To challenge your thoughts!

You gotta know something is up....two blogs posts in a week, eh!

Well, you see so much happens in life and it so often is on my heart to share what goes on, what amazing things we've seen God do in our day, what struggles we have etc. However, time and as well as my lack of love for writing usually gets the better of me and I let it be a passing thought. I know my mom has challenged us to write a little more personally about the spiritual things we experience and victories, challenges and miracles that we have experienced. You know she is right....of course she is...mom's are "mostly" right!

So I want to share with you. I want you to be open to something that you maybe haven't given much thought to. Or maybe you have but you choose to avoid the thought because it's scary or it seems childish or silly. Here's the word .....or shall I say "world"!

The spiritual world. The spiritual realm. The spiritual powers.

 

I want to share with you an experience from this week that really shook my day and hopefully my life. In Chad's posting he made a mention that we were feeling a spiritual attack in the last few week. For many of you who know me you're aware of the ongoing battle I've had with depression. With my focus remaining on God and keeping in constant communion with Him it's been a fight but I keep a float for the most part and find more happy than sad days for sure. However, the past 2 weeks I have fallen prey to the lies of the enemy. He fills my mind with self condemning lies that I convince myself of and I had slid quickly into a quiet, sad, and miserable introverted person again.

Now for some of you, this may already seem weird. Blaming this power or spirit for the way I think and act....most times I think it weird too but having had the experience we had this week confirms for me that,

 " Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Ephesians 6:12

So, Chad mentioned that we had a snake and scorpion on two different occasion in the house. Not totally uncommon for Belize I know but the timing was to perfect. The kids were feeling scared on the first occasion and Chad went up and prayed with them. Chad has become very good at discerning and speaking with authority to satan lately as he definitely believes in the truth of the spiritual world. So, Chad prays with Keaton that any power of darkness or the enemy that is in the room, "leave!" He no sooner kisses the kids and turns to leave their room to see a scorpion running  out their room. For most you may think weird timing. We are coming to see it otherwise. Satan knew he wasn't welcome and true to God's word which says,

 

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

James 4:7

 

 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Matthew 10:1

 

"All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”

Luke 4:13

We know that satan was manifesting in that scorpion and fleeing the room. Chad killed it! He got smushed several times with my slipper!

Two days later was a similar instance when we found a yellow jaw snake in the living room. It too got machetted to death. It was after these two instances when my mom sent us a rather interesting verse that we had not seen before.

"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."

Luke 10:19

Wow, this was confirming that the enemy chooses to manifest in forms of snakes and scorpions!

Fast forward to this past Saturday. My sadness was as it's peak and our household was definitely feeling the effects of my defeat. As we lay in bed Chad prays. For me, for us and he prays full of hope. I however feel so defeated I can't even pray. I know if I just cry out He will come and rescue me but my chains are tight and I can't even convince myself to muster out a prayer. Satan binds us that way. But I want to be rescued from this darkness that steals my joy and hope so at the very least I cry out in my head. It's quiet outside but inside I scream, "LEAVE ME ALONE! SATAN LEAVE ME ALONE I DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"

I kid you not, immediately we hear a thud behind us. I wanting to ignore it and pretend like nothing is wrong but Chad who has so much better discernment than I turns on the light to find a scorpion in the window sill behind my head! I jump out of bed in tears and trembling fear. No, not so much because of the scorpion but because I KNOW what that scorpion is a manifestation of. The enemy.

 

We immediately prayed a quick prayer claiming authority over the enemy. As we turned from our quick prayer we could no longer find the scorpion. Ok, when I say we couldn't find him I mean we moved the bed the shipping containers which serve as bedside table the sheets the curtains the searched the closet the upstair and the downstairs. We looked everywhere. However, as were hunting for our kill Chad felt the Lord say to him that he wasn't going to find this one. He wasn't going to kill this one, this time like he had the last two. Why you might ask? Well, the answer is found in the verse following the one my mom had sent us earlier in the week.

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰ However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Luke 10:19-20

As we read in verse 20 God warns about boasting in OUR ability to drive out these spirits. Chad confessed that he was feeling a little to confident in his ability to squash satan.

Wow, is God's word not true and living for us each day!

