Thanksgiving in Perspective

This list is not in any order other than how it comes to my head tonight...today has felt NOTHING like I remember any Thanksgiving Holiday before...and yet as I head to bed tonight, I have such a keen awareness of how lavishly my Father has loved me.  How much He has given and how abundantly THANKFUL I truly must be.  It's the only valid response.

  

My list of Thankfulness...

1. My children are sleeping under a roof tonight and both have a mosquito net!  It's INCREDIBLE the advantages my children have that SO MANY kids in the world would never dream of having. In so many perspectives I am the "poor missionary", but on a world-wide scale, we are so undescribably wealthy. When and where that benefits my daughters, I am so grateful.  Did you know only 8% of people in the world eat 3 meals a day!  I guess you are probably among the most wealthy on the planet. 

2. Billy shared his presentation and paper at the University of Glasgow today!  He lived!!!  I haven't talked to him yet, but got a text that it was over and received well. Hallelujah! Praise God Forever!!!

3. I was born into a Christian family. So many of my friends out here that are not from out here are LOST. They didn't hear about Jesus as a child, they had no role model within Christianity.  My heart breaks DAILY for the LOST and those from the west especially, because when I see someone who looks like me, I assume they are like me. What a love gift from Jesus that I was born to Blake and Nancy Neff and am a little sister to Jay and Jan. God is so good...so so good. Pray with me for our neighbors and friends who were born into families of other faiths.  We imbibe so much from our parents...we believe so deeply what we were taught was true from birth.  Pray for TRUTH and Salvation.

4. I can read. It's been brought to my attention this week that literacy is a relative term. Each culture decides what constitutes literacy and then tests it among their people. I feel so blessed that I can do more than put and X where it says sign here. I feel so thankful that I don't just have a copy of Scripture, but the Living Word on the page can open up before me and I can meet Him face to face. I thank the Lord that I can read.

5. Technology. What a love gift that we all too often have abused. When Billy travels a few hundred kilometers away into Sudan I NEVER hear from him.  At times for days, weeks...This week he went to a different CONTINENT, not just the country an hour north of my home, but he has texted, called, and emailed. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY and praise Jesus for it!

6. The People Who Pray.  Elsie Jayne often prays for the people that pray. Today as we were getting off of the airplane from Arua to Entebee and Lucy was half asleep and I was trying to tie her on my back and Elsie Jayne was trying to gather our bags three times her body weight. She looked up at me and said I hope the people that pray are praying. Literally two seconds later the pilot of our little flight came up and asked if he should carry Elsie Jayne or the bags!  YOU WERE PRAYING and we are SO THANKFUL FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You have no idea the mountains Jesus moves and the valleys He raises up before us as you are faithful in prayer. THANK YOU!

7. I am thankful that our YHWH, our God is a personal-relational God.  I had a great conversation with a friend this morning as I was packing up and getting the girls and I off for a couple of days of meetings in Kampala.  My friend asked me to share with her why I liked living in Arua. Why I felt peace with living in Africa. I had the opportunity to share with her the story of how the God Who had spoken to Abram, as recorded in Genesis 12, came and spoke to me and asked me to come (through that very text).  Then I got to share with her in the INCREDIBLE MIRACLE that He is still talking and by His grace, I am still listening. It's not a stagnant, commanding dictatorship, but a love relationship and we are more in love today than ever before!  I am thankful for Jesus!
8. I am thankful for growing/developing perspective.  It's interesting...the longer you live in a different culture than the one you were born into the more the "new" culture becomes normal. I think having children out here rather than in the states has been HUGE in this perspective change. Anyway, I am just thankful that I am still learning, still seeing new things.  I am thankful the Spirit still whispers to keep looking.  Perspective is what makes me laugh so often when life and death all around seems unbearable.
9. Packages in the mail. Russ and Connie...THANK YOU! What an incredible surprise love gift!
10. Strawberries from my friend who grows them in ARUA!!!  She gave me plants to start them at my house too. Now Elsie Jayne has her own strawberry shamba (garden in kiswahili). 

11. Making Play-doh African huts with my daughters, and the neighbor kids, and the neighbor kids cousins, and the neighbor kids cousins friends, etc.

12. CLEAN DRINKING WATER and medicine to treat giardia which Lucy has AGAIN!  But we have clean water and we have medicine and I don't carry my water on my head from a bore hole a 1/2 mile away every morning. THANK YOU JESUS!

13. New discoveries!  Today as we were driving in the big city of Kampala the girls both saw new things they don't remember ever seeing before (Surely they saw these both in America, but weren't aware of it then).  Elsie Jayne asked what the boxes were on one particular building down town today.  They were window air conditioning units!!!  What a novelty!  Then we passed a new garden and Lucy pointed out the window shouting WAWA, WAWA, (that would be WATER!, WATER!).  It was a lovely fountain! I'm SO thankful for children to give me eyes to see the world around me afresh. At both points of discovery I was noting the traffic we were stuck in the and aweful smell of exhaust and the heat of the day.  I am thankful for new discoveries today.

14. Pastor Cosmas!  He called a couple of days ago asking if we could pray together as

they were doing an evangelistic outreach in a town not far from his home.  Pray for the Jesus Film showing and for many to be saved! We prayed and he let me know today that two women asked Jesus into their hearts! 
15. Lilian. A sweet lady in a hospital a couple of hours from here. We are friends with her brother, but she asked Jesus into her heart a few days ago when Billy went to visit her!!!
16. Oral Methods of Evangelism and Discipleship.  We don't feel like this is the silver bullet of missions, but we feel like Jesus has given us a key that He is using to unlock His church in our area and we are ellated!!!

17. LIFE! I have been made aware multiple times this week that life is a gift. I so often...even living in a population that the average age is 14 and the expectancy of life is 40 years...I still so often take my life and health for granted. I am thankful for Life and Abundant Life at that!!!  This week I met two one year old twins that looked to be four months. Will you pray for Nemu, their mom? This week my dear dear friend Scovia made 29 years! Praise Jesus for her life! I learned of two suicides this week of men who learned they were HIV positive.  Also a friend had a baby girl...life is precious. I am thankful.