Like the stone altars the Lord told the
Israelites to erect...so are Facebook memories! ;)
Anyone who spends any amount of time on
Facebook knows that an added feature in this past year was the memory
pop ups! I will be the first to admit that not everything on Facebook
is good, or helpful or conducive to getting things done...(I know, I
waste my share of time on it). However, whenever a message pops up
saying I have posts to look back on, I love taking the stroll down
memory lane. The majority of the memories cause me to smile and
laugh, especially when I recall something hilarious my kids once
quipped. Some memories make me tear up, either because they re-touch
my heart or remind me of a difficult time. Others make me realize
that I might have posted one two many recipes in my Facebook
lifetime...few which I've ever made...just maybe...one day....But
these memories have never really made me sit back and recall all the
great and awesome things God has done, in the past, until recently.
On the morning of March 13th, 2016, in the bleary eyed
moments of wakefulness, I logged onto Facebook and saw the message,
“On This Day...You have memories Karlene Foster Thiessen!” One
stood out above the rest. It was a post that I had copied to my
timeline 1 year ago, written by our friend and teammate, Phil Eager.
It read,
“we have this
awesome opportunity to reach this school and this neighborhood for
Christ. Would you please pray that God will open doors to
relationships with the school and the 1000 students attending? Please
pray that God will allow us to work with these students and the kids
around in the neighborhood, and for us to have open doors to share
Christ's love with them!! God's moving!!!!”
Alongside the post, he had
shared pictures of the Jr. High school and the run-down community
court across the road, where we started meeting to pray for our
neighbourhood and for the direction that God wanted us to take with
the brand new Ministry Initiative He'd given us called
“Transformados.” My first reaction was, “oh cool” and then I
moved to repost the memory. In that instant, I felt that I should
probably write a sentence or two and so I began, only to discover
that my couple sentences had turned into a lengthy paragraph. My
excitement had grown, as I reflected and I could see how perfectly
the Mighty Hand of God had moved at each step along the way.
“Whether you turn
to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you,
saying,
“This is the way;
walk in it.” (Isa. 30:21)
“This is the way.
Walk in it...” God had directed, thankfully we were
obedient enough to follow and clearly He had been faithful to bring
us to the place we found ourselves on this day of remembrance and
reflection.
My post ended up reading as follows and
I found my spirit filled with excitement and awe.
“How awesome is
this? A year ago I posted our teammates prayer request and today it
showed up, reminding me that God has indeed answered it in numerous
ways! God has given Transformados favour in the eyes of the community
president and the two directors at the Jr. High School. We have been
given permission to use the basketball court at the school and to set
up an English conversation table at recess times. When we shared this
with a Mexican Pastor in San Jose, he was surprised and asked, "how
did you manage to get into a school? That is a very hard thing to do
here." This is further proof, to us, that God is leading and
guiding and making the way before us. We have been able to rent
space, in an ideal location across from the school entrance, for our
Transformados youth centre. We have a core group of youth coming out
for basketball club every week and we are hoping to get a class
started for younger kids. We are wanting to start conversational
English classes after Easter and we have partnered with a Christian
life coach who is going to use our office space, a couple times per
week, to work with at risk youth. A single mother and her two sons,
whom we got to know through basketball, have started attending our
home bible study and the El Faro church. Following Easter, we plan to
start holding a regular youth night in the centre, games/movie
nights, workshops etc. and in the future, discussion nights which
would be like introductory bible studies. Our first intern has
arrived and he's excited to be part of Transformados. We have 3 short
term teams coming to assist us in running sports camps this summer
and another intern who will be arriving in the fall! Wow! God is
awesome! A year ago we stood on a run-down community court praying
for God to open the doors to reach our community for Him. Look at
what He has done!!!!! Praise His name! We are so blessed to be along
for the ride! Please continue to join us in prayer for the hearts and
lives in our community. Pray that God will continue to give
Transformados favour and use this ministry to impact others for His
Kingdom!”
Since I penned the words above, that
basketball club for younger kids? It's started and has been running
for 1 month. The director of the elementary school gave us permission
to use their court along with a key for the gate! (See Anthony's blog
titled, “Welcome to your new school.”)
