Strike Sparks @saritahartz-blog - Tumblr Blog

ring of fire

Give thanks for the morning sunrise I'm well enough to see.

Give thanks for the husband still warm in bed, his arm over his head in dreams.

Some days we give thanks because we don't know what else to do. Because if we truly look we can see the gems shimmering through the mud and the mess.

I slip out into the cool of the morning before the day's heat drenches my shirt, and give thanks for that breeze and early stillness.

The doc says I have malaria/and/or food poisoning which is less than reassuring with all the slashes.

Africa wins again.

I made it to the office. I so want to teach my counseling seminar because the healing,

the lifting of unburdened heads,

the symphony of song, is what I love. What I live for here.

Unbroken wings.

By mid-day I can feel the fever coming back, the sweat at my temples. I want to push through this thing. I want to be strong enough.

Father gently says it's time to go home.

Some things can feel like failures. Business ventures not turned out quite like expected.

The dream trip to Italy postponed because its not what he needs right now.

Being sick in bed. Our body betraying us. The unanswered questions.

Like all the seeds planted still waiting for fruit. Or as in my case, a tiny sprig of lettuce.

We don't get the why's all the time.

Don't understand the losses.

The little girl selling herself for food, when she should be playing with dolls.

The unexpected deaths.

The friends far away.

The waiting for a miracle.

The bombs going off in Congo.

I come across the contradictions. And wince.

Want to take them all in, but can't. Want to do it all, but can't.

May have to move out of our home of three years, because it's the best decision to be made.

Choosing something new and unknown.

These things cut quick and scary.

But it's not so scary anymore. My life all wrapped up in His.

The dark, an opportunity, for light.

The hurt, a gateway, for healing.

The ruins, a road to redemption.

The leaving, a beginning.

One door opens another.

Only a choice:

Choose thanks

Choose love

Choose belief

Choose laughter

Choose rest

and His arms

When we're not strong enough a sliver, to see that He is. He is strong enough. He IS good enough.

So, when I'm not strong enough, my Daddy is.

He paints the world a new color.

Little Lucy who once was strangled, gets to come home and be a daughter.

The broken hearted sing.

A prayer gets answered.

She'll wear my wedding dress in June.

When the world goes dark, there is still a ring of fire.

And sometimes a sprig of lettuce.

When the heart needs rest

The new year finds me open and receiving, resting in these arms that long to carry me that I always seem to push away.

After all the clutching and striving. After all the cement stained floors cradling a thousand tears. I let him hold me. I let God love me back to life. I get off the crazed swirling monotony of days and empty hands and babies and dirt and sweat. Because Uganda, while I love it, takes my little heart and rubs it raw. Too busy to tend it; I falter.

I need a safe place to be still.

Sometimes we have to come to the end of ourselves to finally come home.

No longer a mother. But allowing myself to just be a daughter. One who is loved.

I find this revelation hard to receive: God the Father loves me as I am, just as much as He loves Jesus. He loves me just as much whether I am sleeping, or yelling at someone, or praying for the sick and spending myself on the poor. Whether I feel far from him, or close to him, my identity does not change. I am His.

That His love is not a temperature gage.

Does not rise and fall with my good and bad actions. Not dependent on what I do, but just because I AM. I am His girl.

The Father's heart is a deep-boned thing, something that covers and calms every anxious voice, every fearful thought, every long to do list. It is life-changing.

To know this. It shifts everything. Because I no longer have to do for approval.

I move from approval. My heart learns the lesson again. And again.

How to stop and know. To know. And believe. And receive. His love.

I had a vision.

Me and Jesus on a beach.

I am a little girl busy building my sand castle. Jesus wants me to come join him for a swim in the water. But I refuse, because I want to build this castle to show him. To show him he can be proud of me. He insists. Come join me. Be with me. So I relent. We play in the water for hours. When I come back to the beach, my sandcastle has washed away. But I did not feel the pain of it. It was as if it no longer mattered. Because His presence was so real and so sweet.

I look up further on the beach and there is a large castle, built of stone, made for a princess, like a backyard play house. And as I enter I realize it's big enough for me and Jesus to fit inside.

And I did nothing to build it.

I come out of the dream, and I know:

Everywhere all of us dying on our knees, when we could be with Him.

This is His furious longing.

And He is able. To cover our hearts with His hands. All the disappointments, and the shattered dreams, the betrayals, and the back-stabbing. His hands hold them and absorb them into His heart.

So much healing in this place. So much healing for me. So much revelation to bring back.

These women, these girls, are loved exactly as they are, regardless of their actions.

This is the most important thing in the world: To know we are loved and receive it. And to finally accept ourselves and be free.

The heart is where everything springs from.

And how we view God has everything to do with how we are going to live our life.

From GRACE. Or from DOING.

