From England to Uganda!

"But blessed is she who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.
She will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
She does not fear when heat comes, her leaves are always green.
She has no worries in a year of drought, and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17: 7-8

After a year of being apart, I've been reunited with my amazing partner in ministry, Abbi, at her home off the coast of England!

I thank God for this extended transition period of getting used to being away from my most familiar home in New York...yet I know God is preparing our hearts for a new kind of home and community in Uganda. 

Tonight a group of Abbi's closest friends and family gathered together to worship and pray as we prepare to leave for Uganda in 10 days time.

As friends laid hands over our heads and spoke encouraging words over our hearts, I felt an unshakeable peace sweep over me. God lovingly assured me that His presence is upon us, His Spirit anoints every step of our journey, and He knows exactly what He is doing. 

Several friends have informed us that Abbi and I will be like the "trees planted by the water" in Jeremiah 17. Daughters of God bearing fresh fruit to the children and families around us. Bringing the Joy of heaven to the school and orphanage where we work, even during times of drought (hard times). In Uganda as it is in heaven. 

While England itself is an unknown country to me, I've been feeling quite at home here. I am learning to access full joy and peace wherever in the world He has me, because home is not only in NYC or Uganda, but home is wherever Jesus is. And He has made His home in me. 

PRAYER NEEDS

• Abbi and I depart for Uganda on September 4th from London. We each have an extra bag and overweight luggage, along with a guitar and folding wheelchair. Please pray for favor at the airport that all our luggage will be accepted. Pray for safe arrival of all equipment to Uganda (including Abbi and myself! ;)
• Abbi and I are attending a Christian conference in England called Momentum for 5 days this coming week. Pray that God will reveal more of His love for us as we seek Him together, and that our hearts will be opened to hear from heaven. 
• Abbi and I have temporary housing once we arrive to Uganda but are currently searching for a permanent home in which we can settle and begin fostering Tasha, one of the orphans of Ekisa. Pray for a smooth house-hunting process and peace as we settle into our home. 
• Pray for protection against malaria and other diseases, so that we can teach our new students and minister to others well, rather than be stuck at home feeling ill. 
• Pray that Abbi and I will feel at home in our new surroundings/community and that we will form deep relationships with our students/co-workers/one another. 
• Pray for our hearts to remain focused on Jesus so that we may be ever-filled with joy, childlike faith, and strength to love the ones He places before us. 
• Praise God with me that He has provided nearly double the funding ($19,000) I had originally asked for and that He has made it so clear to Abbi and I that we are exactly where He wants us to be! 

Thank you for your prayers, which mean more to me than anything! I am blessed and encouraged by your love. 

Faith like a little child.

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw what they were doing, He was irate and let them know it. "Don't push these children away. Don't ever get between them and me! These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this. Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in. And He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them, and blessed them. 

Mark 10: 13-16

I remember a time when it wasn't so hard or scary to dream big. 

It wasn't so long ago that I had dreamed of living abroad for the rest of my twenties, 

dreamed of opening a center for children with disabilities in an unreached area of Uganda, 

dreamed of opening my home and heart to the poorest of the poor. 

Salary? Didn't need it. 

Status? Didn't want it. 

Material comforts? Overrated. 

Boyfriend? I was confident that would come eventually. 

As I get older, I find it becoming harder and harder to dream so limitlessly. 

These days, I often find the dreams of my youth stifled by small, but common worries. 

How can I just pick up my life and lay it down for the poor?

What about paying off loans for school (not to mention, accruing interest)? 

What about that dream I once had of marrying young?

What about the family and friends I'm leaving behind?

What about my desire for material comforts, like air conditioner, wifi, warm showers, smoothly paved roads, and Korean food? 

Lately I feel the pull of the Holy Spirit, beckoning my heart back into that place of childlike faith. I want to be brought back to that place of simplicity and childlike trust in the Father. Full of joy, wonder, and unhindered by the world around me. I want to walk through the messy places, the victory places, and all the in-between places with my Savior Jesus. He is my life giver. And He loves me. 

Wherever He calls me, let my answer be "Yes." For He is a good and trustworthy God.  

