Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before your God. Micah 6:8

I am seeking out this scripture and wanting to tear it a part to know how He wants us to do this commandment and still reflect His heart of justice, of mercy, and humbleness. In a culture and world where activist, groups, cultures, politicians, and those speaking out for social injustice is all I hear right now, I am wanting to recoil. I want to be silent because I don’t see so much of this command in the rhetoric and postures. But He is there, asking us to speak up and make a stand against culture norms, for the foreigners, for the misplaced, for the forgotten, for the misunderstood.

So, here are some of my thoughts this morning as I seek Him to know how to do this better:

*** Jesus tells us to do what is right, speak up for injustice, make a stand. He is a JUST God. He has and always will bring justice, it’s His character. During His time on earth, he went against the cultural norms, He spoke out against injustice, He brought in those who had been cast out by society. He is asking and telling us to do the same.

BUT….

How do we do this and reflect Him? How do we have a righteous anger and not an anger that divides and pushes people away? How do we speak into injustice, to others that believe differently than us, who make us angry in their approach and beliefs, who stand on the opposing side of you in the battle? Can this be done in such a way that displays the Gospel and draws others in?

As I look at Jesus in the New Testament I see He gave us the answers, He displayed it.

*** Before Jesus went to the crowds or the individual, He went to the Father. He spent time praying for those who would betray Him, speak against Him, and the very ones He would challenge. Do I do the same? Before I post on Facebook, speak into the hard places, the controversial topics, have I asked Him to go before me? Have I asked for His words, not mine. Do I know and understand why I believe what I believe based on Scripture and not just what I think to be right/wrong?

He kept mercy His theme. It was the pulse behind his words. When He was speaking against the cultural norms, the why behind Him speaking was always in effort to pursue our hearts. He stops at nothing to have deep relationship with His people and He knows that there is so much that robs us of that joy, peace, and ultimate confidence in Him in this culture, in our sin, and in our humanity. The darkness He spoke to was real and it made the Pharisees’s angry because it was going in the face of their morality. But He still spoke, He called people out, but there was always Mercy waiting for them.

He didn’t seek a platform, He humbly drew crowds by His words, His stories, His miracles and I have to believe the masses stayed and continued to be intrigued and drawn in because of the humble man they saw behind the strong words.

He loved His enemies. Those He spoke against and those who came against Him with deep hatred and determined to destroy His name, He washed their feet. He drew in His betrayer, He made a place for him at His table. Would I welcome those in that I get angry just listening to them talk? Would I want the same grace and mercy for those who buy and sell children? Would I wash their feet and make a spot for them at my table so that His kindness would lead to repentance. A changed life. Isn’t that why we are so passionate about the injustice? We want change, we want it to stop, we want justice. But He has promised to be the God of justice, but He is the God of changed lives.

To speak into the darkness, to take hard stances on Biblical Truths, the promises of our Father, it comes with a cost. He came to turn things upside down, so we could look up and see Him, and to see the Gospel on display. It led Him to the cross. Are we going to hold to His truth no matter what comes? Or only when all the voices are rising and it’s what we feel we are supposed to do while there is a shift but when all the other voices move on to something else or are quietened, will we stand alone? Will we handle the attacks on our faith, our beliefs, values, and when no one understands holding up the Truth with grace and authority? When everyone crosses over that battle line to the other side and you look around and very little stand with you, will you continue to pursue His justice, love, and mercy?

In all the noise, the hate, the confusion, He is still writing a symphony. We are the notes and lyrics to that symphony. I pray my words and actions when stepping and speaking out join Him in His movement towards the Gospel and it draws others in.

It has almost been a year since we stepped off the plane in America with our five crates of all of our belongings, an 7 month preggo stomach, a four-year old who has only known Uganda, and two adults who have lived overseas for over 5 years.