So, needless to say it was an emotional night and I stayed up till 2:30 praying, listening to praise music and reading my Bible to get me to a place of peace enough to go back to bed.

One might think the story ends there. But the enemy does not give up that easy. He is out to destroy the work of God. The next morning, Sunday. Get to church for worship prep and our worship team leader starts mentioning about his awful night. He proceeds to tell me that at 2:30...yes, the exact time I felt peace in our home that at that exact time he woke to strange sound and he reached for his phone/flashlight he was stung twice by the scorpion sitting on it. Satan left our house and decided to move to the next member of the worship team in an attempt to discourage and take away the worship we were to give to God the next day. Crazy eh!

Well, I'm thrilled to say that God has the victory! Despite a numbed hand for our guitar player we had an amazing...actually our most moving morning of worship since the beginning of this church. Praise the Lord for the freedom and authority and victory he gave to each of us.

 

All this to say that my eyes have been opened to see the spiritual world a little deeper. It's there. We need to see it, recognize the enemy and claim the authority God has give us to drive him away! I told chad that it still feels funny to speak out loud to the enemy. It does. But it works!

¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit^[a] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength ²⁰ he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.

Ephesians 1:16-22

WOW, has it been that long?!

Hi All
Chad here.  Time for my first post on this blog!  Lots has happened since our last update:  Work permits, new sprouting system, my parents came to visit,  another visit to Hopkins, we slaughtered chickens, building a greenhouse, fending off satan's attacks, ordering 4000 pounds of seed, we prepare for the visit of my brother and his family.  WOW, when I write it all down  I guess we have been busy.

After lots of paperwork and many trips to the capital city of Belmopan our work permit, dependent permit for Stephanie and the kids Student permits have all been approved!!!  I am used to lots of paperwork and red tape having worked for a bank but this took it to a whole new level.  We were outright asked for a bribe to make things happen quicker but after calling their bluff we were issue the permits.  This allows us a temporary permit to work for a year and then we would have to apply again unless we were granted residency by then.  We are praising God for making this happen so smoothly.

Sprouting
Our test system we first build when we got here has been working well and has been feeding our 16 broilers and 13 laying hens.  But it was time to take things up a notch.  I have partnered with a friend from church to take our business to the next level.  He became interested in sprouting after we explained the idea to him, he did a lot of research and said "I am in".  Nery is his name and he has land and experience with animals of all kinds.  He is a very handy guy and has taught me to look for out of the box easy solutions for everything.  We have designed a new much larger sprouting system which we placed in a big concrete building he has on his property.  The system is capable of growing several hundred pounds of sprouts per day.  Our first batch of barley sprouts in the new system grew amazing well and much quicker than our system located at our house.  We are now is the process of ordering several thousand pounds of seed to start growing enough barley fodder to feed several different types of animals.  We are also importing seeds to grow micro-greens and other sprouts for human consumptions. To grow our micro-greens we are building a small greenhouse out of pvc pipe and some plastic and greenhouse mesh.  Everyone we speak with has given us positive feedback on our project so we are excited to get the new seed and get things into full production.  yeah, then we can make some money!!!

 

 

The start of our new greenhouse.  The design changed part way through as you can see by the pictures.  The pvc was not bending like I wanted!

  

I wanted to build the system out of steal tubing and plastic or stainless steal trays.  Nery convinced me that 1 x 3 pine and some steal roof panels for trays would work just fine.  And he was right!  1/10th the cost of my way!!!  Lots of room to expand this system with 3 more identical pods.

Our first barley harvest from the new system.  8 days, no mold and beautiful stuff.

 

The most amazing pepper plants I have ever seen.  Inside the greenhouse of our new organic vegetable supplier and friend, Abdias.

Skype and FaceTime is so amazing to see and be able to speak with family but there is no substitute for a visit.  My parents came to visit in February and we had such a good visit.  Just as it was for Stephanie's parents when they came to visit us over Christmas my parents had a quick peace about our adventure here in Belize once they saw the network of christian friends we have developed here and all of the great things God has us working on and helping with.  My parents were able to help us feed the kids at the local school which we help with once a week.  They were also able to come with us to the Learning Centre where we help kids with their homework, play games and draw pictures.  My parents also treated us to 3 days away at an amazing resort in Hopkins called Jaguar Reef or Almond Beach.  What a great time together as a family!  The kids played hard in the pool and nana and papa got some great sun burns in the hot Belize sun!  Papa was the lobster man he was so red.  Keaton, my dad and I also ventured out to the reef for some fishing.  Unfortunately fishing was not so good that day and we only caught a few small ones but it was a great boat ride and a beautiful day on the water.   Thanks mom and dad for the great adventure and wonderful visit.

