Desert bloom…

Isaiah 35:1

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose and the autumn crocus.

By my prayer bench at home is my Operation World book, my reminder to pray for an unreached tribe in Sudan, my notebook filled with requests and prayer reminders.  All too often, it all seems so dry and lifeless when I actually kneel to pray for these nations, these people, I have never, probably will never, see. 

I open the door to my house and at the end of my block is an apartment complex where the majority of the tenants are immigrants from Eastern Europe.  On my walking route around the neighborhood, more often than not, the people I meet speak English as their secondary, not primary, language.  Their native tongue may be Russian, Romanian, Spanish, Vietnamese…so many nations, right here in my neighborhood.

I drive down my usual habit-trail to the grocery store, where in the line in front of me, a family from Ethiopia, still clothed in their native clothing and speaking their native tongue, pays for their groceries. 

On vacation in Palm Springs, this oasis carved out of the desert, my husband and I drive in the rental car, we listen to a cd from the International House of Prayer as they are praying about child sex trafficking.  They are doing more than praying, they are doing acts of intercession…getting involved to stop this horrible thing.  Portland, my city, has one of the worst problems with child sex trafficking in the nation.  Here, on vacation, we both cry as we listen.

Like the desert, God is watering my dry heart, and causing something to blossom.  The nations are right outside my door now.  The problem of child trafficking is staring me in the face.  A blossom is beginning to open in my heart.  The bud of an idea, that somehow, someway, I can help make a difference.  I made a difference in the life of one brown skinned little baby girl years ago.  It’s time.  Time to try again.

Still following,

Elizabeth