Thank you for your love and support!

Visiting with Yadira and her family

We want to extend a big thank you to everyone that supported us this summer! We could not have done it without you. We had an amazing summer, full of church missions teams, kids hanging all over us and many construction projects accomplished. Over the course of the summer, with the help of multiple church teams, the soccer field was finally completed! Beyond just that, numerous Nicaraguan “homes” were plastic-wrapped and protected from the heavy rainy season, and many feeding programs were held to help the community. Through prayer walks we covered most of the families in personal prayer and gave out the generous donations from several churches.

One family that Paul and I grew particularly close with over the summer was Yadira’s and Rosa’s families. Yadira and Rosa are sisters, both pregnant, and each have young children already. Rosa’s husband is no longer in the picture, but Yadira’s husband is. Because of the family situation, the young father who stayed took on the responsibility of both sisters, and all the kids! Paul and him actually became good friends and we spent much time with the family. Amazingly, there was extra money for the construction project, and we were able to hire the father as an extra worker. He was so thankful for the work, and it was a blessing to help encourage him.

Our last week in Nicaragua was the perfect week to wrap up our time there. The final Sunday, we took Paul’s bible study boys to church as usual and then had a pizza/pool party afterwards. It was a great time for them to just hang out and be boys together. Later in the week, we took them on a little field trip to downtown Managua. We spent practically the whole summer with those few boys, but we especially relished every minute with them that week, knowing that it may be a while until we see them again. We grew very close to the kids and families of Los Brasiles, so our last day in Los Brasiles was a very bittersweet day. We played a huge inaugural soccer game on the new concrete field and said more goodbyes than we could even handle. We even got stopped when trying to drive out of the community with people who wanted to hug us goodbye, as the kids all hung on the side of the truck. It was a tremendous experience and God worked greatly in that community.

Overall we saw God demonstrate His power in so many ways during our time in Nicaragua. It’s hard to even summarize all that we experienced and the Lord accomplished. We want to just give Him the glory and also thank you for all your support you gave in every way.

Can God Still Answer Specific Prayers?

An endless beach, a small object and lots of prayer.

Costa Azul, Nicaragua

Sometimes in our daily, busy preoccupied lives God feels the need to shock us with the realization of his power to answer specific prayers. We just had an awesome week in Nicaragua with our home church, Broadneck EP, from Annapolis, Maryland. After a hard week of working, we brought the team to a beautiful, open beach on the Pacific Ocean. It stretched on for miles in either direction, a purely natural setting without the presence of any hotels or boardwalks. Simple vast beauty! The team had a great time in the huge waves, collecting seashells and playing football on the beach. After an intense game of beach football, the team was rinsing off before lunch when Paul looked down and noticed his wedding ring was missing from his hand!! Paul calmly came over to me and told me I needed to remain calm after what he tells me, and then he showed me his hand without his ring on it. He said that he's pretty sure it came off during the beach football game, so the team gathered together and we prayed. Then we decided to walk the beach where the game was played in a line-search formation. I had little hope of finding the ring and was preparing myself for the bad news, but still I looked. The group walked the entire football game area and ended at the other side, and still no one had seen it. I looked down the endless beach line, assessed the odds, and then we all walked back again. Everyone seemed pretty silent as they walked and I'm sure most were praying. Just then I looked down and saw a cylindrical shape in the sand where it looked like a circular object had been pressed down, so I ran my fingers through the sand and there it was!!! Paul's ring buried just beneath the surface of the sand!!! I could not believe how good God is!!! and how amazing it was for me to be the one who picked it up, among all the group!!! Everyone cheered! Paul picked me up and everyone was really happy. It was just amazing to see God demonstrate how he can, and will, answer specific prayers offered in faith!!!! The odds of finding it among the waves and endless beach were incredible, but with God and through God it was possible.

An Unexpected Encounter

Hey this is Paul, I was asked by Jenny to write a blog post about an event that happened recently. This is my first time ever "blogging" haha, but this is an event that might give you an inside look at our time here. We had a church Mission Team that was painting the Ministry Center and we were making great progress. While Jen and I were painting, a few of the street boys I know from the community came to the gate and called out to us. So we took a break and went over, started talking to them and then began kicking the soccer ball around. While we were outside the gate, on the dirt road passing the soccer back around, this one big Nicaraguan guy came angrily walking down the road. The kids didn't notice him until he was passing by, and to our shock and amazement the man angrily kicked our soccer ball far away! He then gave us all a menacing look as he continued walking. We stood there kind of shocked, and confused and I asked him in spanish "what's up with that, man? why'd you do that?" He then turned and stared me down in anger and started walking over towards me! I thought for sure he was about to fight me, but I noticed as he staggered over, he was extremely drunk. He could barely even walk straight to me, so I thought to myself "good, this will be easy" haha. As he got close, I stayed relaxed and tried talking to him, I asked him how he's doing and offered to give him a friendly bump with my hand. He then stopped 3 feet from me, broke down in tears and sat down next to me! I asked him what's going on, and he began to tell me how upset he was! I invited him into the Ministry Center and there we talked in private about his life, his marriage, his drinking addiction and how he doesn't want to keep living this way. I got to pray for him, and tell him of a better way, with Christ as his direction and strength. It was a pretty emotional moment for him, and Jen got to see this big, burly Nicaraguan guy hugging me with both arms and crying on my chest! Quite the change from our initial contact where I was sure that he was gonna charge at me! I sent him on his way and told him I'll be at this Ministry Center if he wants to return again. It was a great, unexpected ministry moment the Lord let me be a part of! -Paul

