To Love Our God...

The two breakthroughs both developed simultaneously and were somewhat linked to each other, so I can't say which happened first or if one caused the other. Instead, both were causes and stimulants for what followed after.

One of these breakthroughs was a gift of love. Jesus revealed Himself to me in such a mighty, intimate, tender, breathtaking way that I fell in love with Him. Of course, I had always loved Jesus in a childish, "Jesus loves me" way. But now, I fell IN LOVE with Him, complete with stomach jiggles and a sparkle in my eye and heavy, pulsing breathing and an intense desire to be with Him, contemplate Him, and know Him more. (If you scroll through my xanga archives, you can see a post expressing this, though it was written months after this first happened. I kept half-expecting the emotions would fade and the strong feelings would go away, but they did nothing but increase.)

This pure, fervent, strong love stole upon my heart and captured me. I cannot describe it as anything other than a gift, because it was all initiated by Him. He courted me and won my heart as no earthly lover has ever done with a mortal maiden, and I was pleased to discover myself vanquished by such an inimitable Treasure.

It was especially precious because I had just walked away from a human love that God asked me to give up for His sake. How it hurt to give up that person no one can know who has not walked through the same thing. How long it hurt, too, and how often the wound opened freshly upon some remembrance, some contact, some association--I was not prepared for, though I endeavored to keep all this well concealed.

Thus it was that, loving Jesus, I began to feel that it had indeed been worthwhile and needful for me to follow God in surrender to not go right back to the mission field. If I had missed this--oh, that would be unthinkable.

And the Master Professor smiled as He saw His pupil beginning to learn and understand His ways.

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Pursuit of God

“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:1-2

“O God, thou art my God: early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” Psalm 63:1

“My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.” Psalm 84:2

At the beginning of my return from Spain, one thing was very clear. I was not to "push" my way forward or manipulate circumstances so that I could go back as soon as possible. Indeed, I felt quite forbidden to even go on mission trips. God closed the door to one fun-sounding mission opportunity after another, from accompanying my sister to Mexico to visiting the Philippines with our church to going to Nepal with a Nepalese friend of mine who invited me to go with her for a month. It was SO hard to turn down all these things and say, "I'm not going," not only because I really wanted to go, but also because no one would understand it. They would think I was losing my heart for missions or something. How could they see that I was flying in the face of my own desire?

All I knew was that the door to go back was closed for now. I realized God had other things in mind that were more important to work on. It was not pursuit of a life-calling to missions, it was something else. God had the answer, and in pursuing Him, all would eventually become clear. Clinging to all the light I had, I started a Word document called "Pursuit of God."

I wrote the first entry in the car on the 6-hour drive home from the airport. It said,

I have several goals for this new period of my life. First, I hope to become supremely obedient to God. I want obedience to be a priority, where I don’t delay, I don’t question, and I don’t try to get out of doing what I know God wants me to do. I have been failing in this area too much lately, and I see my heart as very hard and unpliable and unyielded to God’s will.

Second, in looking at my life right now, I see that there really isn’t anything worthwhile that I’m really good at. Sure I have skills…sure I’m good at things, but in terms of an overarching skill that defines me, that I can say, “I do this, and I’ve studied it, and I know how to do it, and I’m really good at it,” I can’t point to anything. Look at my degree—I majored in communications, yet I don’t know that I could get a job at a newspaper and be a reporter (or get into any field in communications, for that matter). If there was one thing I wish I could say I was really good at, it would be leading people to Christ. I want to excel in it. I want to become experienced, an expert, a fisher of men. I want to study it, pursue it, and become very, very good at it, so that after I die, people will look back at my life and say, “You know, there was one main thing about Rebekah: she was always leading people to Christ, and she was good at it, too.”

To do that, it brings me to the third goal: I want to pray. I want to pray, not just wimpy prayers, but mighty, faith-filled prayers that connect with God. I want to pray, not just short prayers, but be able to spend hours on my knees with God. I want to pray, not once in a while when I think about it, but every day, as a matter of habit and discipline. I want to pray, not just to see my needs met and my requests answered, but to draw closer to God and communicate with him and learn His heart. I want to pray, not starting off well for a month and then slacking off, but continuing faithful in prayer as something that will characterize the rest of my life.

