Update from The Stubb’s

Oh Jesus, My Savior, Have you been framed?

The little fan’s big blades blew in vain on my sweat drenched body as the nurse matter of factly said the words that sounded somewhat like a suitcase zipping up…”your blood work shows that you have Dengue Fever”….

The last three months of our lives have been like a swollen swiftly moving river. It has left us speechless and overwhelmed with joy at times, and sometimes weak and full of fever. Through every day of it as we come up for air and we search for how any of it matters, how ANY of it is really making any difference for HIS KINGDOM. After all, that is supposed to be our full time job, that is what many of you are giving financially to, praying for, encouraging us towards. No matter how hard I tried….I could find nothing to put in the “center of the picture” to write home about.

In December, Brian traveled to the U.S. to be “officially” trained in a new airplane that our team is using here. It has increased our groups ability to help Bible translation exponentially, I was going to write about that…then life’s river grabbed my ankles and pulled me under with a case of typhoid fever. Christmas break I spent in bed, Luke on crutches with a broken ankle…Brian eeking out flights in between nursing his family along. Celebrating “EMMANUEL…GOD WITH US”.

January found us receiving  soul bursting news that  we were free to draw up plans for a house to build on the land that we were given to use. Generous, crazy friends in the U.S had been given the go ahead by God to help us out. Though we do not know how much money we will actually need to complete this …His answer to our need for a place to live seems to be BUILD IT!!! We plotted and planned, measured and prayed.

February brought Bryce and Adam malaria, Adam’s was scary, stubborn and cerebral, and you prayed, and God healed. We washed the sheets from sweat and stowed away the precious Ibuprofen. More flight hours were logged in aiding Bible translation and then we groaned silent groans when Susan broke her 8 month malaria free record and ended up with malaria too. We treated it…. but it never really seemed to go away.

We filled the hours in between with loving, talking to who He put in our paths, trying to slow down to SEE His ways, flying, cooking to fill bellies, studying, and then doing it all again the next day. The stories Brian brought home from his days flying  buoyed us, the stories our co-workers told of the Good News reaching formerly unreached spots on this thick jungle island spurred us on. Through it all, I searched for something “larger” to write to you about. I wanted a story to “catch” you, to validate our being here, maybe my American little mind wanted you to feel we were worth your support, and the prayers that you had invested…(pretty non-missionary-ish to say…but it’s the truth) and just when I had gathered enough stories to think it was worth writing about… my malaria came back stronger.

My fever hit hard and heavy, I started the treatment but this malaria felt like a heavy blanket. I finished the treatment, my blood showed no more malaria parasites and we waited for the fever and ache to fade away…but it never did. Wide eyed on the bed Brian and I whispered out our deepest fears….maybe our “world’s best” medications did not work on malaria anymore? Blood work at the local hospital explained it…and the Nurse’s words confirmed it…my malaria was finished…and I now had Dengue Fever.

Of course, queen of multi-tasking that I am, my body decided to do two things at once, malaria and dengue fever. How efficient! How defeating! How can we do this? The car ride home seemed even quieter. I climbed back on my mattress that had a big rut in it and cried hard. There was nothing good to report…there is no good news. I tossed over the events of the last months in my mind…..what were these events…..how can this be HIS work…how is this HIS GLORY and HIS KINGDOM being established.

Then a letter from a new friend crashed in over me…the very day I commit to not write another update ever…I read hers.

She lives “on her own”  in Sudan’s dust, mothering over 100 orphans, she was born with only one hip and one leg.  She blogged that very day from her dusty desk in Africa, crutches propped up nearby….

“Could the very thing the enemy means to disable and destroy become that which frames the greatest release of God’s glory in our lives?  Limitations, when they are submitted to Jesus, become the very things that frame the greatest displays of His goodness in life.”

I suddenly knew I had everything I needed to make a frame.

I grabbed the heavy black beam of typhoid fever. Dark and etched with hours of fever and pain I put it across the top.

Then I pushed my Dengue fever…still burning through my body, along the bottom part, dark and etched like the top, the etching seems even deeper on this part, it has small vines of despair and depression woven in, the words “you are not fit for this” are strangled out by creeper vines of Morning Glory…all subtle.

Then I took my two cases of malaria and propped them up…the two side pieces of the “frame”. Again, the words   “failure” ran up along one side, and “not enough faith” ran down along the other. All the words of condemnation on the frame were washed over in a red so dark it was black….a Savior’s blood so deep it still covers.

So now…. I have a frame.

What the enemy meant for our destruction, we will craft into the very frame that shows HIS GLORY.

I have been writing newsletters for over 20 years now! At times I look at our lives and wonder what on earth there is to possibly write about… the new believer count is zero and the rice is burned and the fever is back.  But I am a “frame”…and maybe I am the only one you know who can send you a picture of Him in Indonesia…so I will…framed this time in the frailty of earth’s nasty jungle diseases.

He is the only one in the picture.…holding our hearts safe in His grip.

As it turns out, we will never be “worth your support”…I had the wrong thing in the center of the picture. But HE is worth your support. He is worth surrendering to.

And I can frame HIM. All of us can frame Him.

I echo what my new friend cries out from her dusty desk in Sudan. I sing it from my Dengue soaked sheets in Indonesia. Hand Him your defeats, delays and depression. He can use it ALL to frame His glory.

Until He comes and because He will!
Susan for us all!

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