Baby Brayden

Gosh, it has been 2 1/2 weeks already since Brayden has been born. I have to apologize for not updating sooner, but here is an update about him and, of course, Sharles. 

Brayden Mangrum Dyer was born on Thursday, July 24 at 3:03pm. He weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 19 in long. He and mama were both healthy and still remain healthy! I will spare you all the birth details, but he is already up to 9 lbs 4 oz and has grown 2 inches in 2 weeks! Whoa! He's a big boy! He already sleeps good at night and rarely ever fusses. We have definately been blessed with 2 great children! 

There is no significance with his first name, but his middle name is my (Brittany) original last name. I was adopted by my grandparents and changed my name, so I wanted to use my original last name, so it could be carried on in some way! 

Sharles is a great big sister! She loves to give her brother kisses, and she loves for him to lay next to her while we read her story at nap and bedtime. She also loves to hold her brother's hand when we pray. She has adjusted quite well to having a sibling! We are so proud of her! 

We are so in love with our sweet little boy and wanted to share our joy with you. Here are several pictures that have been taken over the last 2 weeks too! 

From our family pictures we had made. 

Auntie K has been a huge help to us as we have adjusted going from 1 child to 2! 

She loves to hold him, and, I promise, he usually loves it too! 

Meme and Honey came to visit. 

Morning snuggles. 

Hanging out while sister swims. 

Doing push-ups with daddy. 

2 weeks old! 

A visit from his cousins. 

A smile! 

Even when she swims she loves to play with her brother! 

Ready to cheer on the vols this year! 

I know you can't see Brayden, but this was our trip to church with a friend! 

Settling In

I have been in the states for a little over a week now. I have enjoyed my time so far of seeing family and friends. I have enjoyed my time to rest too. 

I have been at peace with our decision to leave Haiti. I struggled before leaving about leaving without fulfilling all of our goals while we were there. I feel like God has really worked on my heart to let go of those things and forgive myself for not doing more. 

It has been difficult adjusting back into the culture and "home" has been hard to define, but I know God is in control of this decision. I miss my husband and think "home" will be easier to define once he is here! Prayer has definately helped with the adjustment, and I am so thankful for each of you who have been praying for us through this transition. Please continue to pray for us. You can specifically pray for Sharles who has been overwhelmed with so many new things since being back. Please continue to pray for Josh and the ministry he is continuing to do in Haiti, and his return back to the states next week. 

How Many Times Will You Forgive?

I have been reading in Matthew about forgiveness, so I wanted to share some thoughts about it. 

While reading in Matthew and doing a little bit of research, I read that in biblical times in Judaism, it was sufficient to forgive someone 3 times. So when Peter approached Jesus in Matthew 18 and asked him how many times should he forgive his brother, replying with 7 times seemed to have been extremely generous number. I mean, that's more than double what Judaism saw as sufficient, right? 

Jesus' reply of seventy times seven must have been completely shocking to Peter! That's a lot of forgiveness! The point Jesus is trying to make, is that we shouldn't keep count of how many times we forgive people. What? Does this mean we should just let people walk all over us and continue to forgive them every time they hurt us? In my opinion, I believe you should set barriers to keep people from continuing to hurt you and putting yourself in a position to continually having to forgive them, but when they hurt you, you should forgive them. That's what the Bible says! 

I admit, I am not the best at forgiveness. I often hold grudges. I am competitive and like to win and sometimes view forgiveness as losing, but these verses are a good reminder for me to always forgive and not hold on to those bitter feelings. They only hurt me anyway. 

The story here continues with a parable. Jesus tells a story of a servant who owed his king 10,000 talents. When reading about how much money this really was, it would have taken the servant about 20 years to pay off his debt. The king was going to sell the servant to have his debt paid, but the servant pleaded with him to let him continue to work to pay for his debt. And just like that the king forgave his debt. Wow! 

How much more gracious is God at forgiving us! How long have you been sinning? God has been forgiving our debt since the day we were born into this sinful world! We, like the servant, have more debt than can ever be repaid. We can never repay Jesus for dying for our sins on the cross! And God doesn't punish us. He doesn't even threaten to punish us (unless we are not one of His children). We deserve punishment for our sin; we deserve justice, but just as the king simply forgave the servant's debt, so did Jesus. He forgave us by dying on the cross. He forgave us with an immeasurable gift. A gift of eternal forgiveness. 

Therefore, we must show mercy to others and forgive them because we have God living within us. If we are not merciful and forgiving to others, one day we will have to answer for that and there will be consequences. 

