Madeline’s Blog

Hola amigos!

 

On 3-10-12 Sunday night  we went to the Interdenominational Worship Center! Dad told everyone about how we are going to Ecuador. Then he sang ‘You Live’ again. It sounded really good. Then Abigail and I took Elijah to the nursery. Then we sang ‘Born Again’ by Third Day with Dad. After that, People signed up get our news letter.

 

On Monday night we went to the fair. We rode some of the rides and Mom and Dad gave some of their friends our cards. We also met a man who had a llama, some ponies, goats and donkeys. He also had a very cute mini Brahma calf. He told us that he’d be praying for us.

 

We are going to start visiting different churches on Wednesdays because we will only be in Florida for a couple more weeks. Then we’ll go back up to Georgia in May. I can’t wait to see my friends!

 

I hope that we will be able to blog more. We are very busy but my Grandpa says that he likes reading about what we’re doing.

 

 

So All May Know,

 

Madeline Studebaker

Lollygagging and Dillydallying

Hola!

Amid the endless news of sickness and despair, we are reminded to check our perspective. We know how it ends. And by His grace and mercy, we know He who wrote to us about the beginning, the ending and the in between.
As we ventured out on deputation to raise support, I was ready with my charts and lists. Schedules, partially filled in, ready and ripe with potential. And you know what? My perspective was SO skewed. My plans fell, tumbled and toppled. My highest expectations… well, suffice it to say that my expectations were focused on myself, people that dissapointed and my plans that let me down.
But then, then, I sought the Lord. And isn’t that what I should have been doing all along? Not the way I was, making my plans and then seeking His agreement, but seeking and waiting?
He was waiting.
Like I wait on my 2 year old son as he lollygags to count the ants on the street as I try to cross the road. Like my dreamer daughter that dilly-dallies on the way to put something away and gets lost in the dew on a spider’s web. Like my my not-so-little-anymore doer that has to complete the project that she determines has much more value than what I have requested she do. If only I were as patient as He.
Perspective. We have been blessed so much. We are still seeking opportunities to share, still seeking those that desire to come alongside us in prayer, seeking financial support to get us to Ecuador and keep us there as the Lord wills. But the opportunities, they are looking bit different to me.
Not just goals and to-do lists. They are looking more like other people and less like me.
Like the sweet, lost family that uses crystals and is into the craft. Like the others that play their loud music and use such terrible language. I was so busy counting my ants on this road to Ecuador, I almost got run over by a parade of lost people. People with souls. They are tangled in this awful web of the world. Lord, forgive me for being so fixated on what I deemed the priority that I ignored what you placed in front of me.