Natal Alegre e Ano Novo Feliz! (Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year)

We have had a pretty busy month since we talked to you last, as we were out of town from Nov. 30th - Dec. 18th for training at the Missionary Training Institute outside of Colorado Springs. We will be sending out a newsletter next month that will give more details about the experience, which was amazing... we want to recommend it to everyone, even if you're not going on the mission field overseas :) Since we have been back, things have been busy with Christmas events and seeing family, so we're thankful to be able to rest these last couple of days and continue processing more of what we learned in CO.

The month of January will be mainly spent support raising as this is the last thing we have now keeping us from leaving for the field. We are at approximately 65% right now and we will be able to leave as soon as we raise at least 85%. We do not have any time constraints for when we need to leave, and will be able to buy our tickets as soon as the support comes in. We're shooting for being in Brazil at the end of February, but we have learned many times before that the Lord's timing isn't always the same as ours, so we're continuing to press into the Lord and wait on Him as we share with others how He is at work in Brazil. We have a couple of invitations to speak in January, but welcome any opportunities to share at small groups, Sunday schools, in churches, or even if you know individuals who would be interested to hear. Thank you to those of you who have spoken on behalf of us to your missions pastors and churches... we have felt so loved by you, our supporters, friends and family!

If you are looking for a ministry that needs your last minute tax-deductible gift for the year 2009, you've got a lot of great options... and we encourage you to give to them with joy! If you would like to make a last minute donation in 2009 to what we'll be doing in Brazil, the easiest way would be to donate through our website at www.themissionsociety.org/people/mersinger. At this time, we are thankful to say that all of our pre-field needs have been met and we are mainly in need of monthly or even yearly commitments, which will get us to and keep us on the field.

Thanks so much for your encouragement throughout this past year! We look forward with excitement for what lies ahead in this coming year!

Peace

The Mersingers
mersingerzoo@gmail.com
941-485-3901
941-234-7321 (Boost Mobile, do I need to say more?)
www.themissionsociety.org/people/mersinger
www.mersingerzoo.blogspot.com

How quickly they grow!

So it has been forever since I've written on here and I'm determined to be better about it... and I started several blogs a month or so ago, but because my life is crazy I never finished them, but I've decided to post them anyways, and from now on I may just post partial postings that I can come back to later, but at least I'm posting them. Thanks for being patient with my ramblings!

OK, this was from right before we left for CO (mid Nov.):

First of all, I think Caleb totally spoke (or sang) prophetically into my life the other day. He was outside on the swingset, playing with Naomi, and out of nowhere started singing a song from the movie, "Joseph, King of Dreams." The words he was singing were as follows:
You know better than I, You know the way. I've let go of the need to know why, 'cause you know better than I.

As he was singing the song, I felt the Lord say to me that He's bringing me to a place where I'm getting a deeper understanding of what that means for my life. For so long I've been questioning why God has been saying "not yet" to me in regards to following my call to become a missionary. In hindsight, I've seen several things that have given me glimpses of why He's kept me here for this time, but it never fails that the next time I think it's time to go and He continues to say "not yet" I get crazy and wonder if I'll ever get on the field.

In thinking over that movie (and reading through the life of Joseph), I was humbled when I try to even compare my life to his. It caught me for the first time that Joseph felt called to great things... he had dreams about God raising him up to do great things and not only did God not do it like Joseph probably imagined, He probably did just the opposite! Thank you, Lord for speaking to me through my 2 year old!

Newsletter

We just finished our summer newsletter and I'm not sure how to upload it onto this blog page, so check it out at our Mission Society page:

http://www.themissionsociety.org/people/mersinger

All of our newsletters are on the top, right hand side of our webpage. Also, if you aren't currently, but would like to be, on our mailing list to receive our fabulous newsletters and other exciting updates from us, just shoot us an email and we'd love to add ya to the list so we can better keep you in the loop. Thanks for reading!

Peace -

Shannon

She's Doing Great!

We wanted to give a comprehensive update of Naomi for those of you who are interested in the whirlwind of "information" that we call modern day healthcare.

