Meditation or Imagination

Today, one of our training instructors said a phrase that I'm not sure it meant as much to her as it did to me, but all the same, it has reminded me of something very important. Today, I spent almost 4 hours learning about what it means to have Quite Time and at first glance, I was tempted to be prideful. I was tempted to look up into the sky and shout, "what am I doing here?!?!" But, then, the Lord reached into the memoirs of my mind and showed me some places that I still need to be taught about quiet time; specifically as it relates to meditation and imagination.
She said, Meditation is not Imagination. That simple statement spoke! Certainly we can use our imagination to meditate on our Creator, for who could find a being that could create so much without using our imagination. Surely we use our imagination to see the Lord as our shepherd, leading us beside still waters, making us to lie down in green pastures, restoring our souls. Surely in our imagination, we see goodness and mercy following us all the days of our lives.
But there is another part of my meditation, in the quietness of my heart, in my Quite Times where I feel a conviction. What happens when Imagination becomes my Meditation? What happens when my meditation on the Lord becomes unfocused and misguided; no longer guided by His Words and His presence, but instead guided by what I think I might want. I imagine myself with a great following. I imagine myself no longer plagued by my soft-spokenness, no longer full of so many ideas. I imagine myself like someone else. I imagine myself looking like my grandfather with all of the patience in the world and calm acceptance of what comes in life. Then, I remember my own personality. I see my drivenness and my anxiousness and am dissatisfied with who I am. Or I imagine, calling it meditation, all of the ways my other grandfather commands attention. How he is a man of few words, but when they are spoken everyone listens. How his ideas are few and far between, but always worth listening to and working out. Then, I see my head full of far-fetched, optimistic and incredible ideas that often don't pan out. I hear my many words that might be encouraging to people some of the time, but so many often are unheard and imagine that I was differently made. Meditation certainly invokes imagination, but imagination is not meditation in and of itself.
When it becomes really counter-productive is when we begin to imagine God rather than meditate on him and our anthropomorphism really take shape. I imagine how god will give me every desire of my mind...no, I mean heart. I imagine how God will develop in me a totally new person immune to struggling and all of a sudden imagination has taken over my meditation and God has become way too much like me. God made me the way He intended me to be. The problem parts I've come up with on my own. As for today, my job is to meditate on him rather than to imagine the God of Creation The way I see fit.

Saying Yes IS Saying No

"Yes, Lord!  I'll go where you send me!  I do what you have called me to do!  I'll suffer hardship and lay my life down for your purpose."  Hallelujah!  Its so exciting to say "Yes!" and so exhilarating.  Finally being able to articulate a plan, being able to chart a course, move forward, take direction.  It makes you feel unstoppable, too.  If I have said "YES!" to the Lord, then no harm can befall me.  No weapon formed against me shall prosper.  No height, nor depth, nor present, nor future, nor power, nor principality....

Then, we arrive in Africa as a family and together, we begin to realize maybe a little bit more of what the disciples must have felt when Jesus says, "Come, follow me" and they all respond with a resounding, "YES!!!  I will follow you!"  They don't even really pack their things.  They just go.  They leave their nets where they lay, they leave their families in the midst of fishing season, tax season, harvest time and they just go.  But when they finally arrive in some other place, away from what they used to know, away from where they fit in, away from the people they have invested years of their lives into I wonder if they realized before they left that saying "Yes!" is saying, "no", too.  Being here in Africa, in Tanzania, the land the Lord has shown us time and time again, we continue to see the incredible things God is doing here.  We continue to feel His presence and hear His voice, we continue to love the language and get excited about the potential that is building for a revival of all nations, an outpouring of the power and the spirit of God and to all of these things, we say, "YES!!!"  But then, we arrive at home after a day of prayer and fellowship and work and we remember that we have said "no", too, and that has left us with a sense of mourning that we did not expect.  We did not expect to feel mourning for the loss of our close proximity to our family.  We did not expect to mourn the loss of a coffee date or afternoon barbecue.  We did not expect to mourn the loss of Hannah's playtimes with her friends.  All of those things seemed to inconsequential before; we could take them or leave them.  If they fit into our plans, then sure.  We can go get a coffee and sit down and talk.  Sure, we can bring some toys over and let the girls play.  If it works out.  Now, we experience the cost of discipleship in a way that we did not expect and the words of the gospel come alive in a new way when Jesus says, "he who does not hate father, mother, wife, children, {coffee dates and play times] is not fit for the kingdom of heaven."  And now it makes more sense, too, because I don't hate them at all.  I love my family and my friends.  I love my father and mother.  What I hate right now is not being with them!!  But if I were to love them so much that I would allow myself to begin to hate what I have come to do here, if I would love them so much that I would give in to the temptation to feel unwanted here, to feel insignificant and worthless here, well then I begin to love them more than I love what He has for me.  If we were to turn around when things get hard, if we were to change our minds, if we were to trump up charges against ourselves, accusing ourselves of misunderstanding God's voice, selfishly following adventure rather than his will, well then we would be unfit for the kingdom all together. 