This is the calling. The reason we are in Uganda.

The reason Zion Project was born.

A destiny of healed hearts walking in wholeness awaits us.

So much love received, to give away.

The truth becomes real. There is no other way.

And gratitude.

The gratitude of feeling His love. So much more than a thousand gifts.

The plaintive prayers find rest.

I am home.

Will you join me?

*If you are interested in inner healing/the father's heart, a great resource is Catch The Fire School of Ministry in Toronto, Canada. May you be blessed! http://catchthefire.com/

#thoughts on faith #rest #uganda #sabbatical #father's heart

When you say yes

They say that once you hold your baby you forget everything that happened before. All the pain, all the tears dissolve into the glow of tiny fingers and tiny toes. The red birth becomes bright.

Even though Emmanuel did not come out of my body. In many ways it feels like he's mine. And when I look at his cheeks and his eyes, and hear his soft baby noises, I too feel the memory slipping away.

But I don't want to forget that he's a miracle.

Early this year, Nancy showed up on our doorstep on a Friday evening. Just a young girl of 14. Just another child in need of help. She asked to sleep under our veranda, to stay warm from the rain. She said someone had told her we help girls.

I don't know what it was about Nancy particularly. Maybe it was those big dimples. But I felt a tug at my heart. Just let her stay.

We have so many kids that need our help and it didn't seem like the “smartest,” decision at the time. A decision that could have repercussions. But I guess it was the holy spirit breathing close.

She was an orphan. Her parents died leaving her to the mercy of relatives who had too many children of their own to take care of her. Nancy was a burden to them. So they decided to sell her into a child marriage to a local village man. Nancy refused.

One night as she was walking home from buying food at the market, the man jumped her and raped her, tomatoes smashed on the ground beside her.

So Nancy decided to run away. Her only dream, was to go back to school. But here, you have to pay for it.

Nancy stayed at our office for 2 weeks while we tried to pray about what to do. She slept on a small mattress on the floor and she helped with cooking. Every day I saw her and looked into those eyes again and could feel the pleading.

Take me home.

Nancy was older than our other girls, but when I prayed, I felt God say “This one.”

When Nancy moved into our Rescue Home for girls we didn't know she was pregnant. Nancy didn't know she was pregnant. But a few weeks later she started showing signs.

I remember how defeated she looked when we told her she was pregnant. Like all the hope in her world had turned to ash in front of her. No more school. No more future.

She told me, “Mama I can't take care of this baby.”

And we told her she wouldn't have to.

I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what God would do. In fact, I had a lot of problems staring me in the face. How would we take care of a baby in our home?

Who would we find to adopt the baby?

It all seemed insurmountable. So I turned to Jesus.

About a week later, through a friend, I had found a wonderful couple in the USA who had already adopted 4 children and were longing for one more from Uganda.

All of a sudden, I could see God's plan all along. Bringing Nancy to us so she wouldn't have to suffer alone, and allowing us to take her in, so she could be a party of a family, and so Emmanuel could be brought into this world to bless another family very far away.

When Nancy went into labor on Friday, I put God to the test again.

God, you brought her to us, now you have to see her through this.

I can say, it was one of the hardest, worst, few days of my life. To watch this daughter of mine in so much pain, and to know we were at the mercy of the medical facilities in northern Uganda.

I don't know how many times Nancy told me, “Mama I can't. Mama I have a wound. Make them take the baby.” Just a kid giving birth to a kid.

But when it came time to push Nancy was focused and calm. God had descended on her.

I held Nancy's hand as she pushed. I watched Emmanuel's head emerge into this world. And we did it all without a doctor present.

Afterwards, Nancy started bleeding a lot and her uterus was not contracting. Mama Joy and I just looked at each other just praying, and crying.

And once again, I told God, you did not bring her this far to let her die on me.

Those few moments seemed endless.

But she lived and is she is fine. Her only request has been lots of chicken. Which I am happy to concede to.

And Emmanuel is asleep in his basket beside me.

And I know without a doubt, God is a God of miracles.

I see it in the eyes of Bijou as she holds baby Priscilla who was also born this week. A baby who most likely would have died without us getting her to the hospital.

And both these children, and their mothers are alive because of Him.

I shudder to think what would have happened to both of them if we had not been here.

I shudder to think of the many children who die because someone said no.

Thank you for helping me do what I love to do.

Thank you for bringing a life into this world, who will be loved. You can help us create more hope.

Healthy and whole. Zabibu smiles (Taken with instagram)

Community

When the baby stops breathing I feel the stone harden heavy in my chest.

I am not there, but on the phone I expel quick words and urgent instructions.

I feel the fear clutch.

Not again.

A thousand unanswered questions.

A hundred expectant dreams.

Not yet fulfilled.

But I dream still.