God is saying, “Get more of me! Want more of me! Fight for more of me! There is SO much more to me! Pursue me! Desire me! Push through obstacles to get to me!”

I didn't know it at the time, but two key breakthroughs were to appear in the coming months.

Keep Reading: To Love Our God...

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Tutored Under the Master Professor

Where I was, where He led me, and perhaps an inkling of where I'm going.

Part 1. Following the Lamb wherever He leads

It all started back when God did the unthinkable. I had just returned from Spain, excited to go back and throw my life into God's service there, and He shut the door.

"I want you to die to your desire to go to the mission field," He said.

"What?" I responded, taken aback. "You can't mean that."

"Yes. In fact, I want you to move back home, be there for your brothers and sisters, and work so that you can contribute to providing for the needs of the family."

"I can't believe you would do this to me, God," I protested. "When your word says the laborers are few, and I'm over here waving my hand in the air, saying, 'Pick me! Pick me!'---what's up with that, Lord?"

"Nevertheless, I'm asking you to give that up. Will you place it in my hands, trust me with it, and die even to this?"

I gulped. Being a missionary was the only thing I had ever wanted to do. And working, being Miss Career Woman, was the last thing I ever wanted to do. How could God take my most precious, most treasured desire and say, "Thanks, but no thanks"? It made no sense.

God reminded me that I claimed I would die for the cause of Christ. "If you are you willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for my sake, then shouldn't you be willing to make a much smaller one?" And with this and many other persuasions, He gently led me to the place where I was willing to sacrifice even this. With tears, I laid it on the altar where it could be consumed by God's holy flame. I released it.

Thus it was that I found myself, in the summer of 2008, a college graduate in my 20s, still living in my parents' house, teaching three piano students, and feeling like the whole world would look on my life as a sad waste of potential.

Far from it... God had many things in mind, which I had yet to discover.


This is the first post in this series.
Next Post: Pursuit of God

The Most Productive Day Of My Life

Unsurpassed as of 7/7/13. I did all this in one day.

• Made breakfast
• Took the dogs out, fed them, etc.
• Planted two rows of corn
• Memorized 2 Corinthians 5:1-3
• Spent a couple of hours online
• Made a pot of chai tea
• Talked to Rosie on the phone quite a long time
• Practiced piano and memorized first three pages of Brahms’s Rhapsody, something I have not been able to do with any piece for a long time, yet the memorization was almost effortless today.
• Cleaned the bathtub, shower curtain, bathroom sink, & mirror
• Went through the hall closet, found receipt book, organized stuff in boxes & put them all back neatly, put all the coats back (they had been in James’ room for 2 weeks)
• Vacuumed living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, & laundry room
• Went through boxes in the attic, got out summer clothes, put back winter clothes
• Organized my closet, put winter shoes in boxes, got out summer shoes
• Returned to attic all odds & ends (like the embossing heat tool for stamping) that belonged there
• Took care of all the piles of paper sitting around in my room
• Got my top mirror dresser drawer cleaned out (***YAY!***) from all the junk it had accumulated over about 2 years
• Dusted top of bookshelves & re-did it with my Spain towel on top
• Organized music books from 3 different locations into one neat spot with bookends
• Read a chapter of Created to Be His Help Meet
• Emailed Rosie about 30 pictures of recent things we have been doing
• Picked grass and pet our neighbor’s horses
• Made dinner
• Took care of dogs
• Fed fish

Stubborn, Stupid, and Crazy me

On Saturday I got up with a plan: I wanted to climb a mountain here in the Malaga area that I had read about on the internet.



MOST people, to get to the top, ride a Teleferry.



Slight hitch: The teleferry is closed from Jan 1-Feb 15. But no worries!

