Saddle Your Donkey and Go
when you're deeply troubled, don't stop short
"...He said to Gehazi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything is fine.” But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is.”
-2 Kings 4:25-27
. . .
This is the story of a woman who never thought she'd be able to have children.
After she used her resources really generously to care for Elisha, God's prophet, he promised that she'd have a son within a year. She'd given without asking for anything in return and hearing this, she begged Elisha not to get her hopes up. But sure enough, in a year's time, she was holding the baby boy she hadn't dared to hope or ask for.
Then the story takes a brutal turn. The boy grows until he's old enough to head out to the fields with his dad. One morning, while they're out working, he suddenly starts screaming that his head hurts. Reading this less than a year out from our ordeal with Benaiah's brain scans, you know at this point, this story had me tense in a whole new way...
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Updates
Thanks so much for keeping up with our family!
Our Aviation Leadership is still working on a solution for the staffing challenges we're facing with flight instructors. We'll keep you posted when we hear some answers, but for now, pray that the Lord would provide pilots: new ones and experienced ones to serve our missionaries and indigenous churches in Papua New Guinea! It takes a big team of people to do the job well and our teammates are stretched pretty thin right now.
Pray for the Lord to provide the in-country flight instruction Cody needs for us to be able to step back into the aviation role and help them out soon! Pray for us to rest in God's leading and preparation. We know He's using our time here, too. We are so thankful for this year we've had serving on the staff team at the Homes of Ethnos360. We're planning to stay in this role until at least this summer, then move to Arizona for Cody's recurrency training when they're ready for us.
Benaiah is down to his last dose decrease for his brain medicine and he comes totally off of it next week! He's doing well so far. Please keep praying that he will compensate well, even without medication, and for continued improvement on his MRI in April.
Thank you so much for praying for us with our medical bills! We received an inheritance and some unexpected generous gifts this month that enabled us to pay off Benaiah's surgery! We are blown away again by our God, our provider.
A few of you were praying specifically for me (Beka) as we potty trained Abi - I know it seems like such a normal thing, but pray for the potty training parents in your life - this stage is it's own special trial by fire! Praise Jesus, Abishai got it down last month!
Our deal was that if he made it one whole week with zero accidents, Cody would take him kayak camping to the islands in Mosquito Lagoon. They stayed two nights and absolutely loved it!
Camper Project Update
The camper is now in that stage where things look a lot worse before they look better. We hear that it's even become part of the unofficial tour when new volunteers arrive to help out at the Homes of Ethnos360. Parents and family have made pilgrimages to see it. Hilarious. It's so bad, it's now an attraction. But we are making progress!
The welding on the frame is almost done, we have the new sub-floor ready to install, and we're starting to finalize our plan for the layout, electric and plumbing. Several members of our support team donated parts for the project! The smoke detector, showerhead, skylight, even a new toilet were some of the gifts! Thank you!! We've had a few arguments and a lot of laughs, and we're excited to see it start coming together over the next few months.
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Thanks so much for keeping up with us, supporting us, and praying for us!
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love,
Cody, Beka, Abishai + Benaiah
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