Prayer Week

Midnight here. Need to pack to be ready to head to the airport to catch a flight to Belgium, site of the Prayer Week this year. We will be gathering with like-minded medical professionals from across Europe to pray for God’s direction in how He might use this profession to His glory in the coming year.

It will be great to see some old friends and meet new folks — we are feeling part of the group now as we attend our third Prayer Week. Tuesday night is such fun as we gather over dinner.

As has been the procedure in the past, Wednesday is a day of fasting and silence. As our friend Chris Steyn explained last year: Fasting from physical food as we eat of the spiritual and fasting from conversations with each other so that we have time to converse with the Lord. It allows us the time to deal with issues that we need to address before we continue on as a group.

I’m looking forward to the teaching that is scheduled for us, and the multiple times of prayer. Such an encouraging, challenging, refreshing, reflective time.

Not sure whether we will have internet access or not, so this may be the last post until late Sunday or Monday. Please pray with us and for us as we seek God’s face…not His hand…over the next days.

Visa news

Laws can change quickly here in Ukraine. And usually that’s not a problem for us.

But currently visa laws and interpretation of the laws are changing. And that might prove to be a real challenge for us.

We have multi-entry visas that expire in 2012. No problem. We just received an e-mail from an official who said that the visa will be honored until its expiration date.

Foreigners staying in the country for longer than 90 days of any 180 days need to be registered in their area. Typically not a problem. BUT our visa TYPE is not going to be available after September 10 and the office doesn’t know how to register us.

Normally we’d sit back and see how this plays out. But we are leaving the country on Saturday and won’t be back until a couple of days after the new laws become effective.

As of yesterday we felt confident that we could return on our current visas and then would have 45 days to register. Surely the registration office would know how to actually process us by then.

And then today we received this notice from the American Embassy:

If you have a valid visa and OVIR registration but not a residency permit you can stay in Ukraine as long as your current registration is valid. Once you leave the country, however, you will need to obtain a new visa abroad to qualify for legal residency under the new system. Regardless of the expiration date, “old” pre-September 10 visas will no longer be valid for entry into Ukraine after September 10

Not much we can do ourselves at this point. But God remains fully in control.

Please pray that we will not be turned away at the border when we return on the 13th.

Children need YOU

I need to get our newsletter written. And I need to submit the text for our updated website.

I’d like to watch a bit of Wimbledon. Or the Women’s World Cup. And, hey, the Tour de France is due to start on Saturday.

And yet my mind is on children. My own grandchildren — cannot WAIT to meet the newest addition next month and spend time with the firstborn grandson as he really considers walking on his own. Love, love, love.

Today I spent three hours with a 4-year-old and her mother — Masha is one of my English students and I’ve been working with her privately throughout the summer. Love that giggling little girl.

And, of course, I’ve had Vanya on the mind. Who hasn’t? What a sweet little boy — who thinks his new parents are cool. Such a God story.

But I’ve been thinking about the ones still here. Who may never be adopted. Who may never be in a foster care setting here. Who have no contact with a special adult who will show love and care.

I’m thankful for ministries looking for mentors. I’m thankful for ministries educating caregivers AND orphans about how to live outside the institution walls.

Please pray for the thousands of orphans in Ukraine and the hundreds of thousands throughout the world. Ask the Lord how even YOU might be part of the solution for these children. As parents. As mentors. As a prayer warrior. As a financial help to adopting families. As a caregiver to the families left at home while parents travel to adopt.

Think creatively. Out of the box. And help the least of these.

A Praying Life

Jim and I have just started reading A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller. It was recommended to us by our ministry’s chairman of the board as well as missionaries here. (An interesting aside: Our home church in Salisbury MD just had a women’s weekend retreat on prayer and the speaker was from the same organization as Paul Miller — basically the retreat was this book in seminar form. Looking forward to hearing the response of attendees to this teaching.)

Anyway, back to the book. We are still near the beginning and today we read the typical objections or excuses people have for not praying on a regular basis. One typical excuse: I’m too busy. The author cited Jesus Himself as having PLENTY to do, but still prayed regularly.

“If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can’t do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.”

He is stressing focused prayer. Time set aside every day to pray. This would be in addition to praying as prompted during the day.

