Sitting cross-legged on the floor?

2016 is starting, and here I am searching for something to say.  Everyone making resolutions, plans, changes...how a new year will be better, what will be done differently, etc.  Lots of wishful thinking, a little planning, and usually not much execution.  Year in...year out, and time marches on...that is more usually the order of the day, or year as the case may be.  

The allure of looking at time in chunks of a year at a time is quite appealing.  It is more manageable, easier for us to try to understand.  Otherwise we are all starting blindly into space.  We have goals for 2016, we have goals that are bigger than 2016, and short term goals as well.  It seems so cliché to say that this will be a year of change.  What year is not?  Most of "our plans" this year do revolve around change...trying to make changes to projects, operations, and jobs that will make things better, eaiser, more in harmony, etc.  How successful will we be?  Not perfect, that is for sure...but prayerfully a little better every day along the way.  Pray for all of us on that path won't you?  

How about some specifics?

First big change of the year is that Jana Richardson moved back to the USA on January 7th.  This is a big change for His Eyes for sure as Jana has been here four years full time, but probably an even bigger change and challenge for Jana, as she felt God calling her back, but is unsure the plans that await her.  In some ways...she is waiting for the break of day.

Leaving is hard.  Seen here is one of Jana and Cecilia's last times to chat by themselves, at least for a while.

Pray for Jana, for peace and faith in this transition, and God's plan be revealed to her for her long term direction.  And while you are at it, that she get to come back and visit when she can.

Something we had never done before 2015 is growing a bit as we go into 2016.  Every Friday as leadership we have a time for some singing, a devotion, and prayer time.

We are working to have a time that the pastors can come together every month here in Tegucigalpa as well, to have a day of sharing, classes, lunch, and time to encourage each other. For those that live close enough and are coming to Tegucigalpa for the clothing ministry, now they get to participate in the weekly devotionals as well.   Now we just need to go high tech...get some dancing lights against the sky, that sort of thing.  

I am getting to see our sister in Christ and lawyer Rebeca more often as of late as well.  Here we are in one of our power meetings (at her house on her balcony.)

With His Eyes officially recognized now by the government, we are wading through tons of paperwork getting all properties and such registered in the ministry's name that previously we just were not able to do until that step was completed.  We will be at it for several more months, but it is a "problem" we are enjoying immensely.  Reading all that paperwork is enough though to have you just wanting to stay awake.  

One thing is constant in life.  As Mike Rowe might have put it on Dirty Jobs...poo happens.  While I believe 2016 will bring positive changes and more opportunities to reach more for Christ, there will be problems/opportunities/challenges as well.  There are some on the horizon we can already see, some we want to nip in the bud or avoid, but they will be there, as sure as God will be with us through it all, but we are promised that, if not in quite that Biblical phrasing.

It is good to be prepared for such things.  In this case, I was trying to buy the cleaning supplies needed for the clinic this year.  I had one cart very full, leaving me wondering how much I can take?  I had to make a separate trip to fill the cart with the last item on the list, that took up quite a bit of space itself on the big six wheeled cart...80 industrial sized rolls of toilet paper.  As I walked through the store with this impressive quantity of TP, it was a nice time to reflect on that.



I hope we can not be overwhelmed with good, bad or indifferent change, stuck sitting cross-legged on the floor, wondering what time it is, thinking I should have tried to do some more but get up and keep pushing our cart of TP down the aisles of life.