I WENT TO THE ZOO TODAY - AND GOD HAD ALREADY BEEN THERE

 

Last week Jim and I were in Florida and spent a morning at the Naples Zoo.  Having lived in New Jersey all our lives, our zoo “standard” is the Bronx Zoo in the Bronx, New York.  That zoo is a huge oasis of green nestled right in the midst of a thriving urban area, incongruous amidst apartment houses, grocery stores, shops and non-stop traffic.  Although all that human activity makes the Bronx a noisy place, if you listen carefully you can hear the completely unexpected sound of a peacock’s call.  When I think of the word “zoo”, it’s the Bronx Zoo that comes to mind.

 

The Naples Zoo is also nestled in a quiet area in an unexpected part of the city of Naples, but in contrast to the Bronx Zoo, it’s tiny . The Bronx Zoo could be an all day visit if you take your time to see everything.  The Naples Zoo can be seen in its entirety in a few hours.  Like the Bronx Zoo, the Naples Zoo has some of the usual exhibits, but not nearly so many. The landscaping of the Naples Zoo does not say “Bronx, NY”.  Rather, it distinctly says, “Florida”.  As you walk the paths of that zoo, there are groupings of different kinds of cactus, palm trees and an assortment of beautiful flowering bushes blooming all year round, and no traffic noise to distract.  And it’s usually hotter, even in February!

 

What I love most about the Naples Zoo is some features I’ve only seen there.  One is the daily alligator feeding.  There is a tranquil little pond in the middle of the zoo where, at first glance, you can see two or three alligators floating quietly on the surface.  But when the keeper arrives with lunch, the two or three suddenly become fourteen - all hungry alligators waiting for the keeper to feed them some chicken.  This the keeper accomplishes – by hand!

 

I’ve seen the alligator feeding a number of times and never cease to wonder how much they pay that guy to do his job, because while he’s feeding one the others begin clamoring around, getting closer by the second, jockeying for position, so as not to miss out on their share.  It’s easy to see why both the keeper and his assistant carry poles with which to poke an alligator’s snout when he gets too close!  They could never pay me enough to do his job!  Alligators can eat you!

 

While the keeper is keeping the alligators occupied, his assistant enlightens us spectators with facts about alligators.  Like the fact that alligators can swim at the speed of about 30 miles an hour, but they aren’t very fast on land.  Water is where they are most at home. And the fact that Florida is home to a whole lot of alligators, as well as some salt water crocodiles.  There’s just no escaping them!

 

What I found most fascinating wasn’t so much the alligators as the birds – a huge number of them – nesting in the trees within a foot or two of the alligator pond.  The keeper’s assistant drew our attention to them, but I think most of us had already noticed the beautiful white crane community crowding the trees at the edge of the pond.  He explained that the birds deliberately make their nests close to where the alligators swim – not because they’re not in danger of being alligator food, because they are – but because those alligators tend to keep all the birds’ other natural predators away, so their EGGS won’t become alligator food.  He said they occasionally lost a bird that way, but for the most part all of the eggs laid by the birds were completely safe from predators due to their fear of the alligator body guards.  How did those birds figure that out?

 

My other favorite exhibit is the giraffes.  I’ve seen lots of giraffes in zoos but never  up so close and personal as at the Naples Zoo.  The zoo has seven young adult male giraffes in a large pen with a high chain link fence, but what’s unusual is that zoo visitors can get relatively close to the fence.  When you do, you get a much better feel for how truly big those giraffes are.  Their legs are as long as my entire body, but when the length of their necks and the bulk of their torso is added, they tower above me.  These most elegant and majestic of creatures have always fascinated me. 

 

With such an up close view, this time I was struck by the boney structures on their heads and between their eyes, and I wondered for a moment why they needed them, but I didn’t wonder long.  While their keeper was filling us in on interesting facts about giraffes, two of the taller ones off in the background began making a lot of noise.  What they were doing, explained the keeper, was “necking”, entwining their necks and butting their heads as a means of establishing which one of these feisty young guys would emerge dominant over their little giraffe community.  I never before knew that giraffes engaged in this kind of rough and tough behavior. It did explain the need for those horns!