Cast all your anxiety upon Jesus, for He cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7

There is always enough in Jesus.

Yesterday, I received a voicemail from a church that had invited me to speak about global missions back around Christmas. They told me they are sending me a grant of $3,200 to support my upcoming year of missions in Uganda. I felt the power of His pure grace, hitting me with joy.

Two years ago, I started praying that churches would begin inviting me to come speak about missions and the way that Jesus calls us to lay our lives down for the poor. It was an unnatural prayer for me to pray, as I've never loved public speaking. God answered my prayer last Christmas when a pastor in upstate New York read my blog about Uganda and invited me to speak to his church about missions. I felt overjoyed and nervous. I had never spoken to a church of 200 people before, let alone a church of people I had never met. I prayed that God would give me the words to say and I prayed for an open heaven over all of us. The Holy Spirit met us in that beautiful sanctuary full of Christmas lights and His faithful sons and daughters who I could tell were hungry for more of Jesus. All of us including myself, the pastor, grandparents, mothers, and even some of the children were in tears by the end, touched by His amazing presence and heart for the poor...

The church invited me to apply for a missionary scholarship, and I took it as a direct answer to my prayers. For the past 3 months as I waited to hear back about the grant, I often felt anxious in the waiting and uncertain about how things would unfold.

Each time I felt the anxiety creeping into my heart, I turned my heart to Jesus in worship. I would often talk to Him about my fears and sing my anxiety out to Jesus. I know that sounds kind of strange but I literally sing to Him about all my fears and concerns, and He responds by filling my heart with peace. These past 3 months as I prayed for a response from the church, I felt God clearly encouraging me to give away much of my own money. How strange and illogical, I thought. To give away my money when I'm trying to raise money for myself. What about the school loans I have to pay off? What about the $15,000 I'm trying to raise so I can live without a salary next year?

Psalm 145:16 says this: He opens His hands and satisfies the hunger and thirst of all living things. In the same way that our Heavenly Father opens His hands to satisfy our every need, He was asking me to open my own tight-fisted hands so I could receive what He wanted to give me, which was far better. After all, it's not my money. It's God's money.

Over the past 3 months, I felt that God wanted me to give away one thousand dollars of His money. So I did. I gave it away in chunks of hundreds and fifties, trusting the One that once used fives loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand. There is always enough in Jesus. 

Most recently, God gave me the honor of sponsoring Shamim's first semester of high school education. Shamim is a beautiful daughter of God and a dear friend of mine who is growing up with a disability in Uganda. She has the sweetest laugh you'll ever hear, and I believe her smile might be even more radiant now that she is back in school. "It is already hard to have a disability in Uganda," Shamim told me two summers ago when we met. "Not to have an education would be a double disability," she wisely told me. Education sets people free, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. I praise God for pouring His grace over Shamim. Over me. Over us.

Now I have $10,426 so I can live as a missionary in Uganda next year. Thanks to 68 individual sponsors and 1 amazing church that have collectively taught me so much about self-sacrificing love and obedience in faith. There aren't words to express my thanks.

Reflecting back on the past 3 months now, I realize that God was never after my money. All along, He was after my heart. He more than tripled the amount of money I gave away. But that wasn't really the point. He didn't just want to solve my "problem" of not having enough money to move to Uganda next year - He was after something greater than that. He wanted to change my life. He wanted to grow my trust in Him, teaching me that the more I am willing to empty my bank account, the more He is able to fill my life with joy. Joy that, unlike money, eternally satisfies. As I learned to relinquish control over my own financial security, He drew me closer to His heart that beats so steadily for the poor, washing away my fears and doubts in the process.

The kingdom of God belongs to those who know they are poor (Matthew 5:3). As I learn to walk this journey with Jesus, yielding my heart and ability to control my own life to the One who is exceedingly stronger, I come into my full identity as a beloved daughter of God.

Precious enough to be emptied completely by my Father, who longs to fill me with better things.

Beloved enough to be made completely poor in spirit, that He might fill me with the richest of Joy.

