Anxiety Check

Tick, tick, tick... There is a little clock I keep hearing in my head as each day passes - I don't seem to be much further along in the packing process and knowing what to do with everything this week than last. This morning the Lord brought back to my mind some things He has shown me before about worry. In Linda Dillow's book, Calm My Anxious Heart, she states,

"Anxiety is that which divides and distracts the soul, that which diverts us from

present duty to weary calculations of how to meet conditions that may never arrive.

It's the habit of crossing bridges before we reach them."

Later she sums up some of the steps we can take in the process of becoming a person who chooses to trust instead of worry. I think that I will try to practice these steps today...

1) Acknowledge that anxiety is SIN and confess it as such to God.

2) Yield to God's sovereignty. Thank Him that He is the Blessed Controller of your problems.

3) Choose to cast your anxiety on God. (1 Peter 5:7)

4) Choose to trust God with your tomorrows and live for today.

But as for me, each morning I will sing about your power.

Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love.

For you have been my refuge,

a place of safety when I am in distress.

Psalm 59:16

A Call

This morning as I was spending time with the Lord, I was thinking again how soon we will be at the point of stepping into such a drastic life change. (These pictures of Lisbon are quite a contrast to the small town we live in right now.) I think people are still surprised that we are actually moving away, long term, to another country. Sometimes I'm still a little surprised, too, that God asked this of us at this time in life, and yet in looking back I can see God's hand in every stage of our lives as preparation for this call.

I'm not sure who coined this thought but it has been said that every heart without Christ is a mission field and every heart with Christ is a missionary. In a sense we are all called to be missionaries and God uses us in different places around the world, while calling some to go further distances.

Oswald Chambers wrote ..."once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you 'turn aside to the right hand or to the left'. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has 'laid hold of' us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, 'Well, I’m really not suited for this.' " (I needed that reminder because I do often feel inadequate.)

Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 5:32-33, "So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don't veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road God commands so that you'll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you're about to possess." We are not about to "possess" the land in the same sense that the Israelites were doing be we do pray that we will faithfully "walk straight down the road" that God is showing us to take, to the land the Lord has shown us.

Loving Pennsylvania, Loving Lisbon

My oldest daughter said she likes the blog but wondered why we named it LovingLisbon when we haven't even been there yet. Maybe it would have been better if we'd just used our names, but somehow in the process of researching where we are going and hearing from many random people (like the check out lady at the mall the other day who had been to Portugal on extended visits) say, "Oh, you are going to love Portugal - its people, its food...!" We are finding that God is beginning to make us feel that Portugal is our next "home" and that He will help us to love it as we have come to love Pennsylvania as home.

Today was a perfect summer day in Pennsylvania and at the end of the day we went outside to eat our supper and sit around our little patio table and just enjoy the beauty of the yard. We won't have a yard in Lisbon, but we will have a little balcony. We won't have a spot of our own that could pass for a nice corner in a state park, but we will be able to see a little green with a few trees. Most importantly though what we will have is a peace that we are following the Lord where He wants us to go and we know that what He provides for us will be just right and will help us to be "loving lisbon". After all, He loves Lisbon, too.

An Evening Picnic

After a long day of more phone calls, working through office files and stacks of throwaway stuff, general chores, and errands around town, our daughter, Anna, planned a supper-time picnic for us. Our Walmart stop to get prescription medicine (for me) and a few other things, was also the stop for bratwurst, buns, fresh veggies, chips, a small bottle of propane, and other various and assorted treats.

We loaded up the car and took off to Allegany State Park that is just across town from us (and over the PA state line into New York.) This has always been a favorite place to go on a nice evening whether for a picnic, walk around the lake, ride around the bike trail, or just to throw the frisbee at the field where the deer come down to graze. We have made many good memories with our children at this park and tonight was just another beautiful reminder of the Lord's goodness and one more memory to store up for the years away from the kids.

Among the delights we experienced tonight, besides the good food and laughs, were seeing two little fawns and their mama, feeding the fish, seeing a beaver swimming by, watching the sun set, and on the way out of the park, a very bold little raccoon who, expecting to get a treat, reached up and grabbed the end of the flashlight that Don was holding out the window.

Ben, Carolyn, and Anna, are all here with us right now and the only ones missing were our oldest daughter, Danielle, and her husband, Gonzalo, who live in Norman, Oklahoma right now. Wish you were here with us.

So many things to do...

It is 9:30 pm and Don has gone to Walmart one more time for cough medicine for me (he has sweetly  gone several days in a row for me). We have come back from orientation with only a few weeks before hopefully closing on our house sale and then getting on that plane to Lisbon. I also came home with whatever bug was going around and just can't seem to get to feeling better.

Today was a day of a lot of phone calls and a lot of decisions that needed to be made but had to be put off because we don't know all the details yet. The appraiser came and looked the house over and said that it would take longer to get this appraisal to the bank because of the type of loan the buyers are getting. Our daughter, Danielle, wants to fly home and help us and spend some time with us and we aren't sure which days to book for her, while the prices for flights increase almost daily. 

I've never been very good at sorting or making decisions - packing for a trip was always one of my biggest challenges and now with the biggest challenge facing me of dissembling a home of 20 + years, I often feel overwhelmed and that I just won't get through it all. (Being sick on top of that feeling doesn't help much.) I'm reminded of the song we sang one day with our small group with the children, "My God is So Big, So Strong and So Mighty, There's Nothing My God Can Not Do".  Maybe I've been thinking too much about me today.

Sunday Thoughts

It is a blessing to live in a country where we can openly worship the Lord with a great percentage of our American churches preaching the gospel. It is not hard to find a Bible believing, Bible teaching church in any town across the United States. It has become very easy to take this blessing for granted.

Portugal has freedom of religion, too, but in doing research on Portugal we have found that a very large percentage of the people do not actively participate in any church. Less than half of 1% of the population are believers. The country of Portugal, which is a little smaller than the state of Indiana, has about 10 million people. Lisbon, a city of 2.1 million people, and most of these people have never heard that they can have a personal relationship, and a sure hope of salvation, with the God who created them and loves them.

Western Europe has been called "the graveyard of modern missions" and the religion that is practiced is cold and empty. We don't know yet what a Sunday will look like in Portugal, but we do know that our hearts are filled with a hope that we want to share with the people there.

The beginning of the end...

or it could be the rush before the new beginning... We have just come back from 8 weeks of orientation in Richmond, Va, at the International Learning Center. I will talk about that experience at another time.

We have been appointed by IMB, and will be moving to Lisbon, Portugal, at the end of July, and the whole process has been quite a trip! The ride is not over as we have to pack, crate, and empty out our home of almost 20 years.

Right now we have approximately 4 or 5 more weeks (Lord willing) before we get on a plane, fly across the ocean and begin to experience a new way of life than what we now know - small town to big city; large home to small apartment; green hills and clouds to the sun and the sea; English to Portuguese; face to face with family to mostly Skype and email. So many changes, and some may take some time to adjust to, but it is exciting to know that we are on this journey with the Lord going before us.