 

The other interesting and unique thing about the giraffe exhibit at the Naples Zoo is that they make available the purchase of romaine lettuce leaves with which you can feed the giraffes.  While some of the giraffes were busy establishing dominance, the less dominant few were lining up for free food (free for them, not for us)!  There is nothing so awe inspiring as having a giraffe extend his neck down and over the fence in order to take lettuce leaves right from your outstretched hand. 

 

While we watched one doing that, the keeper drew our attention to the giraffe’s tongue.  The giraffe, due to its height and inability to use its limbs for such things, is able to use its unusually long tongue like a prehensile thumb, grabbing the leaves and then, as an elephant does with its trunk, rolling the leaves up in its tongue to transport them to its mouth. 

 

Before we went to the zoo that day, I had been working on a series of lessons on the life of the Jewish patriarch Jacob whose story is in the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible.  I plan to teach a series of classes on Jacob’s life in the fall so I thought I’d get a head start.

 

I had just finished looking at Genesis 28, verses 10-22. In the preceding chapters, Jacob had first talked his brother Esau out of the birthright reserved for him as the eldest by tempting him with a plate of food.  Then, with the help of his mother Rebekah, Jacob deceived his father Isaac into believing that he was Esau, and also stole the blessing reserved for the eldest brother.  When Esau heard what Jacob had done, he vowed to kill him as soon as their father died.

 

In chapter 28, Jacob, the home body, favorite son of his mother Rebekah, has hurriedly left home – ostensibly to find a wife among his mother’s relatives – but also to protect him from a very angry Esau’s vengeance. 

 

When night came, Jacob fell asleep with a rock for his pillow, and he dreamed a dream in which he saw a “stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

 

Above it, Jacob saw the Lord Himself, and heard God’s voice speaking words he had probably heard before – maybe from his grandfather Abraham, certainly from his father Isaac.  The Lord said to Jacob:

 

“I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, and to the east, to the north and to the south.  All peoples of earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am going with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

 

The words were very important for they were the words of God’s covenant promise, issued first to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham and then to his son Isaac and which God was now offering to Jacob as well. 

 

What struck me from a passage so familiar to me, and which kept going through my mind as we did our zoo visit, was what Jacob said in verse 16:

 

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

 

I have visited the zoo, the one in the Bronx and the one in Naples (and even the one in San Diego, CA) before and it would have been natural to visit again and enjoy the zoo for the zoo.  But Jacob was on my mind and I thought, “Surely the Lord is in THIS place”, so I looked for Him there, and found that He had been there before me, long before me.

 

He’s the One who made alligators to inhabit ponds, to move fast in the water, to live long lives, to inhabit warm, humid climates, to lay eggs and offer protection to birds. He’s the One who gave herons the “knowledge” to build their nests in trees near alligator ponds so as to protect their eggs and ensure the continuation of their species. He made giraffes to have long necks and legs. He made them beautiful and majestic, and also strong and protective.  He made them with tongues that were uniquely formed to give them aid in finding food high up in trees and then efficiently and effectively getting it into their mouths.

 

It’s easy to walk through a zoo, or anywhere really, and be completely unaware that the LORD is “in this place”, but if we keep our eyes open, we see Him everywhere - in all that He has made.  His creation brings Him glory and gives us joy. 

 “Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.” Psalm 111, verse 2

  “You make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.”  Psalm 92, verse 4

I'M SORRY MRS. ELWOOD, BUT YOU HAVE CANCER

 

 In the spring of 2004 I was visiting with my mom in Florida when I had a medical issue.  I wasn’t worried about it particularly, it was just unexpected.  So I made plans to see my doctor when I got home.  I did, and he didn’t seem especially worried either, but he sent me for a few tests.  When the last one came back he said something like, “this kind of result favors a pre-cancerous condition”, which sounded just a little too vague to me.  He ordered another test, a surgical procedure this time, done in day surgery, which should help with a more definitive diagnosis.

