live free, run after your dreams
Living free is intentional. It’s not always easy, and sometimes the progress seems slow. But it’s also rewarding. It helps you and me discover who we were intended to be from the very beginning. It also helps us to discover what we are meant to do! This month Proverbs 31 Ministries magazine featured my article: Pursuing Your Passion.
What does it mean to pursue your passion? Is it what you do or what you believe? Is it who you are or who you run after? I hope you’ll check out the article: Pursuing Your Passion.
Posted by Suzie @
7:02 am |
Day 2 in Ecuador
I only have a few moments to share my heart, but today has been a good day.
I met Abraham, one of the children sponsored by Proverbs 31 Ministry team. I also met Johanna, the other child. Abraham is 6. Johanna is 7. I will add pictures later, but can’t at the moment!
They traveled with our team today to a school in Quito where Jonathan, a young man who started in Compassion as a young child after the loss of his father, tutors children. Today he is a university student in the Compassion Leadership program. He is studying physics and plans to be a teacher.
We also met two other young women in the leadership program, both in the university. One plans to be a psychologist and the other is studying oil engineering.
Our second stop was at a Compassion project. We played, we sang, we observed children in school uniforms learning. The area was poor. Concrete block homes with outdoor laundry, many many dogs, glass embedded on top of gates to keep intruders out, but also a place where children laughed and played. The school and church were an oasis.
Abraham hung out with me, and Johanna with Patty. Sherri had Christian with her, as he is her daughter’s sponsored child. Abraham was shy at first, but warmed up. He and I played on the slide, played with the stuffed “mono” — monkey — and put together a puzzle.
His mother, Kathy, and I became quick friends. The director of the Compassion project, and her son’s tutor accompanied her on the 10 hour drive from her home city. She lives along the coast of Ecuador and is a dedicated mother to her children. She once wanted to be a doctor when she was a child. She now hopes that her son will one day be a doctor. As I listened to the LDP students who were in the university, I believe that this dream can one day come true.
The team is calling me away. I must go, but I hope to share pictures on this blog post later. For now, imagine it with me, pray for us, and pray for the Compassion team.
Tomorrow we go to the Infant Survival program.
Posted by Suzie @
6:46 pm |
Day 1 in Ecuador
I woke up early, sun streaming in my room. After an amazing breakfast of fruit, strawberry juice, a fried plantain, and omelet, we climbed on the bus.
Queto (Kee-to) is a city of three million. It’s beautiful and yet there are the harsh parts of such a large city. We drove a few miles to a neighborhood down winding, narrow concrete streets to a Compassion project. It is a church/school that is in the heart of an area filled with children, many many dogs and “el gatos”, and a lot of love.
Compassion International reaches 52,000 children in Ecuador, partnering with 200 churches. If I say it fast, it sounds just like a number.
I hope that I can put a face on it.
Meet Eric.
He’s 13. He’s a little guy. He has special needs. He was born needing surgery and special care. As a Compassion sponsored child, his needs were met. He has had many surgeries and interventions. Today he is an intelligent, special-needs child who can say a great deal without any words.
Eric’s mother invited us to his home. It’s concrete and rock. One room to sleep for his mom and Eric and his two brothers. You enter the home from an alley and it leads into the open narrow room that is heated by wood and is the kitchen/rest of the house. My guess would be 250 square feet. Roberto, our Compassion host, says that this represents 60% of the population in Ecuador.
Eric’s mother pulled out the letters that his Compassion sponsor had written to him over the years. Pictures. Notes. Then she pulled out the other letters, showing that her other two sons, ages 10 and 6, were also sponsored.
I remember how I felt when I first saw harsh conditions in another country years ago. But I also remember walking away feeling overwhelmed. Our efforts just didn’t seem like enough.
But not today.
I saw children who were sponsored by men and women just like you who ate a nutritious meal. Who were spiritually educated, but holistically educated as well with mentors who teach them how to move beyond poverty with job skills and life skills and simple health education. I saw teachers who loved these children. I saw smart, smart kids who had a support system in place until they graduated.
And I listened to a mama share her dreams for her sons, and the 
light in her eyes when she spoke of Compassion. And I realized that this program would go on long after any of us left. It’s in 28 countries reaching over a million children, but also changing families. Putting a dream in the heart of mamas all over the world.
It was a good, good day.
Tomorrow we go to the Leadership Development program to meet with students who went all the way through the program, and are now in university.
Night all. Thanks for the prayers. Thanks for the many blankets you sent. Thanks for sponsoring a child if that is something God lays on your heart, or for donating, if that is within your means.
I’ll leave you with this picture of children in the classroom after lunch, singing and playing–just like kids do.
