Fall 2010 Prayer Letter

Dear Friends,

     Oh, where to start. First, thanks to all who have prayed and helped during our recent transitions. First, in the early hours of August 4th we welcomed our beautiful daughter, Sofia Grace, into the world. Josiah and Lydia love their new little sister and often clamor to hold her. At almost 2 months old she is quite alert and loves to smile at those around her. For a couple of weeks in July and August we were able to have a nice visit from Jeneson’s Dad. It was great to see him again and the kids had a blast playing with their Appachan.

     On August 15th Sandy and the kids said goodbye to Jeneson as he started the New Orleans part of our adventure. Jeneson developed a friendship with one of the members on his Haiti trip who was gracious enough to let Jeneson stay with him for the first couple of weeks of class. While Jeneson was down South starting classes and searching for our family of 5 to live, Sandy was still north taking care of the three kids and packing of the condo for the move. A special thanks to everybody who provided a meal, watched the kids, and helped pack and load the moving truck. Jeneson flew back up to Chicago from New Orleans on September 3rd and we drove down as a family on the 5th.

     What a whirlwind month and a half it has been! We are now settled in our new apartment in Slidell, Louisiana. The kids have been enjoying the apartment complex pool, finding all the local parks, and going to story time at the local library. Josiah was excited to learn that they have Awana down here and started attending during our second week here. Jeneson is studying hard and learning and enormous amount of information about tropical medicine at Tulane. Sandy is getting to know her way around Slidell and finding the local Walmart, Target, grocery stores and other essential places. We have found a nice local church to attend and are starting to get plugged in with men’s and women’s ministries.

     Things are continuing to progress in Sierra Leone. The hospital construction is continuing and there is now a functional well on the hospital grounds. A few other wells have been completed at some local schools along with more anticipated in the future. The Worrell’s are very close to getting the OK to go to Sierra Leone and continue the well drilling, supervise the hospital construction and facilitate some public health initiatives. Our friend, Dan, just returned from digging wells and is praying about going back the beginning of next year. Currently we have about 50-60% of the monthly pledges needed. Our ability to go depends on people prayerfully pledging to support us on a monthly basis.

     Thanks to all who have lifted us up in prayer these last few months, they were certainly needed and definitely felt. We are still in need of prayers. Please continue to pray for us as we get settled in Louisiana and try to make connections. We know that God has brought us down here and are open to how He will use us down here. Pray for Jeneson as he attends classes and studies hard. Pray for our future; we know that we will be down in New Orleans at least until December, but we are open to the idea of being down here for another semester so that Jeneson can complete his Masters in Public Health, but we also want to be in Sierra Leone as soon as possible. Pray that God will raise up more people to pledge to support us. Pray for the people of Sierra Leone and the work already taking place there. As always, we would love to receive calls or e-mails from you about how we can pray for you and how God is working in your lives.


Blessed,

Jeneson, Sandy, Josiah, Lydia, and Sofia Abraham


Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends. 13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, 13

     This oft quoted scripture is usually heard in the context of a wedding ceremony or when talking about marital relationships. The sermon from last weekend highlighted the fact that this is about agape love not marital love. This sermon really spoke to me and convicted me on how I sometimes interact with my family.
     First and foremost the love expressed here is NOT love the emotion. Emotions are completely unreliable and many times lead us astray. Just think back to how you felt yesterday or last week or last month. How consistent are your emotions? What influences your emotions? How do your emotions effect how you interact and react to others? Yes, we are emotional beings, but our lives, actions, and decisions should not be controlled by our emotions.
     Love is an action verb. From various sources, this type of love can be described as an unconditional, purposeful and deliberate love that is self-less and involves affection, benevolence and concern for the loved one. OK, so this is certainly something that I cannot do on my own and the need for Jesus is obvious.
     The first part of this passage describes how regardless of your strengths and gifts, if you don’t have love your abilities are useless. You can have infinite faith, boundless knowledge, give away all that you have, and the gifts of tongues and prophesy, yet without love they are useless. That is a pretty powerful statement. These are things we pray for and strive for, yet without one little element, love, they have no use for the user or for others.
     I felt most convicted by the second part of the passage. God spoke to me during the sermon that I need to interact with my children and husband in a more loving way. I need to not only watch the words that I say, but HOW I say them and even the words that I don’t say. Love is patient-it goes without saying that I need all the patience I can get with a strong willed 4 years old, an i-want-to-be-independent potty-training 2 year old and a completely dependent 2 month old. I could continue to go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.
     I think verses 7-8a sum it up nicely: 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends. Thanks to a FB friend (thanks Glenda!) I read a quote from D L Moody:
"Joy is love exalted; peace is love in repose; long-suffering is love enduring; gentleness is love in society; goodness is love in action; faith is love on the battlefield; meekness is love in school; and temperance is love in training."

We should strive for the two greatest commandments:
And he [Jesus] said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets"
                         Matthew 22:37-40

Where to start...

My oh my, where to start? So much has happened in these last two months.

First was the arrival of our beautiful daughter Sofia Grace. She quickly entered the world (after just a bit more than 2 hours of labor) at 1:45am on August 4th. At least she was slow enough that my Mom was able to be with Jeneson and I in the delivery room, she made it there about 5 minutes before Sofia was born. She weighed in at 7# 1oz and things went so well with the delivery and afterward that we were discharged that afternoon. It is always better to sleep in your own bed!

Josiah is a great big brother who is always concerned with Sofia's well being, checking on her, making sure she has her pacifier and loves to hold her (even when Sofia is crying). Lydia loves her little sister and, at times, tries to play with her like a doll not realizing that she should be a little more gentle. She just turned 2 months old and is up to 10# 7oz and is quite the smiler and starting to coo. We will have to see if Josiah and Lydia ever stop talking long enough to let Sofia get in a word or two.

Jeneson's Dad was still visiting in the States when Sofia was born so, much to the envy of my mother in law and sister in law, he was able to meet his newest grandchild. We had a wonderful visit with him and he flew back to India on August 10th.

On August 15th Jeneson left for Louisiana. He stayed at a friends house in New Orleans while starting classes and looking for a place for us to live. Meanwhile, I was still up at our condo taking care of the 3 kiddos and trying to get the condo packed up for the move. My MOPS group, our church family and other friends were lifesavers during that time, they made us dinners, watched the older kids and helped with packing. September 2nd some wonderful friends and family helped to load up the moving truck and away it went down to New Orleans. Jeneson flew home on Friday and after spending a weekend at my parents and a final Sunday at Pathway (our church) we headed down South.

The kids were great during the trip (although I am saying this a month afterward, so some mommy amnesia may have kicked in by now ;)) and we arrived at our new place on Labor Day. Our truck arrived a few days later and within a week everything was unpacked and pretty much in place.

Since then we have been getting acclimated to living in the South. The weather was stifling hot and humid for the first couple of weeks until a 'cold front' moved in. Now we have no humidity and temps in the high 70's/low 80's. Beautiful playin' in the park weather.

I think that is enough of an update. I don't want to give you all information overload so I will try to post again in a couple of days. For the meanwhile, here is a picture of our beautiful kids.