boy, (actully he is 3 1/2), who was adoptable.  That was a Monday, and I was on my way to co-op classes, and didn't get many details.  Afterwards, I had to go to swim team practice and didn't hear anything more about it until about 5:30pm, at my brothers baseball practice.

I was swinging, and saw my dad's car pull up.

I walked over to say hello,

"Huge news,"  my dad said.

My mom was with us, and my dad started taking out his smart phone.

"The little boy has a younger sibling?"  My mom guessed.  Adoption was on everyones mind.

"No."  more fiddling with the phone.

"Dad, what is it?"  I asked.

"There's a baby girl at the orphanage,"  my dad started,

"Six months old?"  asked my mom

"Less." 

at this point I literally started shaking.  I remember clenching my fingers into a fist, trying to stand still.

And then I saw the picture.

Above is the picture we saw of her first. 

Below is a picture of when she was about 2 weeks old.

The email was very short.

Baby girl. Email says 4 days old. Looks a little older...  I will send you another picture shortly.

I didn't need any more information.  That was my baby.  That was my sister.  We also saw a picture of Kadi that day, and accept them both.

At that point I was still very sad about loosing Chance and Benjamin, and God really comforted me during that time.  It was so hard to accept, and so hard to realize.   But I was praying very hard for another referral.

God does amazing things.  He simply blows my mind with his power and amazing love for us.

On the night after the day that Bethany was born, I had a dream of a baby. 

 I didn't know what it meant, and I didn't know she had been born until a little over a week later. 

 But I believe that God gave me that dream.  Just as a reminder of his power.

 

Over the months that followed, we didn't get pictures on a regular basis.  Months went by, and we memorized every detail of the three photos we had.  

And when we did get more pictures, it was better than Christmas.  Seeing her grow up without us was so hard.  But we knew that the Lord would bring her and Kadi home at the right time.  (although I forgot that alot, and often wanted my way instead of waiting for God's timing.)

She was about 2/3 months old here, and laying snugly on a pile of clothes!

three months and sleepy!

two ish months old

2 months

two months and smiling!

 

And then, she turned four months old and met her Daddy for the first time!

And then at almost 5 months, met her Mommy!



 

 

 And now she is 6 months, and such a cutie! 

We all love her so. much.

 

 

 

 



The God We Serve

God does amazing things.  He is showing me so much of His power that it blows my mind.

Today I had a couple co-op classes that I go to on Mondays, my last class is photography. 

Today we didn't have a lesson, but went outside to practice what we had learned

 the past couple of weeks. 

I use my dad's camera for this class, because it is a little nicer that the camera I usually use, and someone from his work had worked with the camera a few days before, and I hadn't messed with it since.

When I turned the camera on, something popped up saying the memory card

needed to be formatted, and it couldn't record, etc.  The rest of the class was already out taking pictures, and I ran to my teacher and embarrassedly told her the memory card wasn't working, and asked if  I could go in to get my spare. I ran inside and put in the other card.  To make a long

story short, that memory card was also refusing to work.

I tryed to put the contents on my computer and erase it off the disk, but still it didnt work.

By this time I had been gone about half and hour, I ran back out the rest of the class.  My teacher couldnt figure out what was wrong with the card either, and so I decided to give it up and

watch everyone else take pictures, but I was kind of bummed. 

"You can make it work," I prayed, "I know you can.  Please will you make the memory card work?"

I turned the camera on and the same message popped onto the screen - for 0.5 seconds.  I didnt press any bottons, I did nothing, but the memory card started to work, and I was able to take pictures normally.  The camera was working as if nothing had ever happened.

Sure, you could say it just happened to work, but no. I spent half and hour "trying to make it work"  and it didn't.  God showing me that He is bigger.

He has amazing power.

He can move mountains with faith the size of a mustard seed.

That's the God we serve.



We Feel Them

People are praying for our family, we know it.  We feel them.

Things are going great, please keep on praying!

Our Baby Shower

It is a matter of days until my dad will meet my little sister and brother for the first time.

 

It is only a matter of weeks until they are home forever.

Sometimes seems like a dream to me.  I have thought about the day when they would come home for so long, it doesn't seem real that they'll be coming home so soon. 

 I used to have dreams about having a little sister.  Then I would wake up and remember it was only a dream, but now it is not.  It is a reality.

 

One of my family's very good friends had a sort of baby shower for us a few days ago.  People came and brought baby formula for us to take to the orphanage, and we brought pictures for them to see of our little kids.
Before we left everyone gathered around us and prayed over our family, and for all the changes that will be happening.  That time was amazing.  The power of God was felt.  It was so real, and touching. 
 

Philippians 4:6-7 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Thanks so much to those who came, and to those who made it happen!