"I am not saying this because I am in need.
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
I know what it is to be in need, 
And I know what it is to have plenty. 
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,
whether well fed or hungry,
whether living in plenty of in want.
I can do everything through Christ,
who gives me strength."
Philippians 4:11-13

Speaking about global missions and pouring our lives out for the poor at the McKownville Methodist Church of Albany, New York. Thank you Jesus, for this beautiful church, and their hunger for seeing Your love poured out over the "least" of this world.

Our dreams are changing, and it's all for His glory.

Beautiful daughters of God. He has big plans for these two.

Three years ago, when I first set foot in Uganda, I fell in love with a country that was 7,000 miles away from where I had grown up. I loved everything about it - I loved the red dirt roads, the lush fields of green; I even loved the Sunday afternoons spent hand-washing our clothes and the dinners we had by candlelight whenever the electricity would go out, which was a lot. But most of all, I loved the orphanage. I loved running there at any time of day to find a hundred beautiful children eager to play and learn and dance with their Auntie Jane. I loved reading stories in the open grassy fields while thirty children would gather around to listen. And most of all, I loved our times of worship where the echoes of the children's voices and drumming would carry far into the streets...

Timothy lost in worship <3

Sunday afternoon laundry with my amazing little sis....by the way, Ugandans can wash in 15 minutes what we could wash in an hour!

Long before Abbi and I met and decided to become partners in missions and ministry, we each felt Him calling us to make this foreign country our future home. As our hearts for Uganda grew, so did our desires for opening up an orphanage. Personally, I remember dreaming of a day when I could wake up in an orphanage full of a hundred beautiful children. I'd imagine a big building with bright painted walls and cribs full of irresistibly adorable kids. There would be days full of joy and days full of sorrow, but ultimately, I imagined it to be like a never-ending, beautiful mess of a sleepover party. I was hardly 21 and thought I had it all figured out. Little did I know back then how much God was planning to transform my heart. 

This photo was taken a few days before Abbi and I decided to partner as missionaries

Over the years, God has directed both Abbi's and my heart towards a different and far more beautiful vision for a future ministry. There is something wonderful to be said about the way God has moved our hearts in the same direction at the same time!

And here it is. 

It's not enough to be full of passion. 

God has been teaching me that passion must come hand in hand with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in order for it to look like justice. Justice that is love. Justice that will set people free. 

I love what Gary Haughen, President of IJM, has to say about it. 

"Love is not so much about being affectionate as it is about advancing a person's good." 

I know a lot of people that like to criticize, theorize, and talk about what it means to bring forth justice. Ever since I felt the call to move to Uganda, I've asked Him to show me what justice in action really looks like. Because I don't want to reach the end of my life knowing that I talked a lot about justice. I want to have spent my life bringing God's heart for justice here - on earth as it is in heaven. 

So what does it mean to live out justice? 

It means being willing to recognize that passion by itself is not enough. Passion needs to meet with the unglamorous, yet necessary work of seeking education. The more we have educated ourselves as missionaries-in-training, spent time in the field, and taken the time to listen, the more we have come to understand that the last thing Uganda needs right now is a new orphanage. In Uganda today, families that are struggling to provide for their children go to the local government offices for help. They are either sent away without help, or referred to a local orphanage to leave the children they love. God has moved our hearts to step into this gap, and offer an alternative solution for families to keep their God-given children.

It means saying "enough" to seeing parents being advised to leave their children in orphanages due to poverty. Because out of the 60,000 children growing up in orphanages across Uganda today, it's been estimated that 4 out of 5 of these little ones have family members that love them. Statistics like this are not only heart breaking, but preventable. 

It means saying "Yes" to fighting for every child's right to grow up in a family rather than an orphanage. The solution to bringing forth justice for families that are too poor to raise their own children isn't to build more orphanages, but to build centers for the entire family. 

It means mobilizing parents to thrive, not just survive, while their precious sons and daughters get to learn in school regardless of their disabilities or inabilities to pay. Because on this broken side of heaven we've created orphanages for children but our Heavenly Father's heart rings loud on true on this one - God created families for children. 

