Getting Hopeful

Today I'm at the Crowe's nest keeping an eye on the little chickens while Bruce and Deb are in Kiev. Chili's on the stove, and Noah is awake and dry and running around making interesting small child noises. How he's grown! Everybody seems so settled and I can't help thinking how far the household has come since a few months ago when everyone was floundering in construction dust and disarray. It's nice. The kids are so well behaved and helpful, getting all their chores done after I got here this morning, and now playing quietly on this rainy day...

It's strange to see rain after all the snow. Last night the ground was complete ice from the front door to the outhouse, and despite careful manouvering, I managed to fall smack on my back just as I was reaching for the door knob. Broke some blood vessels, bruised an elbow, and got a stiff neck out of the deal, but I was just thinking, "It could have been so much worse!" I could have knocked myself out and been still lying there in a cold puddle when Masha returned from youth group hours later. Danger lurks everywhere :)

I'm getting excited about things God is showing me about being here. Of course I wanted to come, but in some ways it was really painful coming back. Now I'm getting hopeful. I couldn't possibly be working with a better family. Bruce and Deb are so gracious toward me, and keep emphasizing that what they want in me is a joyful helper, with the main weight resting on joy. Whatever I can do joyfully. I often worry about what I'm doing, if I'm doing it right, how much I should do...but as Bruce said, "Less is more," and it's more the joyful attitude in the things I do, whether little or much. I want to be diligent, but I guess most of all it's just holding on to that joy.

God is doing crazy things at my house too. Since Masha just uses the house and doesn't have to pay rent, the owners still come around some, even though they live elsewhere. There are four grown brothers and a sister. A few days ago the sister was there with her boyfriend, I was frustrated because I felt like my privacy was infringed on, the guy was smoking in the house, and the people themselves just annoyed me. I had a bad attitude about that and was going around doing the dishes and just wishing they would go away.

Then the guy came in and asked for the cd player, and I was about to take my worship cd out of it, but he said, "no, no...it's fine," like he really wanted to listen to it. So he took it in the other room and turned it on, and they were sitting there listening to my itunes mix of Hillsong, Rick Pino, Matt Benson, etc, all these great worship songs. It just hit me that instead of listening to raunchy music about ungodly things, they were sitting there listening to songs proclaiming Jesus in our house, and it brought tears to my eyes. They don't really understand the words, and I know that music is just music, but I've been praying that Jesus' name would be known in our house, and that really meant something to me.

So God worked on my heart and softened it up...I realized, "Wait a minute, Jesus made friends with these kinds of people," and that really convicted me. And then I realized that I'd been asking God to give me contact with unsaved people and I didn't know how I'd find a way, and there, He had brought them literally to my door. Through my door.

I've been reading Blue Like Jazz, and I love it. I feel like Donald Miller was able to put into words answers to so many of my confused wonderings. I love the chapter where he talks about loving other people like Jesus did, and I think it's affecting me. He was just saying that we can simply love people and like them for who they are without being afraid and without feeling like it's our job to fix them. He described an example in his own life with a guy he really didn't like, and how no amount of judgement and disapproval could make the guy change, but when he started treating him with love, the love changed the guy. I guess that's like saying that Jesus changed him.

So I thought about that a lot, and my attitude changed from judgment and irritation to thankfulness to God for this situation, and an eagerness to honor these people and just be ready to like them. There are good things about them just like there are bad things. I know that God really, really wants to rescue them out of their hopeless cycles of sin and mess, and I want them to know Him.

If you want to pray for them, there's Anya & boyfriend (don't know his name) and Vova & girlfriend (Julia) and then two more brothers whom I haven't met.

Let the kingdom of Jesus come!