My Sister Jennifer's Story

Amazing News!!!!!!  Hundreds of prayers and cryings out to the Lord answered suddenly in His perfect timing in one afternoon!!!!!!!!!!

This is my sister Jennifer’s story but her story is intertwined with mine (Debbie’s) so I share this as OUR story.

For years, I have seen my sister struggle with longing to find her birth mother.

 I have held her many time while she sobbed and even screamed with the pain of her baby memories of a mother who walked away from her and the questions of WHY, WHY, WHY???? She was 2 years old when she last saw her birth mother.

This picture is of my sister Jennifer with her birth Mum on her second birthday while she was still in the orphanage before we adopted her.

This week, Jennifer and her son Billy who is 11, are visiting us here in Ballina and on Tuesday, Jan.6, 2015, I was on the internet looking for Kings FilAm home in Olongapo so I could show Jennifer because this was the orphanage that she had been in. And when I did the search, I found the following:

“OUR SEARCH FOR JENNIFER NAPOD (which is Jennifer’s birth name):

It felt so surreal to read the whole account of Jennifer’s birth family and their search for her, and it didn’t take long to find phone numbers, photos, you tube videos, contact details……of Jen’s birth family and by midnight that evening, Jen was talking on skype with her sisters and her birth mother and ALL of us – Jennifer’s birth family, Jennifer, Billy, Paul and I – were all sobbing. It was so emotional, so overwhelming, SOOOOOO WONDERFUL!!!!

It turns out that Jen’s birth mother has been looking for her for almost 35 years, even hired private investigators….to no avail, and she has had numerous reoccurring dreams of Jennifer standing with outstretched arms reaching out to her. Finally the whole story is unravelling and the oh so many questions in Jennifer’s heart are being answered and the tears that are falling now are not bitter but healing.

I can’t tell you how much it has broken my heart over this last day or so to hear my sister saying to her birth Mum on skype, “Mama why did you leave me? I have been so lonely for you all these years……” And both of them sobbing and sobbing as her Mama has shared her life’s story. The beautiful thing is that Jennifer is soooooo much like her birth Mum and her sisters. They do the same things, they laugh the same and Jennifer looks like her Mama…..

The next step is to meet them in person and feel all that love and family in person!  Pray that this will be able to happen in about March. Jennifer and her two children (or maybe just Billy if Mariah has to start Uni) are hoping to make it to Hawaii for her sister’s birthday and for a big family reunion!

Jennifer has even discovered that her birth mother’s sister lives here in Australia! So close all these years!!

Not only does it melt our hearts (Paul’s and mine) to have our sister’s birth family as part of our family now and to see Jennifer connecting so beautifully with all of them, but it makes us cry to see how much this means to Jennifer’s children. Billy came up to Paul yesterday and hugged him and said, “I want to say thanks so much Uncle Paul that you and Aunty Debbie helped us to find Mummy’s Mum and my Grandma.”  His sister Mariah, 17 years old, who is in Sydney, heard the news and went to her Dad almost beside herself saying, “DAD!!! I HAVE THE MOST AMAZING NEWS!!! I HAVE OTHER COUSINS……I HAVE ANOTHER GRANDMA!!!!!”

God is our HEALER. And He knows how much healing my little sister’s heart needs. She has been on a very hard journey and many times she has refused to listen to Him, but as she told me a couple of days ago (before we found her birth mother), “God has never let go of me……”

Half the world away, in America, a mother, two sisters and two brothers are thanking God that their search is over and they have found their daughter and sister who they have spent years looking for.

And here in our little home in Ballina, is one beautiful girl whose heart’s questions have finally been answered; whose jagged  emotional wounds because of a mother who she remembers ‘walking away’, are well on the way now to being healed;  who felt such difficulty before ‘connecting’ with others, is now connecting.

There is still a long journey ahead, still a lot of hurts to heal…..but GOD keeps continuing the work that He began and HE WILL COMPLETE IT!!! Praise God!!!

And here is one happy sister – me – because I just want my sister to be happy.

Jubab arrived in Hungary!

Jubab has arrived safely in Hungary!!! We were so thankful yesterday for the news that his team arrived in Budapest and everything was well.

