Last night Brad Johnson, the president of Mission of Hope in Haiti, came to my house!! It was a total God thing because I never would have imagined we could have gotten to spend an entire evening with him. We had 11 other families that came to listen to what he had to say. It was a HUGE blessing for all us. In May when I went to Haiti for the first time I came back with a burning desire for people in my community to experience what Bronson and I had seen. That resulted in our second trip this past January back to Haiti where we stayed at MOH. My husband, Brelee (my 6 year old), Bronson (my then 8 year old), our friends The Mullin's (Markwayne, Christie, and their 2 kids Jim, 7 and Andrew 6), Isabelle Bieseigel, and Sarah Hefner went with us. God grew my vision there and really got my husband on board. The night before we left we got to meet Brad, who started MOH 14 years earlier. He told us that he was coming to Norman for a fundraiser on Feb. 23rd and that is we would like he could come to our house the next day and visit with us about MOH. So, that was last night. He shared from his heart and told the stories to us like it was the first time he ever shared them with anyone. His passion comes from the Lord. Bub took him to the airport this morning at 4:45am. I barely slept last night because my mind raced so much from what he shared with us.
He shared how God had called he and his wife, Vanessa, to Haiti. They had nothing but the "burning in their belly" to do what God had called them to do. He said the difference between compassion and a call is that a call burns in your belly and God will not allow you to rest until you do what He says to do. As he talked I prayed that God would not let any of us rest until we listened to the call that He has placed inside all of us. We all have one, and they are all different. He told so many cool stories but I want to share one with you now. He talked about a lady that lived
in a trash dump. He said literally she hollowed out a little shelter among the trash. He said that 3 kids came walking out of the mountains who were orphans and the lady that lived
in the trash took them in. What an example of obedience to her call in the midst of her terrible situation. She had nothing to even care for herself much less 3 orphans. But she did it. Brad pointed out that when we do what God calls us to do there is always blessing in it. James 1:27 says, "true religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world". Today she has a home and all 3 of her kids are in school. Praise God for His provision. It made me think about how many of us, myself included, list all the reasons why now or maybe not ever is not the right time to do things that don't make sense in the "world's view" or in our view. "Well, my kids are still little, well, I only have 2 extra rooms so that means I could only take 2 kids at most, I better get my business built up a little better before I start taking on extra stuff". . . and the list goes on and on. Last time I checked none of us live among the trash. . . .
Good sound "worldly advise" isn't "Godly advise". I hear a lot of wordly logic that sure does make sense if we were of this world. But, we aren't. The last part of James 1:27 says to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Wow. God knew that long ago that our biggest struggle would be on keeping our focus on Him not on the world. What does the Lord expect of my family? I am learning that more everyday. It is exciting and scary. Bub and I were at one of our foster care classes and as the teacher was talking Bub wrote, "Miranda, I am scared!!". I wrote back, "me too, but I am more scared to NOT do what we know we are supposed to do", he wrote back, "me too". It is OK to be scared because when we get scared that is when we know that God will step in. Brad said last night that if God didn't show up daily he would fall flat on his face. That his faith. That is where I want to live.
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