It means making the hard choice not to move to Uganda without a degree in special education or teaching, and spending 3 incredibly tough years receiving education so that I can teach from a place of experience. 

It means taking 7 exams to become a certified teacher because the children in Uganda deserve the absolute best, and if it wouldn't be allowed in America, it shouldn't be allowed in Uganda either. 

For Abbi and I, it means taking an extra year to work under Ekisa Ministries as volunteer special education teachers in order to learn everything we can about how to run a successful and culturally sensitive disability ministry. Because trusting God means we can take the extra time to learn from the ones that know more than we do, rather than jumping into things for the sake of seeing our dreams unfold more quickly. 

The more that Abbi and I seek God's direction and purpose for our future ministry, the more he moves our hearts away from wanting to open an orphanage. The more we press in to the heart and desires of Jesus, the more He increases our desires to see children growing up in families, rather than in orphanages that, no matter how brightly painted or filled to the brim with the newest toys and the newest books, still remain institutions at the end of the day. 

As we prepare to move to Uganda in September, we are coming in one with a small, but powerful movement of organizations and individuals who are passionate about keeping children out of orphanages, and in families. Two of these incredible organizations include Ekisa Ministries and Abide Family Center. 

Photo credits: Ekisa Ministries

Our dreams have changed, and it's all for His glory. 

We no longer want to open a new orphanage. 

We want to come alongside families facing disability and see families restored and empowered, the way our Heavenly Father always intended them to be. 

Our long-term dream is to open a center for children and families facing disability in Mbale, a more unreached area of Uganda. 

We dream of a place where no parent or family with a disabled child EVER has to give up their child due to poverty, or lack of societal support. 

We envision a place where families facing disability can come to receive education, medical care, physical and behavioral therapy, parenting & business training, emergency housing, a supportive community, but most of all...the love of a God that calls every person with disabilities "fearfully and wonderfully made." A precious creation of God. 

We want to invite you to be a part of this story of redemption, grace, and reconciliation that God is writing in Uganda. 

Please consider making a donation to support Abbi and I as missionaries to Uganda beginning in September of 2015. We praise God for a Savior who has loved us enough to uproot our own dreams and replace them with ones that are far more beautiful. 

Thank you, Jesus.

Photo credits: Abide Family Center

God finishes what He starts.

"Who do I have in heaven but You? 

And earth has nothing I desire besides You. 

Though my heart and my flesh may fail, 

God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever...

I have made the Lord God my home. 

I will tell the world of all He has done!" 

Psalm 73: 25-28

I am no stranger to sickness. I was only eleven when I found out I had scoliosis - curvature of the spine. The treatment for scoliosis at the time was wearing a full body brace - an ugly beast of hard white plastic held together by four velcro straps and eight metal pieces to secure them in place. The first time I tried it on, it felt like a physical cage wrapped around me. It pressed into my bones and it hurt. The doctors told me I had to wear it 23 hours a day for the next 5 years - or at least until I was done growing. It ruined me overnight. 

Eleven is already so hard. Eleven is when you start caring about what you look like and what your friends are wearing. Eleven is when you start to have crushes on boys. Eleven is the beginning of middle school and trying to fit in. I wanted to wear cute clothes and have all the "right" friends. I settled for wearing men's sweatshirts and baggy jeans, hoping nobody would notice that I was different. I didn't want anyone to hug me and feel this hard plastic wall where my back should have been so I gave up on making friends. I isolated myself and constantly wondered why I was chosen to have this disease. 

It lasted for five years. Longest five years of my life. I started starving myself in high school because I knew that if I gained any weight, the doctors would make me a new brace - a bigger and clunkier one. The more I focused in on my problems, the smaller and smaller my world became. It was all about me. Me me me. Why was I chosen to have this. If God is so great, why can't He just heal me now? Maybe He doesn't love me enough. Maybe He isn't real. 

