Meeting Me Where I Am

As I am fixing my hair and putting on makeup in the bathroom yesterday...

Lillian (5yo):  Aunta I know the baby in your tummy died. It's really sad. 

Me:  Yes. It did and it is really sad. 

Followed by a lot of questions:  Did you see it?  How big was it?  What happened to it? And then...

Lillian:  Do you want another one?

Me:  Yes but I don't think there will ever be one in my tummy again. 

Lillian:  It would be nice if you got one for your birthday. 

The conversation made me feel happy, sad, want to cry and loved all at the same time.  She remembers our baby and feels free to talk about it because she is so young and isn't scared to mention it. 

Shrimp á la Grecque

So in an attempt to eat at home more, I planned all my meals for a week and a half and bought all the groceries at once. I have four new receipts on the menu for this week. Saturday night's Pimento Cheese Stuffed Chicken was a bust:(  Too much citrus flavor I am told (thank your Clint and JoDee for being my guinea pigs).   So tonight on the menu a low calorie shrimp dish under 300 calories if served without the rice.

Ingredients:
2 Tbls olive oil
1 Tbls minced garlic
2 cups canned tomatoes, drained
2 Tbls finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp dried marjoram, crushed
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 Tbls red pepper
1 1/2 lb large raw shrimp peeled
3 oz feta cheese, cut into 1/2" cubes
Rice

Preparation:
1.  Start rice.
2.  Hear oil in large skillet on medium.
3. Add garlic and reduce heat to medium-low.  Cook until garlic colors, stirring frequently.
4.  Add tomato, 1 Tbls parsley, marjoram, salt, pepper and red pepper.  Cook over medium-high heat       
     until sauce thickens. 
5.  Add shrimp; cook until pink.
6. Add feta stirring gently.
7. Serve hot over rice

Makes for a super tasty meal!

2014 Isn't Gonna Be the Year

For the past four NYE's it's been the same emotional roller coaster.  I always had hope and truly believed 20... was gonna be the year.  I would either be pregnant and about to pop this time next year or have a new born.  Not this year.  This year I know 2014, isn't gonna be the year, and that's okay.

Dawn is here and the morning is coming.  While there isn't joy yet, there is acceptance.  I accept my life is much different than what we dreamed it would be four years ago.  I accept there is nothing we can do about it; We gave it our best 'old college try" possible.

What 2014, is gonna be is the year I start living again.  I have one year left in my twenties and I am gonna live it up!  Not quite sure how an "old woman" does that but I am setting out to try.  

It doesn't mean I am happy this is where God has brought us, but it does mean I've accepted it.  Maybe in a few more months the happy will arrive; until then I will live in acceptance.    

Tanzania Here We Come!

Stephen and I are excited about an amazing opportunity God has presented for us to travel to Bukoba, Tanzania, June 1, 2014- June 9, 2014, with e3 Partners.  After spending the entire summer before Stephen and I got married in Tanzania, it has always been the desire of my heart to share my experiences on the Tanzania Mission Field with my husband.  While several trips have come and gone over the past six and a half years, it has not been until now that God’s desire has been for us to minister on a short term mission trip as a couple.

The team we will be working with will consist mostly of medical professionals along with some “regular” people like me.  Stephen will have the primary task of running a mobile pharmacy as the sole pharmacist on this trip.  He will be in charge of gathering meds here stateside, orchestrating their arrival in Bukoba and dispensing them daily as he works alongside doctors from several different fields of specialty.  The mobile clinic will relocate daily in an effort to reach as many people as possible with not only medical care but most importantly spiritual care.

I will be working with the evangelism team (which will include my mom Debbie Pruitt!)  We will be partnering with local churches who have a vision to plant new churches where there are none.  Our North American team will model for the nationals how to evangelize by sharing our personal testimonies and using evangelism tools to share the gospel.  Each North American will also have a translator for the whole week.  Each evening we will model how to have a discipleship group to enable the new believers to grow in their faith and learn to study the Bible.  While the adults are having their Bible study, a children's meeting will also be taking place to present the gospel to the children with Bible stories, games and activities.  By the middle of the week, the nationals we have been training will be ready to do the ministry on their own.  We will come alongside each of them as their encouragers and prayer support as they begin to share the Gospel.

We are extremely excited about this opportunity and feel that God has equipped us as a couple specifically for this trip through Stephen’s profession as a pharmacist and my love of missions and specifically the people of Tanzania.  

My focus verse for the summer of 2006, in Tanzania was Isaiah 52:7, which reads,

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God Reigns!’”

And in Romans 10:14-15, it says,

“How then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, ‘Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

The past four years of our lives have been filled with joy along much heartache as we have tried unsuccessfully to grow our family, but these things have remained: Our God’s love and compassion which we experience through our personal relationship with Christ.  It is only through this relationship that we have been able to experience peace through some of the darkest times of our lives.  It is this peace, compassion and love we desire to share with the people of Bukoba, Tanzania!

The trip will cost around $7600 for the both of us plus whatever extra we can raise to go towards the purchase of medicines.  We have currently raised $5,090.00 through the generous gifts of friends and family over the past couple of months.

If you are interested in giving towards our trip you can visit our fundraising page at 

www.e3partners.org/stephenewyatt 

 OR 

you can send a check written out to e3partners at

 e3Partners Ministry 

2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2600

Plano, TX 75075.  

If you sent a check in the mail make sure to put WYATT TZ14B on the memo line to insure the money is applied towards our personal trip account.  

