I am a happy, happy woman. I got to spend most of the day with my mom, sis, and daughter. And this weekend some of my other best girls, Janelle and Ella, are coming to visit. How blessed am I?

Last night we were at church and after fellowship supper a sweet lady came over to our table and handed me this. I could not imagine what was going to be inside this great, big, orange Home Depot bag.

And behold, there were many Moon Pies!

I think it’s safe to say that due to the generosity of our amazing blog community, the Moores now have a lifetime supply of Moon Pies. Thank you, sisters.

I delivered the goods to my parents’ house this afternoon and took one home as payment. It got a little melty in the car, but I revived it through refrigeration. Now Jackson and I are going to split it for our snack. I’m having mine with tea, which is probably a sacrilege to both Moon Pie eaters and tea drinkers.

All I can say is YUM.

Here are links to all of the Siesta Scripture Memory Team posts from 2009. We plan to do another round of SSMT in 2011.

Introductory post
Tutorial videos

Verse one
Verse two
Verse three
Verse four
Verse five
Verse six
Verse seven
Verse eight
Verse nine
Verse ten
Verse eleven
Verse twelve
Verse thirteen
Verse fourteen
Verse fifteen
Verse sixteen
Verse seventeen
Verse eighteen
Verse nineteen
Verse twenty
Verse twenty-one
Verse twenty-two
Verse twenty-three
Verse twenty-four

Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration recaps

Siesta Scripture Memory Team messages

Hey, Darling Siestas! I’m back at my desk at Living Proof Ministries, Melissa is back at hers in Atlanta, and AJ and her family are about to board a plane and head home from vacation. Hallelujah! Whatever this wild family’s normal is, we’re happily returning to it. I have not seen my baby girl in two and a half months, a near-record for us, and she’s heading from Atlanta to Houston on Wednesday. We have an in-house ministry thing she’s coming to attend as well as Miss Annabeth Ellen Jones’s baby dedication at our church. We are looking so forward to our family all being back together again. If I don’t get those grandbabies back in my arms soon, there’s gonna be heck to pay.

Actually, I could have kept all that family news to myself except that I had you on my mind, particularly in view of some heavy things I’ve read in the last 24 hours. I just thought I’d share a verse with you that I have right in front of me today at my desk. And, yes, jotted down on an index card. And, no, it’s not a memory verse (yet). Just an encouragement verse and I wondered if somebody could use it today. It’s Psalm 94:18-19 out of the New English Translation:

If I say, “My foot is slipping,” Your loyal love, O Lord, supports me. When worries threaten to overwhelm me, Your soothing touch makes me HAPPY.”

If perchance worries are threatening to overwhelm you this Monday morning, I pray that You will sense His soothing touch…and it will make you purely happy. Maybe even giddy. We could use some giddy today.

I love you, Siestas. Take heart! Jesus has overcome the world!

Hey Siestas! Is there anything you want to say to your mom today? Or anything you wish you could say? She may already be Home with the Lord like mine is but sometimes writing out what is on your heart, even if the person never reads it, can be healing. On the other hand, she may be very much alive but face-to-face is just too awkward to say what you wish you could say. The blog is yours today for “Dear Mom” letters. Just keep them to one reasonable size paragraph . It may take a few hours for you to be able to see your comment so don’t be alarmed. I’ll be at church then at lunch today but I’ll be very attentive when I’m home. I love you guys. Happy Mother’s Day to you Moms!

PS. It’s been several hours since this post went up and you guys have me just about bawling my head off. Some so sweet and some so painful. The Mother-Daughter thing can be very complicated. I’m like many of you. I could write a letter that goes something like, “Dear Mom, I love you and miss you so much. You were my best friend and favorite person for such a long time. So hilarious. Such a great story teller. Honestly, the world’s best grandmother. I wanted your favor more than anybody else’s on this earth. I would have done almost anything to get it and keep it. I wish so much things would have been different those last couple of years but we will make up for lost time when I see you. What a day of rejoicing that will be! No more sorrow. No more fear. I love you forever, Beth.”

