God's world is simple in a magnificent way

After several months of travel, we arrived yesterday back at the cabin where we are beginning our preparations to return to Mozambique.  (My plan is to do a blog on statistics in the coming weeks).   As we drove south from Pittsburgh, the world became greener as we moved into spring.  The brown has turned to green and the Ornamental Pear trees, probably my most favorite tree, were moving from the white blossoms into their beautiful green; I had worried I would miss this favorite part of spring but God blessed us with this wonder of his creation as we drove south.

Ann said something as we traveled back to the cabin that was quite profound:

“God’s world is simple in a magnificent way”.  

It just rang true with me.  The Gospel is simple; God’s requirement for us to simply believe in Jesus is quite simple; our reliance on Him totally is quite simple; and the concept that He loves us beyond measure - well, it is quite simple. And yet, he can take us through the toughest and complex trial, by simply trusting Him.  And the beauty of the spring, the consistency of the spring flowers, the summer skies, the fall colors, and the purity of the snow.  Simply beautiful and a testimony of His love for us.

Life can be extremely difficult and there are no promises that things will be easy - it is a lie that we want to buy into but it just isn’t scriptural.  But armed with simple child-like faith, we see his mighty hand move in the most difficult situations as to the One who spoke things into existence, our most complex problem is, well, simple.  As Jesus says, “Trust in God, trust also in Me...”  It’s that simple!

We were greeted at the cabin by a beautiful patch of daffodils, attesting that spring is truly here.  I remain so thankful that we have this beautiful place of respite and once again, we are able to do devotions sitting on the porch viewing a world that cries out to the existence of a Holy God.  This one picture is of the sun burning through the cloud.  

I have begun to study the Book of Acts again as we prepare to return to Mozambique.  This precious book is rich with the history of the early church and God’s working to protect and establish His church.  I cannot study this book without feeling a sense of awe and even though I’ve taught through this book many times, it never gets old and I see new truths each time.

Tomorrow, we hit the road again to speak to the students at Mount Carmel School in Kentucky.  When I look at the map, it appears to me you can’t get there from here, so we are assured of a beautiful drive through the Appalachian Mountains.   We will then return for a couple of days before heading over to the Raleigh-Durham region to meet some friends from Idaho who will be consulting at Duke University hospital.  

We are praying earnestly for God’s direction on our preparations for returning to Mozambique.  We have quite a bit things we need to take back to Mozambique, more than we can check as baggage.  Even if we could, the theft problems in Jo-burgh are severe and we have learned from experience that one should minimize luggage going through that airport.  More times than not, our bags have been broken into and things removed at that airport.  Air cargo eliminates that problem and while it was exceedingly easy to ship from Mozambique to here, we have found it virtually impossible to ship air cargo from here to Mozambique because of Homeland Security regulations.  We have called numerous Freight Forwarders who initially say “sure” and then call us back later to say it is impossible.  The requirements are intense and while maybe a business can eventually get approved to air ship, the individual can’t.  South African Air told us they would receive a $25,000 fine if they accepted a shipment from us since we are ‘unknown shippers’.  So, our deadly audio bibles, wedding dresses, baby blankets, medical supplies, and keyboard can’t go!  Incredible to me but then again, when has government involvement in anything ever made it better?  Opps, is that a political comment?; I don’t think so - has nothing to do with politics - just government.  It all seems horribly anti-business to me.

Pray with us; we may just send some things by boat, but then we have to deal with long time frames and getting things through the port in Maputo can be very problematic and expensive.  We need to resolve this quickly as it is time to purchase our airline tickets but we are stalling until we know where we ship from.

A seemingly complex problem that is, well, simple to Him!

Make it so, dear Lord!  This is our prayer today; may we follow your leading - not our ways, but Yours!

Dave & Ann

“Did not our hearts glow within us while He was talking to us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?”  Luke 24:32 (Berkeley Version)