Lamentations …

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Well, it has been a little over a week since I posted last, and so it is definitely time for me to give a Jones Family update.

As the saying says,”When it rains it pours.” It has been raining on us a lot recently. This is both true in the literal and figurative sense, but when I use this phrase now, I use it in the figurative sense. Our previous email “a tough year,” is a slogan that continues to reign true for us day by day. If it is not one thing it is another. If Lorraine is not sick, then Micah is; if Micah is not sick, then Lorraine is; if neither of them are sick that I am. Grrrrrrr! This is in collaboration with all the other difficulties and annoyances of living within another culture, which is far different from the one’s we were raised in. Bear with me a moment while I lament.

Over the last couple of months when all of the sickness first started, there was at least one consistently non-sick person: me. Not so anymore! This last week I have come down with some sort of annoying virus that leaves me with a headache most days, vomiting and diarrhea, and an inconsistent but recurring fever. So now the sickness has found us all. To make matters a little worse, Lorraine has caught some sort of stomach bug herself, which has been effecting her eating and consistent feedings of Micah. Grrrrrr!

With all this frustration out and said, I will say that things have been going great in our classrooms, and we are really starting to form some meaningful relationships with our students. I have started a discipleship group with my Bible College students that has been going really well. My students are really taking their personal spiritual lives seriously and longing to grow and be changed into nature of Christ. Very exciting stuff! It is very hard, though, to not get distracted and focus on the problems and the obstacles that we feel like we have to constantly overcome. The Lord is doing amazing things in and through us, and so we are trying to focus on that reality instead of our trying circumstances.

Luckily, there is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to laments, because over the last couple of weeks lamenting has come much easier than praise.  However, like any good lament or any good Psalm of deliverance there is always an infectious hope that finds its way in and becomes the hinge by which the lament is glued.  Things could be much worse for us, but even so we know that the Lord will see us through it and take us and our ministry here at Sonlight to new exciting heights.  Blessings!