I wasn’t satisfied, so I did something I don’t necessarily recommend, but which turned out to really help.  I looked up the term he gave me on the internet and found that it didn’t just FAVOR a pre-cancerous condition, it actually WAS a pre-cancerous condition.  Now maybe that just sounds like splitting hairs to you and you’re wondering why I didn’t put that together in my head – but this was MY body and MY brain trying to absorb the news and I didn’t get it until I saw it on the internet.  After all the internet is ALWAYS right, right?  J

Armed with the information, between the time the doctor gave me that news and the time I had the surgical procedure, I’d had time to accept the fact that I just might have to have the thing OUT before it became actually cancerous. 

During the procedure biopsies were taken and I was told the results would be in in 3-4 days.  Well, they weren’t, and it seems they never are when we’re waiting for potentially life changing news.  So I waited an entire week without hearing.  I lost some sleep, I lost some peace of mind, and I played some mental ping pong.  “No news is good news.”, I told myself, except when I told myself that not hearing must mean BAD news!

I remember when the call I had been waiting for finally came.  It was the last day of summer camp for my granddaughter Emma, who was 7 at the time, and we were at this great day camping place in New York State where there was food and games and Emma could swim with her friends.  I had a great day in the sun doing some needle work, and chatting with other parents and grandparents, periodically checking my cell phone, which never rang, just in case THAT day would be THE day.   

Around 3 PM we boarded the buses to go home and then the calls, which hadn’t reached me before because we were in the woods, set my phone buzzing like mad!  The first message didn’t bode well.  It was from the doctor’s nurse telling me to contact the office immediately for an urgent message.  That message was followed by a few other equally urgent sounding messages from the doctor’s office.  I called back right away but by then the doctor had left and was actually on his way to a vacation in Cape Cod and would call me himself with the results.  More gut wrenching waiting!  It’s the worst, isn’t it?

I will never forget that particular weekend in August because for weeks we’d been planning a long weekend away in Pennsylvania with our daughters, their husbands and our granddaughter.  If this was bad news, and it obviously was, it could ruin the weekend we had all been anticipating.  So, while waiting for the doctor’s call, I decided that whatever it was, we would not tell the girls until the end of the weekend.  So Jim and I packed up the car and with dampened spirits, headed out to Pennsylvania. 

And then the phone rang, not even a mile from the house.  I already anticipated the gravity of the diagnosis, but still the words sent shock waves through me – “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this Mrs. Elwood, but you have cancer.”  I could see Jim’s face go white as a sheet as he drove and I listened to the rest of what the doctor had to say.  I would need a hysterectomy as soon as possible but we wouldn’t know the extent of the cancer until after the surgery.

The doctor was on vacation but, bless his heart, he had already taken the liberty to schedule the surgery for that Wednesday, and he would return from Cape Cod for a person to person consult with him, and pre-surgery testing for Tuesday. 

It seems crazy now, but the first thing I remember feeling was relief that we wouldn’t have to cancel our plans with the kids.  And then the fear set in.  How bad was this going to turn out to be?  Was I facing the start of end of my life?  I could see the impact of this news on Jim’s face and my heart went out to him.  When we stopped for sandwiches to eat on the way I can remember saying something to him about how we were going to trust the Lord in this and not give way to fear, all bluster for his benefit, because I was scared to death!

The start of the Bible Study Fellowship year was just about a week and a half away and as the teaching leader, I was responsible for conducting an all day training session for our class leaders, so I started making phone calls – to the area advisor who would have to do the workshop for me, to other leaders who would pray for me, to family members who were waiting with me for the test results. 

And then something happened that can only be explained as a supernatural working of the Holy Spirit - faith kicked in and with it peace filled me, the kind of peace that settles like a blanket and immediately calms the heart and mind.  I was definitely afraid of all the unknowns ahead, but at the same time I was suddenly also confident in the Lord.  The Lord was with me, He knew this was happening and He knew the outcome.  I could trust Him, for myself and for my family.

I had decided that I would say nothing to the family until Monday, our last day in Pennsylvania and amazingly, the Holy Spirit kept me so completely at peace that I enjoyed every single minute of our time - in the pool, playing mini golf, having meals, and spending a day at Hershey Park.  Every morning before anyone else was up, I headed out to a cozy, quiet place in the lobby and spent time reading God’s Word and praying.  Those times with the Lord were amazingly calming.