The whole crew on a traditional Cacao farm tour.  What a great time with Edgar and Victoria. 

Stephanie, Nana and the kids at the top of the Mayan Ruins.  Dad and I don't like heights.

Nana and the kids reading at the Learning Centre

Papa helping the kids with their homework

Ice Cream stop along the Hummingbird Highway on the way to the resort in Hopkins.  7 ice creams for $4.75 US!

Jaguar Reef Resort.  A slice of paradise.

 

 

 

After 5 months of tender loving care it was finally time to slaughter our first batch of 16 broiler chickens.  Commercially grown chickens are ready for slaughter in 8 weeks but we grew ours nice and slow on our home grown sprouts.  Our broilers were getting so old that we discovered that 3 of them were roosters who began to show their stuff....at 2:30, 4:30 AND 6:30 in the morning.  So we packed up the chickens in our shipping bins and carted them over to our friends place for a Saturday morning chicken slaughter party.  As a banker I have never slaughtered a chicken before and Stephanie was a little rusty from here childhood so we enlisted the help of our friends Nery and Marien.  We had a great morning chopping off heads, dipping in hot water, plucking feathers, cleaning out gizzards and chopping chicken into pieces.  The whole family was involved and we were so impressed that the kids were right in there helping out.  Then we cooked up some chicken with onions and potatoes on the fire and had a little chicken feast.  It is so satisfying to eat what you raise.

 

 

Satan's many forms: God has been so good to us throughout this journey.  He lead us here so we certainly praise him for his provision, safety and health that He has provided.  But we also know when we meet with others that have a similar story to ours (yes, we are not the only crazy ones here, there are a tonne of us!!) that Satan wants to distract, deceive and throw us off of God's plan.  Just a few weeks ago we experienced this after a great night with 2 other families that share a similar story to ours.  we had a great night of singing, playing guitars and the kids playing together.  As the kids went to bed Keaton called down to us that he was scared as he recounted a story about scorpions that was told earlier that evening.  As I always do when the kids are having bad dreams we pray together and ask God to be there with them and we command Satan out of our presence by the authority of Jesus Christ.  Yes, God gives us the authority to tell Satan to "Go to Hell".  After we prayed Keaton said he felt at peace to go to bed and as I turned to leave the room a scorpion was fleeing from me from Keaton's room and headed to Paige's room.  I must say that we have only seen 2 scorpions in the house in 7 months so this was a huge surprise to see this.  Immediately a shiver went up my spin and that told me this wasn't a bug we were dealing with but an image of Satan who was fleeing because of our prayers.  I threw a basket over it and grabbed a shoe and beat that scorpion to a pulp.  We rebuked Satan for his attempts to discourage our family and told him we would crush his head if he came into our house again.  Everyone slept peacefully that night.  Fast forward two mornings and Stephanie comes running upstairs at around 6:00 am.  "theirs a snake downstairs".  Again, we have never had a snake in the house and have only seen 3 snakes since being here in Belize.  Again a shiver went up my spin which told me Satan was here again.  Before heading downstairs we prayed that God would stand with us and we rebuked Satan for coming into our house again.  We went downstairs and pulled out couches and chairs until we found a 2 foot long yellow jaw snake curled up in the corner of the living room. (you can do the research if you wish to know how dangerous a yellow jaw is!)  With machetes in hand we cut satan in two and tossed him outside.  Again we rebuked him for coming into our presence.    We know that Satan tries to throw us off of God's plan but this is the first time i have seen such a real likeness of Satan in my presence and it was a shivering experience.   But God is good, he protected us and stands with us and helps us to recognize when we are not flighting against bugs and snakes, but the evil one himself.  I encourage all of you to also pray for God's discernment and take God's authority to rebuke Satan for being in your presence.

