the longer version

Big changes coming for us

Dear Friends and Family,

To those who bend your knees and lift us and our people up before God:  There are lots of changes coming up for our family and our people.

Toward the end of last November, while I (James) was praying I felt like I heard God say that our family had one year left here, and with that He impressed upon us some people to focus on this year. Since then we have prayed to confirm I had really heard Him correctly.  During the last year we also asked Him and asked for counsel from others about how to make our lives more sustainable here, yet that didn't seem to be the answer He gave. 

During October, Jill and I finally got a few days away to talk, pray and, think without the interruptions of normal daily life and we believe He is leading us back to the States.  We'll move back to America in the mid-December.

I know for most of you this news is sudden and might seem pretty quick, but for us it is something we have been praying about and processing for about a year. It doesn’t make it any easier in terms of leaving.  Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of things about being in the states we are excited about. However, at the same time we feel deeply that the work here needs more boots on the ground.  Over the last few months, God has shown us a number of things about the work.  One being the need to raise up prayer and raise up more specific prayer for our people.  He has also opened up training, mentoring, and encouraging opportunities with different churches here. 

We are sad to be leaving. We are sad to say goodbye to all of our friends and co-laborers. There are those we have discipled and encouraged in their walks of following Jesus.  There are our friends who continue to be separated from a relationship with God.  There are all those people around us we do not know, but that we brush up with, walk past, or see on a daily basis who are still living in slavery to sin, not knowing that Jesus has already paid the price for them.

In the States we are excited about being closer to family and friends. We are excited about access to better medical care. We’re excited about being perfectly fluent again. 😊 We’re also excited about whatever God has for us in the States… although at the moment of writing we are not entirely sure what that will be.  However, we do believe God is calling us back to the States for a reason.  (Without a purpose, it’s hard to see why He would remove us from here.  We may not be the greatest cross-cultural workers in the world, but we are here, and we are willing to stay if He wants us to.)  We do not know what His plans are, but we believe it will still involve making disciples of all nations.

We wanted to tell you sooner, but obviously our list of daily tasks is longer than usual with closing out everything on this side of the world. Also, our internet has been sporadic and slowed down in conjunction with China's biggest leadership meeting last month, so even the days we wanted to write, we weren't able. 

We appreciate all your prayers for us over the years, and we ask that you continue to pray for us and with us as we make this transition.  Pray especially for our girls as they are processing what it means to move to America.  (Sometimes countries, cities, and continents get all mixed up for them and they are having a hard time processing exactly what that will mean to move and not come back in a few months.)

We also ask that you continue to pray for the people here and the work going on among them.  Pray that God will send fresh eyes and fresh energy to replace us.  The field is white with harvest… pray that God will send out workers into His harvest field.  (Are you one of them?)

Pray also for our co-laborers who are remaining behind.  Often it is lonely work, and when someone leaves it often feels like their presence has been replaced with a big hole.  Pray that God would give them assurance and that God would send us all new workers.

I Need Thee Every Hour

1. 
   

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

Refrain:

I need thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior,

I come to Thee

In the months before we returned to the States, I started almost every morning with the exact same prayer/thought: I NEED YOU, LORD!

James and I keep talking about how exactly we got in to the situation of being as over-extended as we were. We can pin-point the time frame where we began feeling like we were doing too much, but we weren't as clear exactly about which task/responsibility was the one that made our lives feel insurmountable.

I remember last fall a church member asking me how I was doing. My answer was that I was hanging on by a thread and that the thread had better be Jesus because all of me was finished somewhere in May/June. (my abilities, my self-reliance, my China experience, my time-management skills, my parenting....I was at the end of all of them)

While I don't recommend anyone putting themselves in the situation we were in with responsibilities, the constant remind that I need Him was a really good place to be. A dear friend here was telling me the story of telling her friends back home that she likes to listen to and sing this song while in the fetal position. "And they mostly thought I was joking," she said. But I knew she wasn't kidding. There are many aspects of life here that bring us to our knees, or to the the fetal position, or to collapsing into a ball of big ugly cry sobs on one's kitchen floor.

Since the fall and especially during our time away in the States, we've been trying to make changes to reign in our lives and our schedules. And we're doing much better overall. But I don't want to change my utter dependence on Him.

It's easy to see and admit my need for Him in the crying-on-the-kitchen-floor moments, but less easy when I can rely on my language skills, or my intelligence, or long experience here, or whatever. I want to be able to recognize my need for Him at all the moments in between utter despair and total self-reliance.

This year, one of the things I'm studying in the Bible is all the times the phrase "He is able" or "God is able" is used.

This week I was in 2 Cor. 9:8

And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.


