Thursday, February 13, 2014

Have you had a boo hoo moment?

     The answer is YES!  Today!  Let me set the scene. Imagine, you are in a foreign country.  You moved here just 5 short weeks ago with your family.  You do not speak the language.  You have not learned to drive here yet.  You feel like you are with your family 24-7.  You go to language school 5 days a week for 1.5 hours a day. You homeschool your 7 year old twins (who by the way are not enthusiastic about school or even you being their teacher).  You are suppose to be practicing your spanish with the  housekeeper and the gardener......YIKES!

     Okay, now that you get the picture. Today was the day that I cried but I have to say it was not uncontrollable.  It was just a few tears streaming down my face.  My brain had just had enough.  Enough of being the mama; enough of being the teacher; enough of being the student....just enough.  We got home from language school today and began to prepare lunch, like normal.  But today was different.  I was on edge and feeling like I should be able to speak the language (Spanish)  more than I am doing.  Well, you have to practice in order to be able to speak it more.  DUH~  But the thought of this today, terrified me and just made my stomach hurt.  Josh was taking time practicing with Franklin, the gardener and I was not so much.  I can't seem to remember words as easily as Josh and it is very frustrating.  I just want to wake up tomorrow and  be able to spit out the words and it make sense.

     After much practice and time I know this will happen but for the time being I will just have to settle on having a few boo hop moments as my friend Stacy Knight likes to say.  I must admit I miss my family; I miss my friends; I miss being able to just hop in the car and go somewhere; I miss having lunch or dinner with my girlfriends but for such a time as this God has me here to do His work- NOT MINE.  I am reminded of that each and everyday.  And I must remind myself that it is not about me....what?!?!?!?

     The last 2 weeks I have sent out devotions pertaining to love to my former co-workers and today spoke about faith: "Help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you.” (Romans 1:12 NCV).  So today I choose to have faith in what I can not see about my future and trust that God knows what He is doing and does not need my help.  On the contrary, I need His help with everything- with speaking the language; with learning to drive here; with living with my family 24-7; with going to language school 5 days a week; with homeschooling our children; with studying and with communicating with others around me.  

     Will you choose to trust God and have faith that He has you right where He wants you to fulfill His kingdom purpose?  

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

30+ DAYS

I can not believe that we have been here over 30 days.  We have gotten settled in and have made our house a HOME.  We still need to purchase a few more items like a bed and side table for our guest room,  side tables for our room, office desk, and two student desk.  We are planning on getting the guest room ready since we will have a young lady from the states staying with us from February 10 - April 7.  Her name is Sarah Howell.  She is from Tupelo, MS.  Sarah will be attending language school with us each day.  She plans to assist with some medical teams and visit with other missionaries to see into the life of a missionary.  We look forward to having her with us!  I know Sydney and Noah are looking forward to having someone visit.  It will be just like when we lived back in the states.

Little did I know how much God was preparing me for the mission field over the last few years.  I know these are little things and we take them for granted at home but when we moved into our home in MS our ice maker on our refrigerator was broken so we had ice trays.  Well it is too expensive to have your ice maker make the ice here so guess what ice trays it is, which is not  big deal unless someone does not empty the ice into the container, not naming any names. Then back in April 2013 our dishwasher broke and that was the last thing on the list to fix so from April-December we hand washed dishes (even when Bethany, our MK(missionary kid) lived with us from May-August)).  Well only the families who have money have dishwashers so we hand wash our dishes. I think the thing I enjoy the most is washing and drying our clothes.  Really drying more than washing....I get to hang the laundry on the line to dry.  This is such a peaceful time.  To be outside in God's creation.  There are nights when I go outside to get the laundry off the line that I find myself singing my favorite song, "My Redeemer Lives".  I just love this song and feel so close to God when I am outside and of all things doing the laundry.

There were many days in the beginning where the time has flown by but since starting language school not so much.  I am just exhausted!  Not physically but mentally, well let me take that back I am physically exhausted as well.  Bailey, our Corgi, feels the need to bark during the night at every thing that moves.  And, I mean everything from leaves to dogs and cats walking by.  She does not care what time it is, just that she feels the need to bark.  Since we do not have a fenced in yard for the dogs to stay inside we have to walk them every morning.  So after a good (semi-good) nights rest I awake at 6:15 to take Buster and Bailey on a 1-mile walk.  I enjoy this time because I am getting my exercise in for the day as well.  If I waited to do it after all our schooling I would be good for nothing.    We were told that we would be tired but words can not prepare you for this kind of exhaustion.

