Severed Head

I sat in awe as I watched our little one playing with his cousins on the dirt floor in Robersy's village. We had already banished him from the pile of plantains he had gotten into, but playing with the other children seemed to be right up his alley.

Trying to be an awesome mom I brought a couple of super fancy educational toys (#momoftheyear) for him to play with. He was doing great. Sharing. Laughing. Playing. All of the kids were loving it... until...

Our little Dominican loves his plantains.

Along came Robersy's cousin's daughter with a couple of gems. A headless doll, the doll's severed head and a broken toy phone. You would have thought Josiah was holding a hot potato. He threw that Baby Einstein toy across the floor and cuddled that severed head like it was the BEST THING EVER!!! No one could take it from him. 

Of course analyzing the germs that were in it's knotted blonde hair (in fact, I personally saw one of the other little girls spit in the hair while she was trying to get the knots out) and dirty face, I tried to do a little switcharoo. 

"Here Josiah! Take the nice, clean, sanitized, expensive, fancy Baby Einstein toy!" I may have just said "TOY" without the extra descriptions... but I was certainly thinking the rest.

He pushed it away.

Checking out the goats with Abuelo

He cuddled the severed head to his now tarnished onesie even tighter.

There was no telling him.

And sometimes... there's no telling us.

I shudder at the similarity between Josiah with his severed head and us. 

Blessing after blessing placed into our hands by God Almighty.

We toss them to the side and choose the world instead. 



We see this time and time in ministry and the church. I can name a number of times Robersy and I have sat there shaking our heads and saying, "What were they thinking?!" But then I see times I've done it too.

Watching Josiah I wanted to scream... "Josiah!!! Don't you see what you have?! This awesome toy and you chose to throw it away for a head! Literally. A head."

Boys toss aside their education for a chance at the major leagues.
Girls toss aside their future for a cute boy.
Women toss aside their husbands for a fling.
Men toss aside their jobs for addiction.

And God looks down upon us and says, "Don't you see what I gave you? What were you thinking? I gave you this precious gift and you chose to throw it away for the world."

Thank God for those blessings, dear friends. Don't toss them away for the world!

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Adventures with momma

This week has been slow as we've gotten back in to the groove of things. We've visited our teens and had various meetings. We're excited to get things going... but enjoying the slow days while they're here.

So as we start off running here are some things you can be praying for.

1. Our truck. The frame is bent, but insurance will not write it off. We have to wait until it is repaired then we're hoping to sell it (unfortunately, it won't be as much as we'd like) and get something we can use for ministry.

He climbs everything!!!

2. Ministry. Pray for our teens in Guayacanes and Juan Dolio that we will be discipling, teaching and training. Our goal is to grow godly leaders for the future.

3. Family. Pray that we might find a balance between ministry and home. We never want to neglect our first call as husband and wife & our second as parents... but want to honor our call outside the home too.

We look forward to sharing what God is doing in our lives in the days, weeks, and months ahead :)