God's Purposes, Not Our Plans

My last post a week ago left you hanging! It was an extremely busy week and I never had time to sit down and finish.
This is my favorite time of day. The house is quiet and dark and I have my delicious cup of coffee beside me! The three precious men in my life are sound asleep. This is the time of day where I can come before God and have an hour to study His word and be silent before Him.  This morning is extra special. This morning I sit in awe of what we experienced last night. Our 8 weeks of planning lead us up to last night's special occasion. There is no other way to describe it other than it was a God-event and we were along for the ride! Let me take you back a little further to the idea Matt had for our ESL group.
Almost right away when we started back in September Matt said that we should plan an event for our ESL students. He didn't know exactly what it looked like but he envisioned a dinner and a speaker. Originally we thought maybe we could do a Christmas celebration, but the holiday season was quickly approaching and we knew we couldn't have things ready by then.  We kept brainstorming possible speakers for this event.  Matt knew it needed to be a Spanish speaker and we thought it would be so neat if we could get a "big name!" Our first thought was Marcos Witt, a worship leader and pastor at a big church here in Houston. I ended up mentioning this idea to Luis' wife, Jo-Ann. Luis is also on our ministry team and helped set up the ESL program in 2012.  She mentioned that she knew Marcos Witt's assistant's assistant. Does that make sense?! Anyway, we had a "way in!" She said she'd follow up with the lead. A couple of weeks later, at ESL, Luis and I were brainstorming different things for the celebration. I mentioned Jo-Ann's idea.  He thought that would be fine, but then thought for a moment and brought up another name. Alan Hernandez.  He asked if I knew him and I said yes! We had his music and Matt had heard him at a church when he was training in Oklahoma City. Surely he was too big to be at our event! No way! How would we get him? Luis said that he actually knew him, grew up with him, was in his wedding! Well, what are we waiting for? Lets give him a call! There were a couple problems. Luis and Alan had lost contact with one another and he lived in Monterrey, Mexico. So there were two hills to climb! We needed to get in contact with him and we needed to convince our pastor that we should fly this guy up for our event! Luis said he would try to get in contact with him. So ESL ends at 8 and by 10:00 that night Luis forwarded Matt and I a response from Alan! Luis filled out the generic email from Alan's website and explained who he was. Alan's manager actually gave Luis Alan's personal email. Amazing that all this happened so fast! They were in contact and in deed, it looked like, depending on dates and other details, Alan would do our event. No, really?! Our next step was to go to Pastor Rick. We were a little nervous because we knew what we were asking! This was going to cost money to fly someone in from Mexico!
Pastor Rick was supportive, however, asking if there was anyone local we could get. Of course we could try, but if at all possible, we'd really like to have Alan. Pastor told us to go ahead and get all details and he would talk to the rest of the pastoral staff.
We picked a date and it was all good with Alan. We were unsure of what he wold charge in order to come, so that was something else that made us a little nervous. Well, Alan said he would ask nothing, only air fare. He was going to do this as a favor to us! He would be staying with Luis as well. Well, because Christmas season was under way, everyone at church was very busy. We were given the OK to go ahead with planning but details would be finalized mainly after break. Our students were also on break. Our worry now was, will we have enough people to come to this event? We were going to tell our students to bring a guest so surely there would at least be 60 people! We were going to also open it up to our Spanish Lifegroup.
Classes resumed January 9th so because our event was set for February 13th we needed to start advertising. Guess how many students we had January 9th? A whopping 15 students! What?! 15 students?! We need people! We're putting on this big event! How can we justify flying this guy up from Mexico and putting on a catered dinner for maybe 20 people?! Everyone assured me, oh, it's the first week, next week will be better. Next week you ask? The following week we had....13 students! My panic started to kick in! However, I should have known better! God was laughing at me, saying, "oh ye of little faith, Jaclyn! Do you not know that this is MY event and I am only asking you and Matt and Luis to have a hand in it? I have everything under control!" Yes, Lord, I'm sorry!
Fast forward.... Last night, we had about 150 people!!!!! Throughout the time leading up to our event, we had more people coming back to ESL, people sign up from lifegroup and opened our event to food pantry clients, Kids' Hope & Study Buddy parents (2 other ministries at our church).  Because this was a catered event, we needed RSVP's. Now I was worried it was getting too big! haha....But how amazing it was to see those come in. I was amazed to see God at work in this ENTIRE event! From food, to childcare, to Alan, to guests! Everything was perfectly set into place. Everything we worried about was taken care of! We knew, however, the most important part to this event was the message they were going to hear. This is what it's all about, as Christians. Following God's leading to bring other's to know Him as their personal Lord and Savior. What an amazing opportunity to work with God in this. What a privilege, how humbling it is to be used by God. This was not our doing, this was God's doing. All those people in attendance were there because God called them to be there. As I sat there last night, looking around me, I was in amazement. We were experiencing God!
The night is over now, but our work is not done. It's all an ongoing process! This is our mission field right now. Matt and I are not doing missions in Mexico, Nicaragua, China and other parts of the world. Our mission field is right here in Houston, Texas. The people here are just as precious as those in other parts of the world. A quote from the Experiencing God study says it all: "If God has a great task for you, He will expand your character to match that assignment." I believe we are on our assignment and God is doing a work in us that prepares us for this amazing task he's called us to. Where's your mission field? What's the task God has prepared for you? Are you willing to embark on the journey? I assure you...it's worth everything! A reminder that those He called to do great things in the Bible, great tasks, were ordinary people. Their willingness and obedience made them be able to be used by God-they were available. Are we willing & available? Will we be obedient to the call?