As we work away on all of our projects we look forward with great excitement to our next visitors.  On Good Friday we will welcome my brother and his family for a 1 week visit to Belize.  We are excited for the kids to see their cousins again and show them the sights and sounds of Belize.  We have an action packed agenda ready and waiting for them!!!  We so appreciate our visitors and the sacrifice of time and resource it takes to come and visit us.  These truly are special times!

Well, I think I was much too long winded and I may get banned from writing future blog postings so I must sign off for now.

One last picture.  La Ruta Maya is a 4 day canoe race across the country.  Who wants to race with me next year??  There was another Canadian team in it this year. 


We love you all!

Chad

New

Happy New Year!
New...what a great refreshing word. "New". Maybe I'll focus on the 'new' today to give you a quick (ha, I always think it will be a short post) update in a few areas of life for us.
First off we are still marvelling in the wonderfully encouraging and fruitful and fun visit we had with my (Stephanie) parents over Christmas. Wow, God is good to have allowed them to come at such a time. Made Christmas so easy for us all the while we have many new friends here in Belize who have such a similar story to us and were unable to spent their Christmas with loved ones. Thank you Lord!

Loved ones. That will lead to my second praise that we marvel in almost daily. Our greatest prayer before coming was that God would provide good friends for both us and the kids to be surrounded by. He hears the prayers of his people indeed and he give us the desires of our hearts! We have several families that we get together with several (ok, about 4 or more) times a week! They are amazing believers in the same powerful God. We are each on a different journey in the same place doing life together and it's awesome to see God provide in so many ways. We learn an incredible amount from each others victories and trials. I feel that my heart will be forever divided and torn now. We have family and friends at home that we love and we now have friends that are as close as our family here. What a blessing they are!

New on the work front: Today Chad registered a business. Shoots Alive is the name of our company. That is the first step to getting a work permit which will allow us to sell product and hopefully draw an income sometime soon as well as bypass the need to go to immigrations every 30 days to get a stamp and approval for an additional 30 days in the country. There is a fee to this as well so we will be happy when we can apply as dependents under Chad's work permit. All in good or God's time though.

New also is the next phase of our business. We have had a great success with our mini sprouting system. We are feeding our 16 broiler chickens fresh sprouts several times a day and juicing barley grass for our morning wake up drink. So, now we are moving onto a building a second system with some modifications. We need to source as much as possible from here in Belize. The import fees are too high to make it feasible to sell the system without sourcing it here. Chad heads out tomorrow to see what we can get made here. The next system will be automated. Right now we are hand watering due to several reasons. One we have little plumbing expertise and second there are some parts that we are unable to get here that we need. They are on order for the next system and will be smuggled...I mean brought in with Chad's parents. (Don't worry Mom, I'm kidding!)

The next "new" thing God is doing is exciting for us. We have had a heart for the village people (locals not the YMCA singers!) since we got here. Through circumstances we have decided to leave the church we were attending and start a new church with the same pastor that was at our old church. Although we don't have a building in the village yet to host church we are hoping that in time that God will open a door to have the church very accessible to villagers. So, we went from a church with 300 + people to .....94! Pretty good for the very first Sunday! It's pretty informal yet as we have only had one Sunday together but you can pray that with all the pieces that need to come together yet we would all be spirit lead and the appropriate leaders would arise to fill positions. We are excited to see what God does.

New at home: We have new neighbours. Ok maybe we are the new neighbours still but the Canadian's that own the property we rent on are back. Chad picked them up from the airport on Tuesday and it was our first time meeting them. Lovely people that have been running several mission projects and teams here for about 10 years. We are also excited at the opportunity this may bring for us to learn and help out with missions teams.