Settling in

Nick started DTS today; the girls slept from midnight until 7 which is an improvement so they are almost on Arusha time; i made a meal the girls would eat last night; did the laundry and mopped my concrete floors; all of these things to say we are settling in.  The transition from America to here has been a lot harder than we imagined it to be. We knew it would be different but with the traveling we have done we did not prepare ourselves for the culture shock we would go through once we arrived here as a family.  The first day seemed great as the girls took in their new surroundings and then the next day came.  The girls started realizing they weren't going back to the states and things started unraveling.  Hailey kept putting on her boots and saying "okay I'm ready to go to my house" and I would let her know this is our house and that would lead to her bursting out in tears saying this is not her home.  Then Hannah started noticing that everyone looked at her and realized she looks so different than these other kids. At first she wanted to try and talk to them but after a while she realized that they didn't know what she was saying which resulted in her hiding away in the back room when the kids would come knock to play.  Hailey likes listening to the other children speaking swahili but screams and runs to me when an adult comes near. Everyone loves to try and pick up the girls; make them go with them which has put a fear in them that now makes them not leave my side.  We are not quite sure how to help this but know that time will be the best thing.  We have only been here 5 days and we need to realize it is going to take a lot of time to adjust to being here. 
I have tried to make a couple of meals because the girls are not too happy about eating rice and beans every meal but I have come up with spaghetti and thats about it.  Mama Miracle (our base leader) says she will help me make a good meal for the girls.  We got some fresh fruit and vegetables so tonight she is going to come by and help me make something she believes the girls will enjoy.  The other day she made the girls pancakes and I had not seen the girls eat like that since they have been here. This might be my greatest challenge as a mother.  I am at a loss when it comes to finding things to cook that the girls will enjoy.  Tears came to my eyes when they ate the spaghetti last night. Hannah ate more than I did and slept through the night without waking up hungry. 
Nick started DTS today and is excited about the classes that will begin tomorrow.  As of now he is the only american student but in 3 days 3 more american students will be here; 2 from our church.  The DTS is a lot smaller than usual due to the increase in the visa price. There are only 25 this year as compared to 40 previous times. 



The internet has been off and on so we will try and update as much as possible.  Though this transition has been harder than we expected we are anxious to see what the Lord is going to do here and to really see where our family fits.  It has definately made us rely on him and seek him for direction.  We can't rely on ourselves anymore and we are learning just how much we need Jesus.  Thank you to everyone that has been praying for us!  Hannah made me promise I would let everyone know she prays for you and misses you all! We are so thankful to have so many people supporting us. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to have a community supporting you and loving you through this journey we are on. 



The girls after not sleeping for 2 days



Helping me wash their shoes! They helped with the laundry too

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On our walk out to the school. Hailey loved saying "Hujambo" to everyone. Hannah was in our arms

Our address

Hi everyone! We are so sorry we haven't written on here for a while. First before we lose internet i needed to post the address here.

