TIME MANAGEMENT

Time management . . . .  a phrase that sometimes makes me cringe!  

It makes me think of tasks.  All my tasks.  All the tasks that don't get done.  All the cleaning.  All the "good mommy" activities that should be happening in my home. 

This quickly spirals to "I'm not very good at this" thoughts . . . . which rapidly leads to gloomy moods . . . . which instantly ruins my day.

Yup, the phrase makes me cringe!

All that changed when I started working through a Bible study called "Becoming a Woman of Excellence"  by Cynthia Heald.  It was given to me by a veteran missionary wife and I am so thankful for her thoughtfulness.  

Over this past year, it has helped mold my attitude in my home.  It has helped me find perspective!

In a nutshell, the book unpacks the worldly view of excellence vs the Biblical view of excellence.

Worldly view- excellence is accomplishing TASKS with a high degree of proficiency.
Biblical view- excellence is pursing the highest or best in; Godly virtues, Godly knowledge, striving towards holiness

Wow!  What a difference between the two.

I found myself asking, "Do I have a virtue that I would be 'excellent' at? Am I more concerned with having an excellently, clean home or excellent meals for my family?  Do my children see me wanting to be excellent in the Godly management of my home, or just be excellent in the tasks I do?"

Philippians 1:10  "So that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ."

God's things are excellent!  Striving to center my tasks around His will produces excellence.  
This lifted a huge burden off me.  The burden to perform and live up to expectations that aren't fulfilling.  It took some restructuring of my priorities.  I had to "relabel" what an excellent day looked like to me.

Before, being excellent in my day meant; clean house, home schooling accomplished, healthy meals cooked, missionary admin taken care of, blah, blah, blah.  I would come to bedtime and feel if all of the above items were in order then I had managed my time well, accomplished my tasks, proved excellent at my job.

Now (and this is still a work in progress), I come to bed and reflect on my day;  was I patient with my children, did I demonstrate my husband's love language, did anything in my day point my children to Christ?

Yes, I still clean the house and cook healthy meals, but I don't measure my success or my excellence by my tasks.   I'm not striving to finish my "list" by the end of the day, but to practice Godly qualities through my list.  Some days I manage, some days I fail.  But, the process is so much more fulfilling!  The tasks can take on such deeper meaning when they are a means of working on our holiness.  

I can choose to demonstrate patience when my children keep interrupting me while cooking.
I can choose to put down my broom and read a book to Natalie when she asks.
I can choose to invite my children into my tasks and take on a teacher role even though I know it will take me twice as long.
I can choose to be joyful even when I am exhausted.
I can choose not to complain.

Accomplishing a list like above is now what makes me smile at the end of the day, even if the broom is still sitting where I left it.
   

GUEST POST BY KYLE

Redefining success

I sat listening as a Zulu pastor unburdened his ministry challenges. He is a well respected community leader and an excellent testimony for the Lord. God has greatly blessed his ministry. But while listening I realized something: many of his upcoming decisions could make or break the ministry. They were sink or swim.

My next thought hit me like a mortar. For so long I have been focused on the success of “my ministry”, but here was a ministry on the verge of collapse. If his ministry failed it will be a huge blow to the spread of the gospel. The most important thing I could right now was to do was lay aside “my ministry” and focus on building up “his ministry”.

By empowering this pastor, his ministry would continue to succeed long after I am gone.  It would succeed in culturally relevant ways that I never could. And if ten pastors like him could be empowered, then their success multiplies, reaching far more people than I ever could. Enduring. Culturally relevant. Multiplying.  

As we launch into Zulu pastoral training, how I define success is very important. Will I define success by what I accomplish (how many pastors I train) or by what others accomplish (seeing pastors succeed)? I realize that my thinking needed to change. I need to redefine success. I used to define success as: seeing my ministry flourish. Sure, I was happy when others succeeded, but my success was not connected to their’s. But now, as I pour all of my energies into other pastors' ministries, their success is my success. 

Flagship vs. Submarine Ministries

To redefine success, my pride takes a direct hit. It is nice to say: "look what my ministry accomplished". There is always a strong temptation in ministry to have a flagship ministry.  Just as a naval force’s flagship is the most well known and important, a flagship ministry is the highly visible ministry that everyone sees. This is not to say that flagship ministries are wrong! They are needed. But if there is an existing flagship, a second one just gets in the way. 

In our area, more submarines are needed, not more flagships. A submarine ministry takes a different approach: empower the flagship. Just as a naval flagship has multiple submarines offering support, so submarine ministries offer support to the flagship ministry. Rarely seen. Always empowering. It exists to help the flagship succeed. That is success. 

Pray that God blesses these pastor's ministries and helps them to succeed. Pray also that I will be a faithful submarine!

Kyle

Missionary Gary Strange teaching Zulu pastors

EMILY TURNS 10

Birthdays are fun in our house.  March 4th is no exception!

Emily loves the days leading up to her Birthday celebration and constantly changes her mind as to what to have for dinner and dessert.  I never know what she will choose.

And that's what I love about Emily.

She's creative.  Funny.  Loves everything deeply.  And feels everything even deeper.

Her relationship with God is lived full force and the questions she asks always get me thinking.

She's constantly building something and "creating".  Her mind is always whirling.

Maybe that's why she changed her mind about a thousand times for her birthday dinner!

She settled on chicken and egg fried rice and ice cream sundays.  It was all yummy :)

What a blessing she is to our family!

