Some of you know that I am moving again! It's not a year
in New Orleans if I'm not moving homes. This time God has blessed me with the opportunity to be a
blessing to one of our homeowners. I first met Ms.Valerie in 2009 when she knocked on my door at
the Quad to see what type of work our ministry does on homes. We chit-chatted and as it turns out we began to work on her home. We gutted her home back in 2009, put a roof on in 2010,
closed up the back half of the house winter 2010, and this past winter break we began to hang sheet
rock.
Her home is right across the street from the house I
lived in this past year. When I was
speaking to her one day this spring about having to move out at the
end of June, she contacted me about possibly renting the home we were working on. Turns out, Ms. Valerie is not in a position
to move back to New Orleans just yet. She is a single mom of two beautiful kids and
an at-home nurse to people in her community about 1.5 hours away from
NOLA. To pick up her kids and try to
settle into New Orleans is too much on her plate right now. So in the meantime, two friends and myself
will rent her home, supplying her with an added income
and reliable renters who will take care of her beautiful home that countless volunteers worked hard
to rebuild! SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO THOSE WHO SERVED AND REBUILT MS. VALERIE'S HOME! yall rock!
We are overly blessed to remain on that street and to
continue building relationships with people on our block. I wish
I could say that on June 30th I made a simple move from one house to the next
but hence the title of my blog.
The challenge right now is there is no power to the
house. I can't really go into all the
specifics as I'm confused as to what is really going on but please
just pray with me and for me and Ms. Valerie as we patiently wait for all the ducks to line up and power
to be connected to the house. My heart
was broken last week and still hurts as Ms. Valerie and
myself tried to communicate to the electrician and general contractor to find out what was going on only
to be given unhelpful answers and feeling somewhat betrayed by them for not moving the house along
to completion.
Of course God in His awesome power and love has supplied
me with a home while I await power to be turned on at Ms. Valerie's. I guess what I'm realizing about myself is I
struggle with having to depend on others so yes, it's a pride issue. I don't like being dependent on others for
places to live and not knowing when power will be hooked up is even
worse because it's out of my control.
And as I type that last sentence I'm thinking, what control do I
really have to begin with? Just my
perceived notion of control and my perceived notion that I take
care of myself. Both of which are
completely false because the Lord Almighty is in control of all
things and apart from Him, I cannot take care of myself or depend on myself. He takes care of me and He is the one I must completely and utterly rely on and allow Him to remove the pride in my heart that I may depend on Him
even more. Again I can't remove my pride
on my own, I must submit to His Spirit and His leading on
how to do just that.
All this to say that God is teaching me a lot through
this challenge that took place during our Challenge conference.
Several verses have come to mind such as "I consider it pure joy
whenever I face trials of many kinds..." mostly because I know
joy is not the characteristic I have portrayed in this trial thus far.
However the one that God put in my head as I was spending time with him
on Saturday was Luke 9:57-58:
"As they were walking along the road, a man said to him,
“I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the
Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”"
Sometimes following Jesus means we will have no place to
lay our head...meaning we cannot rest in our comfortable picture perfect lives relying only on
ourselves when following the Savior of the World! Even He
didn't have a home to lay his head in sometimes and He was perfectly content to rely on the generosity of others to house him, feed him, give him a donkey,
etc. So if Jesus, the Son of Man, can
rely on others, can humble himself, making himself nothing then
why can't I Katie Hooks be willing to model that same behavior for the sake of the Gospel...to the
praise and glory of God?!
Paul says in Philippians 1:12-14: "Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly."
I love that Paul sees his circumstances, even in prison, as an opportunity to advance the Gospel which not only impacted the guards but his fellow believers who spoke out even more about the word of God. So who knows, maybe this trial is for the workers that myself and Ms. Valerie are communicating with, or maybe this trial is for you and to encourage you to see whatever challenges you face as an opportunity to advance the Gospel!
I have a feeling, the lesson of completely and utterly relying on God, humblying myself, is one lesson I'll daily work
on for the rest of my life. Please join me in praying God would remove my pride and remove whatever barriers are
preventing me from utter dependence on Him!
Please pray for the barriers to be knocked down and power
to be turned on to Ms. Valerie's home
that her home would be restored completely and I would continue to shine brightly for Christ on
that block all the while relying completely on my Savior!
Thanks for reading this mighty lengthy blog!
In Christ,
Katie in Haiti :)