I must have hit rock bottom at some point because I had nothing left to cling onto but Jesus. Not physical beauty. Not friends and popularity. Not even my own self will and confidence. I realized that everything and anything could be taken away from me in a moment. And it had been. Everything but Jesus. No matter how much kicking and screaming and crying and begging I did in self-pity, it never affected the deep love He held for me. While everything else in the world started spinning mercilessly fast and out of control, His love for me stayed constant. Through the deepest pain and self-inflicted loneliness, I found peace in my Savior Jesus. When I look back on those years that I still don't wish to re-live, my heart can't help but turn to praise. Thank You Jesus that You loved me enough to seek my heart through the storms of sickness and loneliness. 

Thank You Jesus that in the darkest of times, I discovered the light that is You. 

Those difficult five years of brace-wearing changed my life. I started gravitating towards the lonely, the disabled, the discarded. Because I was broken too and I had found Jesus in that place. He was also one them. He was one of us. 

When I look at my students with special needs today, in NYC and in Uganda, I feel like God must have given me eyes to see them the way that He does. Beautiful, hilarious, wonder-filled, intelligent - chosen and dearly loved by the King. That question I used to constantly ask Him when I was eleven to sixteen years old, "Why was I chosen for this kind of life?" He seemed to answer so clearly. It is because I loved you. 

Arafat in worship. Singing to Jesus in Uganda <3. 

Now I'm battling a new kind of sickness. Stress induced hives. They started coming every night in October. Red itchy hives that cover my entire body and culminate on my face and scalp. There was a point in time that I thought I would lose my job and not be able to graduate on time because of it. I prayed for a miracle and He has been healing me gradually over time. In October they came every night. By November it was once every few nights and I rejoiced because of it. By December it was only twice a week. And now that it's February, I'm sick of being sick and am believing for full healing. 

When the hives get really bad, I turn my heart directly to Jesus. I pray fervently and when I do, I feel them going down. But I'm also aware that I'm not fully healed. I don't want to get used to being sick all the time because I wasn't created to live this way. I don't want to settle for sickness, settle for depression, or settle for complacency in my faith just because the healing isn't instantaneous. Jesus doesn't start things and not finish them. I know that full healing is coming - and I won't let the fact that my healing has been gradual stop me from giving thanks. I'm learning to rejoice for every little bit of healing God gives me as He gives it. I'm learning not to settle for half-healed or half-finished anymore. 

God makes everything beautiful in His time. The Bible says it in Ecclesiastes 3:11. If it isn't beautiful, He isn't finished yet. 

I'm finding that this truth applies to anyone battling physical sickness or disability, but also disabilities of the heart including fear, apathy, and depression. For 5 years in and after college, I settled for a life of depression. Depression that came from looking to men for the love and acceptance that only God can fill. I felt inextricably hurt. Seriously, torn apart. The tragedy wasn't the pain but the fact that I got used to it. Maybe this is the way I am supposed to live, I thought. Maybe God wants to keep me in this permanent state of half-healed, half-broken, so I can be more empathetic and compassionate towards others. So I can be closer to their pain? I started creating complicated explanations for a God whose love is supposed to be simple. 

God's love for us is simple. He wants to fill our joy to the top and He wants to heal us to the full! He loves to make the most broken things beautiful and if it isn't beautiful, He isn't finished yet. Don't settle for half-healed or half-finished. He isn't finished yet. Tonight I'm believing for full healing from hives and full healing from injuries of the past. I am convinced that full, 100% healing is available in Jesus. 

What are you believing for tonight? 

I believe He wants to pour out oceans of healing from heaven and is just waiting for us to ask. 

God's not One to leave things half-healed and half-broken. He finishes what He starts. 

Photo credits: Abide Family Center 

Take heart! He has overcome the world.

"God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem what is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that He has power but also wonderful foretastes of what He is going to do with that power. Jesus's miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want it coming." - Tim Keller

This is sweet, fifteen-year-old Esther. Esther means "Hidden Star." 

Her smiles are rare, but beautiful. When a visitor enters the gates of New Hope Orphanage, she lingers in the back, quietly waiting to see what will happen next. At fifteen-years-old, she stands tall and thin in her long, floral dress. She stays close with the few friends that have earned her trust over the years, and understandably so. She's been through a lot in her short, little life and she's a fighter. Those that she freely speaks to are few. Those few understand the great gift it is to be let in, and they cherish it deeply. Six-year-old Aida is one of those trusted few. 

