Relationship

The Lord has been reminding me and showing me how important relationship is.

I thought I was on a mission to take Luke to All-Star Baseball, of which I totally did, but the GIFT in the "baseball mission" was

 RELATIONSHIP.  

I stayed with my cousins Jimi and Becky and I was blessed beyond measure, and so were my kids.

I could have spent money on the nicest hotel with a pool and 

I can GUARANTEE you that the kids would

  NOT

 have had as much fun as they did at Jimi and Becky's house.

Jimi is a big crazy kid himself, and he told hunting stories, showed them hunting pictures, and golfed, and shot a bow and arrows, right in Jimi's yard.

They blessed us with a place to stay, and wonderful hospitality, but more wonderful than that was the conversation, the connection, the laughter and the tears.

GOD IS ALWAYS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP!!

I have found if I let Him lead and I go the extra mile to be with people, it always always always blesses, and becomes more about people than the activity every single time.

Relationship is effort, but effort that is well worth it.
We pressed in, and stayed up late and got up early,
 and talked and visited and got to some real big heart issues.  

We spoke of our 
Savior 
and our purpose 
and our history and our future. 

 We all left our time together refreshed and blessed.

I was thinking of how often we think we are on "mission", of a certain activity or even mission trips, and we get to thinking it's about the activity or building or providing for people's physical needs, but it is
 ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
 about relationship.
 It's about connecting with people.
God could drop millions of toothbrushes  and soap and medicine into all of Africa, and He could raise every needed structure there ever was, but it is about building relationships and blessing people and showing them God's love with skin on.  If people only needed blessed with stuff, it would be so much better to send money, but people need each other.
 People need to see Jesus at work all over the world through different people from different countries and cultures.
  We have been blessed a few times to host our Ugandan friends from CSI and I can tell you they bring more to us, here in the USA,  than we could ever provide for them.
They bring encouragement and prayers and huge amounts of faith that
ALWAYS
 bless us in amazing ways.

We have some other young Ugandan friends that we will be skyping with in a few days.
They need  to be loved on and they need us to disciple them.

 Why us, why skype?

  I have no clue whatsoever.  There are people right there WAY more qualified and with better understanding of the culture and the language and they can love on these people and point them to Jesus way better than we can.  

BUT GOD!!!

God put us in relationship with these precious  people and they are looking for help and they are reaching out to us, so, who am I to tell God His plan is not cost or time effective.
 We just
 get our obedience on
 and we will pray for them and skype with them, and let God do with it whatever He wants.

Thanking the Lord for letting me be in relationship with a lot of really cool peeps!