How to fix your printer

We got a helpdesk request via email today about someone's printer not printing correctly. My IT co-worker went to check on it. When I checked his task later to see what he found out, I saw:

Mundo de Fe --> Church of Faith

I spent over an hour today, conversing with a Hispanic lady in the mall about Jesus, salvation, and heaven and hell. She believed that the Bible was true, but didn't believe that anyone could ever have a personal relationship with God. Having been raised Roman Catholic and then Jehovah's Witness, I could understand her being a little confused. She told me she was currently attending a church called "Mundo de Fe." My Spanish is pathetic, so she translated it into "World of Faith." Except I misunderstood her and thought she said, "World of Fate." Hmm, I thought. I'm really not sure what kind of teaching she is getting. You can pray for Ricki.

I stopped by the internet this evening to check out the church. Wouldn't you know it, their website was in Spanish. So I called on my faithful Google translator to translate the "creemos" into English for me. It did well enough for me to see it's a Bible-based church, but I must admit that I laughed out loud when Google translated part into believing for "the resurrection of the bran for eternal life--the lost for eternal condemnation and..."

Made me think I needed to eat more bran muffins.

Saturday of service

For a person who didn't really have anything scheduled, my Saturday was a little busy. I started well - getting my grocery shopping finished before 8AM. One of our new staff families was moving from an apartment to their new house, so we helped them move between 8 and 12. My housemates and I volunteered to watch three high-energy kids during the afternoon so their parents could get some much needed sleep after a hectic week in their life. We swam in the nearby pool, read books, took naps, make homemade playdough, and finished off with slushies. I dropped them off at their house and then came back to my house to make cookies for a farewell party. Several friends are leaving next week for seminary in India. I stopped by the party, dropped off the cookies and the homemade cards I had just finished, and then headed on to the Schwartz home to watch their two kids while the parents had a night out.

Now I'm back home and ready for a good night's sleep. I'm so grateful for the opportunities the Lord gives me, not just to reach Asia with the love of God, but to encourage my coworkers with God's love as well.

More training and life

We've rolled out a new software to our staff. It's called Lookout and it works to help them search through their emails and files. (Kind of like a "google" for your email.) My Thursday morning training sessions have focused on this program the last three weeks... getting it installed, how to use it, tips and tricks... and this week - I asked for feedback from the staff.

Mike, our production manager, shared a story this morning. (His joyb is to make sure all the brochures and the SEND! magazine are produced, printed, and mailed on time.) He said that last week he was asked to find an electronic invoice from four months ago. With a whopping 150 subfolders full of emails, finding the email would have taken at least 45 minutes. But he was excited to share that he was able to find it in about 3 minutes with the new software!

Stories like that...that's one reason I love my job. Helping people leverage technology to save time and money -- enabling them to more effectively do the work of the Lord and ultimately plant more churches in Asia.

Thanks for your prayers - I couldn't do it without you!

Moving, engaged, and a wiener roast

And not all to me, don't worry!

This last week was busy - my younger sister Susan moved from Texas back to Kansas. She's been only 15 minutes away from me for 2 years now, so I'm missing her. :(

My older sister C. got engaged on Thursday night. Now they're just trying to figure a date! Congrats!

And add a lack of faith and trust in God to an already emotional week - last week was crazy! Thanks to all of those who were praying for me. Sunday AM, I spent some time with the Lord, writing down the things I was committing (once again) to trust Him for.

Sunday afternoon, we took the interns down to a family's 5 acre plot an hour south of here. We took out the canoes on their small pond, jumped on the trampoline, played croquet, set the volleyball, curled up in a swing and read a good book, roasted wieners and marshmallows, and caught fireflies in the dusk.

It was amazing...perhaps 1/3 of the 16 people there had never been in a canoe, 1/4 had never seen a firefly, most had never heard a bullfrog.

It was a refreshing time - both physically and spiritually. Thank you, Lord!

Grace not of ourselves

Days can be challenging and today was one of those days. My office computer has decided to freeze for three minutes every time I access the internet -- you think I would know how to fix it, what with me being helpdesk and all. But, alas, no. And then there were interpersonal struggles as well. But halfway through the day, when someone asked me how I was, I responded, "Good!" and I meant it. I explained to the person that God was giving me grace to focus on Him instead of my problems.