On the day we went to Hershey Park I had a call from the hospital arranging my pre-operative testing and one of the girls overheard, so I had to tell, a day before I wanted.  And it did change the remainder of our time together.  The fun was over for them, and fear and anxiety set in.  It’s funny to think back on it now because everyone else was upset while I was at rest in the grace of God so I was doing the comforting!

The next few days went by in a blur.  The day of the surgery everyone was with me beforehand.  I would be out for what lay ahead, but they’d spend an anxious time waiting for the doctor to come with the results.  And when he came, they were good.  The cancer had not broken through the abdominal wall, and in the end, I wouldn’t even need chemo or radiation treatments.

I don’t know when exactly a specific Scripture struck me, but when it did, it was from the gospel of John, chapter 11 where it says:      

Lazarus, brother of Jesus’ friends Mary and Martha was sick and the sisters sent for Him saying: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”  When the servant arrived with the message, Jesus heard it and said: “This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

That’s how I felt about the cancer that I had and then just as suddenly, didn’t have.  God didn’t plan for it to lead to death, but to glory, His glory, so that Jesus might be glorified through it.

And I hope He was.  I hope that when others marveled at the incredible peace they saw in me they knew it was Jesus, the Prince of Peace, pouring out His grace on His child. 

One day I will receive a diagnosis for a sickness that will end in death.  On that day, I trust that the grace and peace of Jesus will be just as evident in and through me, settling my fears with the comfort of His presence.  I hope that on that day what will be remembered is the love of Jesus for His child and He will be lifted up and GREATLY glorified.

 

“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”   The Apostle Paul, Phillipians 1:20-21

RETIREMENT - ONE YEAR LATER

A year ago now I wrote a blog about the difficulty I was having anticipating Jim’s retirement.  Although it seems ridiculous now, it was no joke a year ago.  All I could think about, completely selfishly, was the impact it was going to have on ME!  

Here’s how my mind went:

·        Jim will want to spend all his time with me.  What about seeing my friends?

·        We’ll be down to one car and I’ll never go anywhere alone again.

·        I’ll have to give up my freedom to minister wherever and with whomever the Lord directs me.

·        We’ll have to pinch pennies.

·        He’ll be underfoot every day and I’ll lose my independence at home.

I’m embarrassed now to read all those self centered things!  I’m embarrassed that I thought so little about Jim’s adjustment and so much about my own!  How completely and utterly selfish!

I should have remembered back then one of my own Dot-isms:  95% of the things we worry about never come to pass!

·        Jim’s late nights at work never were caused by car accidents, although I ALWAYS worried that they were.

·        The test results never were cancer (except once), although I’d lose sleep over EVERY test, always imagining the worst.

·        The job interview, or the yearly review, was always better than I thought it would be, although I never thought that would be the outcome.

So why did I think that retirement would be so confining?  Habit, I guess.  One that’s way past needing to be replaced with TRUST.

Jim is a great guy and a great husband.  Spending more time with him has been one of the BEST perks of his retirement.  We have lunch together, we go to the gym together (if he didn’t go I’d NEVER go, so this is GOOD), we have regular Tuesday date nights because now he’s never home late!  

We share our car, but I’m the one using it most.  I still have complete independence, just the way I always did when we had two cars.  We do go more places together but it's actually fun!

Jim has found plenty to do.  He does some consulting in accounting, he is our church treasurer, he does taxes.  He’s free to say yes to serving in the kitchen for the church’s senior luncheon, for painting the hall ways at church, and for helping to install new cabinets in the kitchen there.  We don't always do things together.

Now we can stop for lunch when we’re out on an errand, go to a movie in the afternoon, go on a trip overnight in the middle of the week, spend a week in Florida in FEBRUARY!  I love this retirement thing!

And instead of having to “give up” ministry, the Lord has expanded ministry horizons for me to include teens, and that keeps me thinking young!  

I wish I could say, when it comes to worrying about the future, “I’ll never do THAT again!”, but knowing me, I’ll forget all about that Dot-ism, and have to learn the hard way that while the future will mean change – the change doesn’t have to be BAD.

It can turn out to be exciting, interesting and always new!

YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

I love my life!  It’s joyous and satisfying, and I sometimes have to pinch myself that I get to live it!  

Each week I get to lead middle schoolers through a passage of the Bible and then step back and observe while they learn to think biblically and apply God’s Word to their everyday lives.  Now and then they also share how what we learned impacted them in a given week.  It’s awesome to watch the Lord at work in them!

For 12 weeks this fall and winter I studied faith lessons from the life of Abraham in the book of Genesis and listened as women volunteered answers and shared what they were learning as we looked into a passage together.  Sometimes they told me later what impact a lesson had on their marriage, or in their walk with the Lord.  How exciting!

I get to catch a glimpse of what the Lord is doing in the lives of numbers of women of all ages as the Lord grows them into the godly wives, and mothers, and young adults He sees them to be, and I think:  life just doesn't get any better than this!

I’ve noticed something recently however.  I’ve noticed that sometimes ministry gets in the way of my own relationship with the Lord.  I find that I get too busy to pursue Him, too busy to spend much time in prayer, too busy studying in preparation to teach others, so that in the end, I have no time to spend listening to what the Lord wants to say to ME.  

It makes me wonder, have I been settling for the good (and it has been better than just good, it has been GREAT), and missing the Lord’s best?

I don’t think for a moment that all of these wonderful opportunities to teach and to serve are things from which the Lord would have me turn away.  No, I think He is the One doing the leading, the One guiding me into these opportunities.  But I think He just might be reminding me that I need to be very careful not to let the gifts become more valuable and precious than the giver.

In “My Utmost for His Highest”, for February 6^th, Oswald Chambers referred to Abraham’s near sacrifice of his long awaited son, Isaac.  Abraham had been given wonderful promises by God which were for him and his descendants.  The only problem was that at 75 years of age, Abraham didn’t have any descendants.  The Lord promised him that he would indeed have a son and the promised son finally came, miraculously, 25 years later when Abraham was described as: “as good as dead”.  

Since the Lord had promised Abraham that it was through Isaac that all the promises to him would be fulfilled, it undoubtedly came as a complete surprise when God asked Abraham to sacrifice that very son as an offering.

We’re told in the New Testament book of Hebrews, in chapter 11, that Abraham went ahead with the plan to sacrifice his son, reasoning that if the Lord had given him this son, and all of the promises made to him were to come through Isaac, and now the Lord was asking him to sacrifice that son – then the Lord intended to raise Isaac from the dead.  At the very last moment, God stayed his hand and provided a substitute for Abraham's beloved son (foreshadowing God's own sacrifice of His Beloved Son, Jesus, who would die and be resurrected). 

Chambers applies this to his readers in the here and now when he says:

“Are you ready to be poured out as an offering (the way Isaac was)?  It is an act of your will, not your emotions. . . . . You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents – burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose – the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. . . . Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.”

For some reason, reading that made me wonder whether my joyous and satisfying life is centered more in “affection not grounded in or directed toward God”.  

Has doing ministry been displacing God from His rightful place in my heart?  

That question comes again to the forefront of my mind:  If everything were stripped away, and I had only the Lord, would HE be enough?  if tomorrow my health should fail, or my life circumstances change - and all I know and love were stripped away -

would my life be as satisfying and joyful as it is now?  Would knowing the Lord and fellowshipping with Him - with nothing else to occupy me - be enough?  

Where does my joy and satisfaction rest - in ministry or in the Lord Himself?

I can tell you I’ll be thinking and praying about this for a while, giving over my other affections, so that nothing gets in the way of God proving "Himself to be all I've ever dreamed He would be."

THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF WALKING WITH JESUS!

A couple of years ago I became friends with a lovely Peruvian lady who works at a local diner bussing tables.  I took 3 years of Spanish in high school more than 40 years ago now.  I was not very fluent in the language then, so as you can imagine, I’m even LESS fluent now.  Martha speaks almost no English as well, yet somehow, we manage to “converse” about children, grandchildren and the weather.  That friendship made me think that it would be so helpful to learn to teach English as a second language so that Martha and others like her might better adjust to their new culture and navigate more easily.