My Dear Siestas, it has been way too long! I’m sitting here in my gown in my very own bed with pillows behind my back and Star lying across my feet. (She has no intention of taking her eyes off me today. The last time she looked away, I disappeared for 5 days.) I’ve already had prayer time and two cups of coffee. About to start on my 3rd.

So much has happened this week that has deeply impacted me but nothing, you might imagine, more than Melissa’s post. I sat in an exhausted heap at a long layover at an airport yesterday and read and read and read the blog and your comments. It was everything I could do not to roll in the floor. It was so much more than I deserved but a spring to a weary soul. I love my girls so much. I don’t just love them. I respect them. Like so many of you, they are such fine and gifted young women. God has given Keith and me no greater proof of His grace and redemption on our sinful, former pit-dwelling lives than our two daughters. Both of them are a little undone that they won’t be home for Mother’s Day this year (btw, look for a Mother’s Day post tomorrow – I think God has given me kind of a neat idea) but I have told them over and over (and meant it) that I am among the most blessed moms on earth who hear every single day from their children that they are loved. We are a very close family and they are my favorite people – wise and impossibly witty – on earth. Thank you for allowing us a little room to be family on this blog.

Many years ago I heard someone say (don’t even remember who anymore) that “no amount of success in ministry can make up for failure at home.” And I wrote that in the very front of my Bible and have it engraved upon my brain. Family life is tough. It’s never all clean and tidy because it is lived wholly without cover. We Moores, Jones’s and Fitzpatricks are not without bruises and scars from all-things-family but to know each other intimately and still respect each other is a profound gift of God we do not take lightly. I say again and again to you in hopes that you will be encouraged to hang in there, our family is a miracle and He can perform that same miracle in your home.

And now, for just a few other highlights – written in long hand, of course – from a very exciting week in Washington, DC. Because you’re my dear Siestas, I’m giving you the personal goods:

*Being told by a darling young woman that I mentor that, in her intercession for me, she’d never prayed so many patriotic prayers in her life and, at the end of a very intense time of prayer (by herself) for our national leaders, NDP, and those of us serving in the observance, she didn’t know any other way to close it. So she put her hand over her heart and said the Pledge of Allegiance. I laughed so hard I cried. I thought of it so many times during the week. But then when we said the Pledge together in the Cannon House at the actual observance, surrounded by these difficult days in our country and mounting persecution against the belief system upon which it was founded, my lip quivered so hard I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.

*Spending the week with Travis and Angela Cottrell. I’ve told you before how much we love these ministry partners of ours. These two unlikely couples have been on a wild ride with Jesus together for eleven solid years. We can almost read each other’s minds at this point. We pray for one another, serve together, and laugh until we cry together. Honestly, we laugh so hard sometimes we throw ourselves into muscle spasms. And Keith and Travis tease each other unmercifully and wrestle and punch each other, for crying out loud, like they are nine year-olds. If I snapped my fingers and said, “Stop it!” one time to the two of them this week, I said it a hundred times. Lord, have mercy. Then Travis gets up there and sings and I think, honestly, that he is the most gifted man I may know. Mystifying.

*Touring Mount Vernon. I’m not kidding. It was THE most interesting thing!! I’ve been to D.C. many times but I’ve never been able to take the time to go on the tour of George and Martha’s homestead spread. It is the coolest thing ever. The grounds are gorgeous and the house so entirely telling of what their lives were like. (Did you know he had step-children and no natural heirs? Did you know he and Martha raised their young grandchildren after the deaths of their own children? And did you know they had overnight guests several hundred days a year??) Michelle Parrozzo, my new assistant (Amanda’s age and a long time friend of Amanda’s), worked in D.C. for 6 years (in the Whitehouse, Pentagon, etc.) and, through her long list of connections, she was able to get the Cottrells and us (and her and her good friend, Lauren) a private tour. Mr. John Marshall was our Mt Vernon expert-guide and I learned later that he had the opportunity to personally tour actor David Morse as he prepared for the role of George Washington in the superior HBO miniseries, John Adams.) We history nuts were completely bug-eyed. I learned later that evening that they used to display George Washington’s Bible in the exhibit but it has been removed in light of all the secularization of recent years. (It’s a privately owned park so it’s not a government thing.) I found that flabbergasting.

