A letter to my son

Dear Benjamin,

Ever since we learned you were on the way, we have been filled with anticipation.  Your birth was the culmination of months of feeling you, wondering about you, guessing who you were.  Kate has been wearing her "Big Sister" shirt since November. :)  You have been sung to, talked to, loved, kissed, and prayed for, long before you entered the world.  

Your birth is another testimony of God's hand in your still-tiny life: we planned a home birth, excited to have all the family there in your first few minutes of life, and as it turned out I didn't even get to hold you until several hours after you were born.  

In one day God changed our plans from home to hospital to C-section, for His glory and our good.  Another testimony of how "bad" things are used in His sovereign, good plan,  the midwife was too sick to make a visit and we chose to go with the doctor and hospital instead.
And that endless monitoring that I so wanted to avoid probably saved your life.  When they opened me up to get you out fast they saw the cord wrapped around your neck three times, tight, the placenta pulling away; and after they pulled you out of me, three minutes until they suctioned you out and you finally cried while daddy and I watched, wide-eyed.

I am amazed when I look back on the last year--how God used your life and the promise of you to bring hope and excitement to our family in the midst of so much change.  One might think that having another child would add to the chaos, the weight.  On the contrary!  Your life is such a sweet gift to every one of us, and cherishing your new life is our collective joy.  

I pray that you will have an insatiable desire to know your God.  I pray that your feet may be fitted with the Gospel of peace and that your hands will reach out in mercy to the needy. May your lips speak what is true and bring life to others.  

I pray that you will always know how precious you are; chosen, rejoiced in, treasured. 

I am in absolute wonder at our great GOD who came up with the idea of you, and

I love your amazing, intricate, marvelous little self.

Mommy

Life-on-life

We are so excited to head back to Tanzania in June, Lord willing!  It has been an amazing year of growth and challenge and searching and waiting...
of course, none of it wasted...
and in the meantime (which is when God seems to do most of His heart-work) we have learned much about ourselves and our God.

We left Tanzania with a desire to have more time for discipleship, life-on-life.
We had several options open to us, which quickly narrowed down in our minds to the two we thought were the best fit for us according to our gifts and desires.
We applied to and were accepted with a wonderful mission, SIM.
And in the end we are being sent out through our church again, to partner with another team of missionaries in Tanzania who are committed to discipleship of village churches and people.
We are more than thrilled to work with marriages and families.

In our debrief in CO last year, after talking through our various options, one very wise person said, "Look at what you naturally are drawn to."  That was easy.  Marriage is one thing we are always drawn to, families are what we have a heart for.  We have always been in awe at the way God has put   amazing couples and families in our lives to learn from.  We had thoroughly enjoyed being part of putting children into new families at Mavuno.

People ask what our best preparation for the mission field has been.

That's easy too.

Being discipled by Wayne and Leslie for the years we were in Bozeman before heading out was our greatest preparation.  I'm not talking about casual Bible study together, I'm talking about people who love you enough to get in your face and really challenge you.  I'm talking about people willing to tell you that "you haven't really gotten to the heart of that 2-year-old because he's still disobeying!"  And knowing that they would do anything for you and truly want the absolute best for you.  They are the people we still call when we reach a stalemate and can't figure out for the life of us what to do.  They have been used by God to RADICALLY alter the direction of our lives by their counsel and wisdom.

They were some of the first in a series of people who have taught us what it looks like to be and make disciples. And, of course, the point of discipleship is always to pass it on.

We are so excited to go back with the purpose of doing just that.

II Tim 2:2 "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will be qualified to teach others."

Prove it!

Global Outreach Week at our church just ended (and began, and progressed) with more yummy food.  I love that about America.  No need to plan ahead: there will be food there.  I think we could have saved our grocery money for the entire week!  But that is not the main reason I am blogging! :)

Being with the Body is always a blessing.  Being with the Body and praying together on Monday night, sharing the Word together, being challenged together, hearing what God is doing in the world is energizing and refreshing.

Seeing our faces on our little board display was not as energizing.  I understand the point, I appreciate the idea and I love looking at the other ones, but I battled in my mind with the difference between recognizing and appreciating all God has going on in this world and self-promotion.  I suppose it truly does come down to the heart of each individual.

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us..." 

There is this temptation in the missionary world anyways to prove yourself.  Otherwise, why are you going around the world in the first place?  Dave and I have always admired our missionary friends who can give themselves to a hard, unaccepting culture for years at a time without many results.  In our own case, or in my case I should say, my battle is more internal: begging God to help me be wise with my time, careful with my time, and not do things out of a fear of man that I would not otherwise do simply to "prove myself" to someone.

We want to be faithful stewards of time and resources, and we want to stay committed to what God says is important.

Recently we have had these discussions with missionary women who are told to "do more, do more!" a never-ending battle cry from leadership and those in authority over them to sacrifice time with children, if need be, "for the lost."

Since when did the rules change?  Since when did God call us to have a different set of priorities simply because we live in a place where the need is great?

 {The older women} are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2:4-5

What I love about those verses is not only what is included, but what is NOT included.   

Can we overestimate the value of one life lived in obedience, on those around them?  Whichever way we prioritize, we are discipling someone on how to walk with God. 

 Our goal is to be able to say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."  

Use your time like I use my time.
Love on your kids like I do.
Speak to your husband and children like I am.
Reach out to the poor and needy this way....

Humbling. 

 Impossible.  

Without God's enabling power, absolutely hopeless. 

 With Him, I can do all things.

