3am Prayer.....

1: Wake up at 3am cold and shivering

2: Make yourself get out of bed

3: Go to the bathroom, you're up already

4: While in the cold bathroom, thinking about how you feel like your camping every night...PRAY

5: Pray for strength and warmth and perserverance

6: Go back to your room and put your slippers on

7: Walk through the puddle of water from the rain and go down stairs

8: Heat up some water

9: Pour the hot water into plastic water bottles and seal them up

10: Walk back through the puddle to your bedroom

11: Climb into bed

12: Snuggle with the hot plastic water bottles and go back to sleep

In case you didn't catch on, this is what happened to me the other night. Its been extra difficult to be here lately as it has not only been raining early in the morning and in the evening. But last week it had been rainy until noon or later and then start back up about 4 or 5 in the afternoon. And in the few hours of dryness, the sun might make an appearance but it would be windy and chilly. I was thinking that night when I was praying, yes, in the bathroom, about how hard it has been to just be here and live here lately. There have been times when I've thought about how I just want to be home, in Colorado. The work is physically and emotionally draining. Then we come home to a house without heating (but warmed with love, awww!). I love my partner, our room, our house, our family and Puno. But as I was praying that night, yes, in the bathroom, I prayed that satan wouldn't be able to get me down. That his attacks would do nothing to me. Because in these moments of weakness, I don't love my partner, our room, our house, the work, or Puno.

God has been answering my prayer....

Prayer for warmth - I was blessed as my brother Micah let me borrow an extra blanket and Amanda's parents brought us real hot water bottles, not plastic drinking bottles, to share and use at night.

Prayer for strength - Its kind of embarrasing, but on days when I'm not feeling well or just plain tired, I sing in my head the song, Give me oil for my lamp. It reminds me while I'm singing it that my strength comes not from within me, but from HIM.

Prayer for perserverance - God is ligthing a fire in me for these people and our work, a fire that makes me want to be here even when its tough.