*Having dinner with Caroline and Karen. The evening of the tour, we had an NDP dinner right there at the Mt Vernon facilities. Keith and I had the pleasure of sitting at a table with several courageous (and fun, by the way) God-seeking congressmen and their wives. Needless to say, I soon migrated to more personal conversations with the women. They were both absolutely delightful. Karen Pence told me something that I’ve replayed in my mind over and over. She said that a while back she checked with her husband’s office staff about what they’d need to expect schedule-wise regarding this year’s National Day of Prayer. One of the staff members wrote her back with details and told her that a woman named (well, you know…that’s so awkward) would be speaking and that she’s some Bible lady. Karen said her response was, “That’s my Bible lady!” Turns out she’s done many studies with us. It was one of the most wonderful things anybody has ever said to me. I was so tired on the plane ride home that tears stung in my eyes every time I thought about it. I have loved serving you women so much. I’d be honored to be your Bible Lady any time and would marvel over the grace of God to this needy life.

Caroline was equally delightful. She was from Alabama so her accent drew me in immediately like a bee to a honeycomb. I discovered in our conversation that she and her good friend, Sharon, had developed a reputation for their pound cakes and been encouraged to go into business. Pound cakes?? Did someone say pound cakes? Outside the Word of God and a great time of worship, can anything on earth minister like a pound cake? I sat straight up in my chair. These were words worth listening to. Worth salivating over. I learned that Caroline and her buddy have developed a small business right there in their own kitchens in D.C. and, since they’re both proper Southern women, they named it “Two Belles.” I assured her I would place an order the moment I got home and it was all I could think about that night. The very next night at the next NPD gathering, lo and behold, Congressman Aderholt delivered me two pound cakes, compliments of his beautiful wife. One was called “The Annemarie” (cream cheese!) and the other “The Miss Becca” (chocolate!). (They offer seven flavors and each is named for a woman who inspired the recipe.) Keith and I tore into those things with violence the moment we got to our rooms. Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. THE POUND CAKES OF MY LIFE. Honestly, we brought those babies home on the plane and I ate pound cake for breakfast just a few minute ago.

*Meeting honest-to-goodness present-day Esthers like Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and Congresswoman Michelle Bachman from Minnesota. They LOVE Jesus and serve Him and the people He’s entrusted to them with utmost integrity and with a strong swim against the current. And don’t forget that God used Vonette Bright and Shirley Dobson to found and direct the annual observance of the National Day of Prayer and each has served several presidents of the United States. It really is awe-inspiring. (Y’all know me better than to think I’m on a feminist binge here. Woman to woman, I’m just telling you about some hard-working Esthers on our planet right this minute.)

*The Thursday observance itself at the Cannon Building. Profound. Surreal. Everything about it but here are a few things that especially moved me: the Joint Armed Services Color Guard marching in with the “Presentation of Colors” at the very beginning. My heart was pounding like a drum; the Ambassador of Zambia praying for our country in her wonderful thick African accent. I thought my soul would jump out of my skin; the official and personal message of General James F. Amos, USMC to us. He was so impressive. Everything you’d want a General to be. And he loves Jesus. His testimony took us straight to the battlefield and exploded our appreciation for our troops like fireworks on the fourth of July. Keith and I have talked about it many times since Thursday.

*Our NDP chapel at the Pentagon. Keith and I got to go alongside Dr. Ravi Zacharias and his wife, Margie, when they served in this position last year and we were both greatly moved by the people at the Pentagon observance. To be there this year was beyond what we could have imagined. Whatever you may be picturing, they were the furthest thing from stiff and formal. Very, very warm gathering. Sweet time of praise and worship. Many in uniform. Others right beside them who labor in administrative and support roles every day of the week. I share this with you to boast in Christ alone – goodness knows it was only grace – and because I know you won’t take it any other way than a sister sharing a highlight: they presented me and Lillie Knauls (who sang in the observance) American flags that had hung over the Pentagon. It was baffling. I would have given anything on earth for my dad, retired Army Major Albert B. Green, to have been there with me. Keith and I remarked later that he would have been right there beside us…and insistent on wearing his uniform, no less, whether or not we thought that was the best idea. Incidentally, he was buried in it. And rightly so. He bore a scar on his cheek where he took a bullet right in the face protecting democracy.