If I couldn't go up the teleferry, I could go up the trail. I have two good sturdy legs that could carry me. Sure, it would take more than the 15 minutes for the teleferry ride, but hey...it was going to be worth the effort!

Slight hitch: I didn't know exactly where it was, and I couldn't get anyone to go with me. But no worries!

After getting onto the wrong bus, changing to a train, and finally getting to the right town, I got off, full of anticipation.

Slight hitch: It was already 5:00 pm. But no worries!

After asking a lot of people and walking a long, long way, I finally made it to the trail. I started ascending, enjoying myself immensely.



Slight hitch: I got onto what looked like a trail and wasn't. Before I knew it, I found myself in the middle of nowhere. But no worries!

Where I lost the trail:


Looking up:


I was picking my way through unforgivably prickly bushes, climbing straight up what must have been the steepest side of the mountain. "But I think I can make it up this way," I thought to myself. So, breathing heavily, with my heart beating in my ears, resting every 3 steps, I started making it up that way.

Slight hitch: There were cactuses and thistles everywhere. But no worries!



I just wouldn't use my hands to help me climb. So there.

Slight hitch: There were unsettlingly large animal tracks about, and unexplained rustlings of the bushes in various parts. But no worries!



I kept seeing what I thought would be a path just a little above me, but when I would get there, I would find out that it wasn't. I finally made it to a patch of stones. I had seen it from below before losing the trail, and it was because of this that I thought there would be a trail farther up.



I started climbing up the stones, grateful to be free from the bushes.

Slight hitch: The stones were small and loose, and for every step I advanced, I slid back half a step. But no worries!

The stones ended, the bushes surrounded me again, and huffing and puffing and with great effort, I made it to the top.

Slight hitch: A man dressed in black with his arms crossed was standing in the middle of the path to the top. But no worries!

He was a security guard. He launched into a lecture in Spanish on how I shouldn't have come up that way, looked at me, saw that I was a foreigner, and started trying to speak German with me. I replied in Spanish that I spoke Spanish or English. "Oh, you speak a little Spanish?" he said (in Spanish). Then he began to talk to me in very simplified Spanish, roughly translated thus: "Do you know the word DOG? Woof woof, bow wow, Grrrr," he said. "Yes," I replied. He continued, "Four (One-two-three-four) DOGS. Big. Grrrr. Dogs catch you. Head--off. Face--off. Arm--off. You--hurt. Me--can do nothing." I smiled and apologized as profusely as I could in my best Spanish for having come up that way, and explained that I had lost my way and gotten onto something that I thought was a trail but wasn't. "You--I think--Crazy," he said, shaking his head. "Well... is it closed?" I asked. "Can I at least go up to the outlook spot and look around?" "All right. I guess you can go up and take a look," he replied, in normal Spanish this time. "But don't be long."

No one else was up there, and I went up for a look. The view was SPECTACULAR! The day was so clear, I could see the coast of Africa across the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, and the Sierra Nevada mountains in the other direction.



Slight hitch: The sun was already setting. But no worries!



I went back and asked the security guard how to get down on the correct trail. He pointed to a narrow, winding road that started off in the opposite direction and wound around a long, long way. "That way," he said. "It's very long. I have no idea how many kilometers. You would have to walk a long way. It would be better to use a car." (You can see a bit of this road in the above picture at the left.)

Slight hitch: I didn't have a car. But no worries!

However, there was a wide tire-track dirt path that led straight towards where I wanted to go. "And how about this way?" I asked. "Well, you can go that way, too," he said. "But it's more dangerous." "Dangerous in what way? Danger of falling? Danger of thieves? Danger of animals?" I inquired. "Yeah, danger of animals and of stepping wrong and twisting your ankle," he replied. "Well, I'm not afraid of those things," I said. I thanked him and headed off on the more direct route, already slightly concerned about losing my daylight and preferring to get down quickly and go home as soon as possible on the train.

As soon as I was out of his sight, I started going as quickly as I could, running at times, speedwalking at others, thinking, "Hey, it's downhill from here!" However, at every switchback, the trail got narrower. I was a little concerned at this, but kept going. The trail kept getting narrower. Once I thought it had disappeared completely, but I backtracked and found it again.