Experiencing God

In the middle of January our Women's Ministry at HAFBC started up another round of Bible study. I really miss these ladies when we're not in session! Although I absolutely love Beth Moore studies, I was excited to do something a little different this session. I heard from several people who have done the Experiencing God study that it truly was an amazing study and that they still reference things from the study. It is, however, like most, dependent on how much a person puts into the study. Well we've done 2 weeks of homework so far and I'm getting so much from it. It's so important that we are aware and acknowledge all that God is doing around us. And the exciting part is that He wants to use us, ordinary men and women, to help accomplish His purposes and His plans. It's hard sometimes to feel like I can be used by God in such a big way. I'm so, shall I say, ordinary. I'm only a housewife. I'm only a simple mother of two small boys.  What can God possibly do through me? Of course my most important task is to be the wife and mother He created me to do. And if I may just be honest, that's a prayer that needs to be prayed daily and I'm always a work in progress! But since I quit my job teaching high school Spanish when my 2 year-old was born, I've felt like I'm not really important anymore. I really felt like I touched some students' lives. That I made a difference. That I was a light in such a dark place. And now I'm just...home. An ordinary housewife and mother.
Last week the question arose: What can one ordinary person do? The people we see in scriptures doing extraordinary things were actually just ordinary people He called to do His work.  Blackaby states that "One ordinary Christian in the hand of almighty God can do ANYTHING God commands."  We need to make ourselves, I need to myself, available to God so that I can be a part of something great, like bringing others to Christ. Those He used in the Bible were willing and their obedience made them be able to be used by God. I need to be obedient. I expect my kids to be obedient to Matt and me. It's no different with my relationship with God.  No more excuses. Another quote that stuck out to me was that when we believe nothing significant can happen through us, we have said more about our belief in God than we have declared about ourselves. Ouch! No excuses! If we are too busy to be seeking God and spending time in scripture and prayer, we are way busier than God ever meant for us to be.
The whole reason for this post was to share what God is doing in the ESL ministry and I guess it needed a pretty detailed introduction! :)  Matt and I are directors over the ESL ministry at our church, which was a God thing in and of itself! I was ready to be done with ESL last year (when it ended in May) and seek out being involved in the youth ministry. It's what "I wanted."  Well, I decided that I should probably pray about it before I tell God what I wanted to do. I was somewhat torn because the ESL ministry was something my husband and I did together and that was fun. I knew he wanted to stay in it even if I didn't. I felt a little guilty!And yet, I love the high school age and working with girls and issues that they face these days. So I began praying about the ministry that God thought I was best suited for, without telling my husband that I was praying about it. Late April, we were approached by the then-directors about taking over the ministry, as they were moving away from Houston.  They said to think about it. Oh my gosh, I did not need to think about it! I knew this was God confirming that I was to stay in ESL. Both Matt and I were excited and yet a little scared. I mean, we can't possibly be old enough to head a ministry! :) (ok, ok, we are 30 but still.....) It started back up in September and it's been quite the ride! Matt and I are two ordinary people God is using to reach out to our students, and beyond. At this moment, God is moving! God is working out details to a very important event we have coming up next Wednesday, February 13th.  Stay tuned for this story! Right now I have a child that needs to be tended to! haha..... I promise I'll share it with y'all because God deserves ALL the glory!

Photos In The Park!

Any one who knows me knows that I love pictures! I think I'm in the running for crazy picture lady with my auntie Bonnie! So anytime anyone offers to take pictures of my family for fun you can bet I'll be on board! A sweet woman from my Bible study asked if she could come take pictures of Carter and Carson early January. The perfect place to photograph two small, active boys? The park! They had so much fun just playing around and Elvia captured some great shots! I wish I could display every single picture she took around the house but I'm thinking Matt would not approve! Here's some of my favorites! 

Finally Blogging!

My husband (I love this man!) has been telling me for a while that I should start a blog. I'm not sure if he wants me to blog so that I'm not talking his ear off or what! Either way, I decided that I'd check out this whole blog thing. It will mainly be a page to check out pages and adventures we have as a family.  Enjoy!