Here is six-year-old Aida, Esther's little sister. Aida means "happy" and "running across the fields." The name suits her so perfectly.

Even though Aida is Esther's little sister, the two girls couldn't be more different. Aida is one of the first children to run up to the gate when a visitor walks in. She reaches her arms to the sky as a request to be picked up, and once she is picked up, she will say in her adorably raspy voice, "Auntie, I want shoes. Auntie, I want crayons." And of course, I find myself getting her whatever she asks for as long as I can find it. After all the trauma, disease, and poverty that Aida's family fought through to make it here together, it is a wonder that this little girl can live with so much joy and compassion for others. She shakes her little hips while she hand washes her clothes on Saturdays and she cares for the younger babies of the orphanage with glee. Even on my dreariest of days, one glimpse at Aida is enough to strengthen my faith in the healing, fully transformative power of Jesus. 

I love the way this photo shows the fullness of Aida's love and joy in caring for the littler ones around her. Back in 2012 when baby Linda was really sick and none of us could certainly say that she would make it, I avoided baby Linda out of fear that I'd accidentally hurt or break her. Aida taught me differently as she cared for and played with the sick with fearless abandon and love that overflowed from her joy.

If you ask Aida who her best friend is, she will say "Esther," her beloved older sister. Though they are opposites in personality, they loved each other fiercely and to the end. 

One week ago, I received the news from Uganda that Esther has gone to be with Jesus. 

Esther leaves behind three beautiful younger siblings, each of them incredible souls that I have no doubt will grow up to build a better and more beautiful Uganda. Each of them forever impacted by the way their oldest sister cared for them so lovingly and selflessly throughout the darkest of trials. Trials that no children should ever have to go through, though they all did. Esther is the bravest, strongest fifteen-year-old I have ever met, and though my soul hurts and weeps that her time with us and her family at New Hope Orphanage was cut tragically short, we can rejoice that she no longer lives at an orphanage, and her soul is finally home forever with her Father in heaven. 

I love this photo of Esther - one of the rare moments she smiled for me during my third and final summer spent with this sweet and beautiful daughter of God. 

Only a few days later, I received the news that Sam, one of the sweetest boys I met at Ekisa special needs orphanage also joined Esther in heaven this week. 

Here is sweet, sweet Sam with the most handsome smile you have ever seen. Sam means "God listens to us." 

Sam was so loved by every child, staff, and volunteer at Ekisa. He could win anyone over with his handsome smile and he got along with just about everybody. Every time I'd walk in through the gates, he'd run confidently over and say, "Auntie, we play guitar!" He loved music and learning so much. Sam, I will never forget how much you loved watching Karate Kid together and then practicing karate moves on everything at Ekisa afterwards. I will always cherish the times we got to work on your homework together and play the guitar together (I played the chords while you moved the pick up and down the strings and you were awesome at it). Sam, I am so thankful I got to be a part of your short, but love-filled life while here on earth. We miss you so much but cannot help but rejoice that you are home now with Jesus. I cannot wait to see you and Esther again in heaven someday. 

We rejoice because Sam will never again go into crisis due to sickle-cell in heaven. We rejoice because Sam and Esther lived in orphanages on this side of heaven but now they are forever home, resting in the arms of their Father. We rejoice because there are no such thing as orphanages, sickle-cell anemia, depression, trauma, or loneliness in heaven. Esther and Sam's healing is now complete and we can only continue praising our sweet Savior who gives and takes away. We can continue to trust in Jesus because He has walked our path and He knows our pain fully. Our tears matter to Him and He weeps with us through the heaviest of storms. We can fix our eyes on Jesus and remember that He is faithful and we can trust Him. 

When I begin to doubt, I will fix my eyes on the Jesus in Aida as she continues to care for the babies of the orphanage when they are sick and when they are well. Exactly the way her older sister cared for her since before she can remember. 

I will fix my eyes on the Jesus in James (Esther's little brother) as he continues to excel in math and create artwork that is beauty in the midst of so much pain. 