But leading up to his departure, Jubab had 10 days of boot camp at the Teen Mission camp in Tewantin so he has been gone since Dec. 13^th.

On Christmas Eve, we travelled up to Tewantin for Jubab’s commissioning service along with the rest of his team and all the other teams leaving from Teen Missions for various mission fields overseas.

We hadn’t seen Jubab for 10 days so we were really anxious to see him.

It happened to be my 49^th birthday and some dear friends had invited us to stop by their place for lunch on our way up. They surprised me with a birthday cake so it started to feel like a birthday while we were at their place. 

Continuing on our journey after lunch we arrived at the Teen Missions’ gate about 5 min before we could go in. We were fifth car in the line of anxious parents waiting for the gate to open at exactly 4:00 pm. Right on the dot we saw a van coming and someone got out and swung the gate open wide.

We could hardly wait to see our son and when we drove in, we immediately saw him on car park duty with the rest of his team and we were just itching to grab him and hug and kiss him! It was the best birthday gift for me that day to get a hug from my son!!

Here he is with his team (in the light blue shirts) just before the commissioning service began.

He looked very happy and said that their time in boot camp had been wonderful and they were all looking forward to heading off the next morning for Hungary.

The commissioning service was moving and I think many of us were in tears by the end when the parents gathered around their teens out on the oval, who were grouped in their teams and holding the candles that they had lit as a sign that they were ready to go and serve the Lord and shine the Light of their life – which is Jesus - in the places where they were going.

Soon after, we had to say our goodbyes and this was heart-wrenching for the three of us to hug goodbye and then to step away and drive off knowing that half a world is going to separating us for the next month. I think my tears kept flowing for almost all the whole 4 hour drive home. We have never experienced feelings like this before.

But in spite of missing Jubab so much and him missing us, we are so, so glad that God planned this time for him and that God is working in his life and heart using people who we’ve never met. That is the amazing thing about the Body of Christ! We praise God for the leaders on his team and the missionaries they are with in Hungary who God is using to reveal more about Himself to Jubab.

They arrived safely in Hungary the evening of Dec 26, after traveling 15 951 km on 3 different planes, over a 2 day journey. Right now it is -2° in Budapest and hopefully Jubab is keeping warm and sleeping well as it is the early hours of Sunday morning over there. Meanwhile, we pray and pray and keep trusting everything to our Lord Jesus! January the 24^th is the day that Jubab is due to come home.  Please keep praying for him and for his team and for wisdom for their 3 leaders. Pray that they will have unity as a team, really grow together in the Lord and that they will be a big blessing to the missionary family they have gone to help and that they will keep shining as Jesus is reflected in their lives.

Have A Beautiful Christmas!

Praise God this Christmas for providing us with a perfect Lamb who died for us so that He could take away our sin!

This year is almost finished and we have seen God’s grace overflow in every way as we adjusted to a new home (with beaches around us – not mountains) and a new season in the ministry.

Jubab finished Yr 10 last week with honours and he is now off on a six week missions trip to Hungary and we await the new year of 2015 with anticipation of all that the Lord has planned for us:  welcoming our son back home from Hungary on Jan 24^th(!!!!!!!!!!), growing spiritually and in His Word, a trip back to the Philippines in April, huge progress (we pray for) on the translation of the Tala-Andig New Testament, Jubab doing Year 11…….and many other adventures in the faith and in life that God has in store for us!

We are thankful this year for the opportunity to share Jesus with our new friend Olivier from France and to see him trust Jesus……and we are thankful for the many times God has refreshed us in His Word and allowed us to sit under teaching rather than be the teachers. We have loved this and it has refreshed our souls!

We are also thankful that we have gotten to be with our families and have seen almost all of our family – even extended family. It is so precious to sit and talk with parents, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces……

It has also been a blessing to cover a lot of miles here in Australia and catch up with friends and partners in the work of the Gospel who are so dear, many who have been part of our missionary journey since the very first step we took. We can’t describe how special the times have been as we’ve sat at meal tables, around coffees, in meetings, in prayer……..God has blessed us far beyond what we could even have imagined.

So now we are going into 2015!!!!!!! May God be near to us, may we walk with Him and hope in Him and always be THANKFUL…especially for JESUS!