 She sure loves her dog Duchess!

 Very surprised by Abby's gift

 Ice cream sundays with carmel sauce

10 years ago :)

CELEBRATING 7 YEARS

Every year, we try to go out to eat and celebrate God bringing us to live/work in South Africa.

Feb 28th marked seven years.  It doesn't feel like that long.  Time has gone by so fast with lots of incredibly memories.  Our children have lived here longer than in the States.  Kyle and I have lived more of our married life, here than at "home".  But, even after these 7 years there are still some days when we feel like we don't belong or don't have a clue as to what we are doing!  So, we try to take time out as a family and talk about this "journey".  It impacts each of us differently.  There are so many joys, but also a few heartaches.

I'll share some of the things we talked about:

Question #1- What to you is extra special about living in South Africa?
        Kyle- Going to the game park.  Traveling to places on my motorcycle
        Heather- traveling to some beautiful places in the country
        Abby- participating in Rhythmic gymnastics
        Emily- being a part of the Rhythmic gymnastic team
        Natalie- warm weather to swim

Question #2- What do you not like about living in South Africa?
        Kyle- the crime and being away from family
        Heather- my answer was the same as Kyle's
        Abby- lack of safety and so many different language barriers
        Emily- seeing so much suffering
        Natalie- didn't really have one :)

Question #3- What do you look forward to in this next year?
        Kyle- building into other people and pastors
        Heather- there are lots of events coming up like, my parents visiting in April, a trip home in July, Regional Conference in Oct
        Abby- making new friends
        Emily- making new friends and helping new pastors
        Natalie- playing

At Mugg N Bean waiting for our sandwiches.  We thought we were going to enjoy a nice cool lunch, but it was sooooo hot outside that the air conditioners for the mall couldn't keep up.  It was so sticky in that booth :) 

FUNNY MISCOMMUNICATION

Every Tuesday morning we go out as a family and do activities with a group of kindergarten children (see previous post 1/29/14 Abby and Emily's Ministry).

This week, it was a combined class of kindergarten and Grade 1, so there were a few new kids that didn't know us.

Greetings went well.  Actions songs went well.

Then it was time to split up into groups for reading time.  One little guy that was supposed to be in Abby's group broke out in tears, went limp and refused to go to her group.  We couldn't figure out what was wrong!  A teacher stepped in to help, talked with the child and then broke out in a big grin.

The poor little boy thought Abby, dressed smartly in a black skirt and ruffled shirt, was a nurse . . . and that she was going to give him an INJECTION!  

Not sure at all where he got that from, but soon he was smiling and sitting in her group for stories :)

No injections were given.

MY HEART IS SMILING

This post has been a work in progress . . .

My heart has actually been smiling for a while now, but I couldn't quite figure out how to communicate it.

When Kyle and I first started into missions, the part I would play as a nurse on the mission field was always something we assumed would happen.  Kyle didn't, and still doesn't, have any problem with me having a ministry centered around my nursing training.  It makes sense.

I'm a nurse, I love people, I love helping them =  I love ministering to people through my nursing.

But, as the Care Home ministry (where I worked as a nurse to dying HIV+ women) was coming to an end and the pastoral training program that Kyle is involved in started picking up momentum, my heart started getting excited about different things.

I was SO excited . . .  to see my husband SO excited about the potential of teaching Zulu pastors.

For the first time, I wasn't wondering what I was going to do- how was I going to use my nursing skills- how was God going to use me?

For the first time, I couldn't imagine anything more exciting or more fulfilling than supporting my husband in this new adventure.  Even if that included putting my nursing training to the sidelines for a time.

So, my heart is smiling.  Smiling because it feels so right to encourage, support and pray for my husband's ministry.  Smiling because he is smiling.  Smiling because I feel like a dark, selfish corner of my heart has been cleaned out by the Holy Spirit.

STILL LEARNING TO BE FLEXIBLE

Plans change, things don't work out as expected, trying to be flexible . . .

These statements were all part the conversation in my head yesterday.

Frustrating?  YES!

Going to have a bad attitude about it?  NO! :)

Here's the story:

The girls have been asked to work with a kindergarten class on Tuesday mornings out at Pastor Clement's school (see previous post).  At the same time that they are working with the little ones, I was asked to work with a group of high schoolers that were interested in a medical career.  It was supposed to be 15-20 students for 45 minutes.  They wanted hands-on activities like learning how to clean a wound, listen to heart sounds, teaching about the immune system and basic concepts, etc.   I was more than eager to do this and set about preparing lessons and thinking through activities.

The first day had a few glitches . . . there were about 40 students and a lot of them not interested in a medical career, so they promptly tuned me out.  But, I pushed forward hoping that the next week would be the promised smaller group of students.

Attempt #2:  We arrived the second week.  The girls were all prepared for their little class, I was all prepared for my SMALLER class.  But, we were told that my class wasn't ready yet.  They would have to come get me.  Unfortunately, they didn't come to get me until 45 minutes later when the girls were done and we were supposed to be going home!  There also wasn't a smaller group for me- they were going to have me speak to the entire Grade 10.   Needless to say, Kyle spoke with Pastor Clement and it was decided that we would postpone my classes until some new classrooms (currently being built) were finished.  This would provide some more space where a smaller group could meet.

I'll admit, I was disappointed.  I was really looking forward to this teaching time and getting to know the students.  But, I look forward to what God has for me and will wait patiently :)