July 7-8, 2007

Dear Diary,

This weekend was a difficult weekend for me. Our meeting this last Sunday was 7 hours away in Nebraska. This meant that we had to leave on Saturday morning by 9:45 at the latest to make it there by 4:30, which is when we try to arrive every Saturday at each of our meeting destinations. We got off to a slow start Saturday because we were both so tired. This week was hard for both of us with the 4th throwing off our sleeping schedule, and Andy has been working tirelessly on a craft that we're planning on giving the 150 kids we meet at the camp out East next month. So, both of us walked through our traveling routine with no motivation or energy. We finally got on the road about 45 minutes later than we had planned. It was easy to tell we were both desperately short on sleep. I was looking at our checklist for the weekend and I saw that we were not scheduled for any of the morning services, but only for the evening service which was scheduled to start at 7:30--what?! That means the earliest we'd get back into town on Sunday night/Monday morning was 4:00am! At that point, I had given in to grumbling and complaining. In my mind I had all these thoughts going on: I started to wonder why we were traveling all that way for just one service, which probably wouldn't be well attended, and ultimately put our health and well-being at risk, when we could be getting so much done at home instead. I couldn't see it at the time, but I realize now that I was sounding a lot like the Israelites wandering in the desert who questioned why God had led them out into the desert just to make them wander for 40 years. They began to grumble and complain and doubt God's leading on their lives. The Lord has led Andy and I out into this pre-field ministry. We've been doing this for over a year now. We've been presenting for 12 out of the last 13 weeks, which has left both of us feeling very tired and ready for a vacation. Saturday night I picked up my Bible and started to look through it turning to each of my bookmarks. I have several bookmarks in my Bible, which I like to revisit sometimes to see why I have bookmarked them. That night I turned to my bookmark in 1 Chronicles. It was a letter from Aunt Janet. The verse talked about serving God with all my heart and a willing mind...how convicting! I turned next to my bookmark in Psalm 9. It was a torn out devo. from "Our Daily Bread." One of the verses talked about giving thanks to God with all my heart. These two passages had such similar wording and it was a good lesson for me: serve the Lord with all my heart and a willing mind, and give thanks with my whole heart. Even though this journey may be challenging, I shouldn't question God and why He may have us attend these sometimes difficult meetings. He has us in each place for a reason, and I should be thankful for each opportunity we have to present how God has led us, and to share His work. Maybe this weekend His reason was just to teach me this lesson, and reestablish my outlook on pre-field ministry. By the way, the pastor heard that we were traveling back after the night service, and moved the time from 7:30 to 6:00 for us so we could get an earlier start. So, we got home at 2:30 instead of 4:00! I thanked the Lord right away for that--with ALL my heart!