Humpty Dumpty feel down today

This morning I said a stupid thing to someone and as soon as it came out of my mouth I thought 

"Myranda, that was REAL DUMB, you need to fix it!"  So, I attempted to rectify the situation and it went from bad to worse.....lets just say the whole event didn't play out in reality in the way the conversation went in my head.  The other person was pretty offended, and to be honest, I don't blame them one bit.  

Letting words fly out of our mouths and dropping eggs have the same effect.  You have to clean up the mess, but you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together....

Sometimes I wish God would render me mute ( I know my husband feels that way at times).  But as that probably won't happen anytime soon, my prayer is "God help me to exercise self control and humility!  Help me to put up and shut up!"  

So, when I got home and cried a bit, the Lord told me one word.....Humility.  Humility is the key!  It doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong at that point.  Humility is the key!  So, I prayed and dove in one more time and God be praised, all is well.  I didn't attempt to try and explain my side or what ever, I just said how sincerely sorry I was for hurting them.  

Funny thing is....or ironic maybe.....yesterday in my quiet time I was praying "Lord help me to walk humbly"  BBBWWWAAAAA!!!!!!!!!  Careful what you pray for!  The Lord IS listening!  

FUN RUNS AND CRAZY TIMES!

Finally, I have 5 minutes to sit down and put two thoughts together.  This month has gone by in a HUGE blur of activity.  I am sitting here in a quiet house in my husbands sweats wondering “What on earth is happening?”

Let me back up a tad.....A few weeks ago there was a fund raiser for STREETWISE that a couple of fabulous ladies from our church in Zambia set into motion.  Ilke Greene approached Luis and I back in August and asked if we wouldn’t mind if she and Nikki did something like this.  Um....SURE THANG!!!  

(We have been praying and praying and praying for God to lay the burden and passion for street kids on others hearts in the church, to come along side in what capacity they feel they can offer and walk with us on this crazy journey we have found ourselves on.  Some want to help prepare food, some want to fundraise, some want to go on the outreaches.  But all want to be a part in someway.  It is awesome!)

Then the night of the fundraiser came and it was ROCK YOUR FACE OFF AWESOME!  It was a 5 km run.  113 people turned out for the event.   Did you catch that.....ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN PEOPLE SHOWED UP!  Lusaka isn’t very big and that is a MASSIVE turn out!  I just stood at the back of the crowd slacked jawed and blown away by what God is doing.  

Luis and I sat the next day and tried to collect our thoughts on the event.  All we have done is been crazy enough to raise our hands when God asked for volunteers to go to these kids.  We haven’t a single solitary clue...we aren’t “trained” to do this work.  We just know that all God requires is that we have willing and obedient hearts.  Our faith is small at times.  But, what does it say about mustard seeds?  Let me lay it out for you in the MMV (myranda morales version)

If all you have is the faith to lift your foot off the floor, God will show you where to plant it next, then the next step, and before you know it, God is moving and you are just along for the ride of your life.  

So, where does that leave us?

How can you pray and help?

1. We now have a regular team of people who go on the outreaches with us.  We are going to be branching into a second outreach sight soon.   Please pray for unity in the team and that God will continue to teach us how to do this work with wisdom.

2. We need a bus for the outreaches.  It would be super nice to tell kids... “Go to the corner of Independence Avenue at 11 am on tuesdays and you will find the STREETWISE BUS”

There is so much  more I want to tell you about Joe graduating from Teen Challenge and about how we are about to send David and Samford up there.  But that is for another blog. 

There is also so much I want to tell you about STREETWISE CRAFT CO and the birth of a trade school, but again, that is for another blog.  

Keep you eye balls peeled for updates and PLEASE keep praying!!!  Like I always say
“A missionary is only as effective as the prayers that are supporting them”!

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in December when we come back for the holidays!  

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!  

my mattress miracle

Ok, least you all think that I have become a crazy person and have now started praying over what pair of socks to wear every day, let me give background before telling you my miracle. 

In the last post I told you all that I have been in a hard mental place for a few months.  Discouraged and frustrated.....lots of “God what I am DOING here??”  You get the picture....

A couple of weeks ago I was doing one of my weekly purges (I routinely throw crud away in one room of my house a week to prevent being run over by broken crayons and teddy bears with no arms) and noticed that the kids mattresses were in a sad state and that it would behoove us to get new ones 

(did you like the use of the word BEHOOVE?)  

However, where does one get the extra cash to buy three mattresses on the fly like that?  So I sent a quick prayer up and forgot about it. 