Then I got to a place where I could not go any farther. The trail, which had been just a faint dirt track, finally dwindled away completely and I was left standing on the top of a cliff with no way to get down. Perhaps I could have made a rock-climbing expedition out of it if there had been enough light, but there wasn't. So that's what he meant by twisting my ankle.

Where I found myself (approximately)


I was left with no other option but to climb all the way back up to the top (which was quite a ways) and descend by the long road the security guard had showed me.

It was already getting dark by that time.


By the time I got back to the top, it was darker.


I snuck past the security guard without him seeing me (he was in the building with the radio on loud), snuck past his dog without it barking, and started down the long road, accompanied by a thin sliver of a crescent moon. Three cars passed me. I made it safely back to the train station and got home about 10pm, tired, thirsty, and satisfied. HAPPY ENDING!!! Yay!!!

Morocco Trip: Train to Rabat

At midnight last night, I have officially been here for a week! I’ve done so much, it’s amazing. It feels like longer than a week.

I had to teach school in the morning, so I ate a yummy breakfast of cherries and then caught a taxi. I told the driver where the subdivision was, what it was called, what road to take, and showed him on the map, but he didn’t really know where it was, and I was fuzzy on how to get to the school once I got into the neighborhood. We did get to the general vicinity, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to the school, because it is sort of hidden down a side street in the middle of a bunch of newly-constructed buildings that look almost identical. I was thinking that I could do it, but I couldn’t, so I just got out of the taxi once I got as close as I could, paid the driver, went to a teleboutique, and called Mr. B. The person working there was a woman, which was unusual, but nice for me, and she gave directions of where we were to Mr. B's secretary.

He came to pick me up, and while I waited, I sat with the woman and showed her pictures of my family. (That photo album I put together before this trip has been great! I’ve showed it to just about every person I’ve met, and it’s a great conversation starter.) She didn’t speak a word of any language besides Arabic, and I didn’t speak Arabic, so we tried to talk to each other without too much success. However, when Mr. B got there, she gave me a big hug goodbye and the Moroccan kisses on the cheeks, and I felt like I had made a friend.

My time at the school was not that great. I taught from 10:30to 11:45 and basically let the kids walk all over me. It was not good. (We were playing mafia and looking at pictures on my computer.) I left feeling blah. It was a waste of my time and theirs to cater to their whims that way. L I guess I learned about what NOT to do. These aren’t Verity kids.

When I got home, I had to pack, and Marie and I left for the train station at about 2:00. We walked the mile or so to get there, with Marie carrying a backpack and me pulling my small carry-on suitcase. If wheels could talk, these wheels sure could tell you a story! They’ve been to China, the Dominican Republic, all over America, and now, here they were, bumping over the dusty Moroccan streets and sidewalks.

We met Adair at the train station, bought our tickets to Rabat, and departed at 3:00. We had bought first class tickets in order to be assured of getting a seat, which I guess can be a problem, plus, the air conditioning is supposed to work better in first class. However, it wasn’t working at all in our compartment, and we were all stifling hot. (That was the first time I had actually felt uncomfortably hot.) Finally I walked down the train and into a different car. I found a compartment that was completely empty, and the A/C worked, so we all moved. It was over 100 degrees that day, the sun was beating down on the train, and no air was moving inside, so the A/C helped a lot.

We arrived in Rabat around 6:15 and met up with F and her 3 friends. We went to their friend’s house and sat around for a while. We looked for a soccer game to watch on TV, but we couldn’t find one, despite her’s 5 satellite dishes with about 400 channels each. Then we found out that the game we wanted to watch was not until tomorrow.

For dinner, we went to an Assyrian restaurant. The falafel was the best I had ever had, and the pita and hummus were delicious. But the most fascinating, interesting, intriguing part was the smoking. They have these huge smoking pipes (about 1 ½ inches in diameter) that are connected to a pot on a stand that burns little coals. The tubes collect the smoke, and the people suck it in through a silver mouthpiece. Then they exhale a huge cloud of smoke. Needless to say, none of our group tried that.