Those conversational English classes?
They're happening and Anthony has two regular students from a JW
family who attend faithfully every week.
The Christian life coach? He's been
meeting with at risk youth in the centre, three times a week, and the
number of youth attending, is growing!
Saturday Youth Nights? So far we've had
a ton of fun with a games night, a birthday celebration, a photo
scavenger hunt, a how to fix your own bike workshop, a breakdance
class, an evening of volleyball and a movie night which lead to a
spiritual conversation with the night watchman from the jr. High
school and ended in an invitation for him and his wife to attend our
bible study and church at El Faro! Each night has given us another
opportunity to do life, to spend time, to challenge, to encourage, to
share a bit more of our faith with the youth we are getting to know
and building relationships with and growing to love.
In those moments of early morning
reflection, as I pondered how amazingly God had answered this prayer
of our hearts from 1 year before, I could feel the awe and wonder
spilling over. All those hard and difficult days, all those times of
crying out to God, all the questions of 'what are we doing here?
what's our purpose? what's the point?', all those homesick, heartsick
moments of discouragement and wanting to pack it in and go 'home',
all the trials of culture shock, all the frustration of learning
another language...all began to lessen and fade in the light of the
amazing things God had accomplished in 1 year! In that instance of
recognition and midst feelings of excitement, I strongly sensed God's
call to stewardship. It was like He was saying, 'look at all I have
done! Look at all I have given you! Now be good stewards! Take care
of all that I have laid before you. You have been obedient. I have
been faithful and will continue to be. I am doing more than you can
think or imagine! This is the way, walk in it...'
“When the whole nation had finished crossing
the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from
among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up
twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the
priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down
at the place where you stay tonight.”
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had
appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them,
“Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the
Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according
to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a
sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do
these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut
off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the
Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be
a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” So the Israelites did
as Joshua commanded them.
And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken
out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future
when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones
mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’
For the Lord your God dried up the
Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord
your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he
dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He
did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the
hand of the Lord
is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord
your God.”
Rewind
with me, to a vivid recollection I have of sitting in my Old
Testament class at college and hearing of stones of remembrance for
the first time. I remember my professor asking us if we had our own
personal stones. My inability to reply in the positive and his
ensuing, powerful discourse on the significance these stones of
remembrance held for the Israelites, opened my eyes to their
importance and formed within myself a need and yearning for stones to
call my own. Out of this experience, has grown the realization that I
am a fickle person, prone to being tossed among the waves of my
emotions, trusting one moment, fearing the next, giving in to
discouragement on the down swells and being overcome by the deluge of
the next torrent life brings my way. As I thrash around in the surf
of life, I find myself becoming consumed with my present predicament
and forgetting the many times God has thrown me the life preserver in
the past, how He has helped and rescued and answered prayer and
provided. God knows His people are like this. That's why He
instructed the Israelites to erect stones of remembrance, so that as
they bobbed up on the waves, their eyes would find and focus on those
stones on the beach. And the remembrance of all that God had done for
them until that point; His faithfulness, unending mercy and unfailing
love, His provision and continuous supply of strength and grace, His
constant presence and protection and His sure comfort and miraculous
answers to prayer, would carry them through the inevitable down
swells they would face on the sea of life. So it is with us. So it is
with me. When I'm overwhelmed by the waves around me, all it takes is
to catch a glimpse of a stone of remembrance, to pause and reflect
and look back on all that God has done and to praise and thank Him.
And as I do, the next wave doesn't seem so high, the sea of life
doesn't seem so rough and the storm around me, begins to calm.
On
March 13th, Facebook gave me a stone of remembrance.
Reflecting on it has changed my perspective and my attitude. It has
turned my discouragement into awe and rejoicing! It has taken my
focus off my circumstances and onto the One who has and is and will
continue to do more than I can think or imagine!
Looking
back has given me the encouragement to keep looking forward.
“What do these
stones mean?...The Lord your God...did this so that all the peoples
of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is
powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord
your God.”
