The Wheels of the Kingdom...

Today (and yesterday), I loaded up a grocery cart with the basic needs I am so familiar shopping for and delivered them to another family whose babies are crying because there’s just not enough food.

Today I grieved with and offered all that I had within me to my friend, the pastor’s wife from my local church, when she told me she’d been with a family from our church for the past two days. There was a funeral this morning for the family’s 19-month-old baby who had been poisoned by a witchcraft-practicing neighbor.

Today I was greeted with a, “MAMA KACY!!!” as soon as I stepped into the hospital because one of the newest little boys in the children’s ward already knew me from play-dates and feeding programs.

Today I parked in front of Mama Charity’s temporary shack to find her and her friend Busi out in the sun, babies scattered around them and tools in hand, doing physical labor to try to make enough money to feed those babies tonight.

And that was all before noon!

My tires know every bump and pothole on the roads to the hospital, the grocery stores, and countless shacks. I’ve worn those roads down with heavy loads of people and provision. But, even with all of those trips bearing all of those good things, I wonder if I’m just spinning my wheels.

Is there more to this than meeting these immediate needs with loaves of bread and wiping tears off cheeks?

I want to bring the Source of never-ending daily bread and forever-ended sorrow.

He says to pray for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

That sounds all-inclusive to me.

It sounds like He says to call down heaven even to the places on earth covered with dusty potholes, empty bellies and small caskets. Even to an empty cottage on a lonely night when all you can hear are crickets and questions.

The wheels of the Kingdom don’t just spin.

They propel. They compel. They move.

The have to move.

Because I can’t fill up another shopping cart or dodge one more pothole if nothing’s moving. If eternity dripped with tears, what would the point of it all be?

I’ve been in a spiritual wheel-spinning, motion-going kind of rut for a couple of weeks. I’ve felt like everybody else’s lives are moving on, going somewhere, and that I’m stuck in this Africa-sized pothole where money stays short, babies stay hungry, and birth certificates never come.

The thief comes to steal my perspective, kill my will to keep going, and destroy my ability to see where He’s leading me.

But the wheels of the Kingdom go round and round.

They go to the ends of the earth and to the depths of my loneliness and fears.

There’s a highway being prepared.

It has no place for the wheels of sorrow or suffering to spin.

It’s not paved with loneliness, shortsightedness, or questions.

“And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness… only the redeemed will walk there… Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” (Isaiah 35: 8, 9b, 10b)

I’ll keep driving those same roads – because He says to. And because I still love it. But I have to look for more there. Or my days, my spirit and even my hugs and kisses send me deeper into this rut.

I’m compelled to keep driving down Old Plaston Road until it is called the Way of Holiness.

I’m surrendering my spinning wheels for something out of my hands and understanding.

On November 3 – 13, my Community Development team leaders and I are exchanging wheels for wings and trusting God all the way to Jinja, Uganda.

We’ve heard Him say there’s more for us – there’s more for the way we live and love at Ten Thousand Homes. He’s ready to trust us with the keys for what’s next, and I believe it’s something so much deeper than a pothole.

We are going to Uganda to serve, support and learn from an organization called Orphans Know More. The awesome team at Ten Thousand Homes is making it possible for us to step outside of our daily lives for 10 days and to trust God to pave a little bit more of His highway… to fill in a pothole or two.

Please pray for us to have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts that can receive what more God has for us.

Pray that even now I can step out of this rut and into the faith I need for the rest of this day and for this Uganda trip.

Pray for us to bring back what God has for us and to start next year with more.

Please also pray for the practical details of our trip. We have airplane tickets… and that’s all! Carla, John and I each need to raise $850 more for in-country travel, accommodation, meals, etc. We have invested what we have, and now believe for about $2500 MORE.

If you would like to be a part of paving the way through giving toward our trip, you can give directly from my blog to my PayPal account or, for tax-deductible giving, you can give online at www.tenthousandhomes.org. Please make sure you write in on your donation as well as letting me know that the funds are designated for “Community Development Uganda Trip”.

Thank you for believing more for me, for Ten Thousand Homes, for South Africa, and for us doing this together.