New on our hearts: It has been amazing to see how slowly and surely God has been putting puzzle pieces together for us. I'm thankful He doesn't reveal things to us any sooner than we can handle. Amen? It has been through several different ways that God has challenged our thinking and broadened our thoughts on "this time we are in". We have been reading through the Bible from the beginning with the kids. I've actually never done that yet! True. So, we came across the teaching on Sabbath (or Shemitah) years in Leviticus 25 where God says to plant and work your land for 6 years but the 7th is to be a year of rest for the land. It was meant so that God could show how he provides for us. Then we were introduced to the Jubilee year. Where after every 7 Sabbaths/Shemitahs (each Sabbath is 7 years so 7 of those equals 49 years) is a Jubilee year, that being the 50th year. The year that all debt is repaid and all land returns back to it's rightful owner. In researching we been made aware of many significant world events that have occurred on these Sabbath years. Very interesting and thought provoking studying! I'm thankful that God has first showed us his greatness and providence in our life and we are now ready to expand our understanding and discernment in this area. This was part of our fruitful visit with my parents as well as they have also been studying the same topics without us ever have talked about it!
If you have interest in this topic and want to see how the world and NASA events and predictions line up with God's already spoken words here are a few links to get you started.
http://mikebickle.org/resources/series/daniel-studies-in-the-end-times
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iE3hqqdQt88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVCcZF2Yfn4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvn9cSHJLQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsPyne-kjoA

Don't worry we haven't gone off the deep end! We are just opening our eyes and hearts to what God is showing us and seeing that He has ordered this world and He is in control!

My final "new" is the blessing of each new day and each day I have the opportunity to start afresh. And each day I have "new" mercies just for me. I need them. We all need them. I am thankful that in my imperfections God is doing a new thing and where I am weak he comes to make me new and stronger IF I let him.

We are blessed!
I will leave you with this song that comes straight from my heart. It speaks to me all day and I pray it does for you to. The words are powerful and so true for my life.

"Yet I am confident of this:

   I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

 Wait for the Lord:

Be strong and take heart and wait on the Lord."

Psalm 27:13-14

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQan9L3yXjc

Hopkins Retreat

A quick post as life this week and for the next week are very out of routine for us. Out of routine but not unwelcome.
Saturday was the day our family was anticipating for many weeks. We picked up Oma and Opa from the airport! What an exciting day and joyful reunion. They were met with hugs, smiles and so much excitement to show them around our new country. I'd like to share with you what they felt at first sight and first thoughts but it would be better shared right from the source. So, if you would like to follow my mom's travel blog for the next two weeks I know she is being far more diligent than I and plans to blog every day about our time spent together. Maybe it will you the itch to come visit too! So,  you can follow all of us at:
www.visitingour5littlemonkeysinbelize.blogspot.ca

Today we arrived in Hopkins. A coastal area south from where we live and we at a lovely small quaint resort. We will enjoy the sound of crashing ocean waves and cool dips in the pool here until Saturday and then return home for Christmas preparations.

Life is going so well for us, although in many ways it's still so much the same. I'm constantly reminded that life is what we make it. No matter where we are we still have the mundane tasks of living to accomplish. So, we can choose to do them reluctantly or we can choose to rejoice in them and make it a joy to do these tasks. In finding joy in the everyday jobs we can make our homes such a more pleasant place to be and teach the kids have fun doing them.  I've had the immense joy and pleasure of spending a lot more time in the kitchen with Paige. She is blossoming as a little baker and chef extraordinaire! She has helped to turn my tasks into precious moments together.

We continue to sprout our seed and it's going well enough that once our company and Christmas has passed we have plans to build our second and larger sprouting system. We will be making the next system automated so we don't have to water them 4 times a day. So, Chad now will get to put on his engineer hat to design this next unit. Interest in the sprouting continue to grow with each person we talk to about it and we are very hopefully for what God has in store as we move forward in this endeavour.

God is good, all the time and all the time God is good.
We wish you all a blessed Christmas season and pray, truly that you would celebrate the life and birth of our saviour.

Love to all.

GO TIME!

Today is an exciting day for us! No, not because it's 83 degrees here and snowy and white at home....we actually all lamented a bit about missing the excitment of waking to the first dusting of snow. No, we are building!

Last week we had 500 lbs of seed arrive with some trays. I'll back up the train to explain for those who are unfamiliar with our vision for employment here.

Sprouting for human consumption and for animal feed was a relatively new concept that we were becoming aware of  a few years ago. We started to grow and consume sprouts or micro greens in our home. The cows that were being raised on our farm before we left were also consuming barley fodder or sprouted barley. I won't go into details about the nutritional benefits of consuming spouted grains and seeds but we truely believe in it and it spurred a passion in us to bring it with us to Belize. It seemed a viable option because essentially you are growing feed hydroponically where weather and drought will never effect your crop and you can grow the equivalent of 700 acres in about a 20' x 50' space. Anyway, to not bore you with the details you could simply google "barely fodder" and "micro greens" to unleash a world of knowledge if you so desire.

