Devotional 2

I'll never forget when I returned home from a mission trip overseas and told my parents about the changes God had wrought in my life. First off: I had a new name, Anish Junimajapublin - no more Betty; I was a new woman now, a sacred vessel devoted to the service of the community - sweet, naive, teen Betty had answered a higher calling; and soon I wold conceive a child with a man the universe would reveal to me. I was so excited!
I had never seen mom cry such genuine tears as when I told her that I had come home to return the clothes and belongings of my former life. She hugged me like she wouldn't let me go.

That was ten years ago and not a day goes by that I'm not happy and grateful for how God has led me. I spend most days picking beans alongside my children during the summer; the rest of the year I teach math and birthing techniques at a community college.
A mission trip changed my life and it can change yours too.

devotional 1

I have a dream where my head is bolted to the keel of a super tanker. As it courses through the seaways of the world, the detritus and residue of life flow into my open, lamprey-like mouth, are consumed by my body, and exit back into the ocean through my womb as fine Danish-Modern furniture. My family takes this furniture and, selling it, provides meals and job opportunities to refugees from Sudan's and Somalia's civil wars. One of these refugees, Mashoudf Ali, has stayed with us this last year. He works hard and launders money using a dummy corporation he set up on the computer in the family room. His clients are various arms dealers and underworld figures. I'll never forget when the ATF visited. They had questions about some stinger missles in the basement.

I agreed to wear a wire. They placed cameras all over the house. They see everything.
Mashoudf has been away on business for a while.
God is like that. We think that he is away on business. But he sees all we do.
And he waits.

He waits by the phone on the Danish-Modern desk in the study upstairs.
He is with the refugees. He is with the supertanker.
He watches as I glide through the sea lanes.
He enters my mouth.