God wants us to remember the things He has done for us so that we may not forget. The past 2 months have been packed with many things that I must write down in order that I might not forget!
Joshua 4 says
1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight." 4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 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, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 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, one month ago today we completed our first order that was going to Thailand to the Burma (Karen people). One day before we were to finish them all with eyes and noses I had an accident with my finger. It was 12 midnight and I was up cleaning the house before the next busy day of finishing the puppets. I never stay up late, but this night I was extra excited and I had energy. I had put the kids to bed and started to clean. I had several puppets that were turned in that were different than the rest and I really wanted to get a nose on them before I went to bed. I had a brand new pair of fabric scissors, so I used those to try to poke a hole through the cotton and material. Well, I ended up cutting my finger REALLY bad. Blood was EVERY where and here it was midnight! I knew, that I knew, that I knew I needed stitches. Michael was asleep and I had to wake him up. He had a very hard time with it all, as he was sleeping like a baby! My dear friend, Annelisa came and took me to the ER and I got my first stitches ever. I had 6 stitches and apparently I cut it pretty deep. I cut the nerves and I still can not fell my finger tip. It has not been fun, but I know that it was the enemy trying to stop me from doing the job that I needed to get done. I had several sweet friends come and cook dinner and clean my house the first week. That was hard to let people help me! Here is a picture of my finger tonight. I am sorry if it looks gross...trust me I don't like looking at it either! It looks much better now, but I am still praying for it to heal on the inside!
My mom came over and we did a photo shoot of the puppets for the website. All the people on Facebook waiting to see how they turned out!
Little did we know the same week we would be getting another contact for another 100. My friend Jennie, who started this mission in my life, emailed me about a woman 62 year old lady from Guatemala who was coming to the States in December. This lady houses 92 orphans and lives by faith. She prays daily for her needs (food and all) and God brings her exactly what she needs each day. Not only does she house and take care of her orphans she also feeds the hungry and preaches Jesus on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Saturday she visits the homeless in the garage dumps and takes food for them. Currently, we are finishing up her puppets and will meet her in 2 1/2 weeks to hand over her puppets. I am so excited to meet her and bless her kids.
During this whole process 2 people that I love dearly got a bad report. So, I really had to control my thoughts and know that God's Word is true. He told me over and over again "to confidently lean and trust Him ". God's word is true concerning healing. Jesus took sickness for us and I praise God that my loved ones are walking out their healing. Isaiah 53:5 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
My mom heard from God and created a puppet coloring book that we will be sending out with the puppets. The first 100 is going to Guatemala. It is so precious and we have plans to add more to it as God tells us.
I will take pictures of the girl's books that they colored last week. They loved them!
Also, Mom made us the nicest pamphlets to be able to pass out and mail to friends.
She has been a real blessing and was able to do things that I have not had time to do.
I have about a team of 20 seamstress and about 10 women who cut materials. They have all gotten the vision on the inside of them and are excited to see God work through these puppets!
So, we finished the first batch and prayed over them and sent them out! I took pictures of my Awana kids and we put a pictures inside of each puppet.
So, the team with Vision Beyond Boards took 12 people to SE Asia. They took with them 42 HUGE bags of medical supplies, tapes and puppets. When they arrived at the Orphanage the bag with the puppets was on the other truck that was showing up later. So, they did not get to hand out the puppets personally. We were kinda sad about that, because we wanted to see pictures of them receiving them. However, our goal is for them to be blessed...whether we see it or not! I tell you the week that they got them...I was glowing! I had so many attacks those few weeks before and I overcame with God's grace! Wheee! I seriously was so excited that these kids who have lived through possibly the most horrific tragedy in the world were receiving a gift from me..well from a team of us...but the vision that I saw was being played out in reality!
The team came back from Asia very heart broken and rightfully so. After watching online videos of what is really happening in Burma is beyond disgusting! For time I will not go into all the details, but you may research and watch these videos for yourself.
http://www.vbbonline.org/
Free Burma Rangers - *Do not watch with children...video are very graphic!
http://www.youtube.com/user/FreeBurmaRanger
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/
Patrick Klein, who is the founder of Vision Beyond Boarders, told us that the 86 orphans where our puppets went to were right across the river from the mean Burma Army. They could see them across the river. These children were sick with malaria due to the river and all of these children's parents were dead, but they have not been told yet. Patrick told us that they needed to be moved more inland to a safer area. They were granted some land and they needed $2000 to rebuild them a new home.
Well, $2000 is NOTHING! So, I heard from God and called Yana (my puppet partner) and said we need to tithe $180 toward this cause. We made the choice on Monday night to start the fund and raise this money to move these orphans....once you hear of something like this how can you turn your face and move on like you don't care...oh no, these kids are like mine...If we had to go door to door it would be done. I go to the Truth Project class on Tuesday am where many ladies are ready to serve. My mother-in-law runs the class, so she asked what was going on with the Puppets for Orphans. We share all the news and the people there (about 40 or so) about the $2000 needed and before we left in 1 1/2 hours we had $1400 in our hands. By that night we had $2000. On Wednesday people were still calling me saying that they wanted to give. Praise God for ever and ever!
The night before all this as I was going to bed I heard this "Bump, bump, bump, bump"
over and over again. And I heard God say, "Do you hear my hear beat?" "Yes sir I do!" Well, it got faster and faster and I heard God say, "My heart beats for the nations, these people are most urgent right now". Well, He must have known what I was thinking! I was thinking, "when am I going to get my laundry folded, life is so busy right now"? Right after that He told me, "In a year is anybody going to remember whether your house was in perfect shape, my heart BEATS for the nations! " I went to bed hearing God's heart beat!!!
God wants nations and that is why this money came in one day....It is urgent for God!
That same day we got the money we were called about sending another 100 to Zimbabwe, Africa and of course I said.........YES!
Africa was burning in my heart for 2 weeks and I called mom and told her that I was praying my way into Africa. She was not surprised when I told her that we are sending puppets to Africa!
Next we are going into Nepal and India!
Here are the puppets we are working on for Guatemala.
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