Further in the story, the servant approaches a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii. This amount would have been equivalent to about 20 weeks work by the fellow servant. The servant refused to forgive the fellow servant's debt and had him placed in jail. The servant's heart was not transformed by God. Do we truly want to live with a transformed heart or continue to go around with unforgiven bitterness in our heart? 

The fellow servant being handed over to the jailer also further shows how much we deserve punishment. Isn't that what is just? Sending someone to jail because they cannot pay us for what we deserve! 

But God calls us to live a transformed life, a changed life. We should forgive because we understand God's forgiveness for us. We forgive not because it is just, but because we know we should be punished and we are not. 

A changed life by God means we live this way with our reason and thoughts, our emotions and our will and soul. So which will you choose? Will you choose to truly live a transformed life or will you continue to hold on to the things people do to you? If you choose to hold onto them, know you do not truly understand the magnitude of Jesus' purpose on this earth. I am choosing from this day forward to always remember to forgive, even when it is hard. And I hope you will keep me accountable to do so if you see me holding onto something that needs to be forgiven. 

I hope this sparks some of you to go out and do your own research to know how you can change your heart in the matters of forgiveness. I know it was definitely something I needed to study. Honestly, I have read and studied it several times before posting this because it is hard to come to grips with how intense God wants us to be with our forgiveness. I would love to have thoughts and feedback and what you have learned about forgiveness. 

Brittany

Where He Leads We Will Follow

Well, we have some big news to share with you all. Many of you already know our news, but we are officially making it public. Josh and I will be heading back to the states to have baby #2, but we will not be returning to Haiti after the baby is born. Much sadness and many tears have gone into this decision, but we know this is the direction God is leading our marriage and our family. It has not been fun telling our organization, our staff and the kids that we love so much and have developed a bond with over the last year. But God has also put a peace in our heart to show us this is where he is leading us. 

When we first felt called to come to Haiti, we sold all our stuff, packed up what was left and moved our family for the long haul. Or so we thought. We moved knowing we would not leave until God told us to go home or somewhere else. That time has come much sooner than we thought. We grieve leaving this country, but also rejoice in God's sovereignty. It has been very difficult for josh and I living here for many reasons, and most of them are even too hard to explain. 

Please continue to pray for us as we continue to say the difficult goodbyes that lie ahead. Please pray for us as we pack up all our belongings and move back to the states. Please pray for as we transition back into the American culture that we have been removed from for a year. Please also pray for us and the new journey that lies ahead of us. 

We do not feel like our time on the mission field is done at this point either. We prayed about coming home, and God answered by opening the door with another opportunity. So early next year, we will be joining our church and moving to Bangkok, Thailand. 

We want each of you to know that these two events are in no way connected, except through God's divine plan. We had been presented with the opportunity to move to Bangkok previously,  but felt our time in Haiti was not finished. When we began to pray about moving home from Haiti, God kept answering us with Bangkok. Ultimately, we are moving home from Haiti because it is the best thing for our family and because we feel this is what God is telling us to do. 

Just as we felt like we were crazy for moving to a 3rd world country with our 7 month old daughter and leaving all our family, friends and things behind, we feel equally as crazy to be leaving one mission field for another with another 7ish month old and 2 year old and moving half way across the world from our family as friends. 

Needless to say, your prayers will be greatly appreciated throughout the many transitions our family will encounter in the next year. We love you all so much and are so thankful for all your support. 

A Million Thank You's

We wanted to take some time to say thank you to our supporters. Your giving makes our lives in Haiti so much easier! Your provision not only provides our necessities, but our sanity as well. Because of you, we were able to go on a much needed get away, especially before baby Dyer #2 arrives and life gets even more crazy! Our family needed a time of rest and relaxation as we all do at times, so we wanted to say thank you for providing that for us. 

Last week, we were able to stay at a hotel on the beach for several nights! We all got some much needed rest and family time together. Sharles had a blast playing in the pool and enjoyed running up and down the beach too! She had some much needed freedom that she had been missing out on. They also had some playground equipment, which she enjoyed once she figured out how to use it. There aren't many opportunties here for her to play like she was able to when we were there, so we wanted to say thank you for allowing us to be together as a family for a few nights! 

Here are a few pictures we would love to share with you! 

We also don't want to forget those of you who pray for us. Your prayers mean just as much as those who give financially. We are so thankful to each of you who lift us up in prayer. We feel your prayers and are so very grateful for them. 

Thank you also to our family. We know it is hard for each of you for us to be so far away, but you have supported us every step of the way and we are thankful for that. 

