Tuesday, September 24, 2013

We Are Home...

The team made it home Sunday afternoon and evening, once we separated from one another in Chicago.  We had an incredible time meeting and ministering to the missionary women.  I believe we all felt that God showed up and ministered to their hearts with comfort, encouragement, conviction, affirmation, and conviction - and a good amount of laughter, too.

Let me share with you a letter we received from one of the ladies. As you read this please understand why your prayers are so important when we ask you to pray for a retreat! And thank you for praying!!

-----------------------------
Dear Pure Joy Team,

Thank you so much for hearing, listening and obeying.  Thank you for serving ad being God's love in action. God has blessed me immensely in mind, body, and soul through your kindness, gifts, your wisdom and vulnerable sharing. Thank you for ministering to us as sisters.  Thank you for saying the tough stuff in love.

God so knew I needed to be here. He has spoken deep into my heart this week in ways I couldn't have imagined.  Thank you for being committed to pray and for recruiting others to lift us up as well.  How can the Holy Spirit be so powerfully ministering through you just to me and then be doing the same for most every other women sitting around me.  Thank you for challenging us to let the walls down.  Thank you for providing a safe place for those walls to crumble.  Thank you for moving in the Spirit when it made you feel uncomfortable.

I'm not a retreat person.  God ensured that I come despite scheduling issues and lack of desire to come.  But through your prayers I have felt our Savior’s arms around my shoulders, His whispers in my ears, His comfort and His direction in some challenging areas and circumstances.  Thank you and thank you again.

Liz
-------------------

I will share with you more comments along the way!

Love you all,

His,
Vickie

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Day #7

Today was our last day with the ladies. What an incredible time we have had here. God has shown Himself very strong!!  This has been such an incredible group of women. The women were able to connect with each other in new ways and have plans to staying in touch in the future.  

The women have for sure heard strong Word teaching, received good encouragement, laughed a lot, cried a lot, and ate a lot of chocolate!

Today when we finished up we walked outside to see three different weddings taking place. The belief system in this country is that today is a good day to get married. So in one location over 300 couples were getting married!!!! I'm sure they all got premarital counseling.  Righttttt.  Ha ha We all enjoyed seeing them dressed in their traditional atire. It was a real treat for us!

We are at the airport waiting to board the first leg of our journey home which will take us to Seoul. There we have an 8 hour lay over before out 12 hour flight to Chicago and then on to our home airports from there!

So, family, be nice when we get home - we are all tired!

We will share testimonies with you from the ladies as they come in these next few days!

Love you all,

His,
Vickie

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Day #6

Great day! God is doing awesome work through the worship, messages, hospitality, fellowship, free time , etc.

To all of you that made gifts for the ladies, you have been the topic of conversations for the past two days!!!
We also would ask that you pray as God has given us the opportunity to minister to one particular staff person here at the hotel. We are all watching His Spirit drawing her! So awesome!

We had some good fun watching a video about Adam and Eve by the Skit Guys following a discussion on marriage. Worth your time to watch... Totally  hilarious !!!  http://skitguys.com/videos/item/adam-eve

His,
Vickie

Day #5

They are here!! What a sweet time watching them arrive and carrying their bags to their 'gers'.

We had a sweet time of worship. Lindsey did an awesome job and this is her first time out of the country and second time ever on a plane. You will be glad to know she ate normal today. Hee, hee

Our opening message was on our Theme 'He Sees'. The women shared some of the hardships of being in this area.  The weather was a big one, it gets to 40 degrees below in the winter. Loneliness, communication, and learning the language is hard as well.

Can't wait to see what God is up to!

Love you all, gotta get some rest!

His,
Vickie

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Day 3 & 4 North East Asia

Well, you may have noticed I didn't get the blog out last night.  It's called exhaustion.  We had a good but long day.  Therefore, I am writing both for yesterday and today.

Day #3
We started out visiting 
Gorkhi‐Terelj
 National
 Park
. It is a place where the people go to and stay for a day, days, a week and or more. It is a get away so they can breathe fresh air. There is much smog from the city. Gorkhi‐Terelj
 is comprised
 of
 the 
southern 
Khentii
 mountain
 range, 
this 
mountain
 forest
 
region 
provides 
habitat
 for
 a
 variety
 of bird
 and
 plant
 life.
 