Do you have a specific time that you consistently pray? Do you have a specific location that gives you uninterrupted prayer time?

Purification

Oh, the richness of the Puritan Prayers that we are reading each morning!

“Lord Jesus, I sin. Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection. Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for Thee and not for self, to copy Thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into Thy likeness, to be consecrated wholly to thee, to live entirely to Thy glory.”

May it be so. More and more each day.

Dawn of another day

As read this morning from Puritan Prayers:

“Compassionate Lord, Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn of another day. Vain will be its gift unless I grow in grace, increase in knowledge, ripen for spiritual harvest. Let me this day know Thee as Thou art, love Thee supremely, serve Thee wholly, admire Thee fully. Through grace let my will respond to Thee, knowing that power to obey is not in me, but that Thy free love alone enables me to serve Thee. Here then is my empty heart, overflow it with Thy choicest gifts; here is my blind understanding, chase away its mists of ignorance.”

I can’t begin to say it any better.

Lord, here I am. Use me.

Boundless mercy and measureless love

“My Father, if Thy mercy had bounds, where would be my refuge from just wrath? But thy love in Christ is without measure.” from a Puritan prayer

What a question! So thankful for the boundless mercy and measureless love of our God.

Arrival in Lithuania

Jim and I flew to beautiful Vilnius, Lithuania on January 1 to take part in a week of prayer among medical professionals from 15 different European countries. Though the conference was not beginning until Monday, we took a Saturday flight that actually saved us several hundred dollars.

Our flight was delayed leaving Kyiv causing our arrival time in Lithuania’s capital city to be later and later. We were excited to be staying in a flat near a medical friend of ours (Jovita, the coordinator of this year’s prayer event), but we were beginning to feel a little sorry for them. By the time we would land, go through customs and grab a cab, we would not arrive at the flat much before 1 a.m. We wondered whether our hosts had agreed to all that when they offered to open their home to us!

The cab could not pull all the way up to the entrance we needed due to heavy snow covering the street. And the snow was continuing to fall. We loved seeing Jovita standing outside her doorway as we tried to determine exactly which entrance was hers. We paid the driver and hustled in to her neighbors’ flat.

We figured we would quietly say hello and go straight to bed. But our hosts had another plan. We all drank tea and ate biscuits, cake and candy while we muddled along in our Russian and Ukrainian. Cheese and caviar joined the spread and we knew we were up for awhile! What gracious hosts — welcoming strangers (and FOREIGN strangers at that!) to their home in the middle of the night and making us feel like we were part of the family. We dragged ourselves away from each other and after being shown extra towels and blankets, Jim and I hit the sack. (Our hosts would not let us help with the clean-up though we did sneak some of the dishes into the kitchen.)

Jim and Donatas

The next morning featured a delightful breakfast and then Jovita collected us to go to her church. What a worshipful morning! The musicians led us into worship and the pastor preached a solid message. We learned that a member of the church had recently died…a father of six…and his funeral service would be following the worship service. A celebration of his life on earth…though there was sadness among the congregation, there was joy in knowing the truth about where this brother was.

We spent the afternoon with an incredible French missionary who is serving throughout French-speaking African countries as well as in the Middle East. What a saint! We shared pictures, our ministries, our families. A warm-up for the week to come.

Jovita collected a few more participants at the airport, and then we all met together at the monastery. I loved arriving early so that we met the other early birds, and then met each participant as they arrived. We felt an integral part of the group…

More to share about this wonderful week in later posts…

Request from Iraq

A friend posted this poem earlier today:

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
…Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear..
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
“It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘Nam’,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall..”

” So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Giving heartfelt thanks and praying for each one serving our country on the frontlines.

Words or actions?

“When God finds us so puffed up that we do not feel our need for him, it is an act of kindness on his part to take us down a peg or two; it would be an act of judgment to leave us in our vaulting self-esteem.”

D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation

How many of us would actually consider it an act of kindness to be taken down a peg or two? Ouch!

These words were written in a chapter expounding on several excuses that people give for not praying. Of course, none of us would actually say that we didn’t need God. Or his guidance. We wouldn’t say that we don’t need to pray. But our actions speak louder than our words.

Lord, keep us on our knees.