I didn’t get any pictures, because I had accidentally left the memory stick for my camera back at our apartment in Fez. That was stupid.

Keep Reading: Tour of Rabat
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Start at the Beginning: The Journey Begins

Morocco Trip: Tour of the Medina

This was one of my most interesting days yet! I learned so much and had such a great time! I learned what they do with olive pits, how many streets are in the Fez medina, how they tan leather, and a whole variety of other things.

Daniel came over for breakfast this morning. We’ve sort of adopted him. We ate fruit, bread, and yogurt. I wasn’t feeling very well, but I felt better as the day went on.

At 8:30, the three of us walked to McDonalds to meet Adair, who was going with us on a tour of the medina! I made everyone late by forgetting to dump pictures to my computer until the last minute, and then when I got my computer up, the scanner & camera wizard would not pop up, so I had to do it manually, which I don’t like, because it names the files all wrong.

Anyway! We caught two separate taxis and went to the medina where we made our way to a travel agency where we had a tour guide lined up. We had to wait for him to come, so Adair and I walked to a café where she got crepes with honey and I got water. I started counting how many donkeys/mules/horses I saw. Yesterday I did it, too, and I saw about 14, so I wanted to see if I would break my record.

Our tour guide came, and he led us into the maze of streets that is the Medina. The medina, or old town of Fez, is walled, and only accessible through certain gates. It is home to 500,000 people, it contains 9,000 small streets, and there are an estimated 7,000 donkeys inside.

The streets are either lined with shops or the walls of houses. Where there are shops, the street is a little wider, but when you have house walls on either side, you can stretch out your arms and touch both walls.

Mohammed was the name of our tour guide. Dressed in a light blue t-shirt that said “Gulf Shores,” he looked almost like a tourist himself, and apologized for not wearing his djallabah. He said he didn’t have any prior notice, so he had to come as he was when he got the call. He showed us tubs of camel’s meat in fat, sheep’s heads that people eat for breakfast, and chickens from the countryside that taste better than ones from the city.

After the first few turns, I gave up trying to maintain a sense of direction, and just embraced the feeling of “lost in the medina, but not lost, because the guide was born here.” We came to one place where there is a huge public wood-fire oven, where all the Moroccan families bring their bread to be baked. Like a big kiln, it held hundreds of loaves at a time, and a man stood at the small opening, constantly putting in new loaves, flipping them, and taking them out. It was a little dark door that I would never have seen if I was by myself, so it was nice to be shown these places by a guide.

At another place, he stopped and let us watch a man hand sewing a djallabah. It was beautiful material with beads and lovely trim. Moroccans are artisans, and the men do extremely fine work. It’s all men that do it, even the sewing.

We went into a spice shop, where the lady also sold essential oils and different interesting things. We visited a cloth “factory” where they had four huge floor-sized looms set up. A man was working at one of them, and he doesn’t use a pattern or any type of design. He just makes it up out of his own creativity, weaving cotton, wool, or silk into the cotton warp. He can make a 2 x 4 yard piece of cloth in 2 days. The fabric in there was beautiful. I thought about getting some, but waited until I got to see the rest of the tour and decided I would come back if I wanted to buy something.

Then we went to the leather tannery. That was interesting! I had always heard that tanning leather was stinky, and it was, but it was fascinating to watch. The work is done in a lot of big vats of all different colored dyes that we looked down on from a balcony. It’s really indescribable unless you’ve seen it. The guy there told us all about how it’s done, from the messy pelts they receive from the slaughterhouse to the beautiful leather items they make. It gets washed in plain water and then soaked in lime for several days. This makes it easy to remove all the hair, which is scraped off. Then the leather goes in a water/pigeon poop/and something else bath to make it soft and supple and thicker. From there it is dyed, which also takes several days, and somewhere along the road it is washed again in a washing machine with water to clean it and remove the smell.

