Dominican Republic with Servant’s Heart

June 25, 2013 by Kelli

Tomorrow morning we will board a plane with our children and hop over the blue waters to the Dominican Republic. It’s not a vacation, though Lee and I have vacationed there in the past. It almost makes my stomach churn to think of the exorbitant amounts of food we ate in one short week when just outside the walls of our resort children were starving.

We are heading to Dominican with Servant’s Heart Ministry purely out of obedience. I told you earlier that I initially didn’t want to go on this trip. It’s not that I didn’t want to serve, but I felt an enormous amount of anxiety at the thought of spending the money to go to Dominican when my heart still longs and hopes to adopt.

But this trip is about obedience. It’s about realizing that while the door to adoption is temporarily closed, there are needs to be met and we have the ability and resources to meet them. This trip isn’t about me and what I want – it’s about following through with an opportunity that was placed before us.

It’s about saying “Yes,” and in my yes, God has been good to ignite and excitement for the trip. I am really excited to leave tomorrow.

Servant’s Heart Ministry began in 2008 when a group of men in Nashville joined with a passion to change as many lives as possible through Jesus. Their mission statement reads:

To impact and change the lives of children around the world through missions for Christ by providing life sustaining necessities, sending, supporting and maintaining mission teams, construction and the sponsoring of children in order to lead them to Christ and break the cycle of poverty.

This week we are headed south to serve the least of these. It’s a chance for our children to see that life is very different outside of their own little sphere. This will be a stretch for them – it will be a stretch for all of us.

This will be a different sort of family trip. Judging from the amount of complaining that’s gone on the last twenty-four hours (I’m tired of walking! My legs hurt! I don’t wanna eat this food! It’s hot out here! Me! Mine! Now!) I think there will be plenty of opportunity for life lessons. It won’t make them perfect children.

It won’t make Lee a perfect dad.

It won’t make me a perfect mom. (I mean, I’m practically perfect already, you know? How do you improve on that?)

(I am kidding!)

(Seriously…that’s a joke. Don’t send me nasty emails.)

What this week will do is offer vivid pictures to be committed to memory, a moving reel that can be tapped into when the monotony of life just seems to be so much. And maybe this will be the week that the Lord speaks to Lee and I as we continue to seek Him for what the next step should be.

I will be blogging this week during the trip. I want you to see what is coming of this vision cast several years ago by men who also wanted to obey – men that chose to say “Yes.” What an impact we can have in this world when we choose to step into the things that make us uncomfortable and we say “Yes” to serving others.

If you’re interested in learning more about Servant’s Heart Ministry and the work that they are doing in the Dominican, visit their website and stop on by this week! I’m excited about the opportunity to keep you all posted (Haha! Get it? Posted? Hehehe…Aaaahhhh, blogging humor. It is the best.)

Have a blessed week, everyone!

Disclaimer: Lee and I chose to take this trip with our kids. I am blogging about it because I want to, not because I’ve been asked to. I will post my opinions based upon what I see and learn.

Filed Under: Blogging, faith, Ministry, Missions Weeks, Travel Tagged With: Dominican Republic, Family Mission Trip, Missions with kids, Saying Yes, Servants Heart Ministry

Saying Yes to the Good and Bad

May 28, 2013 by Kelli

I’m learning a lot right now about what it means to say yes. By nature, my first response is not generally yes. I’m more of a “maybe, let me think about it, I’ll get back to you,” kind of a girl. Saying yes is scary because saying yes usually comes with some sort of responsibility attached.

(Unless, of course, someone asks me if I’d like some Nutella, at which point saying yes is non-negotiable and always rewarding…)

Last year Lee and I said “Yes” together to adoption and as most of you know – that didn’t work out so well. But we said yes. We agreed because saying “No” didn’t feel right. If you talk to Lee and I individually about our motives to adopt, you’ll hear two different stories. Mine is the longer one.

Naturally.

Lee’s story is quite simple and I love the purity of his answer. When he was asked last summer why he decided to step forward with the adoption he said, “Because God didn’t give me the freedom to say no.”

That was it.

He couldn’t say no because he didn’t feel like GOD (not me – I had given him full permission to say no) had given him the freedom to say no. So he said yes.

I will confess that I still struggle with some bitterness and disappointment that God didn’t lay “No” on Lee’s heart. I still don’t understand why He brought us to this point in the adoption process. But obviously there were lessons of faith and trust and dependence that I needed to learn and so even though I’m disappointed in the circumstance and sometimes even in God Himself, I can still say He is good.

I still have faith, even though my faith feels much shakier than it did before. It’s being tested and burned and molded – it will come out stronger, but I have to wrestle through this.

As we prayed and sought and searched and looked at what our next step should be after the adoption was terminated, Lee felt a deep desire to go as a family on a mission trip this summer, and this time it was my turn to be reluctant. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to spend the money. I knew that money could be spent on transferring our adoption to a different country. But Lee felt really strongly that we should take the kids on a mission trip.

And I didn’t have the freedom to say no, so yes was the only other option.

We began to search different missions opportunities that we could take with the kids. We needed to find something that fit into Lee’s hectic work schedule and after a lot of thought, we decided to join forces with Servant’s Heart Ministry on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.

One month from today we will board a plane with our children to meet and serve the children of the Dominican Republic. I will confess that my heart is still unsure, not of the trip – I have no doubt the trip will be amazing. But I am still unsure about where we stand with the adoption and I still struggle daily with this idea of saying yes to God.

But what is faith if we don’t say yes to the things that don’t make sense – even those things that may not go as planned? And how will we ever teach our children how to serve those in desperate need if we don’t go and do? Even if it costs money? Even if it sets us back in the adoption?