DO YOU SEE WHERE I AM GOING WITH THIS!?  DON’T RACE ME TO THE PUNCH LINE!!!

A couple of days ago I got a phone call from some friends who have just recently bought four new twin sized mattresses.  They have to leave the country and they wanted to know if we would like them....as in HERE TAKE FOUR BRAND SPANKING NEW MATTRESSES FREE OF CHARGE CAUSE WE WANNA BLESS YOU!!!  But Myranda, you say, you only have three kids....on outreach nights Joe stays the night with us and we have needed a spot for him to sleep!!!!!!!  HENCE FOUR BRAND NEW MATTRESSES.

BUT THAT ISN’T THE KICKER!!  

Often we are put in a place of self evaluation..asking ourselves “God what are we DOING!? Is this your will??  Are we heading in the right direction or are we spinning our wheels?  LORD THIS IS JUST PLAIN INSANITY!!!” 

Here is what God dropped into my heart.... “Duh Girl (I added the DUH part)  If I didn’t want you in Zambia doing what you are doing would I have just handed you brand new mattresses for sleeping?”  To which I responded "Good point Lord!  You sure are wise!"  

God will always confirm his will to us.  He will always give us what we need to keep going.  We just have to keep our ears tuned into what he is saying.  

It might not be the writing on the wall, but hey, my kids get to sleep comfortable tonight!  

let there be light

( Maybe this was just for me....maybe someone needs to read this....I dunno I was just so excited about it that I had to share!!! )

God has been speaking to me about light and I want to do my clumsiest best to share with you what has given me reason to weep with joy at the goodness of God.  Just this morning I sat at the kitchen table and laid my head down with the shear weight of the goodness of God’s loving mercy.   All I could say was HALLELUJAH!

Since April I have been in one of the biggest mind battles I have ever experienced to date as a believer.  There have been some very dark days.  Days of “GOD WHERE DID YOU GO!?”  Days of not being able to open my bible because the words would just swim in front of my eyes and make no sense to me.  I share this is because I know many of you all have been in the same place recently.  Wading through the darkness of your own thoughts and trusting God for the strength to get your teeth brushed.  Those are hard days.  

God spoke: “Light!”
        And light appeared. Genesis 1:3

The first thing God created was light....why?  Because he needed to see what he was dealing with!  Once the situation was laid bare and open things got dealt with, beauty and order came.  It is the same for us today folks!  God spoke LIGHT into our hearts and minds and WHAMO, it appeared;  illuminating all that is in need of the care and love of Jesus Christ.  

he spoke and there it was,
    in place the moment he said so. Psalm 33:9

I wish I could reach through the screen and make you look me in the eye now.....GOD SPOKE AND THERE IT WAS!  BOOM!  Right there!  When all is swirling around you and life is taking a chunk out of your hindquarters, remember this....

GOD SPOKE HIS PROMISES INTO YOUR LIFE AND THERE IT WAS, IN PLACE THE MOMENT HE SAID SO!  

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

leavin on a jet plane?

I have been agonizing for weeks about how to present this.....so I have decided to just come out with it...no cute stories, no spiritual applications to work on your souls.....just gonna lay it out plain and simple like...

WE WANNA GO HOME FOR CHRISTMAS BUT DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO DO IT!!!! 

Would you just consider how you could help us out with this?  

Did I mention that it is going to be Luis’ 40th birthday in December?  Since he grew up in NYC, he would LOVE to spend that milestone with friends and family at home!  Don't you wanna help make a missionaries dream come true?

Did I mention that our youngest daughter Brooklyn doesn’t remember snow!?  She thinks that Santa Clause is a skinny Congolese man who speaks French.  Don't you

 

        

 It is going to be Hannah's 9th birthday in December and Amira's 11'th.  They would REALLY love to spend it with their Nana and Papa.

 Don't you wanna help make a missionaries kid's dream come true? 





In all seriousness, it has been a hard year and we really need a break.  Would you pray about how to help us?  We wanna get refreshed so that we can come back recharged ready to hang with kids who have faces like this.....

If God is laying it on your heart to donate financially .... go to

 tscnyc.org / give / contribute to a missions trip / morales family zambia

Or you can mail a check or money order to 

Morales Family 

Times Square Church 

Missions department 

1657 Broadway FL 4

NYC, NY 10019

earmarked Morales family / zambia

Slow and Steady

STREETWISE OUTREACH is a ministry that has been birthed out of a desire to see the homeless, drug addicted and purposeless children of Lusaka rise up and take hold of their place in God...to recognize that they were born with a purpose and a plan. 

 FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE BABY!!!!!! AW YEAH! 

The reason we show up at 8:00pm every Wednesday night in the same parking lot is because we believe that in being a regular and steady presence they will begin to understand God’s tenacity for their souls.  You can’t imagine that alone is having on them.  

As I write this I am thinking of David.  He is an older boy who LOVES Mike Sampson.  Mike is a quiet, gentle, steady, solid presence.  He loves to stand at the back of the truck and hand out the tea to the boys.  David, with out fail, gravitates to Mike and simply stands right next to him the entire time.  He doesn’t move from his side for the full hour we are out there.  I don’t even think that they talk very much.  They just stand there with each other.  Slowly but surely David will give bits of his story to Mike as he learns to trust him.  But first he needs to believe that Mike won’t hurt him.  David has had to live a survivors childhood.  In order to survive the means streets of Lusaka he has had to shut parts of himself off.  HOW SAD!  

That is what STREETWISE is all about.  SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE!   There is no quick fix, no 5 step program to a greater you.  There is us being the arms and feet of Jesus extended to a dying and forgotten society of kids left to fend for themselves and wander aimlessly through their broken lives.  

How can you help?

We desperately need people to pray!  Would you consider committing to praying for us on a regular basis?  Prayer is the key to everything!  

 Would you consider coming over to help out for a bit?  That would ROCK MY FACE OFF!!!  

We need financial support.  In order to continue in what God is doing here we need you to consider giving up Starbucks for a day and sending that 10 bucks over here?  

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND YOU ROCK!!!

If God is laying it on your heart to donate financially .... go to

 tscnyc.org / give / contribute to a missions trip / morales family zambia

Or you can mail a check or money order to 

Morales Family 

Times Square Church 

Missions department 

1657 Broadway FL 4

NYC, NY 10019

earmarked Morales family / zambia

tapestries

Weaving our various threads into a tapestry is sometimes challenging and daunting.  Especially when our threads come in so many variations.  Some of us might be spun from llama fur, some from lambs wool and some from camels hair. 

What happens if you take a llama from Peru, a lamb from England and a camel from the deserts of Morocco?    Lets say that the tint of purple dye in Egypt is going to look a bit different from the purple dye in China because the process and ingredients used are going to vary.  (I actually have no clue, but flow with my thought here.) All this gets thrown into a big box in a tangled, knotted mismatched mess and somehow the contents of that box are supposed to work together to create a pattern.  Like the one in the picture above.

The weaving process takes a great deal of humility on our parts.  It takes a great deal of patience and understanding.  Say you are a nice butter yellow soft lambs wool and you think that your color and texture would be suited nicely next to a creamy pink, but Jesus thinks outside of the box.  He is going to put you next to the neon blue camels hair.  At first it seems as if it clashes and chaffs badly, but if we let humility and patience be our plumb line, and let the perfect work of righteousness to have its full effect,  the work is stunning!!!  It may not be what you had in mind, it may not be how you wanted it to happen, but it is better than you ever thought it would be!

As you can imagine living in Africa for 6 years, I have had to face many cultural misunderstandings.  The most recent one has really taken my breath away because it hasn’t been as clear cut as the ones in the past.  I felt comfortable in this particular situation to address things as an American woman would and I was W-R-O-N-G!   The responses I got in return was hard to swallow.  I got before God and was like “WHAT HAPPENED!? What went wrong??”  My emotions were raw and I felt like FORGET THIS, I QUIT!!!

To make a long story short, God is amazing!   I called my mom, cause she rocks my face off and she always is chock full of wisdom!   She calls a spade a spade and WILL NOT let me feel sorry for myself.  (Also she knows the challenges of working as an American woman in a male dominated society, India...makes Zambia look like a walk in the park)  Basically she asked me the question “Were you addressing things as an American or as Christian?  Was humility the plumb line or your opinion?”  As she spoke I felt the warm flood of peace wash over my heart and the hopelessness was gone.  I knew my heart was right before God, but I was filtering the situation as an American woman, not as a Christian being guided by the voice and standards of Jesus.  

Whats the punch line?  

Are you feeling misunderstood?   Do not let a misunderstanding drive a wedge in your relationships.  What we should be doing is taking steps back and getting God’s perspective and HIS cultural understanding.   

Jesus is the Divine Weaver who knows the best way to make all our colors and textures blend together in a beautiful pattern that will make the world take notice.