One day this question popped in my head when Justin and I were running. WHO do I choose to love? I celebrated my 32nd birthday last week and it seems to be a natural time to reflect on your life and where you are in life. I couldn’t quit thinking about this question. WHO am I choosing to love? As I reflect on my life it seems that for the past 31 years of my life I have chosen to love ME over loving my Creator…my GOD! I see this choice in the way I spend my thoughts, my emotions, my time, my money…most everything points to the fact that I have not chosen to lose myself and LOVE GOD! So, as I talk to God about this, He keeps kindly & gently showing me things in my life that I must lay down in order to genuinely LOVE HIM alone. No claims on my life, my comfort, my dreams, my expectations…laying it all down in order to CHOOSE to love HIM. He has also shown me some things that are on His heart that He desires for me to pick up and carry with Him. I have realized that I have spent so much time loving myself that I have been desensitized to the things that break God’s heart! People ALL around me that desperately NEED Him! I can see so clearly these days how satan steals and destroys so much in our lives by tempting us to love ourselves and hold on to things that are not ours to begin with. I have felt SO MUCH freedom and abundance in my heart the past week or so as I am walking with the Lord in learning how to lose myself and LOVE HIM! It is hard and it hurts, but God brings so much ABUNDANCE in our hearts when we finally surrender…daily…minute by minute! I know one day I am going to get to see my Jesus face-to-face…all of the things that seem to fill up my heart and mind will seem so meaningless in His presence. I am trusting Him to walk with me and teach me how to CHOOSE to love Him…not myself. So, when I stand before Him I can honestly say that I spent my life loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength…and as an overflow of that love, I loved my neighbor as myself! Whew! What FREEDOM!
Jaxon started school a few weeks ago…Here are a few pics of this big milestone!
This is how I have been feeling all week long. We came home from Romania on Sunday. I think back to May and it seems like we have literally been around the world and back again. Not just because we traveled to so many different places, but God has let us experience so many different “worlds”. We have had a pivotal summer…because of things we have been able to experience and places we have gone, but mostly because of what God is doing in our hearts. I could write all day about this summer, but it seems like so many things God has been working in us came to a climax because of our trip to Romania and an amazing book we read on our way home. So, here we go…
our team in Bucharest
Us visiting the citadel in Sighisoara...this citadel is the only citadel in Europe where people still live!
We left Austin Friday, August 21st to fly to Romania. We met up with our new friends, Kenny, Sarah & Glenn to go on a 9 day adventure. After 3 legs of flying & a 5 hour van ride we arrived in Sighisoara, Romania late Saturday night. We were blessed to spend the day Sunday worshiping with our new friends, eating some good food & resting up a bit from the long trip. Monday the fun began! We had 50 gypsy friends from 5 different villages come to have youth camp with us! If you don’t know much about gypsies they are originally from India, but have been in eastern Europe for a while now. They are BEAUTIFUL people with A LOT of life and energy. They like to celebrate and always have a song to sing…especially the girls! They have strength, courage & resourcefulness like I have never seen. They live in desperate poverty & are disliked by the Romanian people. It was fun to be a part of loving these kids with some Romanian brothers and sisters who are giving themselves to love the gypsies when the rest of their world does not want to have anything to do with them! We learned a lot from their love for the gypsies and how they are sacrificing to help them!
This is a gypsy village we were able to visit
some of the kids...they were happy because we just gave them a big handful of candy!
a "playgroup" in the village...sure looks a lot different than here!
washing their clothes in the ditch
Pastor Florin and the bread oven his church has built in the village church to make bread for their gypsy friends during the cold winter months...opening many doors for them to share the LOVE of Jesus!
The basement of the village church that they want to make into a soup kitchen...just waiting on God to provide the money!