I will fix my eyes on the Jesus in Grace (one of Sam's little brothers at Ekisa) as he continues to grow and learn as a typical child in a special needs orphanage. I have no doubt he will grow up to be a strong agent of change for a future Uganda that fully accepts and celebrates people with disabilities. 

I will fix my eyes on the Jesus at Ekisa home for special needs children, where children with disabilities are loved and celebrated for the way they are created in the image of God. Where children are placed into forever families, and where I hope to spend all of next year as a special education teacher and missionary to a community that has taught me more about God's grace and more about what heaven on earth could really look like than any I've known before. 

As we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus and the coming of a New Year while mourning the sudden loss of two beautiful children, we can cling to a Savior that knows the way in which sorrow comes hand in hand with joy in the all-surpassing power of Jesus. Our suffering is temporary but our healing is eternal. "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in Me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Give us this day our daily bread.

I was walking home from class last week feeling exhausted and near the end of my strength. I usually don't walk the 40 blocks home but for some reason this night I decided to. Just when I was about to give in and get on a subway, I was stopped by a man in a wheelchair who simply said "Hi" to me. You wouldn't know it from a distance by his huge smile and freshly shaven head, but as I walked closer to him, I noticed he was homeless and also had both legs amputated. Immediately, he told me he was in need of a job and a place to sleep. I felt my heart sink because those are two things I don't know how to give. 

I stopped him mid-story and asked him his name. 

"Jordan," he said as he reached to shake my hand. 

Something unworldly happens in me when I learn someone's name. I started thinking about how this man was once a 4th grader too - just like my sweet students right now. I imagined what he was like in 4th grade - before his legs were amputated and before he ever slept a night on the streets. I wondered what his biggest dreams and greatest fears were, and what he always wanted to be when he grew up. 

He told me how much he loves God and how there was never a time that God didn't respond to his needs. "He has always given me everything I need," he said smiling. 

I looked down at his torn clothing, 

his two legs that stopped at the thighs, 

his tattered blanket that hung down to where his knees and feet should have been. 

"Really?" I asked. "There's not one thing you can think of that God hasn't given you?" I just found it so hard to believe. 

"Jane I've seen people in my old nursing home in comas and on life support. I've known people that are so addicted to drugs that their feet are walking but on the inside they're dead. I cry for people like that. But I'm not one of those people. Some people think I'm cursed because of my amputations but even these are a blessing to me. I used to be in so much pain until God provided me this surgery. When I look down and see that my legs are gone, I'm reminded God freed me from pain. He gives me everything I need." 

Maybe this incredible man wasn't the disabled one of us after all. 

So easily I'm blinded by lies, paralyzed by obstacles, and crippled by fear on a daily basis. Caught in the pursuit of becoming a special education teacher and serving the disabled in Uganda, I realized on this night that God is first calling me out of my own poverty, out of my own disabilities, into freedom from fear. Into fullness of Joy. Into His heart. 

I told Jordan I've been asking God for one sign or confirmation from heaven each day that I'm on the right path. 

"Today you were it. My daily bread from heaven," I told him. He smiled so big when I said that. When you run to the poor, you run straight into the arms of Jesus. 

"I don't usually prefer to talk to people. I usually let them walk by," he said. 

I asked him what made him talk to me. "I don't know," he said. "I knew that you have an open heart. And I knew that you know Jesus. The Bible says that when two or more are gathered in His name there He is with us...do you know who's with us right now?" he asked. 

Jesus, I said. Jesus is with us. He placed his hand over mine. "I talked to you because I wanted to be with Jesus," he said. 

At first I thought that God placed this man in my path in order to remind me that I was made to serve people with disabilities. But His plans for me are even greater than that. He placed Jordan in my path that day in order to remind me that I may be disabled, but God is my healer. My spirit may be poor, but my Savior is rich in mercy and abundant in grace. 

How beautiful it is when we extend the love and presence of Jesus to one another. We were created to walk into His glory together.

One beautiful soul. Beloved child of God. 

*Name changed for privacy. Story and photo shared with permission.