I read this one of the days our heat was out, after the water has been out an entire day and the space heater we were using had just died and we weren't sure when the heat would come back on. It was a great reminder that I NEED HIM to make grace overflow. I can't do that on my own. He did indeed make grace overflow. He changed my attitude about the day and gave us everything we needed. The heat even turned on later that day. But even if it hadn't (more so if it hadn't!) I would have had to go back to my prayer, "I need you, Lord!" I need you to make grace overflow! I need you!

a friend's birthday party

Catherine and I attended the 6th birthday of her closest local friend. Below you can find a video of the kids singing "Happy Birthday." Only the last few words of the minority language were recorded, the remainder is in Chinese. 

I wrote in our newsletter about a sweet encounter Catherine and her friend, Shiny, had along the way. Aside from the spiritual implications of their conversation, it's also just really good for our girls to have friends and be able to interact normally with local kids. 

After the party, the mom wrote me a heartfelt message thanking me for being so willing to help her manage the kids during the games (who said being a recreation major had no purpose). 

I'll be honest. She didn't invite us to the party until the day of the party. It was already a stretch to make it work for Catherine and I to go (James had to be able to be home early from work to keep the other girls) and I wasn't exactly "excited" about being asked to help with the games with such short notice. And then there was the problem of the gift. I wasn't going to have time to go out to a store to buy and gift and an afternoon's time wasn't enough to make something so I was left scrambling around our house to find something still wrapped up that a now-six-year-old girl might like. I found a light-up snowman from last Christmas, a cross necklace left over from some gifts we brought from US to China our previous trip back, and a chap stick. I might have found some candy too. With a few hours notice, it would have to do. 

In addition to thanking me for helping with the games, she said that Shiny loved the necklace and sent me this picture of her wearing it to bed that night. Then she told me that after they finish this current busy season she'd like my help to know how to teach her two girls the stories of the Bible. I was so humbled that the Father could use the gift that I put so little no thought into to work in potentially bringing His word and His stories to this family. And that He would do so and allow me some role despite my grumbling attitude about the situation. 

While I'm writing....when we met this girl in January of 2016, her English name was Tiny. Sometime this summer, she decided that she was no longer "tiny" and told her mom she wanted a new English name and they decided on Shiny. About this time, Catherine also became acquainted with the story of God changing Saul's name to Paul. She, too, then needed a name change and started the third session of our homeschool asking everyone to call her Katie. Then, after arriving back in the States when she lost her first tooth, she decided she needed another name change. Since then she's been asking most people we meet to call her Tiny. 

Ann, on the other hand pretends to be a cat most of day, almost every day, but that is another topic for another day. 

Catherine and Ann say thank you

Advent 2015

Last year my mother in law gifted us an Advent calendar and a box of prepared activities for the Christmas season. This year I wanted to do similar things but I know myself well enough to now that if I don't have it planned out in advance, it won't happen. Here's what we plan to do. I also know that there will be days that we miss, skip, or re-arrange. (Grace, people!) Feel free to use parts or all of this as it suits you. A few of the activities were left over from what we skipped/didn't get to last year. Many come from this blog  written by a friend of a friend, although we will only use the countries/cultures that have current meaning to our family.


 

Judd Advent Activities 2015

Date	Devotional	Fun	For others
1 Tuesday	TCM: Israel/Jerusalem	Advent party	Invite a friend
2 Wed		Hang stockings	Make/decorate a stocking to give away
3 Thurs		Make ornaments (photo below	Give some away
4 Fri		New puzzle	Hug in the mail (photo below)
5 Sat		Movement cards	Make a set to give away
6 Sun	WGWFC 1
7	WGWFC 2	Make Cookies	Share with neighbors
8	WGWFC 3	Bird feeder
9	WGWFC 4	Spiced dough ornaments (Photo below)
10	WGWFC 5	Make Cider
11	WGWFC 6	Take family photos
12	WGWFC 7	Ride yao yao che	Leave money for next child
13 Sun	Germany (Dec6)	Play packs	Invite German friend for dinner
14	India (Dec 2)	Indian food	Pray for M&A family
15		Play dough	Make some for schoolgirls
16	Nepal B’s and D	Give new stamps	Make cards for neighbors
17	Mongolia	Talk about our giving to developmental center
18	Prepare manger scene	Learn character’s names in Chinese	Tell the story to the school girls
19		Paint nails
20  Sun	France Dec 20 Tyson
21		Make cards	Give cards to service people (water man, dry cleaners, Qimuge, Wuye)
22	Ecuador Dec 22		Call Jeremiah
23	USA Dec 23		Call relatives/friends
24			Apples for neighbors
25	CHRISTMAS!

Most activities have links that provide attribution to the original author. For the photos above, they were given to me by mother in law. If you are the owner/author of these documents, please contact me and I will happily give you proper attribution.