O.k. back to our week at camp. God put together a GREAT team…translators, cooks, helpers & all our friends from Austin! We had 4 small groups that we did Bible study with about 3 times a day and then twice a day we had a worship service. All the other time during the day we were either playing, eating or sleeping. Justin had the younger guys who were 10 – 12 years old, but in maturity
Justin & Andre'
and size they were about 6 – 8 years old. He had to share short and sweet tidbits of the Gospel because these guys did not want to sit still long! He did get to lead one of the boys, Andre’, to start a relationship with Jesus. YEAH!!! Kenny had the older boys and 12 of the 13 guys in his group chose to start a relationship with Jesus! Sarah had the younger girls, who also had a hard time sitting still. She had some great opportunity to use situations that came up to teach them about the Gospel. I had the older girls…14 of them, ages 14 and older. They were great…always listened intently, but shy when it came to spiritual conversations. We had to use translators, which was fun because WE LOVED our translators! But, hard because we couldn’t just hang out and get to know the kids. We always had to have a translator nearby. We each had a translator that helped us during our small group time. This was a great way for the our Romanian friends to really get to know what was happening with these kids spiritually. Worship services were interesting because the kids did not have long attention spans & we had to use translators. They did LOVE to sing, though! Justin did a great job explaining each song and going over it line by line. They were actually quite good at singing in English. They also
my girls
taught us some Romanian worship songs too, which usually had hand motions! These kids were so fun to get to know and just watch. One thing that I quickly learned was that they could find food anywhere! They found wild grapes, pears, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds. It was AMAZING! They know how to survive! They were happy with 2 swings, 2 ping pong tables, a tire swing & a soccerball. One of my favorite things we did was on Wednesday. We were going to have a bonfire that night and needed some wood for the fire, so they sent the kids to get some wood. As soon as the kids heard, they were so excited to go to the woods and find some wood. We walked about 1/2 a mile and up a big hill to the edge of the woods. We all hung out for a while..eating hazelnuts & sunflower seeds, picking flowers and just enjoying the view. No one told the kids what to do, they just started gathering branches from the woods and slowly everyone had one to carry back and we all went back to the camp. You have to see a few pics!
starting up the big hill
quick pic at the top of the hill
WHAT A VIEW! The big steeple is right next to where we are staying
I don't care where you are girls like to pick flowers...yes...those are wild flowers!
The camp was over on Thursday after lunch and, boy, were we tired…and REALLY ready for a hot shower! Did I mention that they didn’t really have running water the whole time we were there, so most of us had not taken a shower since Monday! There was a shower outside beside the outhouse that had sheets around it. I was not brave enough to go on that adventure, but Justin did a couple of times! I was quite impressed! Everyone involved felt like the camp was a success! Sabin & Florin, our Romanian pastors, are already planning with Kenny to have another camp next summer! This camp was meant to be an experiment to see if it could work. Now, next summer we will know what worked and what needs to be tweaked. Here is a short video of the kids singing a song in English that they taught us.
We finished up our trip hanging in Sighisoara for a night and then off to Bucharest. In Bucharest we did some sightseeing, eating & debriefing. On the first leg of the trip Justin finished a book called Crazy Love. When he finished it, he told me he wanted me to read it before we got home.
the whole Romanian crew!
these girls were my camp roomies! Sarah was my team mate from Austin & Diana was one of our translators. She was born in Romania and moved to Austria when she was 3. What GREAT girls!
He wanted to talk about it when we got home. I couldn’t wait to read it because he was so stirred up about. We had been talking about all we had seen and experienced. We had been asking God what do we do with all of this? Being in the midst of so much poverty had really put some things in perspective for us and we were not quite sure what to do with it. We have SO MUCH! From material things, to amazing families & friends, to endless supplies of things to help us deepen our walk with the Lord, to good health, to a fun, healthy marriage, to an AMAZING son…I mean seriously! And I struggle because God is not giving me more…or because He is not giving it to me fast enough! We have been faced with some questions, “How much are we sacrificing with our time, money, desires, comforts, possessions in order to more fully love our God with all our heart, soul & mind…and tangibly love others as ourself, so they will desire to love God with everything?” “Are we making decisions based on the wisdom of the world or the foolishness of Christ?” “Are we giving God room in our lives to be big, or do we have everything figured out and planned for?” “If we are honest with ourselves do we love ourselves more than we love God? What do our choices about time, money, comforts, etc show about our love for ourselves and our love for God?” YOW!!! These are HARD questions that we are struggling through…seeking God about…straining our ears and hearts to hear what He wants for US! Everyone’s story is different! We are asking God to show us in our day-to-day lives how we can live more for ETERNITY and less for the here & now comforts that seem to so easily steal our hearts away. Reading Crazy Love on the way home helped us put our minds around some of the things we felt like God was trying to teach us. We are having some good, hard conversations and prayer times as we learn more and more what it means to love God with EVERYTHING!
