Disturb us Lord

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

My Mother in Law passed this poem along to me by Sir Francis Drake. It is such a great reminder of how I tend to be be too easily satisfied, filing my hunger with the things of this world. For me, this temptation seems even greater in America. Today marks the forty days leading up to Easter. While I haven't been part of a church that observes lent in many years, God is stirring my heart to dedicate this time to him. My prayer is for God to 'push back the horizons of our hopes' to more fully understand the power of the Resurrection.

4 Generations

One thing that made our time in Arroyo Grande so special was getting to spend time with my Dad's Dad, "Papa". I love Papa's sense of humor, quick wit, tenacious joy and love for Jesus. I am so thankful for our time together and it was truly special to have four generations under one roof.

Papa and my Dad are in the middle and my brother Ryan is on the right with baby Grayson.

Then the amazing Terilee just "snapped" a couple shots of my kids and the results I think were just beautiful. Happy Valentine's Day!!

We've Got Wheels!

This has been my key chain for the last six months. No house key, no car key, no work key, not even a mailbox key. The three keys dangling from my key chain belong to our suitcases. It has been a freeing yet vulnerable, inconvenient yet simplistic reality to be homeless and carless.

Back in November when we were in Nampula we began asking the Lord to give us an RV. This had been our dream all along, to take a massive cross country road trip in an motorhome (I know we sound like hippies). Jason had done the research to pinpoint the exact Toyota RV that would be perfect for our family. At first he didn't want to pray to ask for one because he already 'knew' what was best. But God answered our prayer within three days while skyping with my second cousin's parents, who not only have a great RV, but took joy in us borrowing it. Wow, that has to be from God. Doesn't this look fun?

Since arriving in America, we realized we need a car for errands and visiting family and friends in California. Dare we ask God for a car, after already asking him for an RV? But we know our Father's heart is big so we did. God told Jason in Mozambique specifically not to buy anything until after January. A few days ago my Dad shared with his church that we were looking to buy a used car. Four hours later an amazing lady from the church (actually the lady that wrote this book, which I love) offered us her Toyota Camry to borrow. That was January 31st! This is obviously much more ideal that buying a car and trying to resell it. It has great gas milage, is really reliable and spacious. We picked it up yesterday and every time I look at it I smile thinking of God's faithfulness.
We have a loving and generous Papa! He loves to provide for our needs. I love this version of Matthew 7 from the Message
"Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn't a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing. You're at least decent to your own children. So don't you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?"
Go ahead, ask God for what you need today. If you have any God stories of provision, please leave a comment, we'd love to hear.

California Moments

I have given my camera a rest this month, but have managed to snap a few photos . . .


My Dad brought out the flag to welcome us to America (:
Jason had a looong birthday that began in Hong Kong and chased the sun to America. He and Mike got to be together on their birthday for the first time in over a decade!! Can you tell which twin lost 20 pounds in Africa?

My parents took the kids to Wal Mart to buy them both bikes. So fun!

Grandmas as the best!!
Cuddle time!!
Silliness

Aunt Angela drove up from LA to hang out

We love walking to the Old Town Village in Arroyo Grande. When we told Josiah we were going to the village he scratched his head and said, "but there are no Mozambicans!"

My Grandpa, "Papa" is visiting from Minnesota for the month. He is lots of fun and always up for a walk or ice -cream

Speaking of ice-cream, here are the kids outside of the ice cream parlor we went on our first date. Because Jason and I both grew up in Arroyo Grande we take lots of strolls down memory lane

Three generations of California girls
Cuddling Cousin Grayson
Hanging out in the garden . . .
and cooking with Naana
Last but not least Annette is getting to know the toilet Horray!!!


We are really enjoying our time in America. We hope that we can see YOU while we are here. Leave a comment if you want to hook- up.

Processing. . .

In case you missed us, we've taken a break from blogging to . . .
1. orient ourselves to Hong Kong time zone
2. catch up with friends
3. eat
4. visit the hospital (7 times in 1 week for an infected foot)
5. celebrate Jason and Mike's 32 birthday
6. orient ourselves to America time zone
7. soak in God's presence
8. bond with family
9. eat
10. sit on cushy couches

Three continents in one month has taken a bit of a toll, but we are just about feeling like ourselves again. We've also been given various opportunities to share our experiences in youth groups, women's groups and sunday school classes. It has been a bit challenging at times to put all that we experienced into words, but these sharing times are helpful in our own personal processing.

