#afterwintercomesspring

[ellesroulent]

Roxana Cernicky et Jana Malzkorn commencent tout doucement à se réveiller d'une longue hibernation et elles en profitent pour explorer les rues de Dortmund.

[jaime-hi-may]

Big Things on the Horizon...(You won’t want to miss this!)

This fall a new chapter of my story is beginning: I’m moving to India!!

Yes, you read that right! Jesus has been up to some fun things over the last months, and I am so excited to finally be able to share with all of you!

Now, this story is one laced with God’s hand all the way throughout, and that makes me SO stinkin’ excited and I cannot wait to share it with you, but in this post I am going to give you the “condensed detail version”. My hope is that this will give you the details, inform you on what this new chapter will kind of look like, and set the tone for me to tell you the story that Jesus has and is writing.

So…like I said, this fall I AM MOVING TO INDIA! In (tentatively*) October, I will be packing up my life and moving 8,300 miles across the world to volunteer at Sarah’s Covenant Homes in Hyderabad, Telangana. Sarah’s Covenant Homes (or SCH) is an organization that cares for around 170 children with special needs who have been abandoned. In India, children with special needs are a part of the group that is most likely to be forgotten. SCH believes that “every life matters” and aims to change the societal stigma by going into institutional orphanages and finding these kids who have been overlooked. They then “bring them home providing them with love, education, therapy, medical & surgical care, and life in a family-style environment”.

This “family-style environment” is created through a number of foster homes set-up in Hyderabad. Typically, homes are formed with one or two foster parents (usually volunteers from around the world), a few Indian women (some who are widowed), and anywhere from 5-15 children.

My role while I am serving at SCH? I am going to be a foster mom! AND I AM SO EXCITED! For the first six weeks I am in India, I will be living with a volunteer from Michigan who currently has 9 toddlers and preschoolers in her home. These weeks will be considered my “shadowing period” where I will learn from her, observe her life, pray about my role at SCH, and really get a feel for life in India. At the end of the six weeks, I will sit with leadership of SCH and discuss what life will look like moving forward. This could mean I continue to live in the “shadowing” foster home as a co-foster mom, or move into another home within SCH, this is all up to God!

I have made a one-year commitment with SCH, which means that I will spend the year I am 22 living in a country that captured my heart two years ago. I have spent the last months in awe of God’s plan, His goodness, and the way he faithfully fulfills His promises. We have a good, good, Father, friends, do not forget that.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, there is so much more to share in all of this! I am looking forward to telling you the story, and I am also ecstatic to bring you all along with me in this journey. I fully believe that this isn’t simply my journey, but a small piece of our story, together. There are going to be so many ways for you to get involved right alongside me and I look forward to telling you about them!

Look for many more details in the weeks and months to come, and please, be praying for this journey. For the leadership at SCH, for the kids, and for myself. Pray that all of us would never fail to see Jesus in the midst of every day.

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If you would like to hear more about all of this (and don’t want to wait until the next blog post is up! :) ), please feel free to contact me! Email me at jaime.debruyn@gmail.com or find me on Facebook. I’d LOVE to share more about SCH, India, and this journey Jesus has me on--and how YOU can get involved!

[kelleycodispoti]

Nina: Mommy. It's such a beautiful day out! We should take a picture! {Sure Nina. It's a balmy 14 degrees outside. I can't feel my face. But compared to yesterday it's a heat wave. So I can see why you feel that way. 😭🙈🙆☀️❄️} #thisgirl #lifewithandrew #andrewisntfeelingiteither #happyfriday #reallifewithkids #holyfreezeballs #howareyounotfreezing #thisgirl #perspectacles #afterwintercomesspring #theend

[jaime-hi-may]

Undaunted.

Today started off with this scenario: I woke up, grabbed a new book I’ve been wanting to read, and headed to the coffee shop. Not sure I could think of a better start to the day. And then it got better. 

I sat down with my mug of coffee, pulled out my journal, and began to write what was on my heart. Talking with Jesus about the things I needed to work on, asking Him to change my heart, and my desire to grow and become more like Him. 

As my mind came to an end of things to say, my pen kept writing. All of a sudden I was telling Jesus that I had not been honest in my prayers to Him on the top of the page. Above were many words. Words that I thought He wanted to hear. Words like, humility, get rid of expectations, you at the foundation, etc, etc. 

But, as I reached the bottom of the page, my heart whispered a different story. The reality was I was struggling to face some big, daunting things that are on the horizon. And, while I know that the things I wrote about are truly things I need to grow in, the root of it all boils down to this: I am fearful. I ended my writing by saying, “I am full of fear and not doing well to abandon it. Help me trust only in you.” 

Then, I put down my pen, picked up the book that has been on my shelf for a while now, and this is what I read:

Why didn’t you come sooner?

I offered them no excuses that day, but I did know that there were reasons. Reasons that, when we hear God’s call, when we feel that gentle (or not so gentle) urging of God’s Spirit for us to make a bold step, take a risk, serve others, save a life, commit— we so often hold back. 

It’s because we don’t feel empowered. 

We don’t feel qualified. 

We think we lack the courage, the strength, the wisdom, the money, the experience, the education, the organization, the backing. 