"...but our sufficiency is from God..." II Cor. 3:5

God, help us make Your priorities ours.  No matter what anyone says.  We trust You that obedience to You will bear more fruit than we could ever muster up in our own methods.  

And now,  my view:

I can still see my feet, on occasion, and only three weeks left!  And while I really can't think of anything better than carrying this little person around, we also can't wait to meet this tiniest Helsby.

His Story

Unashamedly, two of my greatest heroes are my mom and dad.  Especially when I consider their lives and faithfulness.  Everytime I read it I think of them:

Psalm 92:14, "They will still bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him."

100 bed Hoa Khan Children's Hospital

My mama, she packed two babies on her hips and daddy held the other one, three children two and under, and they boarded a plane for war-torn Vietnam.  Right at the wrong time.  Who wanted to go to Vietnam in 1969? My daddy did, and not without his woman at his side,     to help heal little 

bodies in the name of Christ.  

 

And they stayed for five years, me being born after four and heading back again for one more until God delivered them just in the nick of time.  And my mama, she calls those her "skinny years," the stress of war and uncertainty taking a toll.  And they tell stories of sleeping in their bed with flak jackets on top of us all when the shooting got close, and children coming in with no limbs, the sad product of land mines.  And even though God did get us out three days before Da Nang fell to the North Vietnamese, my daddy still tears up when he talks about those children they had to leave behind in their hospital beds.  My whole life I have heard stories of God's faithfulness and I watched it lived out in my home.  Surely I am a steward of such a past and such a family.

Back to Vietnam after my birth

Headed to Taiwan in 1976

And that doesn't even include the incredible stories of the family I married into, with Dave's grandparents being sustained in a Japanese civilian concentration camp in China while they were

missionaries, his other grandma growing up as a missionary kid in Korea.   And parents who left comfortable small-town Montana to head to the bustling city of Hong Kong.  And all of that to say, we don't go overseas just because that's what our families do, but we have to decide what to do with the abundance that has been poured out on us.  How can we use these small, wispy vapors of lives to the best of our abilities?  How can we pour out what has been poured in, particularly in terms of the people who have discipled us extensively and the examples of Godly Christians that we have been privileged to learn from?

1. Faith of our fathers, we will strive
   To win all nations unto thee;
   And through the truth that comes from God,
   We all shall then be truly free.
2. Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
   We will be true to thee till death.

 

Safety First?

God has been so faithful in the past few months, narrowing down our options beautifully from about eight realistic ones to two right now.  We are excited about both of these and continue to pray that He would finalize the right place for us.  

In the process of applying with a mission, being accepted with them and getting several pages of current openings with Dave's skills and gifts, I have been confronted again with the questions that nagged me before we ever went on the mission field; mainly, "Is it safe?"  

I grew up in a home where probably the most frequent statement we heard was, "You are never safer than when you are in the center of God's will."  This was not just a saying; my parents had lived this out practically in amazing ways (more on that next time!).  This became a part of all of us--we really believed it.  Stepping into a "dangerous" place always brings it back up for me, especially when it is frequently asked by others. 

 "Is where you lived safe?" 

 "Is where you are going safe?" 

 "Is it safe for your kids there?"

 "Is it safe to have a baby there?"

Well, isn't safe relative?  I mean, we would have thought it crazy if someone asked if it was safe for us to go to the Boston Marathon, right?  Who would have guessed what could have happened?  And when we look at "safe" or "unsafe" places in the world, we have to look in light of a sovereign, kind God who has our days numbered and our lives in His hands.  And still, when I hear about an opportunity in Nigeria, pictures like this come to mind:

And I have to question my own philosophy. 

And no, we're not on our way to Nigeria, as far as we know.  But it is a good process to walk through, examining motives and commitment.  

We dealt with this after the robbery at Mavuno as well.  

We cannot look our children in the eyes and tell them that it will never happen again.  We cannot even say that if it happens again that God will keep us all alive; only that He will keep us safe, and safe might mean going home to Him.  And that if we spend our lives trying to save our lives, we will often walk away from what we are called to.

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matt. 10:39

The Potter is up to something grand (as always!)

There were misty eyes around the table for the second time this year; only this time they were from sheer delight and disbelief that something this good could come to our family.   And then there was dancing past bedtimes and “what are we going to name it?!” and “we’re gonna have a baby, we’re gonna have a baby!” as they bounced on beds.   Their one disappointment has been that it isn’t twins.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

All this bursting joy that God, in His sovereign grace and kindness, would bless us with such a gift. We are all in wonder.  As Dave says, #7 is kind of like bungee jumping—terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.  And to the question, “weren’t  you done having kids?” the answer is “Yes, we thought we were done after #4, but God keeps giving us these beautiful bonus babies, truly the reward He says they are. 

Sobering to think who we would have missed out on...!

"Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker-- An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'? Isaiah 45:9

This little plum-sized person is already filling our home with hope and excitement, and we are eager to see what tremendous plans God has for him (or her, but there are many in this home rooting for a “him”.)

Meggy has already called dibs on the baby, and our greatest “problem” will most likely be trying to get through the crowd of siblings to actually hold our own child.  We are so thankful that God does have very specific things to say about children.  They are not, as the world will so quickly tell us, a burden—they are a blessing and God uses them each day to sand down our sharper edges that still need smoothing, and build our faith in new ways. 

Stepping Heavenward, the diary of a woman from age 16 to the end of her life, has been one of my long-time favorite books.  In the midst of her childbearing years, with another baby on the way, a well-meaning friend says how sad she is to hear that she is having another child…

 “She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!”

--Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward

Praising God, from whom all blessings flow!

summer