I say the words, “speak life,” as a prayer. I throw my faith on the line and ask God to answer. My heart begs Him.

Not this time.

I hope.

And hope is the scariest word of all.

When the word comes back, it is empty. The air leaves flat with a sob.

Sometimes we can only be Mary. Look straight into His eyes and bury the wonderings into His scarred chest. Heart sore, but leaning. I don’t hide how I feel from Him.

If you had been here….

The baby does not live. Body too twisted.

I close my eyes and see him in heaven with perfect legs.

The baby does not live. Here.

But Zabibu does.

The five year old sister, too sick to move. The mother too poor to take her to the doctor. Too proud maybe to ask for help.

We rush her to the hospital. Doors open and heaven sees us amongst the mass of people waiting to be saved.

The women huddle together, gather courage, and hold hands through the ache. Like tiny birds they offer each other shelter.

And I think, this is what love looks like.

Like shelter.

Zabibu grows healthy.

Her Muslim father sees the way the women take turns to offer an embrace, food, comfort. Like Jesus.

A community who does not run from pain.

A miracle in the mess.

Somewhere all of us under the shadow of His wing.

Somewhere the stone becomes a seed and we dream

resurrection.

#congolese #Congolese Refugees #thoug #thoughts on faith

Redemption

I see you.

God says, as my heart breaks.

I know.

He says, as I turn into the covers to cry.

If you ask Him for compassion, if you ask Him, to help you love. He will blow your heart wide open.

Love, such a beautiful thing. But it hurts too.

Last week, my children told me their Auntie's called them stupid. Told me many things which tore me in two. All I want is to protect them. To have them grow up in a home full of love. To have them bring the Kingdom of heaven to earth.

But all around me, the brokenness of many hearts.

Many hearts who have not known love, and don't know how to give it away.

Last week, I had to let go of two people. And that is always hard.

Harder still, is the feeling that I want to hide.

Hide from the world, and from seeing eyes, that we are not perfect. That we have flaws too. And inadequacies. And sin.

Hide, because it breaks me that these things could be going on in my home. My home, that is supposed to be a refuge for these little girls who have already known too much pain, and too much of man's sin in their lives already.

I cringe at being vulnerable.

At being honest. But God is there, always wanting my heart. Always wanting the truth. And to live my life before others, even in our messiness. To be real.

And to be real, I was hurt and angry. Angry at the injustice of it all. Angry that this culture has not yet learned to value children the way Heaven does. Not yet learned to see that they can be Kingdom carriers too and how the whips of words can crush that.

I can't bear to see my girls shrivel away, when we've worked so hard to see them blossom.

And then I was sad. Sad, because I see how much this land needs healing. The Father's touch. To experience love, so they can give it away.

Sad because it is so hard to find those who will love these little ones as I do.

Lord, grace. I pray.

Grace on their little hearts.

I lean hard into Him.

So we have family discussions around the table. Everyone gets her chance to share and we hug and say sorry. We get haircuts and have our first taste of pizza. We stay late and watch movies, and we talk, and we pray. We give kisses as we tuck tiny hands under mosquito nets.

And somewhere in the midst of it, I stop to breathe a

thank you.

I fight the temptation towards discontentment. And choose to rejoice.

A thank you for toothless grins, and resilience. A thank you for peaceful goodbyes.

A thank you for the fresh joy I can already see in our kids as they climb out from under a shadow.

A thank you for bad behaviors melting away under the banner of love.

A thank you for redemption.

There is always a reason. And He makes even the ugly things beautiful.

“Put my heart, into their heart,” God says.

So we try to do that.

On Monday, our new counselor shares testimonies of growth.

Yesterday, we read Here Comes Heaven, together and talk about kids being carriers of the Kingdom. We dream of things we will do, and people we will help, and how we can give love we've received away. Some of our new girls get saved. Some of our girls pray.

And I can hear that they are now intercessors. And I smile to see them becoming.

Things are still messy. We're short staff, and there never seems enough time, and our kids always seem to lose their underwear, or their shoes, or their brand new pencils.

But I have an image of them laughing. And dancing. And twirling. Before heaven.

And nothing, can take that away.

Root of a new dream

It's funny that I used to think Gulu was my dream. Was really living life on the edge. Used to think it was pretty adventurous that I learned how to drive a Toyoto truck on a road full of long-horned cattle and never killed a pedestrian.

Today I saw a mzungu girl (“whitie”) driving her little mzungu girl friend on a scooter.

On a scooter. Like she was in San Francisco or L.A.

Probably another young kid here doing research for 2 weeks. Another kid who has called my phone for an interview.

I stopped giving interviews. About 10 or so back, when they never bothered to send any of their “research” to actually help change things.

Takers. Take, but don't give. Go get tan in the African sun at the pool and talk loud. Neveryoumind the blood that's been let in these streets. The hard fought battles for this place.