I want to leave you with a video of a couple we met when we were visiting one of the gypsy villages. From what we could understand of their story it went like this: The husband was a successful musician who came to know the Lord about 7 years ago. Because of his new faith, he chose not to play professionally anymore. The types of places he was able to find gigs in were not going to work if he was going to follow Christ. Since then his health has suffered, so he has been out of work for about 7 years. His wife is working, but just doesn’t make much. They have, I believe 3 adults and 2 kids living in their small house. The wife said she would go out in the forest close to their house and find ruffage to make salads for their dinners! They are faithful to the village church. We went to their house with Florin and they wanted to sing us a song, Amazing Grace.
They sang Amazing Grace as they wait on God to provide their basic needs. What a beautiful picture of what He wants our lives to be…loving Him as He takes joy in meeting our every need!
Jana has been asking me to do a post on our trip to Jordan a few weeks ago. It wasn’t until just a day or two ago that I felt like I had processed it enough to adequately put into words all that I had experienced. We spent 15 days in Jordan, the first three in Amman, and the rest of the time was spent in a city in the southern region called Wadi Mosa (Valley of Moses). We didn’t know much about what we would be doing, so our expectations were pretty vague. We knew we would do lots of praying, and lots of relationship development (hanging out with people).
Jordan is 96% Muslim, so people are familiar with Jesus as a prophet, but not as a Savior. This was something that I was nervous about going in. I felt inadequate in the fact that many of these people have memorized the Qur’an, and I haven’t quite got the Bible down just yet. I had a conversation with my dad about that before we left, and he reminded me that the Holy Spirit is bigger than that. He was right. I feel like we did more communing with the Holy Spirit and more intercession on behalf of people we had met than I’d ever done on a trip before. In fact, I think that God taught me more about the importance of prayer on this trip than anything else.
The guys and I get to be a part of “the harvest” a lot. We are blessed to get to be a part of kids giving their lives to the Lord, and it’s amazing. However, we don’t get to be a part of the process leading up to that point very often. In our prayer walking and praying silently for the people we had dinner with, conversations with, or even cab rides from, I learned how important it is to plow the ground before it’s sown, and how important it is to sow the seed before the harvest. The harvest gets a lot of attention from our churches. It’s celebrated… and it should be. But what we often forget are the people and their prayers that come before that. It was humbling and character-building to be a part of that process. I think it has helped me view people (and how I pray for people) differently.
This was my third trip overseas and I think every time I go, I realize it more and more: I have so much… Americans have so much. Most of the world does not live like we do, and I often take that for granted until I’m faced with a filthy two year old boy selling rocks to tourists on the trail at Petra. I was told by one of our hosts, that a Bedouin family with a herd of goats, can easily live off of 15 denar a month (about $21). There was most certainly wealth there. The Mercedes Benz was the car of choice, but there was also poverty. It’s hard for me to sit here on my laptop with wireless internet, in my air conditioned house and adequately describe what I was feeling when I encountered it, but poverty was there.
I think that if I choose to love, I inherently choose to live differently. It’s not necessarily a switch that I can turn on, but more of a process of learning what I really need, and what I selfishly want. I’m learning. I’m figuring out that living in communion with God and people requires me to think above and beyond what the world tells me that should be. Being around people who have a different value system than you do certainly helps bring a different perspective.
We ate our fill of falafel & humus, rode camels, and camped in the desert where David hid from Saul. It was an incredible 15 days. I can’t wait to go back someday!
Justin uploaded a video on our youtube account of him and Kyle riding a camel in Jordan. They are having a great trip…getting to meet lots of wonderful Jordanian friends, eating good food, seeing some amazing things! Keep them in your prayers as they finish up their time there!
We have had SO MUCH fun this summer! Since our last post, we have been to Wichita Falls with FBC Garland & Abilene for Super Summer. What GREAT weeks! Our highlights have definitely been all the GREAT friends we have met and reconnected with and all of the fun times celebrating Jesus! God has been on the move in our lives this summer and we are having fun being a part of the adventure! God has even provided for Jax the last two weeks with 2 new friends, who are both named Ethan! What a GREAT treat for him! It is a blessing for him to get to have dudes around his age to play with while we are gone! We have been totally blown away by the generosity of all the folks at camp wanting to be a part of our journey with Mae! Thank you to all of you who have bought shirts and been encouraging to us! We are SO thankful God has blessed us with you guys! I took several great videos of our time at camp….ENJOY! You can check out some fun pics of camp on Jana’s facebook page!
Jaxon enjoys entertaining everyone in the car…here are a few of his jokes
Jax wants to be just like his dad…it is fun to watch!