 

We had in our mind upon coming, that this was where our passion lied and we saw it would bring benefits to  Belize too. So we (mostly Chad) have been doing research and seed sourcing since we've been here. See....we have been working, we just didn't have anything to show for it yet! 

We were taking it slow and not wanting to jump into a business too fast because we also were very prayerful in the "what" we were to do here.

You know when your passion lines up with God's plan it's an amazing thing! It was about two weeks ago when Chad said he really felt the Lord press upon his heart that is was "go time". Time to get to work and move quicker with this business plan. Chad was thrilled. Thrilled that what we desired to do was what God was ordaining for us too!

Here's the great blessing of walking of in His plan. We approaced the Ministry of Agriculture to seek their support and get a referral for a business license and work permit. There were several stipulations to getting a farm permit that we did not meet. One being that we needed to own land.Oh us of little faith for a day doubted a little that they would laugh at us and dismiss our idea. Further more in Belize these processes can take weeks! But, we are learning that when God says go, He paves the way. We had the Ministry of Agriculture visit our "farm" (we are not a farm at all and we don't own this land), write us a glowing recommendation for work permit, write a letter of referral to get import fees waved at the port where or shipment was coming into and had 110% support and excitement for the business the same day we contacted them !God is sooo good!

 

So, this week has us building our racks to hold 20, six foot long trays to move to phase two of our testing. We will be growing barley, tritacacle (rye and wheat), peas, and sunflower seeds.

 

We are alway thankful for things like this that give us new excitement. We are exstatically awaiting the arrivale of December 12th when Oma and Opa arrive! Our first guinea pigs to see what life is like in Belize. We are so thankful that both our parents are young and able to come visit. Our weeks are fairly routine now and we truck through 5 days of school work, house hold duties and volunteering with little time to miss home. It is on the weekends that I have found missing home creeps up a little. The good thing is we don't miss our house or our lifestyle or anything material....we just miss the company of our loved ones and friends. We couldn't ask for anything better to miss.

Hope to share some pictures of our crop soon!

Love to you all!

Hanging Up My Idol

Today I'm sharing something very personal. Why? Not to gain praise please, but to share with you the true life struggles of my flesh and my heart and I truly truly want you to see what kind of transforming work God can do with us and is doing with me.

 

This week past week I had a week of conviction. Not one that is unfamiliar to me though. Most of you who know me know my passion and NEED for fitness. It is exactly that. It is a passion of mine. I love to be active, it makes me feel alive, it makes me feel strong, it makes me feel healthy and energetic. It is however a need. I need to exercise because it's a portion of my life that I have decided to control. It's the portion of my life that I honestly don't trust God with. My fitness is done out of love and yet out of fear. Fear that if I don't I won't maintain my weight or an image that I'm comfortable with.
You know I've actually been having an ongoing tug-of-war with God for the about a year and half over this issue. He would challenge me with it and I would either make excuses why it wasn't good for me to stop my activities or I just chose to hold on to controlling it because I feared God's dream for my body was not what my dream was.
Some time ago a wise and Godly friend found me in my struggle and suggested something that has stuck with me. She said, "You know Stephanie, the things we build on our own God leaves us to maintain on our own and the things we give to Him to build he maintains them for us". Well that would take the pressure off but again, I wasn't yet believing that God would maintain my body the way I wanted.

Habakkuk 2:18

Of what value is an idol since a man has carved it? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation. He makes idols that cannot speak.