Neveryoumind the stories I pluck from dusty hearts to string around my neck like a trophy, like the beads I wear in my dreaded hair. Neveryoumind someone lived it and maybe they don't want to tell you what it was like to be abducted. And maybe its rude to ask.

It's a different kind of rape.

I wonder if we would ever think to do the same in America. To ask September 11 survivors what it was like. To tell them its for our research project. Our degree. Ours. Mine. I. Me.

But it's “post-war,” “post-conflict,” A silver tongued word. It's exploitation.

My home is a zoo. A tourist attraction. And the pain here is just another person's picture for their personal slideshow.

But they don't get it.

Because to give here, is to give your life away. Your heart, your being, your soul.

To live here is to weep with the women when they lose a brother in Congo because of lack of proper medical care.

And as I passed around the corner a little Ugandan child yelled, “Mono, you give me my money.”

It grates.

Entitlement. It digs teeth into my bones.

How Aid and ignorance has ruined this place. This place I loved.

I watch this happen in the juxtaposition of our volunteers who come to build. To spend hours letting hair be braided, and teaching ABC's, and giving ballet lessons. And our women who come each morning to pray.

Heaven is waiting. Waiting for hearts. Hearts that are desperate.

Relationships. Relationships that stay.

How can revival come to a home which is not hungry?

How can it remain.

Out on the farm, the pineapples suck water from the soil. Grow sweet under a heavy sun. Grow stronger in the African heat. Grow through hail and drought.

There is no fruit yet. Only roots and tended rows.

But the ones with too much rain, and too much shade, they died. They withered away.

I think dreams are like that. Hidden from sight. Months of incubation.

The flower still waiting to be birthed in morning's light.

The struggle with the angel.

The struggle which ended a fight.

The wrestler who saw the face of God.

And it healed him. The blessing in the joint of that deep pain.

These plants are a promise. And a testimony. All the sweat wrung out in these fields bear witness to the blossom. Bear witness to those who bore the brunt to birth them.

Heaven can still dream new dreams. And they are always bigger than ours. These plants tell me to remember.

Remember that it only starts with a seed. This vision. It can happen.

Further out on the horizon in wide open spaces. The next frontier.

Where the hunger is.

Where the stones have yet to be turned.

Where the places which are won have yet to be named.

Transition & Destiny: A Letter From Sarita's Heart

From the very first time I came to Uganda and God spoke to me about beginning Zion Project, He told me that what we would bring would be different, because what we would bring would be healing of the heart so that people could feel His presence and know His love deeply.

After 3 years of living in Uganda, I have seen the brokenness and despair, the lack of hope, and the lack of faith and intimacy with God that comes from a wounded heart. A wounded heart which can only wound others. A heart which is marked with scars and disbelief, a heart which does not experience the love of God. A heart which busies itself with many things because it does not yet know it is good enough to be God’s child. I believe God has used the last 3 years to prepare me for the work we are about to enter into.

And I believe that the enemy has fought hard against this vision and has tried to dilute it and busy me with many things, many “good” things, so it would not be completed. I believe what God is asking us to walk into is not a deviation from our vision or what He has called us to, but rather a fulfillment of what He dreamed for us.

For many months now I have felt God speaking to me that He wanted me to focus on inner healing, on helping people encounter God, on building the healing center which would be a meeting place for Him.

That it is what He created me for and that every day I do not do it, every day I am strung out by the many demands and responsibilities of managing our current programs, I am slowly dying on the inside.

And I am not doing what He created me to do.

Thus, I feel not only the weight of carrying responsibilities which I do not have the grace to carry, but also the lack of peace from knowing that I am not moving towards what God has spoken.

These few weeks of coming back to Uganda, God has done a shift in my heart. A shift which cannot be explained or denied. But only the truth of knowing that it is time for a change. A time to transition into destiny. The dream I have for healing center (The Sanctuary) is God’s dream, and I know it as much as I know my own skin. And I know to continue in the manner I have, would only be sin.

Because I am currently not able to focus on the things God has asked me to because of the many demands upon me. The hardest part about living here is that it is so easy to lose focus, so easy to respond to the needs instead of hearing the Father’s voice. So easy to just do and try to be a rescuer of all, instead of allowing God to be the Rescuer. I have many times fallen victim to that and have carried the heaviness of responsibilities to the point that my heart has broken a thousand times under it.

For so long I have filled 20 different roles, and emptied myself out, and tried to be strong enough to carry it all because I thought I was supposed to and I never wanted to let anyone down. Least of all God, or myself. Or the women and children I love. Or you.

God in His perfect grace and love for me has finally allowed me to come to my complete end. Because He knows how stubborn I am and that I wouldn’t give up any other way.

