For days, the air has been swollen, heavy, pregnant, ready to deliver a new season.  The winds have been blowing hard.  They do that sometimes when fronts of change approach.  Blow hard, swirl fierce, stir our dust up just a bit.  The ground thirsty in the waiting and me with it.

I have been watching the sky, ready to leap to attention to shut windows and move furniture to protect it from the weather that sometimes visits inside my house as it is passing by.

Then today I hear the rain, the first drops of change pounding my tin roof like a hundred little drummers.  An army marching refreshing overhead.  I forget to close windows.  I leave furniture in place.  I run out the door leaving it flapping in the wind.

I run into the middle of compound right out into the open, in the middle of children scurrying with piles, protecting laundry from the onslaught of elements.  They scurry, I soak: let the cold wet drops wash over me.

“Mama, you will get wet.”

Yes, that is exactly why I am standing spinning in the middle of it all like a five year old in a ballet dress.  I WANT to be wet, to be washed, refreshed and when the rains come in even greater earnest, I will splash and stand again under the wonder of it all. Large drops fall hard from the sky and I walk slow drinking it all in.  This gift of rain.

Now the planting can begin.  Soon life and growth will unfold their miracles before our eyes and the land will tell its story again and again of death giving way to life.  It all starts with the rain, with the coming of the wet that the earth may be ready for seed.

What dry patch of ground do you need His rains to soak slow and deep and bring forth new life?   What part of your dust is being stirred by winds of change?  What is your earth thirsty to receive? Slower days are for many things.  Seeing, spinning in rain, soaking Him in the thousand ways He comes and whispers: I AM.

I am grateful for all that and I am grateful for you reading this.  Thank you for the gift of your time, of your interest, of you.

From an unpaved road in Sudan, always remember:

I can scarcely believe this dear one found me in a field almost three years ago. I give thanks to One Who rescued her from sleeping in a bar and brought her home to live with us.  She is a gift.  I give thanks for how she is growing more beautiful every day. Beautiful in every way that matters.

I give thanks every time she looks in my eyes and says, “mama.”

Tonight the dust rises as incense mingled with prayers again from our little patch of earth.  I sit in the cool dark air, moon lit with five little ones trying to fit on my lap, laws of space and mass stubbornly disregarded.

She comes and lays her hand on my head, praying her own litany of thanksgiving.  Tears well in eyes and water the little ones leaning in close beneath.

“Thank you God,” she prays.  ”Thank you for Mama, for her loving us: that she loves every one of us.  Show her tonight how much YOU love her.”

Oh sweet daughter HE IS.  Just now.  Through YOU.

Her words speak slow, speak deep, sweep me up again into the romance of the ages, the love story of the nations, written in dust, watered with tears, the very depth of what I am created for: KNOWING HIM.

I will say it again and again and again. In speech, in arcs and lines on a page, in pictures, in paint, with my life, with my breath.

Missions is about romance. It is not about strategy or methods or theology.  Not ultimately. It is about romance.  It is about Jesus winning for Himself a Bride from every tribe and tongue and language and people and nation. It is about finding her even while she sleeps in bars and brothels and bringing her home.

Can I say it again?

MISSIONS IS ABOUT ROMANCE. Not results or numbers or logic or reason.  If it ever stops being about romance, I stop too.  Stop until I find where I lost touch with Him. Only when I am in the center of this love story of His, do I have anything to offer.

My prayer for you: that YOU would be swept off your feet into the romance of HIS Good News right where you are reading.  May He show YOU in this moment how wildly YOU too are loved.

Morning greetings change in the dawn hours of a new nation.  I wake, set foot down on the dusty earth of answered prayer. A new day.  The first day of the rest of history.  I savor its mystery.

Falling leaves cup light, liquid gold spilling out to color ground beneath.  Amber rays fall soft around me before the sun rises high and hot in the dry season sky.  I drink in the coolness of the morning.  I drink in the silence of the light.  My brood of over 100 still quietly rising to meet this new day of grace.

I hear word the red ribbons last night in the sky took their toll.  Bullets land in tragic places; even unintentionally stealing away life before its time.  I am grateful for Papa’s protection of us all as we slept.  Even celebratory times here can turn dangerous, echo the war years we pray never return.

I step out my door, foot to ground, toes to soil, eyes pealed for His epiphanies waiting to be found while the Republic of South Sudan is still being washed of her afterbirth.  We greet eachother, she and I.  The answer to prayers I didn’t even know I prayed.

“Happy New Nation, Mama”  replaces the customary “Good morning- how was the night?”

Word also has come that there may be many, many more homeless, abandoned children being sent our way.  I lift up silent prayers for more grace, more of all we need.  There has always been enough.  Now we step out in faith for more than enough.

Mama Eudita, one of my heros, reminds me of His litany of gifts.  I mention to her in passing about the influx of need on the horizon.  A hint of concern furrows my brow.  It does not go unnoticed.  Her laugh rich and deep wraps itself around my heart reminding me of His faithfulness.  She recounts all His provision from the day I arrived almost five years ago, narrating my own story back to me.  Sometimes I need family to remind me of my own story, His story, His goodness.

Remember the time food multiplied… the time Vicki was healed… the time we lived with nothing in a bombed out shell of a building and now we have 40 acres of fertile land and a bed for every child… Remember.  Remember.  Remember. How could I forget these everyday epiphanies, these supernatural gifts of grace?  But sometimes still I do.  Even after writing them in books and journals and blogs, sometimes I still need reminding of the story.

Gold puddles around the edges of my day. I drink deep of His beauty…  Today, I am thankful for His gifts of:

• A new nation being born
• Being here as it was delivered
• Soaking toes in amber light on my floor
• Family to remind me of my own story
• Remembering His faithfulness
• Beled Sudani-Rabuna b’hilaju inta
• Warm rich laughter
• Surprise gifts of chocolate for valentine’s day
• finding bleach in the market
• 103 smiles
• Happy NEW Nation morning greetings
• A shared history in Jesus
• You who read my ponderings and wanderings on this unpaved road into His heart

Rainbow colors dance in the wind.  I look out my window giving thanks for minor miracles: clothes hanging on a line, not scattered on the ground to dry.  Well, at least not as many scattered on the ground to dry.

Eagerly my children line up waiting their turn.  It is time for the annual pre-school days clothing sort. The old rags taken for fire, the ones now too small piled for re-gifting, the ones surviving our scrutiny repacked in new clean bags.

I look in each child’s eyes, one by one.  Praising some for their care of what has been given them, admonishing others to wash their garments and not pack them away still wet or dirty.  I attempt to teach a few what is meant by folding your clothes. Attempt being the operative word. Together we decide which clothes have been outgrown, which clothes are no longer wearable.

Bluntly put, I do not want my children in rags.  They are royalty, not beggars.

How much more does Papa not want His children in rags.  But how often do I settle for less than His best: clinging on to rags of the past or too-small garments from the last season, accepting hand-me-downs that will never fit? And there He is just waiting to exchange them all for new, custom made, perfectly fitting clothes with my name on them. Will I release my grasp on the old to receive the new?

This year’s clothing sort has me thinking of another great exchange:

Zech. 3:3-5 (NIV) Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel.  The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.” Then I said, “Put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.

What old, stained garments, ripped into rags are we wearing? Surely Papa wants to exchange them for His garments of grace.

The question is will we let Him.

Gal. 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

another miracle: clean toes wearing shoes, how beautiful the feet of them who bring good news…