Fast forward a year and half.....
This conviction of needing to give up my physical activity that I love so much is weighing so heavy on me. That's called conviction of the Holy Spirit. Enough wondering if this is really what God is asking me to do. Enough making excuses that it's healthy so he wouldn't take away something that is healthy. As I fell to tears several times this week I recognized that if giving something up brings me to tears and is so hard to do.....it's an idol. Yes. An Idol.
Although not a statue, not a pillar or false god it is a stronghold in my life that creates a barrier between me completely yielding my whole self (body) to God. It is an idol because it's so painful to give up.
Here's the thing I can say about idols (of whatever form they may take in your life). The act or action or item is not necessarily the idol. The idol is in the way we treat it. Is it our? Are we taking ownership of it? Could we give it up if we were asked? Is it taking priority over God in your life? Only each of us as individuals can answer this. This is an intimate conversation between us and God.
So, I have shed my tears this week about giving up my idol. Handing it over to God. Trusting that he will be enough for me and that my desires for me would line up with his desires for me as I commit to a time of "rest" for my physical body. Yes, I'm hanging up my running shoes, biking shoes, Shaun T. shoes, Gillian Michael shoes, and TRX shoes.
I believe that God will return this activity to me at the time when my heart is right, when I can fully live in the love and joy of who God has made me outside of what I look like, what I feel like and what activity I have done. So, don't be sad for me. My God shall supply all my needs according to his riches in glory (Philippians 4:19).
For those of you who don't know God in a way that you see this request of God as a blessing. I challenge you to see it that way. God wants more for us than we can provide for ourselves. Me stuck in the "but it's good for me and God shouldn't ask me to give something I enjoy up" is only hindering me from experiencing something new waiting for me. When God returns things and rewards obedience he does it 10 fold! I don't do it for the reward but I know his providence will be greater than this sacrifice!

Psalm 19:9-11

The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them are your servants warned; in keeping them there is great reward!

On a closing note. I recall the words that Lord spoke to us the Sunday before we left. God spoke through Chester to us and his words said that  we will have to die to ourselves. That we would have to give up something that was close to us. God's words is truth. We have seen a portion of this word come to life. What God says will happen. I can no longer wrestle with this thought, it is what God is requiring of me.

So here's our warning.....

2 Kings 17:12

They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, "You shall not do this." The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: "Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire law that I commanded".

Here's the result......

2 Kings 17:40

They would not listen however, but persisted in their practices. Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.

And the promise we already mentioned...

Psalm 19:11

....in keeping them there is great reward!

Greetings Friends and Family and Followers!

Well, we are obviously getting much busier as it was kindly brought to my attention that it's been a month since our last posting! Thanks you to that anonymous person.....you know who you are!

Yes, we are filling our days now and finding that we even almost have  weekly routine.

We just this past week made our second trip to immigrations and yes got granted another 30 days with little to no hassle from the officer. Praise the Lord! We cover that trip in a lot of prayer as we never really know what to expect.

Chad is doing a lot of slow ground work for a number of projects. We are seeking to apply for a small business/farming work permit. If we can get this it will save us from needing to get our passports stamped every month and the children (we've stopped calling them kids as "kids" are most often referred to here as the goat kind) and I can register as dependents under Chad's business permit. He is also diligently researching seed, shipping seed, importing seed and growing seed in Belize. We have found most of what we need for seed and have all the steps outlined to get it imported we just need to send in the final paperwork, pony up some cash, and confirm the order. We are patiently awaiting this next step to move to the next step in our business venture. Some time ago I would have said, "All in good time" but I'm truly believing it's more, "All in God time".

 

May I introduce you to our alarm clock! Not sure but it might be a Red Lored Parrot...either way it puts roosters to shame! This was taken from our second floor deck in the morning. Beautiful bird but so loud, especially when there is a flock of them fighting at 6:00 am. Opa, you would appreciate them!

 

 And if the parrots sleep in you can count on the woodpecker who is almost as loud....remember we most have hardwood here. That beak is amazingly strong.

 What have we been doing. Well, we are praying for chickens so we need a house for them to live in. Thankfully although we are renting here the owner were more than willing to let us have chickens and there was already a fenced pen that needed only minor adjustments to make a perfect chicken pen. Chad and the kids designed a fine coop with 6 layer boxes. We ran out of staples for the gun today so  it will be finished and ready for chickens on Monday. This give me a great opportunity to share with how our life has changed. In the past we would have finished the box and the next gone out to get some chickens to fill it. You know we are just witnessing so much of God's hand in our life and the lives of those around us that we are learning to pray for even the little things. For some reason we adults think we should petition for only the "big life changers".  There is a family that is becoming very dear to us and I tell you they live a life of prayer and they receive everything....everything the need and more by God's mighty hand. We joined with their 11 year old daughter to pray for a horse and the next day they get not one but 8 horses! Did I mention they have no house, no vehicle and their are 8 family members. They have what some may call "mysterious' money show up in their bank account. The list goes on but all to say that we are learning to wait on the Lord and ask for all things before we run ahead and do it on our own merit. But yes Lord, we are ready for some eggs!