I believe in my heart that all the roads I took to get to this place, were not wrong roads, but rather that the season that God used to get me here, is now ending. The mission of Zion Project is changing, in the sense that while my heart is to reach out to the broken (the prostitutes, the child mothers, those damaged by rape and by war) we will not be doing it the way we have been. The main thing I hear God saying is that I need to be freed up to look for land, build, and move into the counseling ministry He has called me into.

One thing Tyson and I have been realizing is that we are called to be apostolic in the sense that we are called to build and to plant and to establish and to do this we need to be freed up from day to day management of running things. I also want the freedom to follow my husband in the dreams God has given him and in our own desire to start a family in the next few years and we need to put things in place now to ensure that we will not continue to be completely overwhelmed.

To that end, in the coming months, we will be transitioning our Imani women out onto their own where they will not be completely dependent upon us for their survival, but upon God to sustain their needs. Which means that after a year of them being with us, we will no longer be paying their salaries, but will connect them to local markets to sell the things they have learned to make (like school uniforms for schools.) The reasons for this are many: rising costs of materials in the market, lack of access to a US market, lack of people to run the program, but the main reason being that God used us for a season in their life to help them escape prostitution—

but Zion Project is not called to be a business.

There are plenty of other organizations here that are called to that. We want them to be sustainable so that if we are ever called to do something else---they will not be dependent upon us or a Western market. And we need to be freed up to do the part of reaching the Body that God has called us to do.

We just want to do the one thing God has asked us to do well.

Instead of being fragmented by many demands and running many “programs,” which are not that effective.

Already, I have seen God begin to expose the fear issues in our women's heart and begin to ask them the question, “Will you trust me? For all you need?”

I find God is also using this time to ask me a different question and expose the fear in my own heart. “Do you trust me with your daughters?”

Do I trust God enough to let go, to allow Him to be their everything, instead of me trying to meet all their needs.

I see it as a growth step for all of us. As a chance to exercise our faith.

While we may yet dream of loving people in a sustainable community of raised up sons and daughters, where there is a healing center, a farm, the Rescue home, a school, a church, and a community of healed people who are loving God and discipling others---we know that The Sanctuary is Phase I of that process.

We will not look further until we complete the thing God has asked us to do. And that my role is not to fill all those roles, but to have the time to find the people God has called to partner with us, to join our hands in this work. We will be looking for people to help fill those roles (Like running the Rescue Home for children) so if you feel called please let us know.

While my heart will always be moved by young girls who have been abused, I believe God is calling us to a mission which is defined not by a people group, but by our calling—to heal the brokenhearted. To prepare the Bride for Christ.

Please pray for us as we transition into what God has called us to.

If you have questions or would like to partner with us in Uganda you can email me at [email protected].

InCourage Blog for Women

Check out my post published on the InCourage Blog for Women as a Daily Guest:

I know how God’s heart breaks now.

I know the fault lines and the wrinkled scars, I know where the flesh is still tender.

I know the jagged points, and the parts that wear a weary smile. And the parts that are blackened with pain like the charred remains of a grass-thatched home.

And I know the angry parts too.

The ones that are bruised crimson and blue with injustice. I know how He takes them all into His heart and holds them there. I know how He cried when I cried when we lost the babies, or had to give back our children, or were persecuted for wanting to help.

How it hurts Him when those we try to love are indifferent.

And I know He holds the joy there too. The future joy, the rains yet to come, the time when heaven will touch earth again and give birth to the dreams we carried through muddy fields and drought.

The scars. I feel them all. I trace the ridges on His heart like a lover’s bullet wound, or the corner of my husband’s dimpled mouth. Beautiful to me. We huddle close through the pain.

He is near to me there, whispering grace in the stillness. He tells Bible stories to bolster my faith.

Be strong, my love, be strong.

His greatest gift wasn’t the cross.

It was the way He took it all—all the abandoned children, all the hardened hearts, all the back handed slaps, and the babies who died too early. All our coldness and our pride and the ways we yearned to do it all ourselves.

He took it all and He still gave—His love, His body, a battlefield of sacrifice.

If it didn’t cost, everything, then it wouldn’t have been love.

The love that greets the widows every morning with a smile, and holds the children close even while they cry, and fixes the husband’s dinner before he gets home. The love that refuses to give up even when they run away, or offer coldness, or are ungrateful of the price that’s paid.

The love that says, I will stay and I will stand though persecuted and criticized for this one radical belief: that this war will not be fought with swords, but with love.

And a measure of faith.

He promised. He promised me. This year, a recovery of what’s been lost. And I will not let the pregnant dreams, or the veiled threats, the rising costs, or the broken women still learning to live as daughters, break my backboned hope. David with his 400 men, taking back what’s been stolen.

They can take. But they cannot beat the love out of me. And we do not shrink back.