Then this evening I started focusing on me and my problems instead of on Him. Definitely more depressing. It truly is His grace that enables us to keep our focus in the right place.

Office update: I've got Thursday Training in the morning to help people learn to search through their files and emails more efficiently. Hopefully we'll spend less time searching for things and more time working. For the glory of God!

GFA South Africa: Coming Soon...

We just got word today that the GFA South Africa office got their main non profit registration completed. We've been praying for this for over a year and I jumped for joy when I heard the phone call come in to the publications director. Praise the Lord! Soon, they will be joining us in raising up missionary and child sponsors from the South African Christians.

Please pray for the anti-conversion bill that's been passed in Rajasthan. Pray for boldness for the pastor and Christians in this state - that they would continue to share the Gospel.

On being humble...

This quote was mentioned at prayer meeting on Friday during a teaching about what it meant to be humble: "I'd like to be humble, but what if no one notices?" That struck a little too close to home. :)

Several of the GFA staff/interns were at our house this afternoon for a sari wrapping party. Two of the girls had spent several months in India and were teaching the rest of us how to wrap/dress ourselves in our saris. After we all succeeded, we decided to stop by the local Baskin-Robbins for buy-one-get-one-free sundae deal. The store is owned by a local Indian family--they were so excited when eight of us entered in traditional sari outfits. They snapped pictures and asked if we found the outfits comfortable and where we got them. One of the guys stated excitedly, "I knew there was a good reason I came to work today!"

We enjoyed our sundaes too!

A healthy dose

...that's what Auntie Candy called it. "A healthy dose of poison ivy" in her back yard. "Quite a clump" was another term. I bought a large container of RoundUp poison ivy killer last night. Later I found a smaller (and cheaper) container and resolved to return the large one.

I spent about an hour this evening prowling around Auntie Candy's yard in jeans, long-sleeve shirt, gloves, and face mask. We skipped the smaller container and went straight to the bigger one. About six feet of the fence is surrounded by poison ivy bushes and plants and the other fence has about four feet that is literally buried under poison ivy vines. I hacked through a main life line and poisoned it. We'll see if that works.

Spiritual application... umm... the reason the ivy grew so long without detection was simply because the lady who owned the house before never went outside in her yard. God, are there times that I hide in my house/box/self and never come out to see to see the poison that is growing in another area of my life?

Hmm... I think that's stretching it a little.

Thanks...for the little things

I made a late night run to Lowe's/WalMart for poison ivy killer and gloves for tomorrow's cleaning/work party at CE's house. CE -- we'll call her Auntie Candy -- is our office grandmother and needs a little help tomorrow with lawn work and house cleaning.

While at WalMart, I stopped by the tire section to pick up valve caps for a couple of our bike tires. The sales guy walked me to the right section...but they were out. Out. I've probably checked seven-eight times in three different stores for these 67 cent caps over the last while. They're always out. No, I replied, I don't want the flashy $3.00 ones. I want the 67 cent ones.

I was finishing at self checkout with my poison ivy killer when I heard, "Ma'am?" I turned to see the employee from the tire section holding out four valve caps in his cupped hands. He quietly dumped them in my hands and left without a word.

"Thank you, sir!" I called after him -- suddenly aware that I never saw his nametag.

Thanks, God.

Praise for Nepal

The best way to get over not blogging is to post. Sure beats feeling guilty.

I should have kept you updated on the struggle in Nepal as it was going on. Hopefully you followed along in your own news sources. Praise the Lord! The daily bloodshed has stopped for the time, the political parties are uniting for democracy, and many areas of the GFA ministry in Nepal are able to function again for the first time in weeks. Continue to pray for peace with the Maoists who are still skeptical of the idea of democracy.

Thank you for your prayers for unity in the house - God is working and will continue to grow us to be more like himself as we pray together.

The last two weeks have been a good reminder to put my faith over my feelings--trusting in the Lord no matter what comes my way. And the Lord has been faithful to give peace as I put that trust in Him.

I'm so blessed to be able to plant churches with you!