Pressing Through

Here we are... Saturday again. I'm not even sure where to start writing this week. My thots are all rambled. It's been a long week. I'm trying to press thru the frustrations and not be overwhelmed by them. The challenges of living here can sometimes be so hard. When they come at you all at once...ugh!

I feel the Holy Spirit reminding me to cling to Him. In Him there is fullness of joy. He's my Stronghold of protection against feelings of defeat. When I run into Him I find my peace. He is my Prince of Peace and He covers me with His peace...that peace that surpasses all understanding. It's in that place of abiding peace where He guards my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. He guards me against thots of despair, hopelessness, thots about giving up, etc. He arms me with His joy and His Truth.. the Truth that sets me free to dream big for Him and for His plan to reach the people of Tanzania. The task is a big one. Reaching the 36 unreached people groups of Tanzania requires big dreams and big faith to get it done. The confidence we have is not in our own abilities or our own dreams to get it done. Rather, our confidnece is in the Almighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth..the One who fashioned and formed these people in His own image. His love for them is long, wide, deep and high! He is in passionate pursuit for His lost children and is looking for people who will share His heart for them. This is no small task. It requires everything we got. Moreover...it requires surrender... a surrender of self, desires, personal thots and ambitions. We must decrease and He must increase! We must trust in our Big God to implant His big dream in us and then increase our faith to get it done!!

Does it sound like I'm "preaching" to myself? I am! I know God's Truth and stand on it. He says we do not fight with weapons of the world but on the contrary, the weapons we fight with have the Divine power to tear down every demonic stronghold. I believe that and declare that over my life. A stronghold is a belief that sets itself up more powerful or prevailing than the Truth of God. So, the battle is for my mind... which affects my heart. This is why we are encouraged so often to guard our heart. Out of it flows the wellspring of life.. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks... Well... my heart is weary. The challenges of the past months have played havic on my heart and mind. It's even affecting my health. I've fought a terrible headache for 3 days. I know God's peace is there for me. He offers it. I must just receive it. Anyone reading this...please just pray for me to receive what He's offering me. It's there for the taking. I truly believe I must choose to take it up. Stand on God's Truth to set me free from these strongholds of my mind. He is a good God...so faithful! HIs love endures forever...from Everlasting to Everlasting He is God! He has a great destiny for each of us as well as for my Tanzanian brothers and sisters.

Pray with us that God will increase our faith in Him to persevere thru the challenges and trust Him to dream bigger for Him. These big dreams are going require big faith. All this is in preparation for what God wants to do here. Nothing is wasted in HIm! We ask that you continue to pray for our protection..physically as well as our emotional and spiritual protection. "We are hard pressed but not crushed... we press on in the Name of our Conqueror.. Jesus Christ and we raise high HIs banner...the power of the finish work of the cross! Lead on O King Eternal!

New Addition to the Carters

There is a new, brght eyed baby around the Carter's place. No...new surprises for our own family exactly....

Our brown cow named Zawadi (means gift) has given birth to a new baby "girl." She was born on Monday, our day that we as a CMF team meets to pray. So, the workers appropriately named our new blessing, "Maombi," which means, "prayer." The kids have really enoyed this experience.

We continue with the building process. This has been a week of major roadblocks. Wow.... I just keep reminding myself to choose joy. It's been a Murphy's Law kinda week. The welder who made our stair railing out of wrought wire kept insisting he was done and asking us to come get it. We had to get that along with the screen doors he made for us. Of course, when I say screen door I mean just his part of it. He did the metal work. We have to paint them and put the screens in ourselves. :-) We got it all home... literally transporting it on the top of our car to the sounds of screeching metal with every bump we hit. The doors fit fine but he got the handles all put on backwards. Oh dear. Easy to fix but just a little time consuming.

The stair railing however....completely wrong. We called the welder to come out and see just how off it was. He stood there and tried to talk us out of fixing it and leaving it the way it was. Long end of the short of it, we won in the end and he's going to come out on Monday to fix it properly. He got the angle completely off leaving a huge gap between the bottom of the rail and the steps. It was big enough for Wes to squeeze thru. Then, it didn't meet the wall at the top leaving a 12 in gap... at the very top of the steps....just asking for trouble!

Our windows are detained yet again. I have to just trust God in all of this. Our money is running out and we still don't have windows in or our kitchen cupboards. We can't progress forward without the windows as the dust is so bad. This whole thing just proves to be an exercise in faith...trusting God for the increase! We hope to have windows in this next week. The hold up was at the company. They had to order the metal to make the windows first. By Tues they should start putting them in.

If I had to best describe our road right now....hmmmmm.....a mine field comes to mind! :-) It is so bad!!! The dirt road from our center out to the tar mac is bad enough. The dust is nearly 1 foot deep with huge holes that swallow your car! We need rain but more than that we need to somehow think about a long term answer to fixing it. If you can imagine, the tar mac road is even worse. Apparently a Chinese company has agreed to fund and repair the main road. I'm not sure what the hold up is but with each day they detain the process the potholes increase in number and intensity. No joke...I don't know if they are waiting for it naturally deteriorate so that all they have to do is simply connect the potholes to chop it out or..... well, I don't know. I just know it's crazy! People are driving all over and off the roads to avoid the HUGE potholes. I truly praise God for HIs amazing protection. It's truly by His grace that no one has been hurt.

We as a team are gearing up for our annual vision/planning meetings. I'm excited with the new vision God has given us to share with the team. God has so many great things for the people of Tanzania. He just needs people willing to dream big for Him. One day while I was walking around the compound praying I felt Him say to my spirit, " Tami, I am so much bigger than you think I am. Dream bigger. Know that I am bigger. I have big things in store for these people but it is going to require bigger vision and bigger faith...." How exciting! Bigger faith brings bigger blessings!!!

Please pray for us as we meet the next week. Ask God to fill us with all spiritual wisdom and discernment to hear His heart for the people. I want to be certain that the dreams we have for these lost people are God's dreams that He shares with us...not our own ideas that fall short. "Many are the plans in a man's heart but it is God's will that prevails.."

With that challenge from God, big things are happening with expanding our training to include hands on agricultural training called, "Farming God's Way." We are also including a chicken project which allow students to learn how to raise chickens to not only provide for their family but perhaps offer a sustainable income. It's exciting to dream big for God!!! We praying and trusting God to raise up people to get on board....to dream big with us!! What a great adventure we're on! Never boring...that's for sure!