Mabuhay

We'll we're here.  Yesterday we flew from Colorado Springs to Dallas.  From Dallas over Nome AK, across the Bering Sea, over the Kamchatka peninsula, down the length of Japan, across the China Sea to  Hong Kong.  After four hours in Hong Kong we flew onto  Manila.  After landing, customs and baggage claim we arrived at our hotel Sound long? Yes it was.

After arriving I have to say we were...well... EXHAUSTED.   We awoke today to Manila.  If you've not been here there's no way for us to explain to you.  So I'll give you  an idea....think sleeping very soundly in a sound proof room, waking up and stepping outside through a door into a beehive made of humans - with motorcycles, tricycles, jeepneys all honking their horns in a friendly "excuse me Sir" .  This city is like kicking over the largest ant hill you've ever seen.

ICAB just called us.  "The boys are soo excited - they keep asking "when will they come?"  Tomorrow the waiting ends.  Praise God the waiting ends.

More Later

The Wortheys

And so...we're off.

Unbelievable and  yet it is our reality.... We're going.

The last few days at least for me have been kind of bewildering....A rush of final preparation, packing and arranging.  Really to the point of too busy,  Too busy to remember and think about the shear size of what God himself is doing. 

Naomi wrote the names of my children on my ankle yesterday...

It's starting to hit me - the magnitude of what God is doing...not only are we adding three beautiful boys to our family....I will baptize my daughter in the Philippines (per her request).  I will explain to her and to the boys what this means.

Before you say "what a great guy" -I have to confess to you that I can't follow the  Lord.  I am a continuous mess up from a religious perspective. I can be shall we say.."rough around the edges...and worse".  But thank God - Jesus himself is not religious...and his atonement paid my bill.   He knows I don't "have this" (or anything else).  I have no place else to go but to the cross... I have to remember that the atonement is really...finished.  I have to remember that Jesus will use me/us not because of me but in spite of me. So no - I'm not worthy -but He is...

This morning I tried to slow down a bit and I opened up my favorite - Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest.  As usual - Oswald nailed the whole thing...

Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to say — “I cannot live a holy life”; but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. “Ye cannot serve the Lord God” — but you can put yourself in the place where God’s Almighty power will come through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you?

“Nay, but we will serve the Lord.” It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment. You say — “But God can never have called me to this, I am too unworthy, it can’t mean me.” It does mean you, and the weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying — “I will serve the Lord.”

We say — “If I really could believe!” The point is — If I really will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. “And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” If we really believed that God meant what He said — what should we be like! Dare I really let God be to me all that He says He will be?  -My Utmost for His Highest, 9 July

I'm going to choose today to really believe - He is all he says he is to me....and more.

We'll keep you posted - we are to add Levi, Josiah and Isaac to our family this Friday  

Marshall

Sinner, Saved by Grace, Acquitted and in His Service