*Immediately flying out of D.C. in a bouncing prop plane in cloudy weather with the Cottrells and our good friends, Herb and Dona Fisher, to one of the largest NDP observances in the nation in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We would be on the platform there in only a few hours. I cannot tell you what it was like to go from the very (appropriately) intense atmosphere of our nation’s Capitol into an open air, outdoor praise and prayer celebration for NDP in Pennsylvania. Both were so memorable and so distinct. Approximately 18,000 people gathered on those green grounds on the most beautiful afternoon and evening you could possibly imagine on the tail winds of an Eastern storm. Dona is the chairperson for that NDP event that she began under God’s leadership eleven years ago with 350 people. Oh, what God can do through a willing soul with vision! Through the years it grew into 10,000+. The gathering of diverse people (a number of Mennonites) from every conceivable background and denomination for corporate prayer on behalf of our nation was simply amazing. Dona chose children and high school students to lead the prayers this year and it was the sweetest, most convicting thing ever.

Well, OK. Enough is enough. But you prayed so hard for us, I could not even consider pitching you a few dry leftover bones. You mean more to me than that. I wanted you to taste the event like a piece of Southern fried chicken. Or maybe like a pound cake. You can have cream cheese or chocolate. I’m going to go cut us both a piece and pour me another cup of coffee. I wish so much I didn’t have to eat your part.

Siestas, I love you like crazy. Thank you for welcoming my family and me into your lives. Our deepest desire is to serve Jesus Christ. He is IT.

Today I’m just a little girl who is proud of her Mom.

Kids get to be proud of their parents, right?

Right this very moment I am watching a live stream of National Day of Prayer.  I am so proud of my Mom.  I’m not proud of her for being chosen to be part of a certain task force.  It actually has nothing to do with that at all.  I am proud of her for possessing and exemplifying those basic but rare virtues such as courage and bravery.  There she is standing under a “National Day of Prayer” banner, completely and utterly out of her comfort zone.  She is not a political figure.  Washington D.C. is not her lair.  She is just a simple woman who believes in the biblical discipline of prayer.  Now, this post will probably be deleted when my Mom sees it because she will likely be too embarrassed by its contents to leave it up.  

But, for now…the blog is mine.  Muahahahahaha!  Hence, the title of this post.  That’s what Amanda gets for being on vacation.   

Last week when I was in India I got the incredible opportunity to meet a Pastor’s wife named Beena.  What is amazing about this story is that Beena had just composed a two-page handwritten letter to my Mom and sent it through snail mail before she ever found out I was in Calcutta.  A friend of hers learned through the blog that I would be in the same town where she lived and through about a dozen other providential occurrences, I actually got to meet her in person on my very last day in Calcutta. 

Beena and Melissa:

I wish I could tell you more about her story because it is remarkable.  For now, I will just tell you that she is currently teaching my Mom’s study on the tabernacle “A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place” in Hindi and Bengali.  And by that I mean that she actually translates the material into Hindi and Bengali herself.  She and her husband run a house church composed of about ninety people.  The overwhelming majority are Hindu or Muslim converts.  The Bengali community is one of the least evangelized ethnic groups in the world.  She is one impressive woman.  Beena told me that she would often do the Bible studies with tears running down her face and that she would pray that God would give my Mom a hug from her so many miles away, half way around the globe.  She told me that even though she and my Mom had nothing in common except the Lord, she felt so close to her.

And then she asked me a question:

 “What do you think your Mom has done right in raising you up in the Lord?”

What is strange is that even though I get this question quite a bit, I actually sort of went blank during that particular moment.  I guess I didn’t know where to start.  But, I think today I realized that it has to be her example of serving the Lord without hesitation.  For not allowing her fear of failure to dictate her decisions.  For not only taking the “safe” ministry opportunities to protect her own name or reputation, but for taking the “risky” ones, too.  So, Beena, if you’re reading all the way from Calcutta, I think that is my answer. 

