September 29, 2012
By now, most of you know that God has closed the door to Peter's employment and our being residence at St. Christopher. Yes, are in the grieving process, with all the normal emotions. You don't grow to love a place and people like that without feeling a great loss. But overall, we are grateful to God for Peter's 4.5 years of getting to serve the Lord there with the skills, experience, gifts, and compassion he was given in order to make an impact on others' lives. Our family has gained memories and relationships which will carry us through a lifetime. William, Peter John, and Emory have received the love and modeling of a life lived for Jesus that will forever shape them. We are so thankful to all the people we've gotten to know at the Camp. Oh what God has done to transform, heal, train, and prepare us there!
Two years ago, God began to turn our eyes to Uganda in the gentlest way. He has increasingly made it clear to our family that He wants to use us there. After Peter's 1st mission trip, God showed him a vision through Bishop Johnson Gakumba. After some stubbornness, I opened my heart to what God might be doing, and He showed me so clearly that I was to go with the next team in June, including Peter. There, we felt drawn to God's desire to show the people in Uganda how valuable, loved, and important they are to the Kingdom and that they have a destiny to change the world.
Just an aside, one of the ways God showed me his direction for my life, was that he kept putting women named Karen in my path, all the way from Charleston through Uganda and back. I think I counted 6 Karen encounters. We later realized we had had about the same Peter encounters, including 3 on our team alone! God said to me one day, after our return, "Don't you see, I'm calling you by name?"
So many have witnessed the supernatural things God has been doing in our life over the past years, that Peter's job loss created an almost unanimous response. "Oh, you must be going to Uganda!" is what we heard over and over. God's revealing His plan to many. And have you noticed that it has come in the form of hardship and suffering? You pray for God to close doors, and they may close abruptly and unexpectedly.
Some dear friends prayed for me recently, helping me to close the doors of our past. But one of their prayers was that too many doors have closed too abruptly. They prayed that God would let this leaving be a gentle process. We receive that prayer!
Where are we now in this great adventure with God? First, we are secure in the knowledge of God's love, provision, and protection. He isn't promising days when we won't know weariness, confusion, or distress. But this is where we get to see how He always comes through and His love never ends. Physically though, we are staying on Wadmalaw, due to the grace and compassion shown to us by a most wonderful Christian family, the Rudolphs. Rhett and Emily are both missionaries around the world as well as strong senders to many missionaries. They have a gigantic heart for taking the light of Jesus into a dark world, and they demonstrate it through sharing their time and resources. So we are in their "barn" for the time being, as we prepare for this next chapter of the adventure.
Here at the "barn" (you can now refer to me as "Barn Karen", previously "Camp Karen"), we are enjoying the bounty of what we call the "Promise Creek", where colossal crabs practically jump in the net. Emily grows sweet potatoes the size of your arm. One night we fed our family of five off one of them! Peter is working on getting a deer, but in the meantime, he's good with a cast net. These are just a few of the ways God has been meeting our needs.
On the second floor, where there is no TV, when the kids are put to bed, Peter and I are studying the Bible, reading the stack of missionary books we need to prepare, writing, listening to worship music, and talking about the many challenges ahead. The barn is giving us time together to learn to be a better unit and to grow closer to God and each other.
We are praising, crying out, and wrestling with God, but we are hearing His voice in ways we never have before. It's the most challenging and exciting time of our life. We have chosen to follow God on His adventure. We are so grateful to all of you who are standing with us in this journey. More to come...