 Because these little chicks are not laying well!

 We have started a small life group and meet every Wednesday for a DVD study and we are currently learning from one my new favourite speakers, Robert Morris: Dream to Destiny. Highly, highly recommend this or The Power of Your Words. Life changing lessons in my opinion.

Paige and  Keaton have been singing in a children's choir at church. There are about 20 kids and they will sing at church for Thanksgiving and apparently they enter a competitions with other local schools. The choir won last year so this may be the tell tale if they take after Chad or myself musically!

School is going well and we are still very flexible with our routine. I am not a woman of routine...some things may never change. I do however appreciate this flexibility as already we've been able to drop what we are doing when a need is brought to our attention. This has also been a focus of our family's growth. We are learning and pray every day that we yield to whatever God has for us for this day. We have a plan but we are praying about always having a servants heart and putting aside what our schedule might say to do the "will of the Father" and serve those in need. It's probably one of the most rewarding things that we are able to teach and participate in as a family.

Today we took on some property maintenance tasks. It's a beautiful property we live on but it does require like any property some TLC. So, rakes and shovels, buckets and .....water bottles in hand we filled a day with landscaping. We are learning to how to work around the heat because working with the heat is just not possible. So, it's best to work outside from early morning to 10ish and then hind from the sun until about 3ish.

The past weeks have been very spiritually challenging for us as we attended a 3 day prophetic word conference put on by our church. It was our first experience with anything that deep as far as the Holy Spirit goes. Powerful, challenging, amazing, exhausting, hope filled and in the end we stand even more in awe of what a mighty God we serve. Wish I could tell you more but we'll have to save those story's for face time.

Moving from what is consuming our time to what is consumer our thoughts we are SOOOOOO excited that my parents are coming on December 13 for two weeks! There literally is not a day that goes by that we don't talk about it! We can't wait to see them and even more so I can't wait to have a new perspective for those at home of what our life if like here. You only have our perspective and I think it will interesting to see what a fresh set of eyes sees it like. Did I mention we are so excited!

 

Time for some Belize horticulture. This tree brings new meaning and likely origin of the phrase "the big cahuna"! This is a Cahun palm. Those pods of cahun nuts must weight about 150-200lbs! The tree is huge and so are branches of nuts. I believe you can eat them but similar to chestnuts I think they are a lot work to extract the nut. We have used local cahun oil from this tree for cooking though. This tree is at the centre of our driveway so I'm for one of those branches to fall off so I can really weigh it.

 

 We celebrated our first Belize birthday on Oct 1st.  Happy 33rd Daddy. What better way to celebrate than a dinner of lobster tails, curried cauliflower and roasted parsley potatoes. Mmmmm. Oh, yeah and chad got some wine from the village grocery store.

 Birthday breakfast set up by the children on the second floor deck.

 We have a great opportunity for volunteer and outreach work that are super excited about. In addition to this mission facility we live on the owners that are currently in Canada also had run an after school pgm in our village at another small community building right in the village. Since they have been gone the center has been closed which sad because it has about 8 computers and in the past was opened up after school to enable those children (most of the children in our village) who don't have access to get to a library or have computers at home to come use the resources there. Along with the pastor and another family from church that lives in the neighbouring village we've had on our hearts to reach out to the village people. So this is a great opportunity for us. We will hopefully each take one afternoon a week to open the center and be available to help village kids (not the goats) with their home work and research. If you are praying for us this is an area you can pray for us in. We are praying that we can get it open this week or next and that we would be able to be used to help meet the needs of the village school children. We are excited to build relationships with them. Pray that we are sensitive to God's moving and what ever way he wants us to serve there.

Signing off until next time. Hopefully I'll post sooner than a month from now!

We are all doing well and living very vibrantly here in Belize!

Love you all.

Stephanie