The Beatles are a favorite in the Cofield house…here is Jax’s rendition of “Love Me Do”.
This one is a bit dark, but SO CUTE of Jax and Ethan jammin’ out to JCB behind stage!
JCB rockin’ out at super summer to finish up with!
Please be praying for us over the next couple of weeks! Justin, Kyle, Aaron & Ashley leave to go to Jordan on Monday and will be gone for 2 weeks! Asking for Father to do AMAZING things in and through them! Stay posted and we will have some pics and videos of their trip!
Every week of camp is different. Some weeks the guys play a set in the morning, and sometimes they don’t. This past week, they did not play in the morning, so our mornings were a bit more chilled. We got to take our time in the morning and go running, play, get ready, etc. Well, one morning me and Justin started planning what we were going to do as far as running and getting ready…Jaxon had a different idea on the order of events. Justin grabbed the video camera so we could capture his amazing ability to argue. We keep telling him he needs to be a lawyer. Sometimes it is really cute & funny…but others times it can be very frustrating and we have to get creative with him. This moment was REAL cute and we just had to share. It is so fun getting to know Jaxon and who God made him. I continually pray that God would help us know how to help Jaxon use all God put in him in a way that pleases the Lord. WOW! Thankfully the Lord is always with us to give us wisdom, creativity & love! I LOVE this kid!!
If you arewondering how it turned out…somehow we did what WE wanted to do, but made Jaxon think it was HIS idea I’m telling you, God is good to always give wisdom and creativity! Being a parent is so fun!
We are busily getting ready for our season of summer camps to start! It is such a fun time of year! One small reason I love it is because we always get new shirts in for JCB and we have also made new shirts for “i choose to love”! Our friend Drew Worsham blessed us by offering to sell our “i choose to love” shirts for us when he is on the road AND he also came up with a GREAT design! Hope you like them! You can find them by clicking the “T-shirt” tab at the top of the page.
We have had a busy spring, so I haven’t been able to post as much as I would like the last couple of months! I thought I would leave you with some fun videos. We will post as much as we can this summer and keep you guys updated!!
We were given Round Rock Express tickets by a friend who is the chaplain for the team. We were so excited to get the tickets. When we got there found out they were second row behind home plate! We had so much fun! Jaxon had been eyeing the rock wall and just had to give it a try. Here are two videos of him climbing the rock wall and a few of him having fun rolling down the big hill…one of him and Justin rolling down the hill! Justin’s equilibrium still has not gotten stable !
Here are a few fun singing videos! If you can’t tell…we LOVE to sing!!
Last Monday Justin and I celebrated being married for 7 years! To celebrate we decided to bring Jaxon on his first camping trip. We loaded up the car on Monday with all of our camping gear and headed to Inks Lake. We had 3 days filled with camping fun! We cooked over the fire, we showered in the camp ground showers, we slept in a tent, we rode bikes, we fished, we road canoes, we told stories, we relaxed in the hammock, we read books, we played on the playground, we shopped in the camp store, we ate, we fought off snakes…YES…2 REALLY close encounters…we climbed rocks, we had sling shot contests, we did bubbles, we went swimming…did I mention we ate…s’mores every night… and we took pictures. Here are a few to share…We can’t wait to go again!
We received our first quilt square and sweet wish for Mae in the mail yesterday! Grandma sent a sweet pink piece of material with an old piece of tatting from Meme Co, who would be Mae’s great, great grandma! So COOL! We are excited to get some more to get this quilt and scrapbook started! THANKS GRANDMA!
We got word yesterday that our adoption paperwork should reach China by Tuesday and our log in date (LID) will be sometime in May. I thought that was pretty neat…since we decided to name her Mae ! It is a bit disheartening to know that we could potentially have to wait up to 5 years to have Mae in our arms. I know it sounds crazy because I don’t know ANYTHING about her, but I just LOVE her so much and long for her to be with our family!
I have been looking on websites of other families adopting from China and one of my favorite things I have found is this tradition that comes from northern China. It is called a 100 Good Wishes quilt. I love it because it gives me a practical way to do something special for Mae as we begin this long wait for her. I think about her all the time. This will be a way for me to channel some of that into a special project for her that will be so meaningful! I also love it that YOU guys can get involved! Check out our new page that has been added at the top of our blog called, “100 Good Wishes Quilt” to get all the details! We would be honored for YOU to be a part of this tradition with us!