So when you do read this, Mom, and before you erase it, I want you to know I’m just so proud of you.  I don’t say it enough.  I love your purity of heart.  I’m proud of you for not buckling under so much pressure or saying “no” to various ministry opportunities even if they are intimidating or even if they have potential to draw criticism.  I’m proud of you for refusing to polarize or to let one group, sect, or denomination completely “own” you but to just serve in whatever capacity you are given.  Today you are my hero.  

I want to be like you when I grow up. 

So, I’m praying along the same lines as Beena right now.  I’m asking that the Lord would give my Mom a hug from me.  If He can do it from Calcutta to Houston, I reckon He can do it from Atlanta to Washington D.C.

It’s a dangerous thing to leave the blog into the hands of the youngest daughter who happens to be a blog-co-contributor and who has all too often been known to have very little, if no filter at all.  So don’t ask me any controversial theological questions, or I just might lose my job. Wink. 

Much Love to You,

Melissa 

P.S. This is the first time in about two weeks that I haven’t talked about Compassion.  I think I’m going into withdrawals.  Adding the link makes me feel a little bit better though.  Can’t come off cold-turkey, right?

He is saying, “Please pray for us.”

Seriously, can one heart take it?  That’s what nine-year-old Manot was trying to tell me.  After all the gifts I had brought him.  After all the food we had served him.  After all the fun we had.  This was his one urgent request:

“Please pray for us.” 

I assured him through my tears that I would never ever stop praying for them.

That was the last verbal exchange we had before we said good-bye with oversized lumps in our throats and then we waved and waved and waved.  I can’t count the times they looked back at me.  They hung out of the window of the van, and we blew about a million kisses back and forth.  As the van started to move, I felt my heart sink.

Will I ever see them again?  

Will they make it? 

Angie and I both looked at one another, each of us looking to the other for some much-needed consolation. I realized quickly I wasn’t going to get it from her.  And she certainly wasn’t going to get it from me.  We were both a mess. Both of our eyes were fixed on the van.  We just kept watching it.  Until the van was no longer in sight. With tears welling up in my eyes, I asked Angie if she thought we would ever see them again.  Then we both broke down and lost it.  That heartrending moment lingered for what seemed like forever.

And then I knew we needed comic relief so I reverted to my humor defense mechanism and said, “Considering our tolerance for curry, the reality of a return in the near future doesn’t look promising, does it?”

And so we conjured up half a smile through our tears.  We just had to. 

Here is a picture of the two of us in a moment far less intense than the one I just described.  

I can’t tell you how badly I wish my two kids had electricity and wi-fi to go along with it.  How bad I wish that they could read this post.  I know I can write them but I want them to hear my heart right this very moment.  I would say to them, “Manot, I love you.  And Pramila, I love you.  And I’m not just saying it because you need to hear it or because I know your parents probably don’t say it often.  A week ago that might have been the case.   But not today.  Today I awoke with thoughts of you.  Wondering what you are doing this very moment, so many thousands of miles away from me.   Hearing the faint pitch of your sweet voices and your quirky laughter.  Worrying about what you’re eating.  If you drank enough water to be satisfied. Picturing you, Manot, smiling and kicking around a soccer ball in the hot sun and you, Pramila, scribbling on the new drawing pads we bought you.  Your project leader told me that you are going to be a great artist.  Mostly, I want you to know that I’m praying for you.  Praying that you will live to declare how lavishly our God has loved you through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Praying that in spite of all that you may endure, that you will know that our God is good and that He loves you with all of His heart.  Please pray for your Sponsor-Mom, too… she needs to remember how good God is in spite of all the hardship you’re facing as well.” 

