Have you ever gone to a place and immediately you know you are exactly where you are supposed to be at that very moment?  Everywhere you look you see the Beauty of God revealed and know that in some small way you can share the love of God just because of where you are?  Well, every time I'm given the opportunity to travel on a short-term missions trip, that's exactly how I feel...and I would have to say that it's especially true - for me - when I am with the people of Guatemala.  I love the country of Guatemala...I love  the people of Guatemala and I have seen the beauty that God created in so many ways when I've been there that's different than any other place I've ever been.  In some ways I feel "at home" when I'm there...although God knows my Spanish will make it evident pretty quickly that it's NOT my "home" and i leave a little piece of my heart each time I leave.

Guatemala 2011 was no different except I think I fell in love with it's people all over again.  I, along with 40+ team members, were once again blessed with the opportunity to travel to the villages of Guatemala this summer.  While there we provided medical, dental and optometric servcies (not as in-depth as we would have liked but in small ways that will forever change the little community of San Pablo La Laguna, Guatemala), we built a small but sufficient home for a sweet family and were able to minister to hundreds of children in the local schools (during which time dozens of children accepted Christ as their Savior).

I think this year's trip was a little different than some in years past, for me, because of the exact feeling I'm referring to.  You see, I'm one who believes that NOTHING happens by accident and that we have divine appointments every day (many of which I know we aren't even aware). I've seen this truth revealed over and over again in my ministry opportunities and many other ways over the past few years. One such example was in the very organization of this trip. You see, we don't usually work with specific missionaries in Guatemala but this year we did...and what awesome Missionaries they were...Dave and Debbie Amsler ROCK!!! But that's not the cool thing...the "cool" part actually began 20 years ago (yep, I'm dating myself).  While in college I, along with Laura Lee and Shawna Wiggington, had a female trio called "Promise".  We travelled for a couple years and during the summer of 1992 we were asked to represent Southeaster College (now SEU) by travelling to youth camps across the country. One of the camps we worked in was for the State of Kentucky...well, long-story short, while at this camp we worked with the then-District Youth Director Dave Amsler and his wife Debbie...YEP!!! ...the same Dave and Debbie that are now missionaries to the great country of Guatemala with whom our Team worked with this summer...talk about divine appointments.

The village we worked in, San Pablo, was such an awesome village! Usually we have some difficulty of communication due to language barriers but it was even more so this year b/c a lot of the village people don't even speak Spanish (which most of us aren't even good at anyway). They speak a native Mayan language which I don't know how to spell but is pronounced something like "shoot da hill"...We all joked we really needed 3 interpreters to speak with those native village people --- 1. to interpret Southen English to English 2. English to Spanish and 3. Spanish to "shoot da hill"...it was quite funny at times. I learned a couple of valuable lessons on this trip: First, I really came to realize that God is truly the God of the small details. And He is able to use the simplest of events or items to make the hugest impact on His people (no matter where you are from). I was Doctor Monica this year (a promotion from my "nurse" title of the past)...I was seen as an "eye DOCTOR" by the locals, howeverI have to say I wasn't really excited about "JUST" handing out reading glasses. I wish I had the time and space to write about how absolutely shallow and limited my thinking was to view that responsibility as being un-important. I also wish I could take you back and allow you to be a witness to the absolute gratefulness and amazement of the patients I saw, when, for the 1st time in who even knows how long, they were able to thread a needle (which is how the women make a living) or read the Bibile.  It's impossible for me to even verbalize or describe efficiently. All I can say is that God truly humbled me and my limited view of how HE can work to impact the lives of people.

Second, I realized how absolutely blessed I am that God continues to allow Me(along with many others) to be used in such small ways for HIM.  I never take it for granted when God supplies financially for me to participate in short-term missions trips...I pray He continues that Blessing so that I am able to go on many more (who knows maybe even longer than just "short-term"). There are so many elements to being able to GO! Sure it's great to see how different cultures live, to visit a country and have time to actually "see" it but it's SO much more than that. It's more than the country or the travel or even meeting the people...it's about "GO-ing" as God instructed us to do. Yeah it's easy to sometimes question whether we are even able to make a difference in such a short amount of time or whether the limited resources we are able to provide do anything more than provide a temporary fix to long-term issues?  I don't really know the answers in the physical realm but I do know that God can use a donkey...or a pair of sunglasses...a root canal or a bag of bleach to do something so SUPERnatural that we can't even comprehend. It's not about what WE did!  It's about what HE did and is continuing to do.

There's so mcuh more I would love to share about this year's trip and maybe I will at a later date.  This is just a brief reminder to us all that God is NOT limited to our limits!  HE IS GOD and we are not and I'm so thankful that HE chooses to use little people like me to do little things like hand out eyedrops and reading glassesto show HIS love and draw us all closer to Him!