Or maybe it’s a step forward…

God has been terribly silent through all this adoption stuff, but I have this sense of peace that as we continue to say yes to the things in front of us, He will slowly reveal His plan for our family. As I said earlier, saying yes is scary because the outcome is not always certain, but if there is one thing I have been able to cling to in these months of questioning and doubt it’s that God is good and His plan is perfect, even when I don’t understand it.

So we are saying yes to the things that are scary, the things that are good, the things that could go wrong or right. We’re saying yes because when presented with an opportunity to bless another person, is saying “No” really an option at all?

What about you? What have you said yes to lately?

(And as a PS to those who gave money toward our adoption – please know that we have those donations set aside and we will not touch them until we decide what we are going to do. Should we ultimately decide not to proceed with another adoption, those funds will be returned. I just wanted to offer that explanation in an effort to be fully transparent. We don’t yet feel that God has shut the door on adoption so we continue to save in anticipation of adopting. We are walking in faith making each decision with an enormous sense of trust.)

Filed Under: Adoption, Adoption, faith, Family, Lee, Life, Ministry, Travel Tagged With: faith, Family Mission Trips, Saying Yes, Servant's Heart

Yes. Pick me. I’ll Go.

January 29, 2012 by Kelli

Comments now closed. The lucky winner is Emily! Emily I sent you and email. Send me your address and I will get the book in the mail ASAP. Thanks everyone for entering. Now go buy the book!

I’m currently nearly finished reading Kisses from Katie and I can barely contain the tears that have been flowing since I opened this book. Have you read it?

Why not?

“I fell in love with Uganda as soon as I arrived. After I woke up the first morning of our stay, I looked around and saw glistening bright white smiles against ebony faces; I heard happy voices, lilting language, and gentle laughter. I saw strength and depth of character in people’s eyes. I found Uganda to be a beautiful land filled with beautiful people.” Katie Davis, Kisses from Katie

Change a few adjectives and this is the exact way I would describe my feeling the first time I stepped off the plane in the former Soviet Union. It was as though a part of my soul – a piece of myself I hadn’t known existed until that moment – came alive and I would never be the same.

I am awed by Katie Davie and her willingness to say “Yes, Lord. I’ll go.” As I’ve read, I’ve found myself thinking more than once that somehow the decision she made was easier. She was young – she didn’t have anything tying her down. Of course she could just pick up and go. Of course she could say yes.

This thought is selfish at best and outright offensive at worst.

Katie was an eighteen year old Homecoming Queen with the world at her fingertips and the resources to grasp it. Instead, she “quit her life,” left everything comfortable and known – all her dreams and plans, her parents’ dreams and hopes and desires – and she moved to Uganda. Forever.

Katie Davis said “Yes.” And it was a hard “Yes.”

I am a wife with three young children. My “yes” may look different, but I have the exact same ability to say “Yes, Lord. I’ll go.” But would I mean it? Can I say it? Because honestly, the responsibilities in front of me are real, and necessary and daunting and when I think of saying “Yes, Lord. I’ll go,” my mind automatically thinks so big and so vast and I feel immediately incapable of succeeding.

I wish my “yes” could be in another country where the harsh but beautiful lilt of the Russian language filled my ears and the laughter of children in need quenched the thirst in my soul.

But that’s not where He has me right now. And I sometimes fear that maybe I long ago closed my ears, gave a resounding “No” and relinquished my ability to impact His kingdom.

Then I pull out the Math books and the history book and the Russian books and realize that I already said “Yes, Lord. I’ll go.” Every single day, as I shepherd and mold the small hearts entrusted to me, I say “Yes.” I didn’t want to home school. Honestly, most days I still don’t. But I’m supposed to. I know with all my heart that right now, at this moment, I’m where I’m supposed to be.

“Yes”.

Katie Davis’ “Yes” took her to Uganda. It made her the mother of fourteen children before she could legally drink in America. Her “Yes,” by my standards, is huge. Her “Yes” by any standards, actually, is huge. How many of us were willing to give up everything at eighteen to go serve the poorest of poor on the other wide of the world?

But guess what? We all have the ability and the obligation to say “Yes” to that which is right in front of us. My “Yes” to home schooling is not that big, especially when you take into consideration the reluctance with which I agreed. But still I said, “Yes.” Just thinking about it in these terms has renewed a passion in me for discipling my children this year while I have them home.

Consider Katie’s words: Sometimes, the everyday routine of my life feels so normal to me. At other times the idea of raising all these children seems like quite a daunting task. I realize that since I have chosen an unusual path it is easier for outsiders to look at my life and come to the conclusion that it is something extraordinary. That I am courageous. That I am strong. That I am apecial. But I am just a plain girl from Tennessee. Broken in many ways, sinful, and inadequate. Common and simply with nothing special about me. Nothing special except I chose to say “yes.” “Yes” to the things God asks of me and “yes” to the people He places in front of me. You can too. I am just an ordinary person. An ordinary person serving an extraordinay God.”

We can all say yes. We can say yes to the man on the street corner with a sign for food and a plea for help crying from his desperate eyes. Small? Not to Him and not to God.

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

We can take food to a neighbor in need, visit someone in a nursing home, hug a hurting friend or give out of the abundance of our resources to those who have little. “Yes” takes many forms, but we have to be willing to say it, then do it.

In the interest of giving everyone the chance to be inspired and encouraged and challenged and convicted, I have purchased a copy of Kisses from Katie to give away to one reader. Simply leave a comment for your entry. I will choose a winner randomly on Wednesday morning, February 1, at 9:00 am EST.