Oh, what a deep imprint Manot and Pramila have made on this hard heart of mine.  And not just the two of them but all of the people, so deeply loved by God, in Calcutta and India at large who must fight for their survival, each and every day.  I could never have prepared myself for all that I saw last week.  For example, during one of my visits to a devastating slum, a half-clothed, poverty stricken crippled man with his back hunched over in a ninety-degree angle limped slowly over to me.  He had purchased a coconut for me with whatever small amount of money he did have and then proceeded to slice the top open for me to drink so that I could be protected from the heat.  And mind you, I was the one going back to the air-conditioned hotel.  Not him.  What was I supposed to do with that?  And that is just one of about several hundred stories I could tell. 

Because we each had experiences like this and because I am sure our eyes were about to glaze over, the leaders of our group called for a debriefing in lieu of a corporate lobotomy.  During this debriefing they gave us a safe place to talk about what some of us were feeling and thinking.  It was great but we really needed another entire week to hash it all out.  I’ll never forget the words that Shaun Groves said before we left the debriefing.  He asked us this question:

“Now that you know, what will you do?” 

He continued by saying, “You’ve spent your words lavishly on the blog, now it’s time to spend your lives.”   Talk about messing me up.  And so it was to this tune that our re-entry began.

I will confess something about myself.  You know that I’m going through an emotionally or spiritually trying time when I bust out one of the movies from “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy.  Other girls may bust out “Sleepless in Seattle” or even “Pride and Prejudice” but I bust out Tolkien.  There was one awful season in my life when along with reading the books, I actually watched at least one of the films every night for two months.  I wish I were exaggerating.  You can ask my Dad because he was so ready for me to get a grip.  I was totally hogging the television and he had deer-show watching needs that definitely were not being met.  And, yeah, I know…spending three hours a night watching movies wasn’t exactly good stewardship of my time. But it’s the truth.  I nearly have the entire Trilogy memorized.  And that is saying a lot since most of the proper names sound exactly the same. 

Well, yesterday, it happened again.  This time my victim was “The Return of the King.”  Have you ever seen it?  Do you remember the last scene when Frodo unexpectedly boards the ship to sail to the Grey Havens? Throughout their life-threatening journey to Mordor, Frodo and Sam kept dreaming about such things like the taste of the strawberries on the Shire but when Frodo actually does get back to the Shire, for some reason, it is like he can’t fully enjoy the normal comforts that the Shire has to offer.  I’ve always speculated about why exactly Frodo has to sail to the Grey Havens.  I think that Frodo has just been through too much.  His scars run too deep.  After years of being back at the Shire they still haven’t healed.  In the movie he asks the rhetorical question: “How do you pick up the threads of an old life?  How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?  And then he explains, “There are some things that time cannot mend.  Some hurts that go too deep…they have taken hold.” 

But I’m not a hobbit.

And this is real life. 

I don’t get to sail off and escape from the white shores into a far green country under a swift sunrise with Gandalf.  

Ironically, my life just happens to be deep in the heart of excessive American culture.  And I’d by lying to you if I said I don’t enjoy it.  The honest truth is that I know myself.  I know that quickly normal life will pick back up and the temptation will be to forget all I have seen.  To move forward without any change.  While others around me may wish for me to hurry up and acclimate to normal life again, my fear is that I will too quickly move ahead.  That I will forget all I have seen, heard, touched, smelled, and felt. 

I know myself. 

I’m just an All-American twenty-six year old girl, consumed with comfort, security, vanity, wealth, and materialism like the “best” of them.  In light of who I know I am I feel compelled to ask that the Lord would perform a miracle on my behalf- that he would keep the emotional wounds that were carved during the past few weeks from healing. Now, I know you may think I’m a bit morbid, eccentric, or even just plain weird.  But that’s okay, because I’ve been called far worse, I’m sure of it.  So this is my prayer today- that time won’t have its typical way with me.  That the sharp edge of the sting I feel deep in my soul won’t ever be dulled or alleviated.

With so much love and affection,

Melissa 

P.S.  Thank you for coming away with me to Calcutta.  This blog community has floored me with its willingness to pray for us and also to get on board with what the Lord is doing through Compassion.  I want you to know that your generosity has been noted.  Those of you who are already sponsors with Compassion and are interested in visiting your sponsor child in the future should click here for more information.  I know the trips might be costly and time-consuming but if the Lord paves the way or places it on your heart, then check it out.  You are an amazing group of people and I am so honored to “know” you through blogland.  Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  By the way, I also want you to head to read a post written by Patricia Jones, one of my new favorite people in the world.  In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful posts from the entire trip.  

