BRAZIL??

So you're going to teach 1st grade in Brazil?  How did that come about?  Here's the story.  Be ready for a crazy ride as you read how God began to guide me down this path.

August 2012

My dear friends Tawni and Laura and I woke up to the beauty of Glacier National Park ready for one of our bigger hiking days.  

We had decided to conquer the Grinnel Glacier.  It was necessary we decided to see at least one glacier while at Glacier Ntl. Park. 

We got dressed and I put on a Brazil t-shirt that Adam Willis, the youth pastor from my church, had ordered for us the previous summer when we took the youth group there on a mission trip.

  

In Brazil with Betsy July 2011

In Brazil with the Cooks July 2011

Little did I know wearing that shirt that particular day would change the direction of my life!  Isn't it amazing how God directs even the smallest of decisions such as what T-shirt to wear hiking!!

At Glacier August 2012

As I was hiking up the mountain a lady stopped me and commented on my shirt asking if I was from Brazil.  I said, no I went there on a mission trip last summer.  She was hiking with her husband and his friend.  Come to find out the friend was a missionary with ABWE, which is the mission agency I was under when I went to the Philippines, and the lady, Brenda, was from Grand Rapids, MI!  She began telling me about an international school she taught at.  Well, I have been interested in teaching overseas again for the past few years so Tawni and Laura patiently waited while Brenda and I talked about Pan American Christian Academy.  She told me that you earn a small salary and the rest of your support comes through donations.  This is exactly the type of setting I believed God was calling me to!  As I studied the Bible over the past few years I examined the lives of what I consider to be two of the greatest missionaries, Jesus and Paul.  They both worked with their hands and earned some money in their field of expertise while trusting God to provide the rest. We read about women meeting the needs of Jesus as well as churches and individuals supporting Paul.   Maybe this school would provide me with the same setting!  Brenda also mentioned that most likely they would need a special education or 1st grade teacher the following year.  Well, that sounded about perfect to me since I taught special ed. for 4 years and was about to being my 3rd year of 1st grade.  Brenda wrote her e-mail address down in the back of a journal I had with me. 

Brenda her husband and his friend at Glacier

When I got home I looked up the school's website and realized that Pan American Christian Academy is the official name for PACA, a school my friend Krystie Hague had previously mentioned to me.  She told me her mom worked at this school and that I should check it out.  I wrote to Brenda and asked her if she knew Julie Cuthbert, Krystie's mom, and she did!  This was another amazing connection.  

I began the application process, but in October felt that this was not the right school for me mainly because I had a condo with no prospective renters, and I did not want to sell it. In November Brenda was here in MI and we went to dinner just to talk about Brazil, even if I had put it on the back burner.  It was a wonderful time learning more about life at PACA.  As the fall and Christmas season continued on I prayed to God a great deal about developing my faith.  I asked Him to please help me to trust Him more and begged Him to strengthen my faith!  (Through PACA I will earn a small salary and the rest of my income will come through donations.  What an opportunity for me to trust in God and watch Him continue to provide!  I'm so excited to see how my faith grows!)

Well, I continued to think about PACA every single day, and finally in December I decided that renters or no renters I needed to proceed with the application process and see what God had in store.  Due to the holiday's not much happened until late January when I began talking more with the superintendent at PACA. During that time I read two books that had been recommended to me.  My Aunt and Uncle recommended Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and my good friend Michelle Alvarado recommended Radical by David Platt.    These two books helped inspire me to care less about my earthly possessions and to be willing to do something radical for a Lord who loves me with a crazy kind of love.  God also reconnected me with a good friend, Jason Groth, who I hadn't seen in four years.  As we started to catch up I listened to his story.  It was all about how he quit his job in the business field, sold almost all his possessions, and became a youth pastor completely trusting God to meet his every need, including where to live.  He told me about the incredible freedom he now experiences and the inexplicable joy God has given him.  I couldn't believe he was telling me about what he had done and how it aligned so well with what I was studying and where I thought God might be leading me!