I remember feeling like I had been living in a whirlwind of every emotion possible for a while and it didn’t stop once my feet landed in Texas, my home, the place I longed for so often while living in Uganda. I was thankful to be coming to a familiar place, blessed with the most incredible medical services to bring our second born into the World. I was thankful to see my family, I was thankful that I was able to get in a car and not have my body beaten up by the roads, I was thankful for Chick-fil-a, I was thankful for doctor’s offices that were air-conditioned and organized. But where we really staying? Is this now my every day? What is my every day? What will I do? Who will I connect with? Who will get me? I am not the same Dacia that left 6 years ago.

I left as a single 27-year-old who thought I would be gone a year and come back to continue my career and marry a Texan and live in a cul-de-sac and my kids would go to the best schools and we would have that picket fenced life, my best Pinterest life. Here I am today, married a Tennessee boy that I met overseas, living in a small town, not much of a hot social life, adopted our girl after the longest year fight of my life, all in our first year of marriage, held dying babies, held miracles, walked into the darkest places, seen the light break through, every day could bring all the emotions possible, experienced injustice, been racially profiled, I am so changed. I don’t even have words to describe all that I have had the privilege to experience.

Everyone thought since we were coming “home” to our culture, to our families, our roots, this would be the easy part. I wanted to believe that. But deep inside me I was scared to death. And those fears have slowly creeped in as reality.

I feel as if I am here yet hovering above my self, not able to truly engage. Why? One reason was because within months of getting home, we were hit with confirmation of something that we feared for a while concerning our daughter, was indeed true. It derailed me. It was something I couldn’t talk about without feeling like I would be misunderstood. The devastation was wide-spread, it effected everyone I loved. It made me question all we had done. So, although we were home I was fighting one of the biggest battles we had faced and I felt so defeated being thousands of miles away.

Another reason was after years of experiencing so much suffering and hard things, you quickly learn that you cannot truly process every thing that you encounter or else you would emotionally collapse. You deal with it the best that you can while not truly letting the weight of it all sink in and you keep going. Keep going out there every day and trying to do the best you can without really letting the reality of the sin and ugliness of it all sink in. Now that I am far removed and see the life around me here, I am beginning to finally grieve and process. Process years of things that have messed me up. But on the other hand, thankful to have experienced it.

When I would go out and asked, “Hey how are you? How is it being back?” I didn’t feel like I could just unload without the sweet person asking slowly backing away, wide-eyed, overwhelmed and taken aback by my brutally honest answer.

While battling the news we received, we also quickly realized that we have had a very unique experience to see the world differently. Our experiences have opened our eyes to something that the majority have not been able to see. Everything about our lives in Uganda, even the day-to-day – going to the store, driving, social events, made us have to change the way we make even the smallest decisions. My day to day decisions here are still being filtered through what I have known for the last six years. Some times that works and other times, it doesn’t.

But here is what I know and believe with every fiber of my being, there is nothing like seeing more of Him in the eyes of those that are so very different from you, there is nothing more humbling that being a guest in another culture, nothing more beautiful than having to ask the Lord to change your heart to love deeper and bigger, to be able to experience what He says, “You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit and you will be my witness here, near, and far” (paraphrased). To see death and suffering but still see the light overwhelm the darkness. To understand how a momma could leave a child in a pit latrine to die, but then to experience the grace that can only come from Him to extend to a momma who is wounded and scared herself. To see His heart in all of it.

“For our citizenship is in Heaven, and from it we await our Savior..Phil 3:20”. 

I was sitting in church a few weeks ago and the Pastor was talking about what Jesus said to His disciples before his death and resurrection and this one line hit me and I just kept hearing it over and over for the rest of the sermon…

“You are to live as foreigners in the land…” 

And it was then that the Lord said, “Dacia, instead of fighting this feeling of being a foreigner, instead of trying to make wherever you are…here in America, or in Uganda feel like home, maybe just maybe this is EXACTLY how I desire for you to live. To know and actually feel the weight of not belonging anywhere but with Me, wherever I have you. To be able to taste the longing of going Home, to wrestle in the in between, to be uncomfortable wherever I have you, because it is when you are uncomfortable that you see Me. Live as a foreigner, don’t try to get comfortable. Love where you live, become all things to all people, so that they may see Me. Let the stretching, loneliness, the being misunderstood, draw you closer so that I can send your farther out. This is not all there is, my Kingdom and my Glory is your forever, and when that is in perspective, you are bound to feel like you do not belong here.”