Also
 sheltered
  in 
this
 protected 
area
 are
 endangered
 musk
deer
 and
 moose,
 brown
 bear,
 roe,
 elk, 
wolf,
 fox, 
and
 badger.
 While at the park Lindsey took time to ride a horse.

On the way to the National Park we also took time to view the Chinggis
 Khan
 Equestrian
 Statue
 in
 Tsonjin
Boldog.
 The
 massive
 statue 
made
 of
 250
 tons
 of
 gleaming
 stainless
 steel
 was a sight to behold .

We ate lunch at a place called Bull's Restaurant. It was very interesting. Without going into all the details of it, we actually ate horse, along with beef and chicken. It is a common meat here. It looks like sliced beef before it goes in the pot. It doesn't really taste like anything.

We have a joke with Lindsey now that she is the only person we know to have ridden a horse and eaten horse all in the same day. Yikes !


We did a little shopping after lunch and then attended a performance of traditional Mongolian dancers
 and 
khoomi
 throat
 singers.

 In regard to the khoomi throat singers, well, you would just have to hear it.

We then headed back to the hotel exhausted!!

Day #4
This morning we visited a Buddhist temple and then had lunch. We Headed back to the hotel and have been working on retreat preparations. The ladies come in tomorrow. We are excited!!!

Love you all!!

Pray!

His,
Vickie

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Day #2 North East Asia

The team arrived safely at our destination around 12 midnight and to our hotel by 1:00 a.m. Sunday. We are 13 hours ahead of central time. Therefore, if it is 3:00 p.m. Arkansas time it is 4:00 a.m. our time the next day.

Some of the team slept in and some were out early taking pictures of our surroundings. We met together at 12:30 p.m. for lunch. The most interesting thing we tried was what we would consider a fried pie only it didn't have apples, cherries, or peaches in it. It had sliced lamb. As one team member said, it was similar to a gyro sandwich in the states.

We had our second team devotional today. Our devotions are being done by Pam Rusher from Jonesboro, AR. We talked about how Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. Pam then led us into the washing of each others' feet and prayer. Such a very sweet time. Isn't it cool how God has already put the 'feet' theme in our first two devotionals and Pam wasn't with us when we did the first devotional in the Dallas airport, so she didn't know.

Some of the team decided to go walk a mountain across from the hotel. I told Melinda a few minutes ago, "I don't think they realize that is not a hill but a MOUNTAIN." Sure enough Corley just poked her head in my door to let us know they were back. It was bigger than they thought. Hmmm. So instead, they found a wedding taking place on the grounds and invited themselves into a picture! Imagine that!!


The weather is nippy here today. Night times are very cold - in the low 30's. We had to have a gas heater moved closer to our table at lunch in the restaurant and we had our coats on! Glad I put in warm socks for nighttime!

It makes me sad that I don't know the languages of the different countries God sends us to minister in. It makes me so appreciate our missionaries frustration when they have a hard time learning the language of their people groups.  

Well, I have put off power napping today. One, because everyone was in the room for a bit and two, because Chrissy (our contact person) told us to try and stay up till 9:00 p.m. to get on the sleep cycle here.

We just finished our evening meal. Everyone went with soup, chicken fingers and fries. Some things just don't change! Ha ha

Keep praying...

Love you all,

His,
Vickie

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Day #1 North East Asia...

As I write this blog we are in the air over the Pacific Ocean just outside of the Northeastern Pacific seaboard. The team is spread out in two different parts of the plane.  Some are sleeping, others walking to keep swelling down and others watching movies.   We only have 10 more hours to reach Seoul, South  Korea where we will have a layover of about two hours and then off to our destination .

We had our first team meeting at the Dallas airport.  We made important decisions like don't let me read the monitors for gate departure times because I have dyslexia with numbers.  On our trip to Peru a couple of years ago I actually led the team to a gate that resulted in the whole team having to go through security, again.  Yeah, they loved me for that one! Ha ha ha!!

