I Have A Dream, part 1

Have you ever had a dream, vision, or had God ask you to do some thing so big that you thought that you were going to wet your self?
So large that it makes you look incredibly tiny… So enormous that you feel 100% incompetent, who are you to think that you would be able to even come close to accomplishing such a thing. What kind of dream or where the hec did this vision come from any way?
These have been my thoughts for a good number of weeks as I have been watching what the Lord has been doing with us here in Rwanda. I have been realizing that this thing that he is allowing me to be part of is even bigger than I can imagine… And believe me I can imagine a lot!!

But before I enter into all that, let me remind you of some other people that were part of some really, and I mean really big things…
Call it what you will, calling, destiny, job, ministry, vision or what ever… I call it people who God allowed to be part in what he was doing!! And the out come most of the time, not all but quit often was amazing!

Jonah: Usually had no problem doing what the Lord requested, but there was this one time that he just really disagreed and it almost cost him his life. God showed mercy and gave him a second chance. He went and did what was requested of him and low and behold an entire City or people group repented, turned and served God.

Moses: Spent much time arguing with God, could not see why in the world God would put this “calling” on him. The things he asked him to constantly do were completely insane and just not logical. I think he often questioned his ability. Yet God had him take part in the marvelous task of leading his people to the promise land.

Abraham: Is told that he is going to be the father of many Nations when one he is in his 90’s and two he has no children. Yet god promises him a son…But before the promise is fulfilled Abraham with some help of his opinionated wife tries to help God. In the end Abraham has two sons one promised and one…..given by his wife’s maid. None the less God once again did his amazing deeds and Abraham is in fact the father of many Nations.

John The Baptist: Or know as the voice in the wilderness. All for the sake of proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, Now that was a huge job!! I wonder if there were times that he thought what the hec am I doing this for…Who am I to proclaim the coming of the king? Remember that while he was waiting to have his head chopped off he sent word to Jesus to ask are you really the one I was suppose to do all this for??

We could go on and on but lets skip to some one much more resent than then. A man that I feel was used by God greatly to impact a Nation.

Martin Luther King Jr.: God used this man to help bring equality between the blacks and the white’s in the United States. I would like to share with you part of his famous speech.

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, Free at last, thank God almighty, we are Free at last…"

God gives people dreams, He calls them to perform insane tasks, he puts them in these outrageous ministries doing these amazing things, He tags people as his Nation changers.

All for the sake of his Glory to be revealed!!

What is your Dream? What crazy thing has God asked you to do? Are you “called” to be a Nation changer? Does it make you feel too small?? Do you think, no way God that is insane, who am I to do or be part of such a thing?

I to have a dream! A dream that God is unfolding before my eyes, a dream that was given by him in November of 2003! Just when I think that I grasp it or see what is happening he unfolds the next scene. What the Lord is allowing me to partake in is beyond me! I can not share every thing at this time as it is still in the works as I speak.
But stay tuned for next time, I will share the first part of the dream that I had back in Nov. of 2003 and the stuff that the Lord showed me then..

To Be Continued…..

So goes the Day...

Here we go again, it’s out to Kibuye to see the land. This time we have got the big girls (Nani & Zoey) with us, it will be a first for them. Also coming along is our friends Aaron and Kendra who are here for the week visiting us.

I shared with Aaron and Kendra more about the dream and vision of what God has shown for this place to look like. Aaron turns and says he can see it!!It's funny because now the grass and bushes around are twice the size of before.
none the less, I just look and thank God for how far we have come.
One day this area will be filled with hundreds of orphans on their knees worshiping God and being set free. I find my self praying "God let it come! Please!" The lord reminds me of Habakkuk 2:2-3 (my answer, yes Lord I will!!)
Nani and Zoey really enjoyed them selfs, running around playing and just sitting to enjoy the view. So Dad this is really all ours? For the orphans? Wow!! One day it will be, one day.. I said..
They can see it! Praise God they can see it.. they started talking with me where they thought things should be built. Ha ha... (precious)

Cant go to the lake with out a swim. They had a blast! Some little local boy saw them and paddled in for a closer look. Ummmm little man in boat by himself, I must admit it was impressive to watch him move that boat around.

After awhile we found our selfs surrounded by cows and boats, realizing this point must be the local (boat)taxi stop and cow feeding area.

All in all the people are precious every one getting out of their boats not knowing us but delighted to see us. One very old woman was so excited she kept hugging and shaking our hands saying in the Kinarwanda (local langage) " Praise God, Praise God, God Bless you!!"
Did she see or know some thing I did not?? Ummmm..... And so was the Day, on the future Heaven Touching Earth land.

Let your Kingdom come, your will be done. In this place as it is in Heaven!!

The "Punch"....

Have you ever had one of those moments that you just received your pay check, your salary had come in, or had just received a nice financial blessing only to find that the very next day is when all the bills arrive, as if they knew when you get your money. Or something totally off happens and all the money you just had gotten has to be used. The next thing you know the money is gone but unfortunately the bills did not disappear with it, you find that you still owe money here and there and don’t know how you are going to pay.

We have just had a very similar thing happen to us and all I know what to do is pray…. I finished yesterday Blogging about the huge blessing we had received for HTE(Heaven Touching Earth). Some one wants to build 20 of the orphan homes. We were on cloud nine for some time, could not believe how God is bringing this thing all together. He is so good!!!