By: Monica
Some time ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Marriage Conference at our church  with my husband.  The speakers were Rusty and Leisa Nelson and they spoke to the structure of marriages and the correlation between the Church and our spousal relationships.  There was one statement made that has stuck with me (although not specifically in the confines of marriage) . . . GRACE is: God granting you the ability to do something that, in your own ability, you would not be able to do.  In Christianity we most often equate that to the sacrifice that Christ made in His death on the cross - in His taking on our sins (which we have no ability to do on our own) and allowing us to stand blameless before His Father.  I also believe it can extend to our life's talents and dreams.  Often God places dreams within us that we feel there is no way for us to accomplish them ... within our own abilities.  That is usually right ON.  When God places dreams within us, He doesn't expect us to do them on our own!  That's where He extends His grace to us.  Through HIM, and only HIM, are we able to accomplish His destiny for our lives.  If we try to rely on our own abilities and talents, we will fail every time.  But if we put our trust and success in HIM we will always be successful (although not always in the way in which our human mind may have planned it).  There are multiple examples in scripture of men and women of God who would not have been able to fulfil their God-given destiny except for the GRACE and provision of God to work His abilities through them.
Today I challenge you, as I'm doing, to take an inventory of the dreams God has placed inside you.  In ourselves, there is no way we can accomplish them, but with HIS grace ALL things are POSSIBLE!!!

Enjoy this wonderful song about God's GRACE by The Martins...this song has come to mean SO much to me!

I originally posted this Blog 9/28/09 on my Coaching website (www.pastthepast.com) - However as I read it again today it shed a renewed light on what it means to walk by Faith and not by sight.  In other words, living and believing what God tells us in His word and not by what our circumstances are trying to tell us. I hope you are encouraged to not look at your current problems through the eyes of fear or anxiety but according to what you KNOW to be true...God will never leave us or forsake us and He will never heap on us more than we can handle THROUGH HIM...
This week I was lying in bed thinking (okay – so some people might call it worrying) about some challenging events that were occurring in my life and the thought came to me . . . “I can choose to live in my circumstances or I can choose to live in (or by) my FAITH.” It was such an overwhelming thought that I actually reached over and emailed it to myself from my cell phone so that I wouldn’t forget the next morning.  Living by FAITH is a choice and one only I can make every day! 2 Corinthians 5:7 says we “walk by faith and not by sight” - the NIV actually says we “LIVE by faith” and I have to tell you there are times when the view of the circumstances I am facing blinds me to the path of faith I should be walking on. Hebrews 11:1 says “FAITH is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Another way the Amplified Bible says it is that “FAITH is perceiving as a real fact what is not revealed to the senses.”  To say that we have faith and to actually LIVE by it are two completely things.  I can say that I have faith and that I believe that God is going to do all He says He is going to do BUT when I’m actually faced with the circumstances of life, how does my inner (wo)man actually respond to those situations - especially when none of my 5 senses can sense a change around me?  Well, that’s where our FAITH actually takes over.  Because I am living by the things I cannot see with my physical eyes or touch with my hands, I am leaving my situation in the all-knowing, more than capable hands of the very God who created ME and has known me before my very conception (Psalms 139:13) . It’s hard to actually walk out that belief sometimes but as Christians that is the hope we have. It is the hope that the God of the Universe has plans for me to prosper and not to harm me but plans to give me a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) and I have to rest in the fact that no matter what is going on around me, He knows and He cares and He will walk through the fire with me. I hope that just as I’ve had to do this week, you will give yourself a Faith-check . . . are you living today in your circumstances or are you choosing to believe that God is in control and LIVE in your FAITH??? The choice is YOUR’S!

I heard my first sermon of 2011 this morning at my home church (New Hope Baptist Church here in Laurinburg, NC) and my pastor quoted a Facebook status that he recently read.  It said, "Lead them to Heaven in 2011!"  I like that!  That should be our goal this year - and we should be more dedicated to that task than ever before.  Each new year provides us an opportunity to do it better than we did it the year before.  It's a new slate, a new chapter, a new chance to be that Romans 12 Christian.  I don't know about you but I kind of enjoy the feeling a new year brings with it.  I never do it the way I should have or could have - I am always looking for a chance to do it better...but do I?  Do I seize that opportunity that each new year brings to do it better - not usually.  I trudge on, content with what I do and what I give to the cause of Christ...and you know what? I should be ashamed!  With Adoration starting it's 2nd year back on the road it is my desire to really do it better; to be more dedicated to the cause of CHRIST - the cause that HE called us to and that is to lead them to Heaven in 2011!  God bless you, guys - and Happy New Year.  Let's make this one count!