A Return to Blogging and travels abound

Stay tuned as adventure is on the horizon.

Isaac (18), Lucas (9) and I are heading to Meru, Kenya in Africa in just 18 days.

Today as I was running through my mind the things I need to prepare for, I began to think one thing I could do is to blog while we are there.

My sister, Linda and her husband Paul will sort of be showing us around while we are there.  The organization we are going to be spending the most time with is called Ripples International.

Linda and Paul got hooked up with Mercy Chidi and her late husband about 10 years ago as they were starting this organization to help children affected by AIDS, and abuse in Africa and those simply abandoned on the streets for whatever reason.  It is a sad state of affairs there in many ways.

We felt called to go work with Mercy since Linda and Paul already had a connection there.

It's kind of funny how things have evolved over the past 3 years or more and lately our lives seem to be revolving more and more around serving orphans all over the world.
Little did we know when we went to China to get Lucas in 2011, how God was going to stir our hearts and offer us opportunities.

In September, Peter and Isaac went to Thailand to work with a friend of ours who does work with orphans and others who are part of a displaced people group.  Peter was so moved by it that he decided to bring back a life-changing "bug".  (ok a little sarcasm).

He got just an abdominal ailment that went away in a few days after he got back.  But, unfortunately, his body didn't want to stop fighting that little bug.  So it went after itself.  More specifically he developed Guillian Barres syndrome about 2 weeks after returning.  His body attacked the myelin sheath of his own nerve cells.

Some may say we "caught it early" and that's why he's doing so well, but there were too many God sightings around this thing.

Just a few days into symptoms that were still undefined at the time (Oct. 6) I watched my otherwise super strong and exceptionally healthy husband fall flat on his back because he lifted one leg up to put his shoe on.  He also was falling getting into the car.  He fell going up a curb.  He was rapidly losing strength.  His hands were so weak he could not cut with a scissors.  3 days later he was at Emory Hospital in Atlanta recieving Immunoblobulin therapy.

That Sunday, Oct. 6, Pastor Louie was speaking about Lazarus and The Comeback story of Healing.  At the end of the gathering he had a prayer for healing over the congregation.  This doesn't happen often in our church.  But, I laid my hands on Peter's back (since we didn't know the source of what was going on yet) and prayed for healing for whatever it was.  3 days later he was diagnosed with something that could have been debilitating.  We found out later some people watch it progress so rapidly that they end up paralyzed and on a ventilator in just hours.  We know it was the healing hand of God and His wisdom that got Peter on the healing path so quickly.  All Glory goes to Him.

He is still working on regaining strength but likes to make proclamations each day, "Did ya see that? huh, huh, did ya?" when he gets up out of a chair without help or climbs a set of stairs without pulling with all his might on each step.

I tell this story because that whole experience including the trip itself, which I cannot give a ton of public details about due to safety concerns for the people they served, was a life changer for him and thus for "us".  God is up to something that we cannot quite put our finger on yet.  His illness is already being used in Peter's life as a turning point and life changing moment.

This trip to Africa may be a part of that picture as well.  So we remain open.  Peter cannot take off more work to go on this additional trip, so he will stay home this time.  I didn't get to go on the Thailand trip because we needed someone to stay with Lucas.  So God has us going all over the world right now, but we are not quite sure how all the pieces will fall together quite yet.

All we are doing is trying to listen to His Voice and Follow His Lead.

More adventures to follow.