We are blessed by each of you and just wanted to take a moment to say how much each of you mean to us, so thank you for everything from the bottom of our hearts! We love you! 

I Confess!

Caution: Confession Post! 

I want to be honest. Being a missionary is hard! Being a missionary wife is hard. Being a missionary raising a family is hard! News flash, right? I think people tend to think because you are living in a different country and because God called you there, you are automatically closer to God. Well, in all honesty, that's not true! I think satan attacks people who are doing God's will and that includes missionaries! 

I have struggled living on the mission field over the last several months. Many factors play into that struggle, but as I have struggled. I have drifted further away from God. It's my own fault because I didn't take the steps necessary to keep my relationship with God where it needed to be, and I made excuses for not taking those steps too! As I continue to pick up the pieces and build up my relationship with God, I can see it. I can see it now, when I couldn't see it then. My faith was weak because I was not taking the appropriate steps to build it up. My faith wasn't working properly because I wasn't seeking God properly. 

Don't misunderstand, I was still praying and still had a connection to God, it just wasn't deep. There were even times when all I knew what to pray was, "God, I need help. I don't know what that looks like, but I know I need help." I am just thankful I could still pray to God and that He did know what I needed. Prayer is our lifeline to God, and even when we don't know what else to do, we can still go to God with prayer and ask for help because He knows what we need even before we know we need it. 

Thankfully, I had friends during this time that I reached out to. To be honest, I didn't want to reach out to them. I didn't want to face the truth about me drifting away from God, much less tell anyone else about it. But after many sleepless nights of God pushing me to reach out, I did. I didn't just reach out to anyone though. I reached out to the women I knew would be prayer warriors for me. I reached out to women, who would understand my struggles. And their prayers worked! I began to feel better! I began to come out of the darkness I felt! I am so thankful I reached out to them! 

I say all of this to say, if you are struggling, make sure to reach out. Reach out to God. Don't give up on him because He will never give up on you. He will relentlessly pursue you (hence the many sleepless nights). Reach out to friends or family, who you know will pray for you. I know sometimes it is painful to let others in the deep, dark of our innermost being, but ultimately God created us for community. God created us to be there for one another in prayer. God gave us the Holy Spirit as a way to communicate with Him and communicate on the behalf of others, even when it is too hard for them to communicate with Him themselves. So please reach out to God and to others, even before you don't know what else to do. 

I'm even going to take it a step further. I'm going to tell you to reach out in the opposite direction. I'm going to tell you to reach out to the missionaries in your life. Missionaries often feel isolated and even forgotten about because let's face it, life goes on when we aren't there. So this often makes it hard for us to reach out to others. Satan lies to us and tells us things like, "They won't understand." or "They already have too much going on." Pray for the missionaries you know. Don't just pray for them, but ask them how you can specifically pray for them. It will help them so much. It will help them confront the lies satan tries to tell them too! So, maybe even selfishly, I ask you to reach out for the missionaries God has placed in your lives. 

For those of you who do pray for us, we are so very thankful for you. We feel your prayers. Thank you to each of you who pray for us. Thank you to each of you who read and share our blog. Know that we pray for each of you here. I, myself am trying to be more intentional in asking the people in my life how I can pray for them more specifically. To me, everyone is on the mission field, so we can all be more intentional in asking those who God has placed in our lives how we can specifically pray for them. 

We love each of you! 

Happy Easter!

Hey guys,

I hope all of you guys had a great Easter. We went to church this morning and had a great time of worshipping God. We were also greatful that the church only went two hours. Haitian churches are known to go five or six hours when they get excited about something. With Sharles that can be difficult. 

This week was good for us as our Pastor, Pat Hood, and executive Pastor, Kyle Goen, came to visit us along with Kent Jones who runs an organization that serves orphans and vulnerable children, called the 25 Project. It's was a great visit as they all three gave us good advise about living on the international mission field. They gave us some things to pray about. We are very thankful for their wise counsel. Check out Kent's website to see the amazing things he is doing at www.25project.org

On Saturday Brittany, Sharles and I took a family day to Karibe Hotel pool. We really enjoyed it and Sharles really loves the pool. 

This upcoming week we will be doing our ministry at the children's home along with our discipleship classes. We also have two heart patients staying with us this week. Yanick is preparing approximately 20-30 children to have heart surgery in May. 

Easter is an amazing day.  Jesus dying for us to take our punishment for our sins is truly amazing, but him rising from the dead really adds to it.  When he defeated death, he gave us the ability to defeat it also. He gaves us the chance to have everlasting life. Truly an amazing gift. We should be praising God everyday for that gift he gave us. Thank you Jesus.