Many people have asked us about our thoughts on the spiritual dimensions of what was going on with Naomi. The way that we see it is this: whether she was visibly seeing evil spirits, or simply wigging out because of a medical condition, there was a spiritual assault taking place. We have no problem believing the former, and lean towards that as an assessment. But in either case, the presence of fear, confusion, frustration and discouragement we went through as we approached this issue with deep concern for this precious gift we've been given in Naomi; was wearing us down and challenging us. Thank you all so much for your prayers! We firmly believe that Naomi experienced the power of God and the abundance love of Jesus right in the midst of her struggle.

The pediatrician has ruled out everything from her end. The pediatric neurologist said she is 100% fine and canceled the MRI after getting the results of her EEG. Her blood work showed slightly abnormal levels of testosterone (which was deemed unrelated to the issues at hand) so we were sent for an ultrasound which turned out negative (which is positive, ha). The pediatrician's assessment is that she is fine now and nothing was discovered.

The natural doctor, we had mentioned, believed that she had dealt with some type of virus previously that had caused blockage and buildup of toxins in her lymphatic system. The blood work that was ordered by the pediatrician was also sent to "Dr. Dave" for analysis. He highlighted that the blood work showed that Naomi had been in contact with the Epstein-Barr virus. We assume that the pediatrician didn't mention this because she did not currently have high levels of the virus and that by the age of 40 every person has come into contact with it. Apparently, most children do not experience symptoms other than a slight fever. However, some children do experience extreme fatigue, confusion, and some of the other symptoms that Naomi was experiencing physically. His assessment was that this was the initial infection that led to the backage in her lymphatic system. Within three days of taking the supplements that he gave us her symptoms were gone and her "big boob" began to become a normal boob (which is kind of sad to us in some sense, like if Nemo's fin became normal it wouldn't be his lucky fin anymore).

The bottom line is that Naomi is her self again. She has so much energy again, she has barely napped for the past month. Some of it is her age, but we think some of it has been her going from being exhausted all of the time, to feeling better and having her energy back. She still doesn't like to talk about the "things she saw". Some of ya'll have suggested us asking her to draw pictures and get it in the open so that she will talk about it. We still think it's a good idea and we tried to employ it; but she was very clear with us that she doesn't want to or need to do that. She said "Jesus took care of it guys, and I don't need to talk about it anymore!" She has quite a personality, thank you all again for your prayers and encouragement!!!

My Sly Naomi

God only knows how Shannon and I managed to bring about such a girly daughter. Her Grammy and Aunt Jackie have to take some of the blame, but she was like this even while we were in Kentucky. We try to encourage who she is, but sometimes we don't know how to take it. She is constantly wanting to change her clothes and wear dress after dress like she's in a fashion show. Admittedly, we need to find some balance between her desire and our habit of keeping her in the same outfit for two or three days. We hate laundry and consider clothes to be "dirty" long past what is conventional. However, we have laid down strong rules about how often Naomi "needs" to change her clothes, and every five minutes will no longer cut it. Even so, she knows how to pull my strings.

Last Thursday, we were planning to leave for Orlando, after getting over some illness. Naomi had been dressed, we were almost all packed, and out she comes running with a skirt. She looks at me and says, "Daddy, can I put this beautiful skirt on?" I tell her that she can't because she's already dressed and we're going to leave and she shouldn't wear a skirt with a dress anyways. She runs past me to ask Shannon (a new habit that we are stamping out). Shannon disciplines her and she comes, apologizes to me, and disappears back into the bedroom.

Five minutes later she comes out laughing and jumping. She has blue shorts on with her dress. She looks up at me, bats her eyes, and says "Daddy, look at my cute, new shorts!" I just stare hard at her in disbelief. She did kind of work around what I told her, but I was so disappointed. Her ear to ear smile starts to lose its form and she gets this look of confusion. She looks over at Shannon for some explanation. Shannon tells her that maybe she should ask me what the problem is. So, slowly, she turns to look at me and says "Daddy, what is the problem?" I ask her "Naomi, what do you think the problem is?" Her eyes well up with tears, her lip droops, and ever so sadly she looks into my eyes and says "you don't like my new shorts?"

I tried so hard, to keep my composure, to not laugh, to make a point to her, but I couldn't. Shannon was rolling in her chair trying to hold her laugh in and she broke once I finally did. Naomi kind of looks around confused then starts to chuckle her maniac chuckle. It's only a matter of time before she's sly enough to do that type of thing on purpose without the tinge of innocence.

