Balls and Story...

In May 2008, my husband returned from Malawi, Africa with this picture of a precious little boy holding two "balls" - made of plastic bags and string. My husband said the back of his shirt was completely missing. His shirt was only being held together by the collar.

A few months later, my daugther tries out for a travel softball team and she makes it. The team asks us to raise $1000 for her, so that she can have two uniforms - with her name and number on the hat, batting bag and shirt.

A few weeks later, Stella Kaisyre had dinner with us. She lives in Malawi, and she is supported by my church to attend to the many needs of the people there. She had hosted my husband and the team while he was there.

During our conversation, I was just chatting about my daugther making a travel team and that we had to raise money for her. Stella says, "How much money?" I could hardly speak. I wanted to crawl under the couch or throw up. "A thousand dollars", I said.

A week or two later, it was my nine year old son's football "homecoming" weekend. He wore a clean, crisp navy and gold uniform with this name on the back of his shirt. The parents brought paint to paint the cars, team tatoos for our faces, matching scarves for each mom, cow bells painted with the team logo and then we decorated a rented trailer with streamers and ballons. And of course, we already have photo buttons to wear too. The football team gets to ride in the trailer for about 5 minutes and then we tore off the streamers and ballons. The trailer had to be returned. And then we went to a large football feast party afterwards.

I just felt sick. Look at all we have. Look at the waste. Look at how over the top it is. The little boy with plastic bag balls continues to flash in my mind.

OK, my family is over blessed. I have to do something. A friend of mine says, "Blessed to Be a Blessing." I emailed Stella and told her that I would like to buy soccer balls for the kids of Malawi. Could she buy them there? Would it be helpful or would it just be more than she wanted to add to her plate?

She responded by telling me of a upcoming youth camp in November. Two kids would be chosen from 100 churches. They would love to have t-shirts, bibles and balls for each child that attends. The balls would be used by the youth clubs to prepare for the annual " Msungamoyo Trophy ", sponsored by World Relief Malawi. "It means Preserve Life."

I got to work. With one phone call, I was able to get 50 free soccer balls donated by "the soccer family" of Chicago and money was given to cover the cost of 50 netballs ordered from India. With more emails and phone calls, t-shirts were donated at cost and the money for the bibles was donated. Wow! I couldn't have planned this on my own. It has to be God moving.

A week or so later, I was showing the picture of the African boy above to a friend and as I stared at it, the face of the little boy (on the right) popped into my head. This is the little boy that I played with every day after school on the farm that I grew up on. His name is Pookie, and he was my best friend. We played Dodge ball everyday, and we danced liked crazy too!

Then I realized that God's story (the upper story - meeting the needs of kids in Africa) and my story as a child had just collided.

God can use all of our story for kingdom purposes.

Here is a picture taken in November 2008 of the kids in Chitipa with their new soccer balls! God is good. He wants us to have the thrill of doing his work of bringing heaven to earth.

Infinity and Beyond

Last week, I had a list of errands to run. Before I got started, I decided to slow down, read my bible, think and pray. I left the house and ran by the Jewel to get some strawberries, but they were too expensive. So I ran by Home Depot and then Joe Caputo's grocery. (Yes, I am going somewhere we this...) As I left the store with huge bag of strawberries, I was leaving the parking lot and noticed an older women pushing her cart through the parking lot. She was looking around everywhere for her car. She reminded me so much of my 85 year old mother - petite in size. She was dressed very well.

I decided to do a u-turn in the parking lot, so that I could ask her if she needed help. She did. She was looking for a 2 door gray Infinity. I drove up and down each car aisle and found no Infinity with 2 doors. I drove back to her and told her that I couldn't find it either. I then asked her if she wanted to get in and ride around with me. She said that she would, so we loaded her groceries in my car. A minute after she got in, she said that her husband had died six years earlier. I could tell her heart was still broken, so I asked her how long had they been married. She replied , "54 years." She also told me that she lived at "Sun City...you know...where the old people live."

We continued to drive around, but nothing of her Infinity could be found, so I drove to the Home Depot parking lot and nothing there either. We began to think that her car might have been stolen. She did say that she remembered seeing the flowers in front of Caputos and that she had gone first to the granite counter store, but that they had been closed. So I headed up to that strip shopping center with the granite store...quite far from Caputos, and there the Infinity was parked. We loaded her groceries and she hugged and thanked me.

When I left the parking lot, I was in tears. Most of the time, I never slow down to see a need or hear a prompting from God, but this time I did. I slowed down to read the bible, to think and to pray and shortly after that, I was going slow enough that I felt a prompting to make a u-turn in the parking lot to help out a precious lady that needed a little help.

How many other times have I hurried past Infinity moments like this and missed on what God has for me? Do you fly right past those moments too?

My "Rock"

Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it "Ebenezer" (Rock of Help), saying, "This marks the place where God helped us." 1 Sam. 7:12 (MSG)

My "rock" story begins with the birth of our first son, Brock. He died at 6 months old after heart surgery in 1994. Our church and Sunday school class prayed us through this horrible valley. A couple of years later, I was expecting again. The doctors were concerned about this child's heart as well. While in the womb, we were told that the baby was a girl and that she had Hypoplastic left heart. A heart defect far worse than what our son had. She would need a heart transplant at birth or 3 heart operations before she reached the age of 18 months. We were devasted. We traveled to Boston and Atlanta for 2nd and 3rd opinions, and each doctor had the same devastating news. During the months leading up to her birth, my husband and I could barely function, but hundreds of prayers were being brought before God on our behalf.
My husband, mother, mother-in-law and I flew to Michigan in August 2005, so that we were at the best place in the country for her delivery and heart operation. I delievered her on August 15, and she was taken immediatlely to the NICU. A couple of hours later, a pediatric cardiologist showed up in our room and said, "There is nothing wrong with heart....". It was an amazing miracle. At that time, my husband said, "Life will never be the same." And it hasn't. We have been sold out to our faithful God ever since that day.