I read this verse today from 1 Sam. 2:8, "He lifts the poor from the dust-- Yes, from a pile of ashes-- And treats them as princes sitting in the seats of honor." God's heart for the poor blows me away. That he would treat the poor and rejected like royalty! Although we are now in the "land of plenty" we are asking God to show us the poor and broken in our midst. Sometimes it feels easier to love a dirty orphan in rags than the slightly awkward person in line at the grocery store. But we continue on this journey of asking God, "what does love look like" to people in America.

In the meantime here are some faces that I can't leave behind . . .

Sabie, South Africa

After leaving Mozambique we built in some time to debrief, decompress, deworm, detoxify, desun, dedirt etc. We rented the world's smallest car and stayed in a cute chalet in the mountains above Nelspruit, South Africa called Sabie. It was peaceful and serene. Some highlights were hot showers, yogurt, beds with blankets, salad, eating together just the four of us, spending time with God and getting to bundle up, finally! Is there anything cutter that footie pajamas? I mean really.

On New Year's Eve we went to a braii (South African BBQ) at Michael's Children's Village where we spend three months back in September. It was so fun to see the kids again and Josiah and Syabonga were inseparable. I was caught off guard by how hard it was to say bye. One of the boys even cried when we left. They really stole our hearts.

We did some window shopping in some cute, touristy old mining towns

We drove out to Blyde Canyon, which is the third largest canyon in the world- majestic

There were so many beautiful waterfalls to explore and everything was green thanks to the rainy season.

The day before we left we drove through Krooger Park on another safari. Josiah was really good at spotting animals this time and we got really close to several giraffes, elephants and lions. Here was our shot of the day.

A Christmas to Remember

We are back in Hong Kong now where the internet (along with practically everything else) moves very fast. I know Christmas is over, but I wanted to share some humorous, touching and unique moments from our African Christmas.
- It was a hard year to be traditional, but we did keep the Paine family tradition of baking a birthday cake for Jesus. Josiah loved this and it was yum!

- On Christmas Eve our outreach team hosted a party for the 250 kids at the Children's Home (orphanage). The party included the random addition of a live goat tied in the corner of the room (no explanation) and a massive mountain of cabbages in the middle of the room for the next day's feast.
- We put on a Christmas pageant in which I was Mary (balloon belly baby), Jason was Joseph and Josiah was "baby" Jesus. Many of the Iris kids know and love Josiah so it was a big hit!

- As the party progressed so did the chaos and sugar level, at which point we decided to have the traditional candle- lit "service". Uh- hum. We gave kids ages 3- 14 little candle stubs which turned into a game of blow it out and relight it. THEN the boys remembered the squirt guns they had received earlier that day, need I say more?!? Kids with fire were under tables, running, climbing, squirting. . . it was not a silent night. So "Joseph" took "baby Jesus" and fled to safety. . .whew!
- We got to watch the Iris kids open their gifts which was a huge joy.

- The next morning was Christmas. We had a fun breakfast of chocolate mango crepes and peppermint coffee after which we opened up a few gifts (wrapped in tin foil) the best being a massage Jason surprised me with. Glory!
- Church was packed, mostly with kids excited about Christmas "frago" (chicken). At one point someone opened the church gate during the service and 500 kids made a mad dash out the gate thinking it was time for frango.

- From 12- 6 we feed 4,000 people a meal of chicken, rice, salad and soda. Chicken is a real treat for the people in the village and an eagerly awaited day. It was very organized and an amazing system that Iris has fine- tuned. Jason and I helped with different jobs like monitoring lines, dying their thumbs (so they can't eat again), and entertaining kids waiting to eat. At one point I was collecting and washing plates and realized after picking up about 200 plates that I had not collected one chicken bone- they eat the bones!
- I probably said "Feliz Natal" 2,000 times on Christmas day to beautiful, greasy, full, smiling kids. We were really exhausted by the evening, but it was such a great memory from our last day in Mozambique.