Suffering For Jesus

As I've sat at my laptop for the past couple of weeks burning my DVD collection onto a 5 inch by 3 inch 500 Gigabyte external hard drive that will travel in my pocket, I've had to contemplate what I'm sacrificing to be a missionary. For the past couple of years my life has been dominated largely by missionary biographies; Bruchko, Jim Elliot, E. Stanley Jones, Amy Carmichael, Don Richardson, and others. Their stories have inspired me and allowed me to dream of all that God might have in store for me as I prepare to serve Him abroad. Coupled with this backdrop is our experiences on the support raising trail of so many encouraging brothers and sisters in Christ that continue to affirm all that we're giving up to follow out this hard and challenging calling upon our lives. But as the grind speeds up and our time comes nearer, my dreams and expectations have confronted a reality that looks very different. This has led me to two interesting assumptions that I want to share.

The first is that the world has changed. When we travel to the field it isn't on a boat or by camel, but on an airplane with an in-flight movie. It's not first class, but I've never hopped that route so I don't know what I'm missing. We get off the plane in our "undeveloped country location" and see kids walking with I-pods and indigenous business people with laptops. I don't mean to minimize the intense poverty in so many parts of the world at all, but I can't help but notice that even in the poorest places things are different. Globalization has changed the world, in some ways good, in some ways bad, in other ways yet to be determined. Many places still lack the basic necessities to survive, but as for the place that God has called us to, we'll have running water, electric, and I won't have to wipe with my hand (thank you Jesus)!

Many people who know us well have mentioned the simplicity with which we live our lives. We do in part live this way out of a sense of calling, but if I'm to be honest, much of how we live is because we're cheap and frugal. It's possible for simplicity to be a mask for frugality, but I hope and believe that by the grace of God, He's taught us to be giving and generous also so that even our cheapness can be redeemed and our frugality given a Kingdom purpose. However, in a significant way, our lifestyle only makes traveling abroad easier on us and less of a sacrifice.

The only real sacrifice that I could think of was the physical distance created in our departing. Taking my kids away from their grandparents breaks my heart. I dreamed of having Gramps and Grammy, Grandpa and Grandma shouting at Caleb's ballets and concerts and Naomi's wrestling matches. I got that mixed up, sorry, HA! In all seriousness, it's hard to envision missing out on Caleb's first T-ball swing and watching Grammy shout louder than everyone else in the stands. The reality is that Caleb probably won't play T-ball, but football, and not my favorite kind of football either (yet, anyways). There may not be uniforms, or referees, and competitiveness in South America might be such that the score doesn't matter. I don't know what it will look like, but I know that many of my hopes and dreams are held in check. On the other hand, we have Skype. It's no substitute for a shoulder massage from Grandma over cookies and milk with the smell of Grandpa's cooking lingering in the kitchen. But they won't grow up clueless about their family back home. A relationship can be maintained even if the conditions aren't ideal. So even in this area of sacrifice there is comfort available that was unthinkable previously.

I'm sure there are things unthought of and undiscovered. There are pains that await us that we have not considered. I don't want to minimize the challenges that so many face in following out their calling abroad, but I don't want to trump up some idealized notion of us preparing to go and suffer greatly for Jesus. This leads to my second assumption.

My second assumption is that for all that has changed, there is a common calling that runs deeper than external issues of comfort and familiarity. I assume that if you had asked Jim Elliot what it was like suffering for Jesus, he would've spoken with nothing but great joy over the calling God had given him. Like Paul, so many of them counted all things as loss so they might gain Christ. In the end perhaps all of these things that seem like sacrifice and seem so difficult, are just superficial trimmings that mean little when we find ourselves walking in obedience to the Call. Though many who went before us paid dearly, with their lives even, to carry the gospel abroad; most of them lived lives of such intense purpose that they could have had no greater joy than to engage in the work set before them.

For a long time, I found my identity in being one who was willing to suffer. Over the past few years, I have been led by the Lord to find my identity solely in being His Son. In being a child of the King who is willing to live my life by the values of the Kingdom in the place and way He has prepared for me. I WAS CREATED FOR THIS! Shannon was created for this!! Naomi and Caleb were created for this!!! I'm sure there will be blogs down the road that share griefs, struggles, heartaches, and even suffering. But they won't be the icing on the top, they won't even be part of the cake. They are the tears that will be wiped away and remembered no more. What will last will be the excitement over the race that we're running, and eventually it's completion.