Purpose Asia

      The new year is fast approaching and the annual feeling of throwing off the old and running toward the new runs rampant in the air like an electrical charge. Normally, I'm not that into setting new year's resolutions. We all know what normally happens with those. We keep them with zeal and vigor for the first two weeks if we're lucky, and then we slip back into old habits before the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day saturate the stores, or, if we're particularly motivated, eggs and bunnies fill every aisle.      However, this year I feel a bit different. I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions and bucket lists and what their purpose is or should be in my life. Most people make both to give their life meaning. To somehow prevent their lives from slipping by before they squeezed some life out of it. I, like many people have at least a mental bucket list of things I'd love to do in my lifetime. Visit Italy and see the histo...

Drought Continues in Papua New Guinea Houses no longer standing in water in the town of Kerema, Papua New Guinea   (Aris Messinis) Photo from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/png-drought/6975594      When you read the Bible do you ever put yourself in the character's shoes? I do. It helps me to make the Bible more real to me and really internalize what it's saying.      For instance, take the story of Elijah praying for rain after 3 years of drought on the mountain top. He had been told to present himself to King Ahab -- the same king he'd been hiding from for the last 3 years -- only then would the Lord God (Yahweh) again send rain on Israel. Elijah had come and boldly presented himself to the king. On top of that, he'd challenged all the prophets of the false god Baal to a knock-down-drag-out contest of who was the true god -- Baal or Yahweh. Baal never showed up but Yahweh, the God of Israel, showed up in a big way c...

In the last month or so I've been working on reading Ann Voskamp's One-Thousand Gifts. It's been humbling and challenging. I think her message -- that the discipline of thankfulness leads to a full, joyful life -- is one that the Lord has been trying to get across to me this last month because it's been popping up everywhere. In my morning devotionals (all three of them), in emails from friends, in radio messages and sermons, and in my times of solitude with the Lord. I've been pleasantly surprised that, as I give thanks to the Lord (something so seemingly simple to me), I've been filled with a joy I have not felt in a long time. I've been more at peace and more filled with contentment as I've set the gaze of my soul more intently on the Lord in an attitude of thanksgiving. It's been delightful and refreshing. So, I want to share a little of my daily thanksgiving and joy with you by sharing a few photos of what I've been thankful for in the past ...

I plunk down with my computer in my lap after a long day. I stretch my aching neck and make note of all the muscles that are sore today that I didn't even know existed before my painting work the last few days. I sigh. What can I possibly share this week?  I think to myself. It feels sort of anti-climactic being a missionary in preparation, then on the field and then back home for a time all in the course of a year. I can't report any exotic foods, crazy exploits, or touching encounters this week. Just the faithfulness of every day. I guess you can tell that's a thing with me lately. I'm learning about faithfulness in the waiting right now and you get to hear my thoughts as I muse on the lessons the Lord is teaching me. This week I've spent a day at the hospital with my Grandma as she underwent some tests. The next two days I painted our bathroom that's being remodeled and worked to keep the house in order in the mean time. Then I spent a day working on odds...

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24 NIV You’ve all seen memes that go something like this, “What my friends think I do. What my family thinks I do. What I actually do.” Sometimes, I feel that my life is a bit like that. It usually happens when I’m doing some mundane task in life. I find myself in my jeans at the grocery store, trying to accomplish one of the 175 things on my list for the day. I run into someone I know and they ask me what I’ve been up to. I tell them that I’ve been working as a nurse for a Christian ministry in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Then it happens. I see the “what my friends think I do” look. Their eyes glaze and I can see them envisioning me living Survivor style in the jungle, machete in hand, bandana around my head standing next to my mud hut with a dinner I c...

Sunrise in Madang, Papua New Guinea " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) Hope is a choice not a feeling. Hope is a gift, not something you can muster up in your own strength. Today I realized something. The difference between the voice of my shepherd, Jesus, and my enemy, Satan. My enemy says, "what will you do when those things you most fear happen?" My shepherd asks, "will you trust me if the things you most fear happen?" That's a big difference. I was reading Hebrews and talking with a group of ladies this week about Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Now we have the benefit of knowing the end of the story -- where God breaks in at the last minute to tell Abraham not to sacrifice his son because He saw that Abraham would be obedient no matter what -- but Abraham didn't. For all he knew he was really going to have to ...

Click Here For the Ukarumpa Clinic Video Hey My Friends, I may be here in the USA at the moment by my heart, prayers and thoughts are never far from the work in Papua New Guinea (PNG). In fact, even this week I've been emailing with one of my Papua New Guinean friends who works in the clinic. We've been chatting back and forth so that I can "keep my finger on the pulse"(not sure if pun is intended there, but....) of how things are going at the clinic and so that I can pray for the work going on there. It's a vibrant clinic serving both my fellow Wycliffe missionaries, missionaries from other organization, commercial patients and Papua New Guineans. It's a wonderful place to work and I love staying connected with them even while I'm here. Many of you have asked what the clinic is like. I thought about trying to describe it to you but my friends in Ukarumpa (the location of the clinic in the Eastern Highlands Province of PNG) have beat me to the pun...

Hey Everyone! Did you know that September 30th is World Bible Translation Day? In 1966 a group of linguistic scholars asked congress to set aside September 30th to highlight Bible Translation. Pretty neat right? I thought you might enjoy a video about  how Bible translation works  (click to left). It was made by a ministry that does translation work in partnership with my mission agency. It's a fascinating and very helpful video that I hope you'll really enjoy. Christ Follower, Megan "The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts." ~ A. W. Tozer from The Pursuit of God

"[...]  because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day."   2 Timothy 1:12b Late afternoon sun streams through the front glass door of my house. I see all of the smudges and fingerprints ranged on the glass and mentally add that to my cleaning checklist. My dog sleeps peacefully on the rug in the soft, warm sunshine. Clocks tick around me reminding me of the relentless march of time in my stolen moment of reflection. I've been thinking a lot of what to share with all of you this week and not making much headway. Many of you received the note I sent out this week letting you know I'm taking the 6 month extended family medical leave of absence from my work in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Strange. Making that decision was so difficult for me, and it was even harder to tell all of you. It feels like our hopes and dreams have been so tied up in what's going on thousands of miles away on an i...

"[...] See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor and spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, Oh you of little faith?[...] Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Matthew 6: 28-30 & 34     The last few weeks I've been grappling with a lot of things. The fallout from my grandparents' sudden and untimely deaths, new tough news about my Mom's health, a looming deadline to make a decision whether or not to return to my work in Papua New Guinea now or later and the thousand things that go along with all of that. I've been making mental lists of pros and cons, praying, fasting, seeking God's face and the counsel of others and generally feeling like I'm beating...

Every eye followed her in rapt attention waiting to hear what she would say next. She turned from the flannel-graph where she had just put up a new part of the story and asked in  Tok Pisin  (the trade language of Papua New Guinea), "What do you think happened next?" Hands shot up all over the room, and children wriggled eagerly hoping to be called on. Meanwhile, the quieter teens in the back of the room watched with twinkling eyes to see the little scene unfold. You see, these children were hearing the story of Noah and the Flood from Genesis Chapter 5 through 9 in the Bible. This is only part of one of the ministries I'm praying about joining with on a regular basis called The Mambu Haus ministry (this is  Tok Pisin  for “Bamboo House“). It is a ministry to the teens and children of the villages close to the Ukarumpa translation center where I live. The Mambu Haus ministry gives teens and kids a safe place to spend some time on a Saturday where they ...