Our Visit from Natal...and Self-Evaluation

Recently we were blessed with a visit from our friend who lives in Natal, Brazil--that's where we lived when Ben was born. Cris is an American who started out teaching English there with Let's Start Talking (LST) and ended up staying as a full-time missionary. She came through our neck of the woods on furlough. We had lunch and hung out all afternoon talking about life, much like we did in Brazil. 

We learned some things about our time in Natal through our conversation with Cris. For one thing, even though we lived in the same city and went to the same church for eighteen months, she never quite understood what happened with my pregnancy with Ben and why we left Natal. Because that was due in large part to our lack of communication, I'm guessing you don't understand it either, so allow me to put it in a nutshell.

I had a liver condition called cholestasis of pregnancy which caused me to itch until I scratched my skin off in certain places. I was in so much pain physically and emotionally that I wasn't at church much, which may be why nobody knew what I was going through. More importantly, the condition endangered Ben's life to the point that we had to induce labor a couple of weeks early. After he was born, he was severely jaundiced and we had a very tough time getting him the medical attention he needed. Despite the church doing all they knew to help us, I was depressed and went on a prayer campaign asking God to get me out of what felt like a pot of water that was slowly approaching a boil. He did that when we got a phone call two days before we were scheduled to leave for furlough. The call was from a man representing a small Brazilian church plant effort just north of Miami. They were looking for an American missionary in Brazil who might be willing to move to Florida to work with their church. It just so happened we were going to be minutes from them during our first stop on furlough--yes, really. As it turned out, we moved to Florida soon after that furlough and that meeting. It was an answer to my prayers.

Maybe it was short-sighted on my part to pray the way I did. Maybe it was faithless or weak. I'm willing to admit I'm quite imperfect. But I believe God worked it out to his advantage. We went to Florida with every intention of working with an existing Brazilian church but ended up with a house church, all in English. We made lots of mistakes and could have done much better, but we do have six new brothers and sisters in Christ as a result of our time in Florida. Also, being in the States put us in a much better position to come to Texas when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Cris was happy to report that the church in Natal is doing very well and that part of that success can be directly attributed to some of the people John baptized and the seeds of evangelism that he planted. While I was busy being sick, John was busy teaching people about Jesus. I have a hunch Satan wasn't happy about that and had something to do with my condition and state of mind. So, if you never quite knew the real story behind how we got from Natal to Texas, I hope this helps. Cris said it helped her. Obviously, there's a lot more to it, but I won't bore you with all the details--unless you ask.

Here's a link to the blog Cris writes about her work in Natal: http://crisinbrazil.blogspot.com. Take a minute to check it out and leave her a comment. Encouragement is a valuable commodity to a missionary.