real faith.

In a certain country, there was a man who had to walk three days to church.  Because of the distance and of the possibility of dangerous roads, this man, whom I will call Faithful Man, started worshipping with his wife and sons in his home.  Slowly, more and more believers gathered together will him to pray, sing, and read the Word of God.  The number grew to twenty-five, and police came to a meeting warning Faithful Man to stop having church in his home.  Faithful Man could not understand.  This was not a church.  It was not a fancy building, and he was definitely not a pastor.  How could they accuse him of having church?

The gathering of believers continued to meet.  There was fifty people, and again, the police came warning him and telling him to stop holding church.  He still stood against them.  But his picture of church began to change.  Maybe this was what real church was?  Then, there were seventy-five people in his home.  The police stormed in and this was the end.  They took Faithful Man from his family and dismissed the believers.

Faithful Man was put in prison.  For seventeen years.

He underwent torture year after year and was lied to often about his family and friends.  But Faithful Man was faithful.  Alone in his cell, he would wake up every morning, face the window, raise his arms, and sing praises to God in his heart language.  The other prisoners, over 1200 of them, would throw extra food at him and curse and mock in their languages.  But every morning, he continued to worship his God.

Also, whenever he found a scrap of paper, he would write down as many verses from God's Word and songs from his language to God as he could remember.  He would stick it up high on the pillars in his cell.  It would stay there until the soldiers found it and ripped it to shreds and then tortured him.

All that Faithful Man had to do to get out of prison was sign a paper saying that he was not a follower of Christ.

One day, Faithful Man found an entire piece of paper.  He filled it entirely with verses and songs.  He knew they would find it in his cell, but it was such a wonderful thing to be able to write so much at one time.

Then, the darkest hours of his life came.  After they found the paper, they lied to him saying that his wife was killed.  He thought his life was over.  After fighting and resisting all day, he finally gave in, believing his wife had died, and said that in the morning he would sign the papers.

That night miles and miles away, Faithful Man's wife and children and brothers and sisters in Christ felt his heavy burden and were praying fervently for him.  And miles and miles away from them, the Holy Spirit allowed Faithful Man to hear their voices praying for him.  He heard his wife praying for him.

The soldiers came in the morning.  Faithful Man told them he would not sign.  He had a weak moment, but he could not surrender to a lie.  He was a follower of Christ and would follow Him no matter the cost.  The soldiers could not stand it anymore.  They were dragging him out of the prison hallway on their way to kill him...

...when over 1200 prisoners faced their windows, raised their arms, and sang praises to God in their heart language.

The soldiers were so terrified that they let go of Faithful Man, left him immediately, and ran far away.  And Faithful Man was able to live to tell his story of His God.

"Then He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."  

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 

This is REAL FAITH.

Could you stand for Jesus Christ in the depths of a living hell?    He stood for you.

a poem from a training session.

"The Cross Was His Own"

They borrowed a bed to lay His head

When Christ the LORD came down;

They borrowed the ass in the mountain pass

For Him to ride to town;

But the crown that He wore,

And the cross that He bore ...

Were His own.

He borrowed the bread when the crowd He fed

On the grassy mountain side;

He borrowed the dish of broken fish

With which He satisfied;

But the crown that He wore

And the cross that He bore

Were His own.

He borrowed the ship in which to sit

To teach the multitude;

He borrowed the nest in which to rest,

He had never a home so rude;

But the crown that He wore

And the cross that He bore

Were His own.

He borrowed a room on the way to the Tomb

The Passover lamb to eat;

They borrowed the cave; for Him a grave;

They borrowed the winding sheet.

But the crown that He wore

And the cross that He bore

Were His own.

The thorns on His head were worn in my stead,

For me the Saviour died.

For guilt of my sin the nails drove in

When Him they crucified;

Though the crown that He wore

And the cross that He bore

Were His own--

They rightly were mine!

 ~Author unknown

alone-->nothing.

When I stop and consider the task ahead, I think...

Can I learn the majority of conversational Toposa in two years?
Can I homeschool one or two boys from a curriculum I have never seen before?
Can I cook from scratch?
Can I handle money in a foreign country?
Can I share my faith daily?
Can I love when it's hard?
Can I think about others before myself?
Can I drive a standard, stick-shift car on dirt roads?
Can I handle going to the bathroom at night when there might be snakes out there?
Can I trust God when my plans fall apart?
Can I?  Can I?  Can I?