So, if you too are feeling like you don’t have a place to call home. If you are feeling like you are a foreigner in your own land, or you find yourself truly in a country that is not your own; embrace it. And if you have an opportunity to be in a place where you feel like you don’t belong but you know He has called you, go.

I will be trying to embrace being a foreigner and loving the others around me who might not feel they belong either. I need a lot of grace and a lot of mercy because it’s beyond what I can do on my own.

{Written and inspired after listening to Matt Chandler’s Sermon : God the Protector and Defender}

We have lost sight of the bigger story. I have lost sight of the Story. The only Story that is playing out today and has been playing since the beginning of time.

It’s the story of the Gospel.

My heart has been heavy, broken, and saddened by where we have found ourselves as the Church. We seem to not know what to do when our morals and our beliefs are now the ones being ridiculed and questioned. When we do speak and we are met with the label intolerance and hateful, we then become quiet and keep our beliefs to ourselves and the places where we feel safe.

Over the last year I have wrestled with MY response. Where is my part to play in this? Do I speak or do I remain quiet to ensure my name won’t be thrown out there as intolerant or self righteous. Only He knows my heart and He knows that on days I can be both of those things indeed. I am quick to judge, I am quick to be passionate about truths and can come across as unloving, and I have for SURE made my mistakes here in a different culture. I am guilty. Guilty of all of those things.

But the great thing about the Story is that when Adam and Eve joined the enemy’s team our God did not respond in anger and throw up His hands to say, “I’m done. Have it your way.” They ran in shame and hid in guilt and he came after them. He not only came to find them but He clothed them. Clothed them. The ones who just damaged the most harmonious relationship, He came and covered them so they would not be ashamed of their naked bodies.

Many days and moments here bring about such paralyzation due to the enormous amount of needs, suffering, hurt, hopelessness and poverty. It all is too much. Some days I find myself just wanting to find myself in a place where an extended stomach is not every other child, a place where children have incredible free education, where women are not seen as objects, darkness is not as evident, and hospitals that treat the sick and I just become numb. When a need is in front of me I find myself becoming angry that they are presenting it to me. I can become cynical and jaded.

In America it looked more like boredom and a life with no meaning. I just went about my days worried about things we worry about in a privileged country….what was the next thing exciting on my calendar to look forward to? Who was I going to hang out with over the weekend? Do I have enough? How can I be better? Can I build my platform with more beautifully perfected squares on social media?

I forget what C.S. Lewis stated…”There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” 

These people in front of me – they are not just another face of someone who needs something – not another face of a neighbor – not another face of a waiter – not another co-worker, they are eternal beings. ETERNAL. Either eternal in life or eternal in death.

We are here to push back the darkness, right where you are, so that we can tell the Story. He has placed us in these places to be a Harold of this Good News.

The reason we have lost the grace and compassion to push back the darkness is because we have lost sight of this.

We can forget that He did not come to condemn the world but to redeem and save us. To destroy the Enemy in order that we could be saved. He has come to rescue us from condemnation, not to condemn us.

I need to be reminded that it is my part to push back the darkness where He has placed me. To not be silent because I fear condemnation, not to be paralized because I am overwhelmed, not to see the people standing in front of me as my project, not to shy away from those that have different beliefs, those who preach a false doctrine, but as an eternal being that I have the opportunity to change their eternity.

How does this look?

“It means our dinner tables are open and inviting people that don’t believe what we believe to do life with us deeply. It means we love well and we have compassion, we seek to understand and we put before people what is good, right, and beautiful about Jesus. It means we don’t do drive by guiltings or say really foolish things online that can isolate or spark up anger for the sake of controversy. This was not the way of Jesus Christ.”

“We can say, ‘He rebuked the Pharisees.’ We are the Pharisees, that is us. The woman caught in adultery?  How did he treat her? Compassion. The woman at the well? Compassion. Zachius? He went to his house for dinner. It is with compassion, empathy, grace, patience, genuine friendship that darkness is pushed back.” -Matt Chandler

I pray that my table is open to all. That it won’t be just a one time dinner to say I did it but it would be an on going relationship that is deepened with those that are not like me, those that make me uncomfortable, those I disagree with. I want to see them not as mere mortals. I want to see them as the glorious beings they will one day be when we get our new bodies.