With our close proximity to New York City where many men work, our county draws people from all over the world.  The street we live on is a cul de sac on both sides and the population occupying the homes represents people from all over the world!  We have Asians – Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese.  We have East Indians.   We have Philippinos, Malaysians, Egyptians – all of them first generation – and their children, some of them American born.  And then we have us - second, third and beyond European types but we are quickly becoming the minority!  We don’t have to travel far these days to hear other languages and experience another culture – and I love it!

After meeting Martha one of the desires the Lord put in my heart was to get some kind of training in ESL (English As A Second Language).  It wasn’t long after that I notice a flyer at our library offering free training and I was very excited!  The down side was that the training was offered at a time when I was not free.  

The next year it was advertised again and my excitement was renewed, however, I discovered that with the training came a commitment to participate in the library’s ESL program for a year, meeting once a week for an hour and a half with your student.  That year I was doing a number of other ministry related things at church and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the commitment, so I had to let the opportunity go.

Then finally this fall everything came together.  The class was offered at a time I was free and I thought I could fit the year long one and half hour sessions into my schedule, so I signed up.  I met with about 20 others for 8 hours total of training, which was interesting, informative and challenging.

The librarian trainers told us that most of the people who are interested in ESL tutoring are beginners.  Although I’m a trained teacher, all of my teaching was with young children.  That lack of experience teaching advanced grammar concepts, combined with the many years since I’d actually studied English grammar, made me anxious about teaching anything but a beginner.  So I breathed a sigh of relief.  

And then I received information about the young woman I’d be teaching – she was described as intermediate.  I immediately began to kick myself for not paying better attention in class when they gave some suggestions for teaching intermediate students!  In her e mail of information about my student, the librarian said that if I thought for any reason the match wouldn’t work, I could request someone else.

I have to admit, my initial thought was, “yes”!  I thought I was getting a beginner, I’d never done this before.   What would I do with someone who might actually need help in advanced grammar???  

And then I stopped whining and complaining, and faith kicked in.  I knew the Lord had been leading me to do this for some time.  I hadn’t requested any particular level of student because I had prayed for the Lord to do the matching, so now I had to walk by faith that this student was HIS student.  So I said yes and made arrangements to meet Eri.

Eri is a lovely young Japanese woman (whose name is actually pronounced Eddie) and has been living in the states for some time.  She’s the mother of two young children and her husband works in New York City.  In her former life, before kids, she was a dietician in Japan, so she’s well educated as well as sweet and smiling and polite.  And her grammar is excellent!  Whew!  What a blessing!

In those first conversations back in the fall when we were still finding out about each other, Eri told me that she and her husband had been living in Idaho (yes, there apparently really are people living in Idaho – although I have never met anyone else from there – sorry you Idahoians!) while Kaz went to school.  There they were befriended by Kaz’s ESL teacher – a woman who, along with her husband, had been missionaries in Japan for 19 years and who had a ministry to international students!

I heard “missionaries” and my heart did a flip!  That was the confirmation I needed that being paired with Eri was not a chance encounter.  It was a divine encounter, orchestrated by God to bring her and me together.  

At some point I mentioned something about my church and Eri told me that they attended a Christian church in our town.  When I asked if she was a Christian, she said, “We’re learning”.  I was already impressed that this young couple had sought to continue to learn about what it means to be a Christian by venturing out on their own here in New Jersey to become part of a Christian fellowship.  That takes courage!

So Eri and I are new friends, but we are more than that, because the Spirit of the Lord is moving in both our hearts, drawing us together and blessing us in ways neither of us imagined, and in ways we’ve yet to see.

Following Jesus is an adventure – an adventure that has taken me to exciting places I didn’t plan to go and never would have dreamed.  His plan for us is so much bigger and better than anything we could dream for ourselves.  

And what could be better than encouraging someone seeking to know Him so that one day they too will walk with Him.  And I didn’t have to go to Japan to do it!

Want to live more than just a ho-hum Christian life?  Then “delight in the Lord” and let Him put HIS desires in your heart, and get ready. . . . adventure will surely follow! 

All you have to do is say, “Yes, Lord, lead the way.  I’m right behind you!”