We will also be doing a car wash in the spring along with a BBQ fundraiser with the help of our very own smoke master John Wyatt!

We are two imperfect people serving a perfect God and are looking forward to being used by Him this summer!

Operation Christmas Child

One shoebox:  a dollar store doll, silly bands, scratch paper from a 2011-2012 calendar, a mallet, soap, a tooth brush and a high school musical table cloth.  As a child, if you had received only the previous in a shoebox for Christmas would you have been grateful?

I ashamedly must answer with a definite NO.  

As long as I can remember since moving to Nacogdoches in 1999, I have participated in Operation Christmas Child by either packing a box myself or giving money. I would cram as much "junk" into my shoebox as possible. I knew every little bit would be welcomed but It was not until my first visit to Tanzania in 2005, that I really grasped what these items could mean. What I saw as junk was unimaginable treasure to the person opening that box. But it is the message of salvation through Christ that is the ultimate treasure. 

This year was different. This year, while I missed the deadline to actually turn in a box, I was still able to participated. I, alongside 33 men and women from FBC Nac as well as hundreds of others at multiple distribution warehouses across the US, was able to help process and distribute thousands of shoe boxes on Thursday, December 12th.  And what a blessing it was!

I had no clue what to expect when we got off the bus in Hurst, TX and entered a large warehouse facility. 

After we checked in we were taken through a quick orientation and work began. That day each box would be opened. The money for the shipping was removed and placed into a large locked trunk. Then the box was passed down the line for inspection. The goal was to keep the box as close to how it was originally packed. "Illegal" items were removed (food, liquids, used toys, glass, etc.) and filler items were added in its place (BOBS shoes, plastic rings, TY Beanie Babies, silly bands, etc.). Next tape was wrapped completely around the box to secure its contents, labels were scanned (so each individual could know the destination of their box) and boxes where packed into larger boxes based on age and gender. From here each larger box containing 14-18 shoeboxes (the more you pack the more cost effective) was tapped and then taken away to be packed into a shipping crate.  Next stop, a port city and then a ship ride to its country of destination. From 2pm-6pm my sole job was to tape each shoebox closed so its contents would be secure on its trek. These particular boxes for the day were bound for Honduras. 

Some things I learned: each item was placed specifically by someone, for someone and God knows who; what we see as junk, others see as treasure, God can use something as simple as a plastic ring to bring His good news and salvation and Samaritans purse IS doing exactly what they say they are doing with the resources given to them. 

So next year when you pack your shoebox rest assured your items will be delivered as closely as possible in the manner you packed it. God  will use your box to bless not just a child, but their siblings, their parents and many more. And the gospel will be heard! 

I can't begin to fully articulate all I am feeling about this experience right now but I hope this has shed a little light. As we are in the midst of our consumer driven, Americanized, first world problems, Christmas season let's take a moment to be thankful: not only for the material things we have but for the Goodnews of Jesus birth. After all as cliche as it sounds, Jesus IS the reason for the season! 

Jealous Much?

I don't know if the jealousy will ever end. Will I ever be able to see super cute pregnant women and not be jealous?  Will I ever be able to see them and not pick out every flaw because it makes me feel better about myself and eases my jealousy?  I don't particularly like to be jealous and I definitely don't want to be jealous.  God help me. Help my heart and help shield my eyes. Let me see beauty in the miracle of life and not feel jealousy.  Help me to remember what I do have and that I am the cause of jealousy to some. I say this NOT in a prideful way (please don't get me wrong) but in an acknowledging way that I am blessed and my best blessing is right beside me!  I love you SO much Stephen Wyatt. Thank you for choosing me!

How Can I Be Thankful?

I'm going to be honest; at the beginning of the month when everyone started posting the "Day1: I am thankful for..." November routine, I wanted nothing to do with it. It's great that everyone else is thankful but living in the dead of night with no morning in sight just continuous mourning in my heart, I rejected it and this month of Thanksgiving.  My negative attitude stayed with me all month until God used beautiful Lizzie Wallace to give me a big slap of "seriously" in the face. As I sat visiting with her two Mondays ago, we were discussing life and that Stephen and I had reached the end of our journey of trying to conceive. She looks at me and says, "I can't have kids either."  The weight of that statement hit hard. It was in that very moment the floods of I am thankful for....came to the front of my thoughts. Lizzie helped snap me back to reality. Yes infertility is awful BUT look at what I do have:  the love of an amazing savior who allows me to be a selfish ungrateful "b" as I go through this process of mourning and loves me none the less, an amazing husband who has put aside his mourning to be my rock, a family that while they often don't know what to say or do are just there to love us, my health (let's be honest a barren body is nothing in the grand scheme of things!) an amazing church family, choir and Sunday school, along with numerous friends new and old, a house, a college community group with amazing students (God knew I would need them this year) and the list goes on and on. I now realize that in my mourning I have actively been rejecting God's blessings. So thank you Lizzie Wallace for slapping me with a HEAVY dose of reality and helping me to slowly move forward. There are more good days than bad and I am grateful.

As we head into the Christmas season will you please keep us in your prayers. I don't know why but it is always a hard time of year. Everything seems to revolve around families and children.  Pray God will continue to grant me mercy for my attitude. Pray that I will feel whole and  complete with my family of two. Christ is my foundation and I know he is here and will never leave me. Pray I will lean into him with my grief rather than away from him. I cannot imagine what these past four years would have been like without his love and  mercy!  

Finally, I pray for you. I pray that you too know His love and mercy in the middle of your struggle, whatever it may be.