The Details...Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

I must confess, these last few months have really drawn my attention elsewhere and I have been lacking in my efforts to keep our blog current.  I need to be better about informing our friends about what is happening in our lives! 

We settled right in here at Paint Rock and just adore this sleepy little town.  Coming from the experiment station, which was in the middle of nowhere, there has been a little adjusting.  We currently live right next door to the Post Office and our front yard is HWY 83.  When we were in Sonora we could tell you who was coming down the road just by the sound of the truck or car.   Here the traffic has taken a bit to get used to.  Still hearing people pull in to pick up their mail makes me think we have company!  It is even been an adjustment for our dog who barks whenever he hears a door slam shut next door.  We do find it opportune that we live two doors down from the little convenience/bait/café/Mary Kay or Avon distributer/proud supporter of Paint Rock Indians T-shirt selling store.  If you need it, they have it!  I am pretty sure there is a country song or two written about such a place.  It is a great town and we have been blessed just by being here!

We have been on the receiving end of God pouring out His blessings over us ever since we completely surrendered our lives to His will and He continues on a daily basis to reveal more of Him to us!  Sometimes I have to just stop and think of ways to describe what and how I am feeling, and I am lacking the right words.  When we knew in our hearts that we were going into missions, I knew that we would be giving up most all of “things” in order to be obedient to His calling.  To be honest, it was a bit of an internal battle for me when I thought of having to sell my stuff!  I panicked at the thought of what I was going to do with my horse, dog and cat!  I let my mind worry about all the details and that in its own way could have kept me from an experience with God.  BUT thankfully He is faithful and He to cares about the details of my life and can handle them in a much better fashion than I can on my own.

We moved all of our furniture into Colin’s parents shed, which is full of other children’s things and other family member’s belongings, as well as my in-law’s seasonal decor.  So in a shed that is big enough for two cars to park, with all of our “stuff”, the only thing that could park in that shed was the riding lawn mower!  The thought of having a garage sale was just overwhelming to me, and I have no idea what to charge people for dressers and tables and books and DVD’s.  Bottom line is I just didn’t want to go through boxes and price things that wouldn’t sell.  But I was feeling horrible about our “stuff” just taking up room, collecting dust and dirt dobbers, and over time getting ruined.  However the Lord had plans for our things that we did not know. 

Colin was about to leave his parent’s house one night a few weeks ago and head to Paint Rock, and when he went outside he saw that one of the neighbor’s homes was on fire!  In good Mereta fashion, Colin, Devin, and William put on extra clothes and went to get the fire truck.  Needless to say the family lost their home.  The family was not home at the time of the fire so thankfully everyone was safe.  But in losing their home, they lost all of their belongings.  Before Colin and I had a chance to even talk face to face about it, I knew what we needed to do, and sure enough Colin was on the same page.  A few days later Colin went by to see the family and told them about our shed full of stuff and that they were welcome to it, and all off our things were now theirs if they wanted to pick them up.  So this past Friday we loaded up our tables, beds, dressers, refrigerator, lamps, curtains, and dishes and gave them to a family that lost everything!  Thank you Lord that we were able to help them!  I think it is so awesome to see that through a horrible event, God was still able to do something neat.  I know that we probably could have found someone that could have used our things, but God wanted to use a family much closer than we could have found!   I am also reminded that He knew my heart.  He knew that I felt bad for our things taking up so much room in my in-laws shed.  Just a small detail, but still great to see how God worked it all out and to Him be all the glory!

This is just one of the things the Lord has done in regards to the details I have worried over, so in order to keep these postings not incredibly long I’ll just post more about how awesome He is!    

Our BIG News...

I know that most of you will see the title of this blog and the one thing that you will think is "A BABY!!"...Well...there is no baby news as of now. Sorry. But we do have other fun news about our lives.
Over the last six or so months, Colin and I have been preparing ourselves to move to Africa and drill water wells. We feel like this is how we are suppose to spend our lives - helping those less fortunate than us. And this is exactly what we will be doing in a few short months!
We are getting ready to head to Bolivia for six weeks to get even more training with Terry Waller of Water for All International. We leave for that trip on the 11th of July!! When we started praying and thinking about doing this it seemed like we had all the time in the world, but before we knew it, almost half the year was already over.
God has really guided us through all of this. For months we've known that we are supposed to move to Africa and serve. Along the way God has done so many things that confirm our choice to follow Him to wherever He calls us to go. For one, within a couple of months of knowing we were supposed to go, Colin's job was cut to half time. This was by no means the reason for our leaving, but was further confirmation that we were doing what we were supposed to be. All of the pieces from the what to do, to the where to do it, to the how, and the where, have all divinely fallen in place.
Once we get back from Bolivia we are going to be leaving the experiment station, a bittersweet reality, and moving to Paint Rock to further our well drilling training.
We will start raising support as soon as we can because we would like to be in Africa as early as January of 2012. We are sure that we will be in east Africa, but as to which country we are not yet sure. We are trying to be as open as we can to all of the possibilities and go wherever we are most needed.
I know that this may seem very vague, but some of the details are still unclear even now. Once we are closer to leaving we will update ya.
The last thing that I would like to say is more of a request. If you would like, please keep us in your prayers. God is really doing great things in our lives and we want to remain open to Him and His purpose. Also pray for our family and friends that we will be leaving. Watching us go may be one of the hardest things for some of them to do.
Again we are super excited about this new direction we are heading, and what better adventure to go on than one for the Most High!
~Ronnie~