It was a beautiful, early morning in June and the cheerful sounds of my one year old thump-thumping down the stairs caused me to cease my vain attempts at getting just a little more sleep. I would say I sat up and swung my feet over the edge of the bed, but the process of sitting up was arduous — I was seven months pregnant with twins, and the adjectives “slow” and “painful” applied to nearly every movement.
Raucous laughter and pulsating music resounded through the crowded, chaotic street. Eric tried to keep his fellow missionaries in sight as hundreds of drunken revelers surged around them on all sides. Eric (who later became my husband) was 23, and this was one of his first missionary assignments — doing street evangelism on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras — and he was not at all comfortable being there.
When I was about 13 years old, I attended a worship service that included a powerful song about the love of God. As the words of the song echoed through the church, I suddenly had the clear realization that God could have chosen to let humanity go and never have tried to redeem them.
Several decades ago at a gathering of Christian believers in Ethiopia, hundreds of believers were challenged to send someone from among them to reach the unreached tribes in their country with the Gospel; tribes where nobody else had been able to go for generations.
I was nervous about the day’s events. I gave my husband a hug before I left the house with his reassurance that, truly, everything was going to be just fine. Even on the short drive, I could only imagine how horrible it was going to be. As I pulled up at my destination, eyeing it with fear, I knew there was no avoiding it. No matter what…
The sound of humming lawnmowers and the carefree laughter of children playing could be heard throughout the neighborhood on that summer afternoon as I excitedly cut through backyards in an effort to reach my house as quickly as possible
As I have studied Amy Carmichael’s astounding rescue work, marked by such a dauntless commitment to seek and save the lost, I am continually reminded of the night when God seemed to pose the question, “What if that were Hudson?”
When our first child, Hudson, was four years old, Eric and I had a memorable conversation with a missionary who worked in an extremely corrupt and destitute part of the world. Thousands of children were dying everyday from starvation and neglect in the country where she served. She told us about a little boy who was just about our Hudson’s age.
I hopped on my Instagram one morning a few months ago to reply to some messages and make a post. As I did, I inadvertently noticed a piece of information about my account that was rather surprising and discouraging. Huh. That’s strange, I thought to myself as I closed the app and moved on to getting ready for the day.