jamie's wanderings

It looks like my two previous blogs repeat each other. Even though they do, its what I've clung to the last week. Since we made the decison to stay longer, its been a roller coaster. Read on...

This week the world turned upside down, with the news that my mother in law has cancer, again. I won’t go into details, but its grim. And so the questions we all ask roll through our minds. Why? To what end? The accusations and anger boils as we say to ourselves, hasn’t she given enough of her herself for the kingdom? Isn’t 25 years in the bush in Africa enough? Can’t she find some grace, some mercy in it all? WHERE IS THE JUSTICE? Where is the healing? I have taken rest in an unusual passage. A friend pointed me to it this summer. For those of you rusty in your Old Testament history, Elisha has some friends. This childless couple builds him an extra room and he camps out there, perhaps for a long period of time. He wants to bless them, he promises a son, unasked. This woman has the son, and one day he dies. Calmly, she saddles her donkey and goes into town. As Elisha sees her, he send out his servant to discover what’s wrong. And all the woman says to the servants penetrating question...

We had to make one of the most difficult decisions we've had this year, do we stay or do we go? Our tickets back to Spain were orginally scheduled for August 19th, this past Tuesday. Last week realized slowly that we were still 885 dollars undersupported, that we needed more support, and that we couldn't do it in just a weeks time. I was exhausted beyound all recognition. I had been traveling every week for 7 weeks, living out of a suitcase. I have been on 8 plane flights this summer, driven over 39 hours on road trips and been in 8 states. I've slept in too many beds and woken up at least one night wondering where in the heck I was. It was so hard as a result to process through all the facts and make a logical decision. Clouding my judgement was the fact that I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed before things got insanely busy back in Spain. I love what I do. I love living in Spain, speaking Spanish, leading worship, teaching English, translating songs, writing...

So, I'm back on the blogging board...back to some demand. The reason the blog has remained fairly empty is that I am writing, just not on my blog. I've reverted back to my college days and gotten an old fashioned 50 cent journal from Walmart and I'm writing my book in it. Its a modest, red, cardboard covered journal that really did cost only 50 cents. It somehow been very inspiring to pick up pen and use paper for the first time in a very long time. I've had a great time laying out the book and now slowly working out it. I'm also finding airplanes to be a great source of inspiration. So, I'll try to put some excerpts up later this week. I"ve got a ton to do...so I'll my best.

Andrew wrote this today, and I thought I'd post it. Dear Friends and Family, Hi from Chicago! After a whirlwind trip through Atlanta, Mississippi, Kentucky and Houston, Texas, we are back in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. We've spoken in churches, met with financial partners, been to a wedding, a family reunion and have seen God provide for us all the way. In Chicago, a wonderful couple from Naperville EV Free Church has given us their basement apartment to use for as long as we need it. Another couple have loaned us their car while we're here too. A business man from Houston pledged to financially partner with us and then introduced us to a few of his friends and business partners! Some of them have also decided to partner with us! What a blessing! When we first returned to the States in July, we had been under-supported by $1300 per month for the previous eight months. We even had to borrow from our mission's emergency fund to meet our needs. Since we've been b...