January Jamaica Update

January 2011 Plattner Family Update

What if all of your “everyday” prayers from last year were answered in the way you wished them to be answered? Stop and think about it. For a moment this excites my heart, but then I start looking at the math. A couple of things stick out. So many times, the best answers to prayers have not come in the way I expected and had they been answered in the way I expected, it wouldn’t be good. The timing would be off and the answer would be wrong. But what about the other prayers that would get answered, the ones asked in the purest of motives. How amazing would that be? I hope that the answers to those prayers would represent the Kingdom advancing, but I think it would also tell another tale. The tally sheet of my prayers shows that I would be the main beneficiary by a large margin. This was a good challenge to my heart from a sermon I was listening to last week. It provoked me to look in the mirror to check myself and my communication with our Father. At first it invoked a small guilt trip, but then I remembered grace, then I remembered sanctification, I remembered that this is a journey, a walk. Yes, I often find myself praying selfish prayers and that needs challenged. But also, Jesus’ instructions for us in the Lord’s prayer similarly has a lot of references to ourselves; our daily bread, forgiveness of sins, protection from temptation, and deliverance from evil. So, after my brain has slowed from chasing these thoughts around awhile, I have settled into a challenge to check the self-focus of my prayers, but not to forsake asking our Father for help everyday. And, making sure a focus of our prayers is for those beyond the walls of our house.

On January 6^th, we landed back in Jamaica and rattled our way back up to Knockpatrick. We started getting our things unpacked and trying to get settled back into life. Two days later, we picked up our first work team. The next three weeks were full of work teams, a board meeting, an audiologist group, and a whole bunch of chaos. Actually, it went really well. We had some great groups come through and we were encouraged by the fellowship. It was busy and exhausting, but it was good. The farm continues to plug along, but it has not received the amount of care it requires. From being gone most of December to coming back and being too busy to care because of the work teams, the Agricultural education side of the work has taken a turn for the worse. But, the next few weeks look like they should be more productive. We have also remained busy with various teaching responsibilities on the weekend and we continue to seek his grace for a clear message through clear signs.

Our family continues to experience His amazing grace. The kids have done great adjusting back to life in Jamaica. They similarly live two very different lives, work team lives and non-work team lives. Work teams for the kids means lots of people to play with, lots of people to give them candy, and lots of social time. Non-work team time involves real life, entertaining themselves, reasonable sugar intake, and family time. We have talked about this dynamic a lot and we pray that our kids can balance it in their heads and benefit from it in the long term. Keri and I continue to grow in our love for each other and are trying to understand more everyday what it means to depend on His grace.

Thanks so much for your continued love and support. We love hearing from you. The number of people from when we were back for Christmas who reminded us that they were praying for us was so humbling. It looks like we might be coming back to the states earlier than expected and for longer than we expected this spring, but we are still working out some details. We should have a more complete update on those developments by the end of February. Until then, we try to keep surrendered hearts that are ready to do His will.