I pray that when we make mistakes in how we love people, how we respond to those mistakes, and when we represent Him not as the God who came to save and rescue us from condemnation but we condemn on behalf of Him…oh that He would continue to have patience for us and change our hearts. Change my heart.

May we speak with conviction that is laced with the truth of the Bible, the truth of the Greater Story which is from a heart of love, mercy, grace, compassion and a fierce warrior who is fighting on our behalf.

I have waited for this day long before I even met Leya. I have waited to walk into a room with the judge. In my head it was more picture perfect : Walk in hand in hand with the man that God has given me to lead and with a child that He has given us to love and we stand before this judge confident in the grace that only He has given us to be what I have desired to be, a mom and a dad. I have always wanted to adopt but oh how much I have learned and all of it has been drastically different than what I thought of adoption.

“In love He predestined us for adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will….”

Leya was placed in my arms when she was just about 3 weeks. Through a series of events, she made her way to the children’s home that I was currently overseeing, and that day she was just another innocent baby that broke my heart to see how great our sin is and would be brought to live with among 56 other children who were there due to such depth of the human sin of others. I remember driving back to town with her and thanking Jesus for His glorious grace.  So often I have made these stories about the rescue of the child and that it is for sure but it is ALL of us in this story. He predestined me. He chose me, in His love and according to His will, He chose me. He chose Josh. He chose Leya. I can begin to forget that I have also been rescued and this is NOT a story of me rescuing. Before time, He rescued all of us.

“To the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.”

When we started this process to foster Leya we believed it would be just a few days of paperwork and we would bring her into our home after this momma’s heart had been waiting for over a year. We were hopeful, we were excited, we were nervous to step over that threshold to be her parents but days kept turning into weeks and then months and we still had not moved forward and couldn’t bring her home. During that year I questioned Him, I yelled at Him, I fell before Him in desperation, I was still, I was restless, and it was one of the most beautiful seasons I have had with the Lord. My God, He didn’t change in that season and I have never clung to His glorious grace like I did in those months as I waited to know if I could bring this little girl home.

I learned in the depths of my heart that this story that He is writing for the Hamby family was not one that we were trying to rescue but we needed to be rescued. This story is more about my heart and my relationship with my Father as much as it is about Leya having a forever family.

I am reminded of Hannah, who the Lord closed her womb for a time. She went to the temple and begged, wept, and pleaded so much that the priest thought she was drunk.

“I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” 

I know that posture. I found myself there many nights on my knees in Leya’s finished room as I wept thinking that she may or may not come and it was all out of my hands. She promised the Lord that if He would grant her a child she would give him over to the service of the Lord all the days of the child’s life.

The Lord gave her Samuel, “I have asked him from the Lord” and she weaned her most prized relationship and gave him over to the Temple to serve the Lord.

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Throughout this journey we are constantly are faced with the reality that Leya is not ours and that any moment she could be taken away. I have had many nights where I find myself holding her and asking the Lord to show me how to pray over her, and I hear Him whisper to me to pray more for my heart to be like Hannah’s. My hearts and hands will ever be open with her now and for however long she has been given to us. When I have biological children this fear will not be so real, as we don’t have to keep placing the fate of our child into the hands of others but still the reality is the same, children are given to us by Him. I want to hold her close, I want to control, I want to protect, I think that what I can give her is better. Then He reminds me that even if she is not with me, she still has His love to boast in. She has a reason to sing and have hope. With our without us as her parents because He predestined her before the beginning of time. With all of my children I pray I cling to this truth and the heart of Hannah.

We were ready for Monday. We had asked for Him to be made known. We were going to the high courts to appeal to be Leya’s legal guardians. After obtaining legal guardianship we would stay with her three years and then go back to file for final adoption here in Uganda.

