More of the Journey

June 14, 2009

Well, it's a new day, and actually a beautiful Sunday. It's quiet at my house, a rarity, so I am going to take this opportunity to continue writing.I began to realize in January of 2008, that the Lord was speaking to me about China. I returned from Texas and continued to seek the Lord about this China thing. I meet with a great friend, Kayla, once a week, and have coffee, well, I have water, not much of a coffee drinker, and we have God talks. I am her mentor, but I learn so much from her. We were at St. Arbucks, and I was brimming over with what the Lord had been doing in recent months. I shared briefly that I believed He was speaking to me about China. I talked to her about the book I read, 'Safely Home' and the vision and the dream. We were both amazed and continued to move on to other topics.A few days later she returned from a weekend away, and handed me a book. This time it was 'Heavenly Man', the true story of Brother Yun. He is the leader of the underground church in China. As I read this account of his life, the challenge and the change in my heart went deeper. My heart was very moved as I read the trials and challenges the persecuted church goes through just to live out their faith.In February of 2008, my husband and I went away to Sun River Or. for a prayer retreat.A couple from our church blessed us with the use of their timeshare condo. We were really looking forward to it.I am married to the best of men. He knew I wasn't myself lately and in the days leading up to the retreat had asked me if I was ok. I assured him, yes, that I would share what was going on in my heart when we were alone. We live in a house full of activity, so it's hard to have any lengthy discussions, we usually have to leave to talk to have any privacy.We walked and prayed and read. It was a wonderful and refreshing week. At times though, I would be so overwhelmed with thoughts of China, that I wanted to get away from it. I decided to pick up one of the books I had brought to forget for awhile. This is a book about the heroes of faith from the turn of the century. It is filled with minibiographies of missionaries and evangelists and church leaders from days gone by. I thought this would be an excellent distraction. I picked someone in the middle of the book, a widow from San Franscisco who owned a large Victorian home with lots of room. The Lord gave her a ministry to be a mom to missionaries that came off the field. She would cook for them and take care of them for a few days or a few weeks. She would minister to their needs. They left her feeling refreshed and ready to do God's work again.A couple came to her, you guessed it from China! She hadn't yet been filled with the Holy Spirit, and they prayed with her to receive her prayer language. At this time the Lord gave her a burden for CHINA! And her prayer language was Mandarin. Which was very remarkable, but even more remarkable to me was, even when I wanted to get away from it for a while I could not!!I had decided to tell my husband everything, the vision, the timing of receiving the book and the dream. On the last night we were there, we went to this great little Italian restaurant in Sun River. During dinner I started to share what I had been going through the last few months. First the vision, then the book, and lastly the dream. You have to know something, there is no one on earth I respect more or love than my husband, I never realized I could love one man so much and for 30 years too! He has been there through thick and thin and the valleys and the mountain tops. He has been an excellent husband and father to our six children, and a great provider. Through it all, he has remained my best best friend. The last thing I ever wanted to do was 'rock his world'!So the tears started and I asked him if he would be willing to pray about adopting. He looked down at his plate of food, probably losing his appetite, and said, "Yes, I am willing to pray." I loved him more at that moment than ever, because he is a man of his word, I knew he would pray.There is more to come, this is lengthy, but I don't want you, the reader, to miss any of the details. Our God is intricately involved in our lives.