We also saw the guys making shoes from the leather. It was so interesting to watch, because you could see them at all different stages of the process.

I bought a belt at the little store there. I also saw a really nice bag and a “poufy” (footstool/cushion), but I didn’t get them because they were too much money. The poufy was 350 dh and the bag was 600 dh. I can always go back if I want to, though. I love my belt! It reminds me of a saddle in its color, shape of the buckle, and just general characteristics. It was 150 dh…gulp…but I think I should have bartered with a counter offer instead of just taking his asking price.

We left the leather tannery and walked to a beautifully ornate building where they sell carpets. The place was huge, and the proprietor spoke perfect English. He led us up three flights of stairs, past one intricate carpet after another, and into a room where four women were seated at a frame, using colored merino wool to create a huge carpet. The woman closest to us was moving so fast, her hands were a blur.

Marie, Adair and I got the opportunity to sit down with them on the bench, and we got to participate in making a few knots. We would take a strand of wool and wrap it around two strands of the carpet warp in a way that made a latch hook knot. Then we had to break off the wool at the right length to create an even pile. It was difficult to do it in a smooth, consistent motion like they did. Their skill and speed was amazing, yet the guy said that this would be a lower-quality rug, since 4 people were working on it. Usually, he said, one lady will make a rug from start to finish at her home, and therefore the tension and pile will be perfectly consistent.

Then we went downstairs and were served mint tea while they rolled out lots of carpets for us to buy. The smallest ones (4 x 6 feet) were about $250, while the largest were thousands of dollars. I kept asking interested questions because I was curious about learning more, solely for information, but think I led the guy to believe I wanted to buy something. I had a hard time convincing him I was not. I just couldn’t justify putting hundreds of dollars on the floor.

From there we went to lunch. We ate at a very upscale restaurant where the entrees were 140-200 dh each. It was good though! I had pastilla, a sort of meat pie that had powdered sugar on top—very odd combination, but quite tasty. The meat in the pie was pigeon meat. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted pigeon before.

Then we went to the ceramics factory. My camera battery had died at the restaurant (sadly enough), so I didn’t get to take any pictures, but it was fascinating, nonetheless. [Pictures shown here are from a subsequent visit to a different ceramics factory.] A man showed us every step of the process, from the chunks of rock-like gray clay, to the tubs of water where they soften it, to the people who shape it into tiles, to the kilns, to the painters, back to the kilns, and then to their other uses. Some of the tiles are chipped into amazingly precise mosaic pieces that are then fitted together and made into tables, fountains, walls, and many other things. Stairs, floors, pillars—everything is mosaic here.

We also got to see a man at the pottery wheel. He was a master of his craft! Effortlessly, he shaped a tajine pot before our eyes. Then, just as easily, without measuring, he made a perfectly fitting lid. He made a candlestick and a beautiful fluted bowl with equal dexterity, then lumped them all on top of each other and squished them, causing me to gasp with surprise. But it was only a demonstration. The guy unobtrusively put out a little money dish at the end, so I gave him 10 dh, my only coin.

Then we saw someone putting mosaic tiles together. The mosaic is assembled upside down on a perfectly flat floor, and then it is ringed or bordered with an iron band to keep it all in. Concrete is spread on top to set it, it dries for a few days, and voilà! A tabletop is made. The fact that the mosaics are assembled upside down is amazing, though, because some of them have intricate color patterns and multiple pieces of the same shape but different color. The person’s memory would have to be very good in order to trust that it was perfect. Once the concrete is poured, it’s stuck, mistakes and all. I never saw a mistake in any mosaic, ever.

The kiln is heated to 900° the first time and 1200° the second time. They use olive pits and cedar wood for fuel. They obtain the olive pits (and all the other dry waste products of the olives after they’re squeezed) from people who make olive oil. Resourceful, isn’t it?

Then we went into their shop, where I bought 2 beautiful bowls for 700 dh. Gulp. That was over $80.

So that sums up my tour of the medina. I saw 54 donkeys today!

Keep Reading: Train to Rabat
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