Hi Siestas! It’s AJ checking in on this beautiful Monday. I have lots of things to share today.

A) Right now my parents are on an airplane flying to Washington, D.C. My mom has the incredible privilege of being this year’s honorary chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. The NDP Task Force has a very informative and helpful web site that you can check out here if you’d like to get involved. The National Day of Prayer is actually this Thursday.

My parents could really use your prayers this week. In addition to attending a number of dinners and meetings, Beth will speak at a women’s breakfast on Tuesday and participate in multiple radio interviews on Wednesday. On Thursday she will give the NDP Task Force address in the Cannon Building with Chairman Shirley Dobson, address a group at the Pentagon, and then fly to Lancaster, PA, to address a large gathering there.

Please pray for my parents to be led by the Holy Spirit in everything they say and do and bring glory to God. Pray for perfect health, restorative sleep, energy, endurance, joy, peace, and protection. Please pray that they will sense God’s presence with them. Pray that they will be able to focus fully on what they are doing and not be distracted by anything going on at home. Thank you so much, ladies.

B) We have chosen the book for our Summer Siesta Bible Study! We will be doing Me Myself & Lies by Jennifer Rothschild. Our poll in late March showed that half of you had already done Esther, so we decided to do a study that more of you would be able to participate in. We will post all the details you need to know very soon, but you can go ahead and get your workbooks (aka “member books”) now. The Summer Siesta Bible Study is something you can do with a group in your home, by yourself, with your BFF, or with a group online. Like I said, we will have many more details to come, but you can be thinking of how you want to do it in the meantime. The study will take place from late June to early August.

C) Melissa is home, safe and sound! She got home yesterday and it was so hard for me not to call her right away and ask a ton of questions about the trip. We did talk this morning for about an hour. I think we could have gone on another 5 hours without any shortage of things to talk about. The only reason we ever got off the phone was because my parents wanted me to bring the kids by their house before they left! I missed my sis so much and I’m really proud of her.

D) My little family of four is going on vacation tomorrow, hence today’s blog post overflowing with information. The blog may be pretty quiet this week with Mom and me out of town and Melissa recovering from her India trip. Melissa is going to check in tomorrow morning though.

Thank you, Siestas, for loving and supporting our family. Your prayers make such a huge difference in our lives. May we all love and serve Jesus well this week. See you soon!
Much love,
Amanda

Is that green stuff tape? Um. If not, what is it?

May 1, 2009.

A day filled with an endless number of paradoxical emotions and expressions.

Glory and sadness.

Joy and grief.

Laughter and tears.

This morning everyone was full of great excitement, for the day had finally arrived.

The climactic moment of our trip.

The day for which we’d all been waiting.

But I’m not ready to tell the whole story yet.

I don’t have the time to do it justice.

For now I will say this, after the kids arrived the whole crew of us set out to a place called “Science City” which reminded me a whole lot of a museum in the 80’s. Just a whole lot less advanced. We did all kinds of fun things. We went to a planetarium to see a movie on Mt. Everest. We walked through all kinds of trippy mazes. We listened to them giggle and scream in a 3-D movie.

Then we did something completely disturbing.

We rode on a gondola ride in the third world. I was completely and utterly against this idea but Shaun Groves and Spence Smith, our quasi-evil Compassion trip leaders, apparently wanted to send me over the edge of whatever sanity I have left at this point in my life and insisted upon on seeing the world of Calcutta from a string since this was “the plan” that the Compassion India leaders had already made.  As if I am not already in need of a lobotomy.  I was like, “Since when can plans not change in third world?” But my perspective was not taken into consideration and so we boarded the Gondola. A gondola ride which looked like it had been built in the 1800’s, I’ll have you know.  The kids you see in this video are my sponsor children and you’ll hear a lot more about them in two days when I get back to the States.

For now I leave you with this video that documents a serious Melissa meltdown. I promise, you’ll be “dumber”.

