Blessings in Disguise

"Blessings"

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

And Life Moves on...

Big gecko that lives in my classroom!!  

My kids jumping for joy at their new toy. Play-dough! :) 

 Me

Elijah

This boy makes me laugh everyday! 

Yuji

This boy has the biggest smile!! :)

CeCe

she brought me flowers! was so sweet! 

More pictures!!! :)

The other Student Missionaries and I that decided to go Camping 

 Beautiful Sunset on the Camping trip...

 Sorry this picture is sideways...But it is a little crab that I found out I had been sitting on partway through my devotions...

 Fresh coconut!! Got it myself! (don't tell anyone...but the tree had been knocked down by the storm... ;)

This beautiful place called Nalup where we went camping..

Got my Pohnpei Drivers License! :) Great souvenir! 

We went on outreach this last Sabbath, and did VBS for the kids. 

Learned to play the Ukulele!!! This is my teacher..Trevor :)

Where I went camping two weekends ago...just incredible!

Here Kristi, Kari, and Kami! I posted these especially for you! :) You can see what your big sister is up to. Hope you enjoy them! There will be more soon! Love you!

Few shots of the past few days...

 Here are some pictures!! I am having a wonderful time! Just about to go camping on a different island for the night. I love my kids, and I am so excited to be here! God is so good! :)

This is my classroom!! And most of the students...about 4 were missing.

This is the little sister of on of my students and she is "THE" cutest little girl!!

This is the daughter of the schools principle. She is really cute too! :) Came to visit me in my room..

This was a waterfall that we went hiking to! It was so cool! Jumped off the first waterfall, and this second one, we swam under it...the water felt so good!! Then afterwards, we hear this noise like as if someone was dropping rocks into the water? Come to find out...the noise was made by eels that were feeding!! So I swam with Pohnpein eels! (apparently the have a pretty nasty bite...)

This picture was taken on the first hike I went on. You could see a good portion of the island! It was beautiful!! 

Giving God the Crayon

Today was Sabbath. What a blessing it is to have the Sabbath! There are several different small churches in Pohnpei, and the principle of the school goes to a different church then most of the other student missionaries. He wanted to take me with his family, to his church this Sabbath. So we all climbed into the van; the principles family (5 children currently at this school) and one other student missionary. The church was a beautiful 1 hour drive away from the school. It was exciting to see more of the island. Apparently the island is only about a 2 hour drive long, so we basically drove about half the island to go to church. The church was beautiful! There are two things in particular that made it extra beautiful to me... 1. It had air conditioning... 2. Everyone took their shoes off so that meant I could go barefoot... two things I love! Air conditioning, and going barefoot :) The sermon was preached in Pohnpeinease first, and English second. While it was being preached in the language that I could not understand, I kept the principles youngest daughter busy. She was sitting beside me and we were coloring her new coloring book together. I was coloring the trunk of the tree while she colored the green leaves. Soon she stopped and just watched me color...then she took the brown from me and gave me the green crayon and pointed to the leaves. She wanted me to finish the green leaves and color them like I was coloring the brown. She just sat and watched me for a little while, and then took the green crayon again and tried coloring more green. She soon gave the crayon back to me and asked me to finish it. As I finished filling in the empty white spots between her attempts to stay in the lines, a thought came to mind. My life is like that picture. God is coloring part of it, and I am trying to color part of it..but God's "part" of the picture looks so much better then mine, and no matter how hard I try, I can't get it to look like His. After stepping back to look at the picture, I can clearly tell which part God colored. Something inside me longs for the whole picture to look as beautiful as God's "part" does. So I willingly hand the crayon to God and ask Him to take control. Then after a short while of watching God color, I decide that it doesn't look to hard and I want to try coloring again. So I take the crayon back and work on getting the picture just right. But for some reason I can't seem to stay in the lines. After figuring out that there is no possible way for me to color like God, I hand the crayon back and ask Him to please finish and make the picture look beautiful. All I need to learn, is to leave the crayon in God's hand, because the picture will be more beautiful if He doesn't have to fill in the spots where I was attempting to color inside the lines.

Day 1

My bedroom!! Nice pink sheets...lol

This is me and the beautiful flower wreath they gave me as I walked out of the airport. 

my closet... :) and the much needed fan...

Pohnpei

Wow...wow...wow...is all I can say! God's leading is wonderful, amen? I find myself on the island of Pohnpei and I am loving it! The humid-heat and all! Why? Because I have peace in my heart that I belong here...this is where God wants me. I will be posting pictures once I get them. It is so beautiful! And I am loving the rain! I will be teaching 1st grade starting on Monday. Kinda new to me...and I would LOVE your prayers!