We prayed for our hands and hearts to be open. We asked for favor before a devout Muslim judge to see Jesus and that He would be seen as the God and all would know He is good. We asked to have grace and compassion upon her biological family, to have an outpouring of His Spirit as they would see her first time. We asked that the judge would not be harsh with me as it was told to us. We asked for His will to be done.

We walked into the courtroom and the judge looked upon us all with a stoic face and my hands couldn’t help but shake. Leya was in rare form as she wanted to sing and dance in the most tense place I have been in awhile. As the room fell quiet, Leya looked at me and started singing very loudly and innocently, ” I love mommy, I love mommy..mommy is so good to me, I love mommy.” It was then I felt Him come rushing over me and into that room.

“Commit your way to the Lord, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness in the light, and your justice as the noonday.” Psalm 34:5-6

He could have made our case just like every other case but instead He literally moved the heart of a judge to show us favor. The judge was actually KIND to us. My hands and heart were steadied as we walked into a room full of biological faces and our little girl danced and sang still. Through it all, IT IS WELL. We walked out of the courtroom in laughter.

We await our ruling but with hands open and hearts full of His goodness towards us.

This story, the story of our adoption and pursuit of a little girl for almost three years now, it is not about us. It’s about His relentless pursuit of our hearts and in that process a pursuit of a little girl named Leya.

For we know that you are God and that you are good.

I remember his eyes that had so much suffering in them but squatting down to talk to him this smile peeked out and then you could see the hope that was tucked away. His name is Doug and he was 9 years old. I met him my second year in Uganda. I quickly found myself loving this boy who was suffering from cancer. We were hopeful after he had a successful surgery and he came to me rejoicing with those hopeful eyes now bright that he was going to be ok. I cried, I praised. It was a month later that we received the shocking news that Doug met Jesus face to face.It was one of my first real losses in Uganda, one that my heart loved and one I allowed myself to love and go into the trenches with. It was the first taste of the suffering here. I had seen it, experienced it in other’s stories, looked from a distance, but this little boy I went with him into his suffering. Suffering that leaded to His glory, His presence and Doug’s forever healing.

I have realized something about myself within the last year. I have always had the gift to go deep with people. It’s what I lived for. My friendships and people who were around me were where I found my passion come alive. Walking with people in the hard was where I always found myself and it wasn’t always on purpose. To move to Uganda, where everyone knows whether you have set foot here or not that suffering and hard is daily bread of these beautiful people, it was all I could do not to want to know everyone and their stories as I begin meeting people. So many. So much injustice. So much dying. So much I didn’t understand but as I walked with those few I saw joy and Him like I never had. I remember coming back to the States and when I found myself in worship, I would rejoice over the deaths of those I knew, rejoice of the sufferings of the stories of those on the other side of the world, because it is where He was found. It is the strangest place. For us to live, is Christ. And in His death and suffering. And I was alive. Alive in a way I had never been before standing among the tombstones and the wounded.

Today, I am still surrounded. Everywhere I look. Even more so now. The longer you live here the more you understand and you see past the surface. But I am not alive like I used to be, rejoicing in this place with Him when everyone around you would look at you like you were crazy considering your circumstances. What happened to me?

I stopped loving deeply from the heart. I stopped going deep. I began protecting myself. Protecting myself from the lies, the hopelessness, the stories that I hear and know the endings, the injustice, the evil, the pain. Surface level loving is what I have perfected. I have never been one to do surface level friendships. So of course I don’t feel like myself, because it’s not me.

I have 57 littles that I love deeply and would do anything for and want the world for them, to all know and be fiercely in love with our Savior, to not have to return to the lives that they came from, to have Godly parents who provide for them like I want them to be provided for. But the reality is, they are growing up in front of my eyes and I can’t control their destiny. They are hurting and they have begun lashing out as any child would who has endured what they have. The reality is beginning to surface that no matter how much we have poured in, cried, and prayed…He has given us the choice and they might not choose what we would desire for them and ultimately what He desires. So I have slowly retreated. I have slowly begun to detach because my heart can’t handle seeing them hurt or on a different path than what we would choose for them.