We gather the cool, hard stones in the early darkness.

This is my home now too. Gulu, a city of let blood.

We’ve made a pact together like sisters clapsing hands in the woods.

I will die loving the people of this place.

I dream a picture of what will be.

I see their toothy grins handing me crayola drawings. “Mommy, you first see.”

My little emissaries of light.

Yes, I see my loves. I see.

As silver...

I don't mind the storms in Africa. The thunder thick clouds, the wind-whip and the rumble.

A split spark of lightening in the blue-bruised sky. The ferocious thrashing of rain in sheets. The way it washes the dirt clean. The way the rainy season makes the world reborn. And the calm green after.

But I mind the storms of life. The waiting for miracles. The splintering questions.

Why, Lord?

“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined, rather I have refined you in the furnace of suffering." -Isaiah 48:10

I spend Friday with Jesus asking Him the questions. Crawling up into His arms, a weary child, a woman in need of comfort. Not knowing why, after prayers, a mother is forced to go and sell herself for money and leaves a girl behind, not knowing why the attacks come, or why the miracles feel sparse and my faith dry. Not knowing what to do with a 13 year old girl who shows up at our doorstep afraid to be given away in marriage. Except to keep her. But the numbers seem endless.

And the guilt of blaming myself is always crushing. It never seems enough.

And He comes. He always comes. I lean slow into Him and learn.

I am learning the way absence makes the hunger, insatiable. How the seeking for Him becomes strong. How I learn to need Him more than anything. And can never get enough.

And something else is born here. A strength of spirit.

My husband comments on it. How what used to devastate me, no longer does.

That the emotions are calmed into patience.

How the torrents and the tirades have ceased. How the anger has dissolved into trust. How the disappointments are left at Jesus' feet. How the laughter can still come in the middle of crisis, in-between tears. How the grief seems not so heavy with Him carrying it.

How I am learning to choose joy.

To ignore the loud grumble.

Somewhere, a part of me is growing up. I marvel at a maturity I didn't know was there.

When did I become an adult?

As silver...

These tests, somewhere making the soul bright, burning in clarity.

And God makes the heart soft again. Makes the muddy world green.

Injustices melt away at the sound of His voice. Emotions become peace in His presence.

And Heaven is pregnant with the swell of shed tears, ready to burst forth

a new season.

You will find me praying, make me ready for it, Jesus,

make me ready.

The Desperate Get Filled

I have to be honest and say its been one of the rougher seasons for me and I am so looking forward to our break in May.

It's been a rough ride (literally) :) driving up and down bumpy roads for 8 hours a weekend, back and forth to Kampala trying to be gracious in the face of persecution, trying to re-file my NGO.

I have been very heart-heavy lately--just fighting exhaustion from all the stress, the traveling, and unending to do lists, and all the holes in the ministry that still need to be filled. We pray for revival, but it seems slow. We pray for laborers for the harvest, but they are few. And in the mornings, I wake up and ask God the question, "Where are you?"

I miss Jesus. And having a friend to talk to. And ice cream. And days when I didn't feel the responsibility of so much upon me.

And I turn to Matthew 5-- "Blessed are those who know their need for God."

Oh how I know my need for Him. Without Him, there is no joy. Without Him, there is no peace. And maybe its ok that I'm here--because I'm desperate and the desperate, get filled.

Every day I am poor, in need of Him. And sometimes I ask Him why we are here. What are we doing here? Because often there is so much to do, I can feel like a failure.

So I go to the Kid's home to feel better. And I get a squeal-filled, hug fest, hanging on Mommy, pulling Mommy's hair out, love tank full-debacle. And I love every minute of it.

I glance over at Anita, one of our newest girls, who just a few weeks ago, I couldn't get a smile out of. I see her now laughing and hanging onto me and getting along with the other girls, and it makes my heart soar.

This is why I'm here. Often the change is slow, and sometimes imperceptible, but every once in a while I get a glimpse of it.

Transformation.

Love.

Home.

And little hearts getting healed up. And I know why I fight so hard for this thing. And why I will continue to fight for it.

Thanks for fighting with me.

Dry Season

This is the season of waiting.

The dust makes tornadoes in the road and the wind whips.

The clouds gather heavy with expectation and they pause. A pause that sounds deafening as the moment before a birth cry.

And a question. When will the rains come?

Splinter thick, hope embeds her mark on the soul. We have a promise.

It will come. Like dreams remembered in sleep barely waking, we etch images of land and rivers, homes and bonfires, and children lit up by the wavering sun. A place of healing. A sanctuary of whispered prayers the heart finds the daring to pray.

A home. A retreat. A resting place for God.

We go back to scribbled words in journals, inked in candelight and morning light and we hold them open to heaven as if to say, “See, you said.”