This year at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) we studied the book of Genesis.  Many parts of the story of Abraham have challenged and motivated me.  God told Abraham to leave his homeland in Genesis 12, and verse 4 says, “So Abram left, as the Lord told him.”  He just obeyed.  There is no recording of Abram questioning God or setting things in order before he left.  He simply went.  My teachers at BSF challenged me by asking, "What is my response when the God of authority interferes and interrupts my plans?"  -From a worldly perspective Abram made an awful choice!  Ur was an amazing place to live and he left it all to live in a tent for the rest of his life.  Yet, when faith begins you put behind an earthly perspective.  This got me to really considering the idea of selling my home.  God appears and says trust me; move forward in confidence.  Will I remain where I am waiting for more information or will I go?  At some point God will ask me to sacrifice what I highly value.  Will I do it?  There will never be a time when I look back and say, “I shouldn't have given God my all in that situation.”  Later God asked Abraham to give Isaac up.  Isaac was his only son; the promised child; a miracle baby.  How could God keep his promise if Isaac was dead?  What would other people think and say about Abraham if he killed his own son?  What if God asked you to kill your son to prove your love for him?  What if that meant you spent the rest of your days in jail?  What if no one understood, including you?  Well, in Genesis 22:2 God told Abraham to take Isaac, who he loved, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.  In verse 3 it says, “Early the next morning” Abraham made sure that everything was prepared and set off.  He did not wait.  He made sure everything was ready to go and did not leave things to chance.  He was willing to sacrifice his son.  Now God wasn't doing this to see if Abraham loved Him more.  He already knew that!  He was proving to Abraham who he loved more.  Abraham knew he loved God more because of what he was willing to do.  If Abraham could do that, how can I not be willing to give up a house, which is just some bricks and wood, or anything else?  He was willing to give up his only son whom he loved!!  I also need to obey right away like Abraham did.  Delayed obedience is disobedience.

In February after studying this lesson of Abraham and Isaac I called up my relator, Tim Katerberg, and told him that I had been trying to rent out my house with no success.  I felt that God was calling me to Brazil and was wondering if Tim would meet with me to determine what I ought to do to sell my house.  He met with me on a Monday and that week I had 4 parties of potential renters come look at my house.  All 4 groups of people were wonderful and kind, but one couple blew me away.  I knew as soon as I talked with Paula Lapata that I would be thrilled to have her, Eric her husband, and their baby boy Hudson live in the condo while I was gone.  As soon as I was willing to give this house up and not put it above God, He graciously allowed me to have it back while still providing for me to teach overseas again, a dream He has instilled in my heart for years.  Eric and Paula have a wonderfully inspiring story of how God brought them to MI.  They both had good jobs and lived near family in Ohio.  Paula found out she was pregnant and soon after Eric said, I feel like God is calling me to attend seminary in MI.  After selling many of their things, taking a huge pay-cut and moving away from family, this sweet couple moved to MI where Eric began attending seminary.  A good friend of mine from the Philippines, Craig Johnson, was working at the seminary and posted my advertisement for a renter on the website.  A friend of Eric's saw the posting and contacted Eric.  Come to find out the Lapata's know the Johnsons as well as another friend of mine, Steve Lister, who also is currently attending seminary.  Eric went to Cedarville University, which is the same university I attended.  It’s just another commonality God has blessed us with.  After that I thought, well now I need an honest lawyer to help me draw up a rental contract.  Soon after on a Sunday morning my good friend Betsy asked me how things were going with Brazil.  I told her they were going great!  I found some renters for my house and now I was looking for a lawyer.  She reminded me of the obvious, her boyfriend, Peter Taylor, is a great honest lawyer.  Check...one more prayer answered!  

God has allowed many other pieces to fall into place.  My Master's degree at Grand Valley is almost complete as I just have to write my thesis- fun stuff!  This is the one class I can complete abroad so the timing of that works very well.  I'm no longer under contract with my cell phone provider so I won't have to pay any early termination fees.  My current roommate, Karin, has been strongly considering what new options God has for her life and is excited about the opportunity for change.  There are many other small details that God has worked out, but I think I win the prize for longest blog post ever so I better wrap up soon.  

One last AMAZING update from today!  ...well, yesterday I guess since its now nearly 2 AM.  My church, Highland Hills, allowed me to update the congregation on what God has done in my life these last few months.  Over the course of the afternoon one extremely generous couple agreed to cover my entire outfit and passage in order to allow the rest of the funds raised to go to my monthly support!!  Look at how God is already working!!!

If you made it all the way through this CONGRATULATIONS!  I promise that future posts will be shorter since they won’t be covering 9 months!