We also talked about safety procedure regarding our personal  items and going everywhere in pairs  - which women are trained professionals at anyway because we've gone to the restroom in pairs/groups since we were old enough to walk.  (Men really don't get that about us) But then we don't understand how they can sit around for ever talking about a car!  I'm thinking... Does it have a motor,  four wheels, gas in it? Then just drive. Ha ha ha!

We did our first devotion on Isaiah 52:7 today.

Isaiah 52:7
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, Who proclaims \peace, Who brings glad tidings of good things, Who proclaims salvation, Who says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

We talked about how this vision given to Isaiah was prophesy to the children of Israel that they would be set free from their captivity in Babylon. It also proclaims the coming of Christ.  He prophesied this to them long before they were taken into captivity. One commentary describes the picture of  heralds running the hills announcing the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity announcing this Good News .  Thus the saying "how beautiful the feet."  I love the visual picture of the runners (heralds)  proclaiming the release of the captives !!

We were encouraged to see ourselves as those runners this week bringing the Good News of Christ from the things that could possibly hold us captive from  freedom in Christ to freedom in our personal growth in Christ.

Keep praying all of us!!!

Running...

His,
Vickie

P.S.   I have slept, spent time on opening message, walked the plane and watched two movies since starting this blog. We are 1 hour and  thirty  minutes  from landing in Seoul    for  our turn around there to our final destination.  I need freedom from this plane!!!!!! Ha ha ha!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

It's Time...

Trunks are packed, personal suitcases are being packed, and very last minute checklists are being looked over!  Friday morning the team departs from Little Rock, Memphis, Tulsa, and San Antonio to gather in Dallas, Texas to board a flight out of the country.  

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited the team is.  This has been some kind of journey for us and for many of the missionary women as well.  So much warfare and so many life circumstances have gone on.  God must have some really sweet plans for all of us this next week.  Please keep praying and don't let up!!!!

If you would like to journey along with us, keep a check on the blog.  I will begin writing a daily blog Friday evening and will continue to write until we head back into the country Sunday, Sept. 22nd.

As you pray remember our theme is "He Sees" and the verse is from Psalm 33:13 - "The LORD looks down from Heaven:  He sees all the children of men;"

Love you all so much...

His,
Vickie

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Paying if Forward...

Sunday morning I was giving a report to our Sunday school class (yes, we still call it what it is instead of fancying the name up).   This class has been proof to me that you can call it what you want as long as God's Word is being taught and the name of Jesus lifted up!  The class stays in a steady state of growth!  Anyway, I was sharing with the class how much I appreciated their support of Pure Joy International which translates into their support of our missionary women and families all over the world.  Our class has always been solid along with other church families and friends of Pure Joy to make sure all our missionary women in attendance are sponsored for each conference held overseas.  As of last week all our women for the North East Asia Trip are sponsored.  Thank you all for being a part of this trip.  As I said last week, any funds that come in from this point forward will go towards our next trip (probably Tanzania).  After class a friend and class member came up and said, “Here, 'pay it forward'”.  It was a check to sponsor a missionary for our next trip.   I love that God is always working on behalf of these missionary women and this is proof that we get to share with them.  

Well, today I started thinking about the times I have gone through the Starbucks line and the person in front of me bought my drink…and, how I have bought other peoples’ drinks as well…also, what it feels like to be able to help someone at the checkout at the grocery store when they come up short and really thought they had enough and you are in a position to hand them the needed amount.  There is something really awesome about being able to 'pay it forward'.    I've written on this before but it really is in my spirit again.  What if 'paying it forward' meant not only money.  What if it meant time?  Maybe someone gave you time that you needed for a listening ear or what about carrying someone's bags because someone did the same for you and because you can.  What if we just helped people in need of different things because we can?  What if for one day you made a decision to be aware of how you could 'pay it forward' to others around you, whatever that might look like.  Just for one day be that tuned into others!!   I challenge you to try it!!

We are 10 days out from leaving the country!  Hard to believe!  Please keep us in your prayers going into this home stretch before leaving the country.  Final details are being solidified with most of it done!!  Yea, God!

And finally, I just wish there was a way to let everyone know the full impact of the resources of finances, gifts, and prayers you sacrifice for these women and their families.  I suspect none of you will know this side of heaven!

His,
Vickie