I loved being in the villages and walking among those found deep inside  where most people have never been. There is where you see things you don’t understand. I would love to hear the needs and the stories of those there and pray with them and try my hardest to find a way to meet their need. I would not grow annoyed or cynical. But after a while you realize it is never-ending. You begin to cringe when you see them coming. You grow angry when they say “impa” (you give).

“Now you have purified yourselves by obeying the Truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, so by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 1:22, 2:2

What happened is I stopped loving deeply. I stopped craving the Spirit that would give me grace and wisdom to walk in the hard with those that are so different from me. While living in America, many of my mentors told me “Dacia, you were called to be in the trenches with people, it’s one of the things He put in you.” And it is true, I found myself there often. I found so much of Him there with others in the hard and when you are face down in  the dirt, with the weight of life pressing you down, you find Him. I have not been myself lately because I can’t seem to bring myself to love so extravagantly and hard here.

The truth is people are hard to love. People are easier dealt with by a simple pat on the shoulder, a text, or a “I’ll be praying for you.” Especially when nothing about the people are familiar to you and the lives they live are foreign to you and a place you will never truly understand. But He did it. He made us His people. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God”. These people, they are my people because He called us out of darkness into His light.

Are we living with the intention of getting in the trenches with our people? The church? Those we just encounter for just a season? Are we craving our Father so we can grow in our salvation?

This time of year our society loves to look back and reflect on the year..the best moments, people we lost, defining moments, Facebook will even sum your year up for you in pictures, we pause for just a fleeting moment to take a look back. As I was putting together a video of my past year, I began to reflect. Did I truly live most of this past year in Uganda? Did I really learn to live and submersed myself in a different culture? Have I become too syndical after three years? Have I truly seen and witnessed miracles that I would have said “never would I ever” while living here in the States? Have I seen the most heartbreaking scenes play out in front of me? Has my heart been broken over a child?  Have I tasted of Jesus in a way that has completely ruined me and keeps me coming back for more?

Yes.

Who am I that He would call me worthy? I am still pondering that question daily. Then He reminded me during this season that Mary, the one who felt him move within her, was younger than I when she said “yes”. I freaked out when Jesus spoke to me and told me to began preparing to live a different life and move to another country, I can’t begin to imagine if an angel showed up in my room and told me I was pregnant how that scene would play out for me. Mary just straight up said, “I am your servant, may it be unto me what you have said.” She brought into the World my Savior. She could have said no. She could have been devastated that the plan she had for her life was now being altered and the man she loved might leave her. Instead, “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior….for the Mighty One has done great things for me.”

I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to miss the feast. Even during the times in Uganda where I wanted to pack my bags and come home, even those moments of me fighting out my flesh, I need them. When as a 30-year-old, who has been independent for most of my life, is no longer independent but learning to walk in submission, I learn that even He came to serve and not to be served. I don’t want to miss the joy of being called “mama” and seeing their faces light up when I walk into the home. I don’t want to miss out on the friendships that have changed me but only made possible because of Uganda. I feel so incredibly blessed that my perspective has changed. While worshipping I can see the faces of people all over the world and know that this is not all there is. If words could describe how sweet it is to fall in love with Him and truly walk where He has called us to walk then I would write them everywhere. No words can describe.

No matter what, He is good. A statement that is becoming more of my weary heart crying out in prayer. To believe it, to know it and to walk in it. No matter if we get to bring our daughter home, He is good. No matter if I miserably fail at resettling 56 children back to their biological families, He is good. No matter if Uganda never comes out of the dark history of sexual abuse, polygamy, abuse and broken families, He is good. No matter if I only make a difference in 10 lives while I have given many years here, He is good.

It is time to allow Him to remove the veil that we have put over our eyes. Suffering is what we must beg for. It is suffering that will bring upon His presence and revival. We must not think that because we live in America we should not taste of days like the rest of the world lives daily. Where poverty and hunger are their daily bread. Suffering is their way of life. But oh their joy. But oh their hope.

Hope.