We leave for language school at 9 a.m. and return home at 11:30 a.m. Once we get home it is time to prepare lunches and then the dreaded thing to Sydney and Noah....HOMESCHOOLING!  This has been a HUGE adjustment for all of us but we are realizing that we need to scale back the amount of work that we do because of already having 1 1/2 hours of Spanish classes each day.  So we look forward to Wednesdays....NO HOMESCHOOL!  WE all need a break so we picked the middle of the week.  But a normal day is homeschool from 1-3.  I have spoken to several moms here and trying to have more that 2 hours of homeschool on top of language school is hard on the kids.  So we are focusing on Math, Language Arts and Reading.

Once we have completed homeschool, this gives me about an hour to hour and a half to relax, fold clothes, answer emails, write thank you notes,  etc.  then off to begin dinner preparations.  We got to talk to Mimi and Pop (Josh's parents) last night and Mimi asked if the bowls she saw via FaceTime were ours.  I replied no.  The bowls were the Crabtree's, the plates and cups were the Brassfield's  but the silverware and place mats were ours.  You work with what you have but I will say that I will be glad to have our second shipment.  Unfortunately, that will not be until April or May.  So until then we will use what we have and continue to borrow from our friends.

I have to admit that I am missing my family and friends!  I miss being able to just hop in the car and drive somewhere by myself.  I miss being able to call up a friend from home and say do you want to get lunch or a coffee.... I am grateful that I have become friends with Beth Brassfield.  I look forward to us having time to be able to call each other and say do you want to go get a coffee or lunch today just to have some girl time.  I am reminded each day of what God has called me to here in Nicaragua and am thankful for the new relationships I am making everyday.  I pray that I can be a light of God's love to those who I meet, whether I can speak the language yet or not.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Welcome to our blog

First, let me introduce myself.  My name is Laurie, a daughter of the King, a wife, mother, sister,  and daughter.  If you asked me 5 years ago, where do you see yourself in 5 years....Nicaragua would not have been the first thing out of my mouth.  I would like to think that we would still be in the military stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY.  This is where we made our home for 5 years until my husband was grounded from flying Kiowa's due to the medication they put him on for migraines

However, since I know God is everywhere, He had a perfect plan for the calling on my husbands life. God used a time in the "desert" to bring my husband to his knees.  Literally, God used my husband deployment to Afghanistan to draw him closer to God.  This is where our lives forever changed.  My husband was being molded into a vessel that God would use for His kingdom.  Once Josh returned from deployment we found out the military was going to let my husband out of the army, so we would have to move.  We moved to Hattiesburg, MS on January 2, 2010 where we lived with his parents for what was suppose to be 6 months.  NOT!  Eighteen months later we were able to move into our own home.  During those 18 months, God continued to use family, jobs, and friends to mold not only Josh but myself as well.  

In March, 2011, we began attending Hardy Street Baptist church for my husband to take the Children/Youth/College Pastor position.  In June of that year, we began a two day a week mothers-day-out program where I became the director.  We wanted to meet the needs of the mothers in the downtown area by providing an affordable preschool where their children would be in a loving, Christian environment.  Though we only had dozen children, God would use our preschool to make an impact in so many families.  In January 2012, we expanded to become a 5 day preschool for children ages 6 weeks - 5 yrs.  We grew from 13 to 40 in a matter months and then grew again to 70+ children in the fall of that same year.  God was using us to make an impact in so many lives.  However, God had other plans for our family.

Late September 2012 our lives would begin to change.  My husband approached me about what he felt God was placing on his heart - missions.  In my head I was thinking he wanted to really get started in his non-profit organization, Mercy Aviation, that he had started years before, so I asked him was it that .....no; then I asked was it that he wanted to do more in the downtown area where our church was located......No. OH NO, please don't let it be international missions.....YES.  Yikes!  This is not what I wanted to hear.....I had already felt like I was taken out of TN before I was ready.  And after we found a church home at Temple Baptist Church, where I got involved in women's ministry and bible studies with a wonderful group of ladies Josh shares about feeling called to work at the East campus of our church, where I did not go very happily, I might add, but God molded me yet again.  I grew to love our church and the sweet people of our church.

Now it is September 2012 and God is molding our family yet again.  International Missions, you have got to be kidding me!  No, God was not kidding.  The next year would fly by faster than a speeding bullet to me!  It is like I blinked and we raised our support to be on the mission field December 31, 2013.  We knew that when we were able to raise $85,000 in 9 months it was confirmation that this is what God wanted for our lives and Nicaragua was where he wanted us to be.

As we look back over our lives we see where God was in all of our struggles, trials, joyous occasions, and our disappointments.  He has a perfect plan and the plan he had for our life, for such a time as this......is to be serving as full time career missionaries in Nicaragua.  You can follow us on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/themoudymission.  If you would like to join us on a mission trip, partner with us in our ministry through prayer or financially please let us know or want more information about our Mission organization go to www.bmdmi.org.