NO. But God can.
  This week He spoke this to my heart:

"I AM the vine, you are the branches.  If a man remains in me, and I in him, then he will bear much fruit; apart from Me, you can do nothing."   John 15:5

Apart from Him, that means me, Alyssa by myself, can do nothing.

Alone-->nothing.

But with Him, abiding in Him, drinking from the vine daily, constantly seeking after Him and His heart...everything is possible.  That's right.  With God, ALL things are possible.  Every single thing.

He knows.

God knows everything.

During my quiet time with the Lord the other morning, I told Him how tired I was of trying to please other people and that I need to forget about doing so and instead make it my goal to please Him.  I read this from Matthew 10:26-31:

So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. ³⁰ And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Jesus was speaking directly to me, "Alyssa, so do not be afraid of them."  It was great to realize that I have no excuse when it comes to being afraid to share His truth with other people.  He says it so clearly: "Do not be afraid."

Later in the evening, I went running.  During my run, my thoughts journeyed back to Matthew 10 and that's when it really hit me.  Hard.  Now, if you know me well, you know that I LOVE pennies.  I am the person who stops and picks up pennies off of the ground.  I am even the person who slows down behind a "coin-dropping" person, so that when they are far enough away, I can go pick up the penny they intentionally dropped.  To them, a penny is pretty worthless, but to me, pennies are priceless.  I know, it's a little weird.  But I think I like them because they are different than the rest of the coins.  Anyway...it hit me while I was running that Jesus knows me so well.  So well.  Look at the passage again.  See?  Two sparrows are sold for a penny.  But Jesus said, "you are worth more than many sparrows."  That means He was saying to me, that to Him, I am worth more than many pennies!!!  It was a wonderful moment.  I stopped running and starred up at the stars.  I stood there in awe of my God.

This morning was the sixth morning in a row that I woke up after not sleeping through the night.  I was letting God know that it was a little discouraging to wake up to the alarm, knowing that I was not fully rested.  And then I naturally went ahead and read from Matthew 11.  Here is what Jesus said to me in verses 28-30:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

It was so comforting to know that He knows everything.  About my likes and dislikes.  About my biggest fears and craziest dreams.  About even when I am tired.

I do not know what lies ahead.  I do not know what tomorrow will bring.  But I do know that He knows.  I am reminded of a song a friend and I wrote in middle school:

Questions are flooding my mind
The answers are so hard to find
Now I have realized
You want it that way
I know that You know
What I don't.

That's what peace is.  Knowing He knows all the stuff I don't.
Praise to my very best friend, the Omniscient King of Kings!

that wordless moment.

A quote from Alexis de Tocqueville's "Two Weeks in the Wilderness":

"How is it that human speech, which has the words for every suffering, encounters an invincible difficulty in conveying the gentlest and most natural emotions of the heart?  Who will ever faithfully depict those exceptionally rare times in life when your physical wellbeing shapes you for a moral peacefulness and when your eyes perceive before them a perfect balance in the universe; a time when the soul, halfway toward sleep, hovers between the present and the future, the real and the possible; when man, surrounded by the beauty of nature, inhaling a calm, cool air, at peace with himself in the midst of a universal quiet, listens closely to the even throb of his arteries, each beat of which thus registers the passage of time, seemingly flowing drop by drop into eternity."

Recommended to me by my grandfather, Bobber, this essay was a wonderful read.  What a uniquely eye-opening experience to see rugged, untouched America through the eyes of a Frenchman.

and there was SNOW in El Paso!

My family and I arrived back home in El Paso from the Baylor bowl game in Houston in a terrible wind and dust storm.  We stopped for a nice, warm early dinner at Olive Garden, and during dessert, my sister looked out the window and...it was snowing!!

SNOW!!!

 Outside Olive Garden!  As you can tell, I am pretty excited.  Eeek!

 Char jumping for joy by the front door of our house.

 The table on the back porch...with the owl that scares away the pigeons.

 Snow over the pool.  Super cool.  

 Snow covered mountains and fields captured on film as I drive into my neighborhood.

 The siblings: Char, me, Christian, and Colin, with our snowman.  

Each of us made a snowball for the body.  

Mine would not gather snow and became the head.  :)

Aww...the four of us. 

 MAYA!  On the run in the snow in the backyard.

 Tackle him, Char!  And Maya, get that bball!

My fav.

It doesn't get much better than this.

our papaya.

Our new puppy, as of August, is now five months old.  Time flies.

Here is my sister, Char, with our puppy, Maya.  (Who we often call Papaya.  She comes to either one!  Teehee.)  Both are super cute.  :)