My hope lies in Him. This is not all there is. Until that beautiful day where He comes to take me, I want to be found living right where He has called me. I never want to be set back by fear of the unknown. Fear of losing my life. For to lose my life, I gain. I gain Him…face to face. I want to be found drinking deeply of what His covenant came for. He has planted me here and here I will live. If He calls us into the fire, He will not withdraw His hand. I will gaze into the flames and look for You.

This next year my word is, Joy. I will find it. Some days I have to seek hard when my hard grows calloused to the desperation I see daily, everywhere. “Consider it pure joy.” The fight for joy is mainly the fight to see. I have to fight to see how everything I do here daily is a chance to display His glory. And when we see His glory there is this taste that happens, “taste and see that the Lord is good”.  Satan’s main job is to get my frustrated with this culture, with me always giving and it never being enough, to feeling inadequate…to keep me from seeing His glory. The battle for joy is the battle to keep ON seeing glory. In all of this…I want to see God. I don’t want it to just become routine, which is so easy to do. Preach to myself the glory of the Gospel every day so that I can continue to pour out.

I want this for you. I want my journey, my stories to quicken your heart to live beyond yourself. I want you to trade these earthly desires for something more. I do not know the way, I am still learning daily and I still take my own road sometimes but I will say..”Let’s try this together.” You have a story. Go find it. In the coming years and days, we will either have to run hard or we will be defeated. Let us start now. The world will be looking to us. 

All glory and honor to Him who has invited me to be a part of what He is doing. My words are inadequate, we cannot say thank you enough to those who have encouraged us, financially supported us, and prayed for us. I am beyond humbled that anyone would read my words on a blog and take the time to stop and pray or send a quick note. How beautiful is the Body. Thank you for allowing us to go. Thank you. Thank you.

We will continue to walk these Orange Road together in 2015. I am confident it will be even more beautiful.

I hate fundraising. HATE IT! I would much rather sell my kidney if I knew that we wouldn’t have to do this part again. It’s so stinking humbling to ask people to join you financially in what you feel called to do and every year I doubt. But as I look back over the last six years, I don’t think I have seen His hand so faithfully as I have when it comes to His people joining me and blessing me to the point where I cry. Truly, I have seen the goodness of the Lord through friends and even people I don’t know join me in this crazy journey He has had me on.

So this year, I cringe thinking about it but He once again reminds me that it should be something I look forward to with great expectation to see how the  Father is going to write yet another chapter to His creation that He is writing. This year seems more significant to me for so many reasons. One, we are praying to become parents! That alone is life changing and we are so thrilled He has chosen us! She has been a part of our story since our first date and as we are allowed, we will share more of our story. Two, I have been an Auntie to 57 lives over the last 3 years. The days where I want to pack up and go home (there are a lot of them) I see their faces and I know I can’t leave yet…we are not finished. This year we will be opening up our Primary Boarding School so most of our children will be moving out of the Babies Home and into the boarding section, just like other children here in Uganda that are able to go to school. We also have been visiting every child’s home to find out if their family situations have changed over the years. We BELIEVE that children belong in families and we desire to see them there. That is my goal this year, to help these children that have become a part of me know their extended families and guardians. Oh, I could write a book here. The weight of this is more than I can bear at times and I will lay awake all night begging the Lord to give us wisdom and direction as these are lives that I love with my whole heart.

We are excited about where He is leading us this year, the ministry is HUGE! We are always humbled and blown away by people that make this happen, we do not do this on our own. I am trusting that our family will grow and we can share in the sorrow, the joy, and the redemption of His people, together.

Josh and I serve with Arise Africa “free of charge”, which requires us to depend on others to support us living here. But finances really isn’t our biggest need. Living and working in a developing country is emotionally, physically, and spiritually taxing. More than anything, we need your prayers, your communication, and your support.

If you would like to know more about partnering with us, you can contact us using the Contact page. If you’re ready to commit, or would like to give a one-time gift, the details are below. Your donations are tax-deductible.

Donations by mail may be sent to: CMC Missions P.O. Box 219228 Houston, TX 77218 *Please include a note denoting “Josh and Dacia Hamby”

Online donations may be made at http://www.cmcmissions.org/donate.