Then just as we were AH struck with that, BOOM!!! Satan came in and gave us a real hard punch to the gut.

But before I get to that let me back up and explain a little something.

We are now going into our third year of being here in Rwanda, a year and half of that until resent we have spent being illegal (with out visa’s). We were told after six months that we would not receive any more visa’s until we can show our permit proving that our Organization has been excepted and registered with the local Gov. this is a very time consuming process and could take months to achieve. In asking what we should do with our immigration status, we were told that we need to wait and get our registration first then pay what ever penalty fees are required. We were told that this is part of the process. Very recently we found out that this is not true. Through out the last two years I have met with different people and asked for help and to get my questions answered. I was told to wait, so I waited. I only wanted to do what I was told to do, what was right, and legal.
I really don’t have the time and space to go into the whole story but that is the just of it. It is a very long story!! But what you need to know is from the beginning up to now we have been doing every thing we are told.

Now for the “Punch” yesterday I went to immigration and fond there the payment required from us to finalize our visa and work permits, back dated from 2005- 2007, also attached was the penalty fees we must pay for be in the country for so long with out any visa’s.

It came to a total of almost $6000 (six thousand dollars.)

Now you know why I said, all I know what to do is pray!!!
If that is not enough, I also received an email last night reminding all parents that it is time to pay the tuition for school. We have been so blessed by having the girls (Nani & Zoey) in this school, and have never seen them happier. They are really flourishing!! I heard that it is considered to be the best school in the nation right now, focused on God and growing rapidly. None the less the girls are blessed to be there and we are blessed to have them there. The tuition is a whapping $1800 per child and that covers the year.

So adding this with our immigration we our needing to come up with about $9600…

So lets talk about living a life of Faith… You know we serve a Big God!!! We have seen Him do the most unimaginable things. One would think that after watching God do his thing over and over again that it would at some time become easier to believe in him for the next time right?? No!!! It seems that God just keeps finding bigger and bigger things for you to have to trust in him more. All the while stretching you beyond you can dream. So when does that time happen? When do you wake up and have that perfect trust?? Not worrying for tomorrow!

Please Pray with us, Satan is trying to bring discouragement…
God wants to move on this Nation in a mighty way, many can feel it. It’s going to happen!!!

These people are so loved by God!!

Twenty Houses....

The phone beeped, Astrid looked at the text message and asked me if we would like to have dinner with some of the team from Saddle back (Rick & Kay Warren) you know the guy that wrote Purpose driven Live.
They have been doing a lot of work in Rwanda. For those that don’t know, I heard that the story goes something like this. One day the president of Rwanda had read Rick’s book “Purpose Driven Life”. Shortly after he had contacted Rick and his Church and told them that he wanted his Nation to become the first Purpose driven Nation… Hence Ricks church and many, many others some how connected to them via networking or partnering have been coming quite often to Rwanda and doing wonders.

So back to Dinner, A good friend of ours that is working in Rwanda in the medical field and has very good connections had told some people from the Saddle back team about us and the orphan village we are going to start in Kibuye. They, in the midst of there crazy schedule said contact them and see if they can join us for dinner tonight. Low and behold the dinner did not work out they had to cancel on us, but then asked if we could join them on a trip to Kibuye the next morning. Very short notice but what the hec I went for it.

I meet them at their Hotel early the next morning and away we went to Kibuye. I then understood why the dinner did not work out, God wanted me to be able to meet many more members that were traveling on the team. It was wonderful to sit and talk to so many of them, and see there hearts for the Widows, Orphans, and Rwandan people.

Some how I was always drawn to this one particular couple, there was some thing about them. They were so precious!! There names were Michel & Beth Fox, I learned that they had there own ministry building houses for orphans in many countries around the world. I would highly recommend that you visit there wed site and see what they are doing. www.c3missions.org All I can say is AWESOME very awesome!!!!

Michel and I had talked a lot, he was asking me so many questions and I was doing my best to give him some answers. Thinking, man I wish Astrid was here, she is the real detail one. I just am good with people.The questions just kept coming and it seemed that they were really interested in what God was doing with us here in Rwanda.
The schedule was packed, it was always, in bus, out of the bus, have lunch, back in the bus, to this church…
Before I knew it, I had to get my but in gear to catch a taxi bus back to Kigali or I would be stuck there. See the deal was, that I could hop along but would have to find my own transport back as they were staying for a few more days there. I said my good byes, wishing that I had more time, but really had to go…
I didn’t even see Michel and Beth so I felt so bad that I couldn’t say good bye.
After getting to the taxi stop and buying my ticket, the only space they had was on a bus leaving in one hour and it so happened to be the last bus of the day.
I thought “WOW GOD”!!! I needed more time and you just gave it to me. Thank you so much!!!

The bus stop just happened to be right next to the church where Rick and the team were speaking.Some thing told me that I had to at least say good bye to the Michel and Beth.
After finding them and telling them that I had to go back to Kigali but just wanted to say good bye and give them my contact info.
Michel began to share with me that they want to commit to build for us Twenty (20) houses for the orphans in Kibuye. He wants to say in touch and for me to work out all the details and send to him.
All I could do was cry, and say thank you!!!

Thank you Michel and Beth, Thank you C3 Missions International!!!!

Stay tuned Rwanda, “Heaven Touching Earth” is coming and the Lords glory is going to be poured out!!!!

Habakkuk 2: 2-3