Yesterday the children practicing listening to God. Their shaky, markered words become clear on the page, “I am a daughter.”

And the red blob is heaven.

And who is that hovering?

It's “malaika,” an angel. And the “holy spirit, ” is coming close.

And everywhere, in their pictures, the rains are falling.

#thoughts #thoughts on faith #orph #orphans

I've decided that I've outgrown blogger. It seems I've outgrown a lot of things in the past 5 years. It's both humorous and sobering to read back through my old posts since 2006 and see the girl that I was and who I am now. Sometimes I miss her way with words and her way to find time for them. The way the words tasted in her mouth before typed out on the printed page. The miracle of seeing them create beauty. In some ways, I am still her. Still a girl on a journey. Still exploring and still finding my way back home. Still making room for words in my life like the comfort of a childhood friend. Still dreaming of many things. Books I have yet to write. Children I have yet to have. The woman I have yet to become.

I started this journey with a book, Eat, Pray Love. A book that makes me believe in something I will someday do. And I find these words to be even more true:

I think about the woman I have become lately, about the life I am now living, and about how much I always wanted to be this person and live this life, liberated from the farce of pretending to be anyone other than myself. I think of everything I endured before getting here and wonder if it was me--this happy balanced me, who pulled the other, younger, more confused and struggling me forward during all those hard years-waiting for her to arrive and join me. -Elizabeth Gilbert-

Time to start another journey.

#thoughts on faith

Check Out Our February Newsletter: The Heart Files

Read it! Lots of exciting stuff happening!

#Child Soldiers #Congolese Refugees #Gulu #Uganda #Volunteering #orphans #sex trafficking #newsletter #zion project

Just a lover

The afterglow. The heat of the touch of Jesus still radiant on my skin. And a hand. A hand upon my heart sealing it for Him. This is the essence of life. What I live for. But oh how I'd forgotten, forgotten how good it can be.

In the aftermath of all doing, there is emptiness. In the afterglow of his Presence there is only the sound of laughing and a stillness which allows me to breathe.

I love missions. I love ministries. I've been to Iris, I've been to Bethel, I've been to conferences and I've learned and I've seen. But its amazing how easy it is to get it all twisted. We chase the ministers, the speakers, the events, the worship leaders, the "culture of revival,"the ministries we will build for God, but somewhere in there we forget to chase Jesus.

I had an encounter with God. I can only describe it as fire. And in that moment He told me that I am not a revivalist, I am just a lover. I was made to be a lover. It's amazing how freeing that can be.

It's not about ministry-how great or how wonderful or how big or widespread it is. It's about love.

And not just loving the lost. But being in love with God.

I didn't realize how much pressure I was carrying around with me. The pressure to measure up. To create revival, to save the lost, to heal the broken, to see healings, to make something, anything (c'mon Lord) happen. To be a “sent out one” instead of just Sarita.

To force the hand of God so that I could have some credibility. Because how will people know that God is with you unless really cool stuff is happening? I think we've done something wrong here....somehow the message got jumbled even though the messengers meant it with the most beautiful intent.

It's easy its so easy to idolize the ones God has given the message to. I love Heidi. I love her so much I want to be like her. But I'm not her. I'm me. And she is not Jesus.

Somewhere deep, in a place yet searched for, in a place yet unnamed is a balance I haven't quite found yet but search for with all my heart. A balance of being in love with Jesus. Of being a loving person not just to the lost, but to my husband, my friends, my family and the ones who see the most intimate, uncovered parts of me. To be a person who is not just kind to people when I'm “ministering” but whose life reflects a love for the least and the greatest that is equal.

Character.

A balance of receiving and then giving. But in that order. And not just staying in a place because it's easier to connect with God, and it's safe, but taking that fresh manna from heaven and giving it away.

I'm tired of running the end of two extremes. And it makes me sad to see it in the Body. The conference groupies. Or the burned out missionaries. The speakers who heal on stage and hurt people behind closed doors.

Because God is most concerned with who I am when no one is watching then what I do.

There is something coming. Wars and rumors of wars. Time grows short as Jesus coming back to reclaim us gets closer. And I ask myself the question, are we ready? Are we the Bride? Do we really love Him with our whole hearts.

And I ask myself the question what would I do differently if I knew I only had years left. If I knew time was not a given, stretching into infinity. How would I change my life?

How would you change yours?

#Thoughts on Faith

Vulnerability

I've been thinking a lot about vulnerability lately.

And how becoming a missionary or a leader can kill that.

Nothing exposes our weaknesses as much as trying to manage projects or people.

There is a constant struggle for perfection, to want others to see that your ministry is great or thriving or “better” than somebody else's. People constantly want to judge it, or offer their opinions for how you can improve things and it makes you just want to wring their necks.

