Him We Proclaim

On Sunday, I had the privileged of speaking to a group of students from Greater Atlanta Christian School (GAC) who leave on Friday for a short term missions trip to Ecuador. Of all places, they will be in the same general area where Jonathan lived when his family first moved there! I was really excited to speak to this group of students because it was 9 years ago on a missions trip to the Czech Republic with GAC that  I sensed the Lord leading me into missions. It was that trip that launched the journey of God giving me a heart for the Nations and for me to anxiously wait for where He would lead me.Presently, I am eager to be serving the students of the International Youth Group where Jonathan and I strongly feel is where the Lord desires for us to be. I shared with the students my journey into missions and challenged them to pray that the Lord would use this trip to speak to them and give them direction into the future. We talked about Ephesia...

Recently I've had very short nights of sleep. There's some inner drive that keeps me up at night working on getting to Costa Rica. When Patrick falls asleep I am able to work with much less distraction, and I guess I just go on auto pilot. All of a sudden 8:30 becomes 11:00! I think to myself, just a minute more. Next thing I know, 11:45. Oh yeah, and I have to get up at 4:30 to open at Starbucks. I'm really grateful that The Lord gives this to me. It's a much better option than being stuck in a rut and not wanting to do anything. But I have to be careful to schedule in times or days of rest. Otherwise, I get burnt out surprisingly fast. If I go a week or two without time of rest and refocus, I crash. It reminds me of my utter reliance on Christ. I can't do anything, even take a breathe, without him sustaining every moment of it. And at the same time, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I hope I never lose sight of this. I fear that if I ever ...

It's strange to think that we started the journey to go to Cost Rica 2 years ago.  Two years ago we started seriously praying about applying to work with the AMCA youth group. We were out of school just over a year, married 11 months, Patrick wasn't born yet, and we were living a cute duplex with a roof shaped like that of a caboose.  And then we prayed. We left promising jobs. Sold our stuff. Moved in with friends (and later family).  Two years is a long time when it's 2/3rds of your life outside of school. Where does the time go? Two years spent trying to live a dream that was given to me and has become my own.  Of those 24 months, we've lived in our own place for 8. Newly married with a child. What were we thinking? Has it been worth it? Heck Yeah

**Disclaimer: This ins't just a teachable moment for moms! Being a stay at home mom, every opportunity is a teachable moment. "This cup is the biggest"; "Which one is green?" Recently we had a several teachable moment: "Gemo isn't sleeping anymore; she's now with Jesus." Which Patrick quickly responded, "I want to see Jesus." "Me too," I said. God uses Patrick for my teachable moments. We've been struggling with bedtime and going back to bed in the middle of the night. A few nights ago, Patrick woke up at 3am, and I was stuck between a rock and a hard place: let him scream it out and wake up everyone or meet his every demand. After struggling for an hour and a half, I coped out and summoned Jonathan. I was too angry and tired to handle the situation sensibly. Returning to bed, I lifted the situation before the Lord and voiced my frustrations with my disobedient, irrational boy. Then parts of 1 Corinthians 13:4...

Here's an update on the Hunter bunch: Patrick turned 22 months on the 18th! It's hard to believe he'll be 2 so soon. His favorite things in the world revolve around BALLs: basketBALLs, basketBALL hoops, footBALLs, drawing basketBALLs and footBALLs, drawing basketBall hoops, playing BALLs with Mommy or Daddy, or imagining he's playing a BALL sport. It's amazing his continued love and focus on sport (he's been hooked on Basketball since June). His favorite food is pizza or anything with marinara sauce. He also is excellent at speaking and today said "Wow Mommy, the bubble landed on the bubble wand." He now sleeps in a big boy bed and loves sneaking into our room in the morning. He's also still potty training, which goes well until other things are more appealing then the Elmo potty. He's such a bundle of energy, joy, laughter, and imagination! Jonathan turned 25 this month. He has now entered the realm of true adulthood since he can r...

We recently started hosting Pie and Movie nights where we watch a short film entitled The Road Home.  This is an amazing tool as it depicts Pico (the son of an Indian diplomat who spent his childhood in England and is then placed in a boarding school in India) as he struggles to make since of his unsorted identity. He runs away from the boarding school and hops in a cab to head back to England. Through his encounters with a funny Indian cab driver and a french woman who wishes to be Indian, Pico tries to make since of his Indian looks and British "insides."  We follow up the 20 minute film with a discussion on TCKs and what it looks like to grow up somewhere other than your parent's passport country and one day plan to return to your parents' "home." We talk about culture, culture shock, re-entry, and the excellent advantage TCKs can have. It is really neat to watch people begin to understand half of the students we'll be ministering to in Costa Ric...

Surrounded by political tensions and division among Christians, I find that our main goal in life is unchanged: Love God, Love People. Whatever God is doing in your life and wherever he is leading, the individual circumstances do not change the driving force in the life of the Christian. If we aren't pouring our lives out for God and others, what are we doing? What are you doing in life that really matters? Francis Chan has said that  “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”  It is easy for me to get caught in a Christian bubble. Church becomes a social club and I can cease to interact with the world around me. One of the principal reasons I've taken a job at Starbucks is that even while Maggie and I follow the leading of the Spirit to go to Costa Rica, we still have the ultimate call of the Christian to love people. My job allows me to love hurting people in a purposeful way that opens doors for talking ab...