My Bubbling Teapot

Our time right now is filled to the brim with: 1. Getting our house and garden ready to be gone for two months. 2. Buying wedding gifts and sewing wedding clothes. 3. Heaping "to take on furlough" things in a corner. 4. Making a photo album to show our friends in America. 5. Sorting through digital pictures of our work here to find the 100 that everyone will want to see on the slide show. 6. Preparing a table, brochures, and other items for our presentations. 7. Finishing up our first school year at Gateway to English. 8. Getting a "safari" made that will cover the school walls for the summer children's English lessons. 9. Brainstorming about what the summer lessons will include and worrying that everything will go smoothly. 10. Spending time in Warsaw with our yearly legal paperwork. Every year there are new wrinkles. 11. Having one precious afternoon and evening for just John and I (Thanks to Lavern and Lolita, our fellow Americans here). 12. Meeting with fri...

Discouragement threatened to overwhelm me. Sunday after Sunday, the empty church chairs seemed to mock us. Were there no searching hearts in this country? This particular Saturday, I was feeling especially blue. Maybe we shouldn't even be here in Poland , I thought bitterly. I sighed. "God," I prayed, "could you please just fill our chairs tomorrow morning at church." Is that too much to ask? I thought to myself. After all, who else would come? When was the last time our church room was full? The next morning, sitting in church, I thought, It seems full this morning. Then I blinked my eyes in surprise. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I looked around. All but ONE very front chair in the whole room had a person sitting on it. "Thank you, God," I prayed. Such a small request, a small answer, but how it strengthened my faith. What a great God I serve. He even cares about our empty church chairs.