1 more day!!

Listo para los grupos!!

Our first team arrives tomorrow evening and we are so excited!! It has definitely been a blessing to have a few weeks to adjust to life in Nicaragua and reconnect with the families in Los Brasiles. Paul has been teaching me Spanish in the evenings while we walk around our apartment complex as our apartment cools off from making dinner on the fire. I learned how to pray in Spanish last night and I am so excited to pray with the families in Los Brasiles even though what I can pray for in Spanish is quite limited at this point....I trust that the Holy Spirit will enable me to communicate as He knows our inner thoughts.
We have had the chance to do some fun activities with some of the kids from the community. We took 5 boys to the beach with us on Saturday along with Luis for his birthday and Deb Morrison. Deb is here from California to prepare for her team that arrives on Wednesday. It has been really great getting to know her before we hit the ground running. Anyways, the beach was awesome! Deb mentioned that watching the boys play in the water with such joy and reckless abandon must be similar to how the Lord feels about watching us rejoice in His blessings. It was so wonderful and brought us such joy to watch the boys playing and enjoying God's creation. What a great day it was to bond with the boys!
Keep us and the teams in your prayers that we would be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and for the boldness to follow that leading!

Submission

 

Unfortunately, I do not become a submissive wife simply by putting a ring on my finger. I am learning that submissiveness is something that I will learn more and more each day and is not a quality that develops overnight. Paul, so far (it's been a little over 3 weeks) has been an amazing husband. Very attentive, caring and is a great leader. However, even though he is a wonderful, god-fearing man, I can still have a hard time submitting. "Deep belief and complete trust in Jesus to sustain a wife makes submission to even the most difficult man possible" (Smidt). Now I am not suggesting that Paul is the 'most difficult man' but I have found that it is much more possible to respect him and submit to him on days when I truly am trusting in Jesus. I need to offer my husband the same grace that I have received in my deepest time of need. The biggest help to submission is waking up daily and determining to die to myself so that I may live for Christ. I am dependent on his righteousness alone and as Paul puts it in Philippians, "it is we who serve God by His spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus and we who put no confidence in the flesh..."

Honestly, the biggest hindrance to full submission to my husband is fear.

"A fearful woman will have a very hard time submitting to her husband. A fearful woman isn’t actively trusting God with her life, which makes entrusting a man with your future nearly impossible. Submission to Christ frees a woman from fear as she rests in God’s character and provision for her, delivered through her husband" (Smidt). Like Peter, I tend to doubt. So quickly I let fear and doubt take over and begin to sink. After reading the article by Jennifer Smidt, I realize how closely related my trust on the Lord is to the quality of my relationship with my husband. Unless, I am first wholly submitted to the Lord, I cannot submit myself to my husband. My prayer and goal is to be more wholly submitted and dependent on the Lord so that I can be submitted and respectful of my husband every day. Praise God for his abundant grace and patience for me as I work out what his word says about marriage. 

Smidt, Jennifer. 10 Things Submission is Not. http://theresurgence.com/2011/05/16/10-things-submission-is-not

Arrived in Nica!

It certainly has been a while since I have written! Paul and I have been in Nicaragua for a little over a week now and it has been so wonderful. The Lord my provider amazes me, day after day. It is amazing how much more dependent I feel on the Lord in a foreign country. Both planes were delayed on the way to Nicaragua, so we arrived a little after 10pm…then it hit us, our apartment rental office will not be open this late at night…where are we gonna sleep tonight?! Well we had no other option but to pray and ask the Lord to provide. And He did! We drove to the apartment complex, stopped at the gate, and asked the guard if he would let us in as we were renting Apt. 18. The guard replied that he was expecting us and had a key to let us in—praise God! We found out the next day when we went to sign papers in the office that typically the office is only open until 5pm and you can only get your key then, but for some reason the admin decided to give the guard the key to let us in when we arrived. The Lord is sovereign over all things, including the small details that we overlook. That was only the first night, but the Lord has answered our prayers and provided for us day after day.