To be continued…

And P.S. In all honesty, Shaun Groves and Spence Smith are the best Compassion trip leaders. Ever. And as of about seven minutes ago, it’s Spence Smith’s birthday.  So if you have a minute go and visit him and wish him a Happy Birthday in Calcutta.  

And Mr. Fitzpatrick, if you’re reading. I’m coming home soon and I love you madly.

Calling all Scripture-Memory Siestas: It’s time for Verse 9! Get those spirals out and ready!

We purposely reserved the blog all week for Melissa to share her India trip with us but, needless to say, we have to push pause long enough for our Scripture memory team to sign in with our verses. I’m so anxious to hear Melissa’s report about the Compassion blogger team meeting the children they sponsored that I told her to go ahead and post even on the same day if she has it ready. SO, you may end up with two posts today. Keep an eye out!

I have relived so much of my own time in India through Lis’s vivid descriptions. As I looked at the pictures she posted for us, I had the same thought that occurred to me over and over while I was there: the stark contrast between all the brilliant, rich colors and the darkness of poverty and oppression. They are honestly the most beautiful people you have ever seen in your life. The children are breathtaking but the shocking life they are forced to live is so haunting that a pang goes through your heart every time you picture one in your head.

That’s the real price of a mission trip. You can no longer act like those kinds of conditions don’t exist. So many stories stick out in my mind from the time I spent in India but one in particular recurs in my thoughts almost weekly. I’d been in southern India the first week where there is a large population of Christians and where our women’s groups were comprised of hundreds. I spent the second week in northern India. A completely different story. We went places where you could get arrested if you crossed certain verbal perimeters in public. We served in areas where people who put their faith in Christ signed up instantly for a life of persecution. Stunning. Here’s what I will never forget: one evening I addressed a small group of women in a very modest meeting room. I prepared a Bible lesson that I prayed would reach across our cultural barriers. The twenty-or-so women sat on the floor and listened carefully and respectfully as I shared through an interpreter but I could tell we were not connecting. I mean, why should we? What on earth did I really have to say to them? We had almost nothing in common. I was nearly shamed. I kept delivering the lesson but, in my spirit, I was imploring God for a breakthrough. Then the oddest thing happened to me.

It was like God reached all the way down into the recesses of my memory and emotions and pulled up to the surface the part of me that had experienced abuse and oppression and helplessness. He touched off a whole part of myself I do everything possible to avoid. It was as if all of it had happened the day before. I went straight to my knees and began crawling from woman to woman, laying hands on them and praying things over them only God could have told me to pray. I bawled and they bawled. I wish you could picture the interpreter crawling right behind me. The Holy Spirit fell on us that day and I knew right then one of the reasons God allowed me to have those horrible experiences. How could we even begin to know what others are enduring if no suffering has come to us? We can say the words but nothing is quite like feeling the feelings. No, I still couldn’t enter into their world or their insurmountable challenges and, yes, I’d been free of that oppression for years and they probably never would be this side of Heaven. Still, it was the closest I could come to sharing some small measure of their pain. That evening in northern India was one of the first times it occurred to me that other people could become worth what you’ve been through if Christ could touch them through you. I’ve thought it many times since then. God alone is worthy.

Thanks for letting me share that with you. I’m so proud of you for jumping on board with sponsorships and copious prayers for the Compassion children that I hardly know what to say. Never EVER feel pressured on here about any kind of participation. I mean that concerning everything from Scripture memory to summer Bible study to Siesta Scholarships and to Compassion children. Only do what the Holy Spirit Himself prompts you to do. Otherwise, you’ll miss the ecstatic joy that so often follows obedience. We’re just sharing our ministry lives with you as we live them.

OK, I haven’t forgotten what we’re doing on here today. It’s time for Verse #9! Please, please, PLEASE don’t quit! Our minds are being renewed. Can’t you feel it??
Here’s mine. I just love it! You’re welcome to share it if you’d like:

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. 1 Peter 1:8 NIV

Let’s hear it, Siestas! Name, City, Verse and Translation!

I love you so dearly and I am honored to serve this generation beside you. Keep the faith, Darling Things.