Last minute

My brother and Carin were married this past saturday.  Carin is a great addition to our family. The wedding was beautiful and now they are off on their honeymoon! Congratulations Justin and Carin!
This past week has  been soo busy and focused on the wedding that we have been able to sit back and pretend we didn't have one thousand things to do before we leave.  We were able to just spend time with family and do wedding stuff.  Saturday night, as soon as the wedding was over, leaving became a reality to me.  Walking around saying goodbye to family friends started the emotions flowing again about leaving.  Yesterday our church prayed for us and we spent time saying goodbye to our church family.  So many people had such encouraging words for us and we were so thankful for what an amazing Church family we have.  After saying goodbye to one campus we then headed over to our other campus where Nick was able to preach one last time.  We spent time after that service saying our goodbyes again to some more friends.  We are so excited to get to Arusha but it is still so hard looking at our friends whose kids are our kids' friends and realizing they won't be playing anymore.  My friends who are in the same stage in life and who we have invested into their kids; knowing we won't be a part of their life was hard to imagine.  We have been soo blessed with amazing friends for our girls which makes this process a little harder. 
Last night we tried to get everything done so we could just enjoy today without needing to do much but even after working on our room for 4 hours we still have quite a bit to figure out how to pack! So, it looks like today will be lots of packing, running around to do the last minute errands, saying goodbye to some more friends, and hopefully some time with just our family. 
Thank you so much to everyone that has helped make this transition smoother.  We are praying for easy travel with our girls.  Last time I (Heidi) flew I got very sick.  We believe it was motion sickness so we are prepared this time but praying it will be different than last time.  Also we have been told that we will not be getting our visas in time.  We will need to buy our tourist visas when we get into the Kilimanjaro airport and wait to do anything until we have received our student/work visas.  Please be praying those will be processed soon. 
We love you all and can't wait to share our life in Tanzania with you!

So thankful for our family and friends

Monday night we had an amazing going away party.  Our amazingly thoughtful friends put together a memorable party that made us feel so loved and appreciated.  We are so thankful to everyone that came and spent time saying goodbye.  We are getting closer and closer to leaving and it is such a bittersweet feeling.  Thank you again for sending us off with such a thoughtful party. We will miss you all

Final Vacation with families!

Over the past month we have gone on 3 different vacations to spend some time with our families before we leave.  We were able to go to Seattle with the Forrest Family, to Bend with the Stevens/Forrest/Getsinger family, and to Lake Roosevelt with the Stagge/Pell family.  We are so blessed with the families we have and were so thankful we were able to spend that time with them.  Hannah and Hailey did great traveling everywhere, sleeping in different rooms (they did okay with that part:), and playing with all their cousins.  We are back now and are realizing there are soo many last minute things to do.  We have to get the girls their last shots (yellow fever and typhoid), cancel a lot of our accounts, pick up last minute things to add to our baggage, go through and weigh our baggage again to take out what we don't need and add what we need, etc.  So many things are running through our minds it is overwhelming and exciting at the same time.
 Right now Nick is in Oregon preaching at a church that is supporting us and then at night presenting at the church we went to in College.  We are praying that more connections will be made and we are excited to see what the Lord will do this weekend. 
This tuesday it will be 3 weeks til take off! It is coming soo fast and I find myself getting more and more excited about getting there and settling in.  Now that we are officially out of our house we can focus on the other things without the weight of that on our shoulders and I am realizing how amazing this is that we get to go serve the Lord in Africa.  I am in awe of what He has done to get us closer and closer to the dream He gave us years ago.  We cannot wait to see what is in store.  Thank you for all your prayers thus far.  Here are some prayer requests for those of you who are praying for us.
-All the lose ends to be wrapped up before we leave and nothing forgotten
-Visas be issued in time so we don't need to buy other visas
-Nicks grandpa is battling cancer and his grandma is battling a lot of sickness
-The remainder of our financial support to be raised
-Arusha's in a drought- pray for rain!
Thank you!! We cannot begin to thank you all for your support.  We feel so loved and supported throughout this whole process.