We feel like Moses when, from out of the burning bush, God called him to speak for him before Pharaoh. And Moses answered, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent.... I am slow of speech and tongue.... Please send someone else” (Exodus 4:10–13).

Not me, God. I’m afraid. Weak. Poor. Stupid. 

Unqualified. 

Daunted. 

Not long ago, that is exactly how I would have responded. 

But it has never been my desire to be daunted, to be afraid, to be unable to respond to God’s call. Is it yours? I doubt it. I think that you, like me, want to be able to say instead, “Here am I, Lord— send me.” We don’t want to sound like Moses, stammering around in search of excuses. 

And we don’t need to. Because, just as God gave Moses exactly what he needed to accomplish great things for God, he will equip us in just the same way. If he calls us to slay giants, he will make us into giant slayers. 

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called. 

And that is what this book is about. It is about what I call the “normal Christian life”— living boldly and courageously in the face of great difficulty, and amazing the world by beating the odds, for God’s glory. It is what the apostle Paul meant when he told Timothy, “The Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). 

There is no shortage of ways life tries to daunt us, to render us incapable of following the bold and valiant plan God has for us. This book is about how to move past that— how to become undaunted.

As I read these words, I did my best to not let the tears roll in the middle of the coffee shop (not sure I succeeded!). Because, don’t you see?? This was exactly what my heart needed to hear at that moment. I needed to hear that Moses was afraid and grasped for excuses, just like I have. And I needed to read that God, my God, will equip me, JUST AS HE EQUIPPED MOSES. To be reminded that I need to be aware of the things that hold me back from responding to God’s call to take that bold step, and move past them. I simply needed to hear from Him, and that I did.

Friends, what are the things that are holding us back from responding to Jesus’ promptings? Are we afraid of the opinions of others? Do we fear that we aren’t qualified enough for the task He is calling us to? Does it just seem too big? Let’s hold on to the truth that our God has good things in store for us. Things that He has had planned from the beginning. And YOU, WE, were the plan.

*This excerpt is from the book, Undaunted by Christine Caine. As I mentioned, I just opened it this morning and I am already halfway through. If you get a chance, I highly recommend you pick it up! You can find a sample of chapter one (where this excerpt was taken) by clicking on this link: http://www.christinecaine.com/content/undaunted/gjf5w8

[jaime-hi-may]

I will never forget the little boy on the mountain. His deep eyes, the crocodile tear. And the deep longing within me that wanted nothing else but to see him smile...

We were finishing up our time spent in the Himalayan Foothills and that day we had hiked down the mountain (a welcome change from hiking UP the days prior!) and decided to switch things up a bit. Instead of a routine children’s program, it was decided that the large open terrace plot on the side of the mountain was perfect for one thing: a balloon sword fight! With that, the assembly line began and dozens upon dozens of swords were made with dozens of little eyes looking around in anticipation.

In a moment the battle began and chaos erupted in that little sliver of solitude in the Himalayas. As I ran around defending my mid-section, tapping little heads, and repairing damaged swords, my eyes caught sight of one outside of the chaos: the little boy on the mountain.  Something about him drew me in like a magnet and for the next moments, I remember constantly turning towards him, satisfying the pull in my heart. As I approached him a joy stirred within me; I was so excited walking up to him, not sure what I was hoping for. However, when I looked at him, into those deep, deep eyes, momentarily that joy was replaced with sadness. Somewhere within him was sadness that I could not pinpoint, be it from abuse, neglect, or something else, I did not know, but I felt it. Yet, note that I said “momentarily”…soon, that joy I first felt returned with a sense of urgency with one goal: I wanted to see him smile, and ultimately, know that he was loved.

He became my focus; chasing kiddos who had me under attack, returning to sneak in a tickle or two, again fighting off my attackers, and once again returning to love some more. I never saw a smile that day on the side of the mountain, however that moment has never left my mind.

It is one of those moments that stuck with me from my time in India; one of my “beauty moments”. Looking back at my journal from that day this is what I wrote:

“One thing to note from the villages…there was this little boy [at our last open air]. And he stood off on his own, just staring. Once I saw him, I had this strong urge to go and sit with him, be with him. Deep down, I was longing to see him smile. Everything about this boy, down to his big crocodile tear, made me want to take him home. To show him what love is- to give him joy again. Jesus, help me explore that. Help me look at where that compassion came from- and what to do with it.”

There are currently big things stirring in this heart of mine…and the memory of the little boy on the mountain has been a key piece to unearthing and discovering what these things mean. As I dug through my cabinet full of journals looking for this entry, I smiled as I thought back to that day, and my heart stirred even more when I read my own words, “Help me look at where that compassion came from- and what to do with it.” 

And here I am…almost two years later…and I think I am finally figuring out what to do with it…

[jaime-hi-may]

But that’s how springtime happens....You go to bed one unsuspecting night when the world is barren, dreary, and downright depressing, and you wake to green leaves and purple flowers, chirpy baby birds and a somehow-brighter sun. You didn’t will it to happen. You didn’t even know it was going to happen. But while you were sleeping, the new life waiting in the wings burst forth, bright and full. The winter may have felt cold and endless, but new life was the plan all along.

SheReadsTruth