But deep inside its a very vulnerable place to steward a vision. And to allow people to come close, peek in and see the cracks. That's pretty much what we do every time we accept a missionary, or a volunteer, or a team, or a speaking engagement.

Sometimes we have a habit of telling the best stories, or the success stories, or the miracles. But behind every one of those are the days that are not as glamorous. The days we are dealing with conflicts between staff, or doing admin, or answering emails, or are disappointed that someone did not get healed. The days you kind of don't know what the heck God wants you to do. Yeah, we have those days too.

Last month was a very vulnerable month for me personally. We had an amazing team come from VA to train us in Theophostic Prayer Ministry. I started out thinking it would be a great tool to use as we seek to bring healing to this nation, but quickly realized that it was more about me than I thought. The truth is that we all have pain from our past that is triggered by people and events to erupt into pain in the present. Sometimes we respond more harshly to others based on those hidden wounds. And in a place that is secret and almost hidden from our conscious mind is a place that believes lies about ourselves, our own unworthiness, or own unlovability. And this is what makes us perform, and fall into perfectionism, and push people and God away.

At first I hated Theophostic because it made me vulnerable, but then I came to love it, because in that place of vulnerability and facing your pain, the Lord speaks His truth of who you are and how He sees you and it is one of the most beautiful points of freedom, and presence and connection one can feel.

The definition of courage is “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”

This is not easy.

I recently watched an amazing talk on TED that even from a secular view point proves this idea and I highy recommend you watch it.

I had an opportunity in one of the trainings to be “guinea pig” of sorts and let them model theophostic on me in front of a group of my staff. You can imagine I was terrified. To let my roots of pain and vulnerability come to the surface in front of others...sounds like I'd rather have my wisdom teeth removed.

And I realized at that point how excrutiating it was for me to be vulnerable.

But this is not the way that God intended for us to live. He didn't intend for us to numb our pain with beer, or pizza, or sex, or work, or people, or “ministry.” He intended for us to feel it. The Bible says:

“He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light.” Job 12:22

And...

“Therefore, stop judging prematurely, before the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is now hidden in darkness and reveal the motives of our hearts.” I Cor 4:5

The Lord has designed that the hidden things in heart, our hidden motives, and secret insecurities, and dark moments of pain, should surface and be exposed so that He might lovingly heal them and tell us what He really believes about us and what He really wants us to know about Him.

But I've found living here in Uganda, with so many moments of pain, and babies dying, and women being abused, and people still suffering in their sin, and disappointments, and lost loves, and hope defererd, and judgments from those that don't understand, it is easy to try and go home and numb that pain somehow.

How else do we survive?

And is there another way?

I believe I'm on a journey of discovering there is.

It is like Tao said: "To be whole, let yourself break.”

In that place of vulnerability, of crying in front of others, and allowing myself to be seen and allowing myself to feel the pain of many moments and memories long since filed away, I went home and talked to God and He talked to me and I realized that deep somewhere in the “dark night of my soul” I believed terrible things about myself, things that caused me to feel unworthy. And it's a place I know well because I have seen it shadow the eyes of the women and girls we help. That sense of unworthiness. That shame. And I've searched long and hard for how to transform it into light.

It isn't enough to just know Jesus. We must also know what Jesus sees.

And I can tell someone over and over again that they are loved. But it is not until they hear distinctly from God what they need to hear, that they will fully embrace it.

I have also realized that here it is easy to harden your heart against friendship because so many beautiful people are just a glimmer and then they are gone. I had started walling myself off against new relationships, or even old ones, stopped hoping people would call, or loved ones would come visit and just kept making excuses to make myself feel better. Most of my life I have moved from place to place on my own and I thought I was tough because in my own words, “I don't need people.” But I've seen it's just a facade, a weary defense against the pain of love lost due to time or distance.

The truth is I do need people. I need you. And it's ok.

And I want you to see me, even in my imperfection. I want to be known. And isn't that what we love most in the people we admire: their ability to be vulnerable and to laugh at their frailties?

It's been said that you cannot have compassion for others, if you do not first have it for yourself. I find this is true. When God speaks to me, He is all grace. And He tells me it's ok to let go.

Uganda will not rise or fall on my shoulders.

Sometimes I just need to curl up in His lap and let the burden be His.

And the beauty is that.....after the pain...the sacred. And after the pain, the glory.

A life that knows it is worthy holding itself open to the world.

A life seeking whole-heartedness.

Searching for the ones who are brave enough to walk hand in hand into the dark.

#Thoughts on Faith

Want to Volunteer in Uganda?

New job description online for a Jewelry Employment Program Intern in Gulu, Uganda for our Imani Jewelry project which gives women a chance at a new life beyond prostitution.

#Congolese Refugees #Sex-Trafficking #Volunteering #Child Soldiers

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