            Another prayer of Paul and I’s was that the relationships Paul made in the community of Los Brasiles would pick up right where they left off 7 months ago. Paul lived in the Los Brasiles for 7 months before we got engaged, and then he planned to return to the states for a month before going back to Los Brasiles. However, the Lord led us to spend the time before our marriage in the same town, therefore Paul was unable to return until last week! However God answered this prayer as well! The first day back in this community, Los Brasiles, the boys that Paul had discipled, asked him if they could go to church with us on Sunday. Of course Paul was delighted to say, “yes!” The kids were so glad to have him back and immediately struck up a 3v3 soccer tournament. On Sunday, we brought 4 of the boys to church, it was so cool to worship God together and see them all dressed up in their Sunday best. Thank you Lord for answered prayers and restored relationships!

            I find that in every new season of life, I experience God in a new way. Right now, I am learning the name of God, Jehovah-jireh my provider. Hasta luego!

Earned Never Given

            It is commissioning week for the Naval Academy here in Annapolis, MD. Their many families gather for the fourth year midshipmen's graduation and sending out! I was running this morning through DA (downtown Annapolis) when I saw a Navy bus carrying either midshipmen or their families. The side of it read, in large golden letters, "Earned Never Given." As I was pondering that phrase, I was immediately struck by how thankful I am that the Christian faith is not like that! With Christ, his grace, mercy and love is GIVEN never earned! In fact, we cannot earn it--thank the good Lord for that :) There is no way I could ever earn the grace He has shown me in each and every one of my failures and sins. When I struggle with pride, lose my temper with my family, or find myself coveting what a friend may have, I know that the Lord accepts me and forgives me just as much in those moments as the moments when I feel that I am doing my best. To the "praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves" (Ephesians 1:6).

God of ALL Things

From Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot

If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things.
It is we, of course, to whom things look "little" or "big."

Amy Carmichael wrote:

There is no great with Thee, there is no small, 

For Thou art all, and fillest all in all.

The Return of the King

I love mornings when I wake up, early enough that I feel most of the world is not yet awake. That is how this morning was, I had not planned on it, but I woke up early and decided to go for a run while the sun was rising. During my run, I was listening to a sermon by Francis Chan, during which I was gripped by the excitement and expectation that comes with the imagery of my King returning! That thought is an exciting one for some, but for others it is absolutely frightening. Chan read from Matthew 24:36-51 which speaks of Christ's return, a blessed time for the faithful and wise servant, but for the wicked servant a horrible time. How will it be for you? We are to live our lives expectantly, like a bridegroom waiting with hopeful joy for his bride to appear. But there are some who are not ready, who just want to live their own life. Christ is going to come like a thief in the night, we should live expecting that, being ready for His return. Chan challenges us to look back over the past year and evaluate, was I ready for Christ to return? There are many moments when it would have been a completely inopportune moment for Christ to return! When I am sitting around being anxious and worried about all the work I have due next week in school or when I am stressing about all that needs to get done between now and June. That is me living life not expecting my Lord to return any moment, that is me fretting over things that will not last! I want to be found doing the work of the Lord. I want to live in light of Christ's return, using every moment I am alive to honor and glorify Him. I want to use the talents He has given me to serve others, and the breath in my lungs to praise Him and lift others up in prayer. I do not want to give the image that I can live this way all the time, because I am far from perfect, but I want to strive for that. How would life look different, if we chose how to spend our time each day with the expectation that this could be the day of Christ's return? Would I be anxious about my work? Would I worry about tomorrow at all??

Matthew 24:44 "Therefore you also must be ready, 

for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect"

Where do you want to be when Christ returns? 

source

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! As the title suggests, this blog is about the Almighty who grabbed ahold of my heart many years ago and continues to walk me through each and every day of life. The title is taken from Psalm 91:1 Which reads,

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High, 

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty

I hope this is a place people can come to gain some encouragement for life as I share stories, devotional thoughts, and pictures from this new journey I am beginning. Another hope I have for this blog is that it serves as a way to stay connected with family and friends in addition to being a place of encouragement. This is a very exciting time as I prepare to become Mrs. Paul Kavanek! Shortly after marrying my best friend in June, Paul and I will travel back to Nicaragua for the summer. We will be serving through Imagine Ministry in Los Brasiles, Nicaragua.  It will be a period of both excitement and growth as we learn to serve the Lord together, as one. I cannot wait for the new journey that we are about to embark upon! Below is a picture of Paul and I in Los Brasiles with a sweet family outside of their home. 

Los Brasiles, Nicaragua