Posted by Suzie @
10:45 pm |
thank you
Thank you to each of you who crocheted, bought, made blankets and sent them to me for Ecuador. Thank you for praying over those blankets and for the little ones who will be wrapped in them.
Father,
Thank you for this trip. Thank you for caring friends who sacrificed, who prayed, who are praying, and who tangibly did something for a little one. Thank you for the babies who will sleep in these blankets. Thank you that they will be healthy, that they will be warm, fed, and nurtured.
I pray for the team who are flying in from all over the nation to join with Compassion International. Thank you for showing us your heartbeat on this trip. May we listen, and respond.
In your amazing powerful and loving name, Amen.
And on a lighter note? I’m also thankful for space bags! (Thanks, Linda Au, for the suggestion.) You responded so well that I had more blankets than luggage. Look at the pic above, and then see what space bags did!
All fifty blankets made it into two space bags. They are heavy and they filled the suitcase, but they fit!
Posted by Suzie @
9:30 am |
Connect the dots
I listened to Apple’s Steve Jobs this morning while I worked on a couple of projects. He said something that really made me think. He was talking to a prestigious college graduate class. “This may be the closest I get to a real graduation,” he said, mentioning that he never completed college.
But he went on to say, “that doesn’t mean that I didn’t continue to learn”.
Jobs slept on friend’s floors and couches so he could attend classes. Random classes. Professors and subjects that intrigued him. Like graphic design. Or a business class. None of these classes produced a diploma, but what it did accomplish was to help him grow in those areas where he was naturally talented and interested.
And when he started working at Apple and designing the first Mac, that information connected the dots. His graphic design class helped him create great typography. The business or marketing classes helped him launch the new computer in a market dominated by another product.
I want to be a life-time learner. I want to listen to talented speakers and I want to read books in every genre. I want to start my days on my knees, tuning into the One who has all knowledge and perception — for my life, for those I meet, for those I pray for and love.
I love it when the dots connect.
I hear someone else’s POV and it affects my writing. How can I answer her question? How can I put myself in her shoes and see God from her perspective?
I read about other cultures. Instead of an American Christian with American doctrine, I can bond with a body of Christ and the common denominator is Jesus.
The dots connect as I step into a woman’s life for a moment who has lost a son, whose husband deserted her, who has been favored with lots of money and uses it for the good of others, or I listen to a man who shares what men think.
One of the most dangerous aspects of ministry is to live in a vacuum. It’s a cliche, I know. But it’s also a trap.
We minister with messages that are tried and true, and after a while we forget the woman sitting in the audience. Or worse, we think we’ve got her all figured out, looking at our own life and experiences, and we toss out trite formulas (if you will just do A and B, the result will always be C).
Or we have so tuned out the quiet, powerful voice of God that knows every person sitting in the audience intimately.
Growth isn’t a one-day process, it’s a life time of searching, seeking, maturing, listening, and allowing the Holy Spirit to connect the dots.
What are you reading to, listening to, learning? I’d love to hear about it.
Posted by Suzie @
11:49 am |
focus: letting go
Every six months or so I put everything on the table. It’s an invisible table, and it’s in a quiet room where I hang out with God.
“Show me, Lord,” I pray.
My nature is to say yes to things I love to do. I learned a long time ago that this “table” was necessary. It kept me on track. It keeps me from getting tangles in a million to-do’s, or taking an event or task that could be performed better by someone who really wants that task or event.
Sometimes nothing goes away. It all stays on the table.
Sometimes there are surprises. A few months ago I felt nudged to let a ministry go. It’s a ministry I love: Real Teen Faith.
Thousands of teens visit it monthly. Teens write behind the scenes, asking tough questions. There is a lot of great content and devos for teens, and parents, and those in youth ministry.
And the best aspect of all? I have been privileged to mentor teens who love to write, and to watch them grow in their skills and dreams.
One of the writers who first came on board is taking over Real Teen Faith. BJ Hamrick is now a newlywed, a twentysomething who is one of the most talented writers I know. She’s been picked up by a great literary agency and is writing books for teens. They aren’t published — yet — but I’ve read them. They will be!
In order to run after our dreams and to stay on track in ministry, it takes focus. Sometimes focus is planning. Sometimes it is praying for direction.
And sometimes it’s letting go. Even if it’s always been “your baby”.
Because it’s really not “our baby”. It’s ministry.
I’m so excited to see where BJ takes this. My hope is to support her 100% as a cheerleader, to back away and let her run with her dreams, no matter what that looks like. I’m pumped! I can’t wait to see new vision unfold.
Posted by Suzie @
12:33 pm |
