I stole this story from a friend:

The Teacup:

There was a couple who used to go England to shop in a beautiful antique store. This trip was to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups.

Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked, "May we see that? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, the tea cup spoke.

"You don't understand," it said, "I have not always been a tea cup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me and pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, 'Don't do that. I don't like it! Leave me alone,' but he only smiled, and gently said, 'Not yet!'

"Then. WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. 'Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy! I'm going to be sick!', I screamed But the master only nodded and said, quietly, 'Not yet.'

"He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. 'Help! Get me out of here!' I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, 'Not yet.'

"When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. 'Oh, that felt so good! Ah, this is much better,' I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Oh, please; stop it, stop it!!' I cried. He only shook his head and said. 'Not yet!'

"Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. "Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering, What's he going to do to me next? An hour later he handed me a mirror and said 'Look at yourself.' And I did.

"I said, ' That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful I'm beautiful!' "Quietly he spoke: 'I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.'"

God knows what He's doing in each of us. He is the Potter and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.

So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to "stink", try this:

Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down, and have a little talk with the Potter.

As I walk this road of life,
   Loaded down with toil and care,
I cry out to the Lord and say,
   "Father, why aren't You there?
I trust in You, I serve You,
   Lean on You every day.
Yet still I have these burdens here
   That complicate my way."
My Father answers back so gently,
   Whispering soft and low,
"Child, what can I do with these
   When you just won't let go?"
"But Father, I gave them to You...
   Remember when I prayed?"
"Yes, Child, you surrendered all,
   But that was yesterday.
Surrender is not just one time,
   But a process every day.
Sometimes moment by moment,
   You must give it all away.
For as you walk this road of life,
   Your fleshly nature wants control.
So what you released yesterday,
   Today you've regained hold."
With tears threatening to fill my eyes,
   I bow my head to pray.
"Forgive me, Lord, for my lack of faith,
   And my stubborn, foolish ways.
Help me, God, to release these things
   To which I selfishly hold,
Guide me that I won't give up and give in
   Each time I seek control."
The road is not an easy one,
   But God will help along the way.
I simply must remember to surrender,
   Not once, but every day.
   

Monday, June 16, 2008, 9:00pm TX time

We got an earlier start this year, getting away from the church at about 6am. I've been in the Wests' van most of the time and we started out with a little talk time, followed immediately with naptime.  Upon waking up, we played with cameras for a little while.  Around that time, we passed through Childress, TX and saw a lot of damage from a tornado that had gone through the night before.  Because of the damage, the gas stations in that town were closed down, so we had to continue on.  We played games and sang songs for a while before lunch, when Karen and I switched with Rachel and Olivia to ride in Tyler's truck, where Tim, David, and Lauren were also riding.  The guys were rather insane! All three of us girls were sound asleep in the back seat when we were jolted awake by the guys hootin' and hollerin' that we were in New Mexico.  Around 4pm, Karen and I swapped back to the Wests' van and promptly went to sleep again.  I awoke not long after to discover that we were stopped on the side of the road because Tyler's truck was having issues again! So, we went on to eat supper until Tyler's crew joined us (deja vu!).  We just got back on the road not long ago and are starting to watch "Robin Hood and His Merry Men".

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008, 11:49pm TX time

Somewhere around 1am TX time was when we finally got to the church last night.  we had ended the ride with singing hymns to help put the little girls to sleep.  Everyone got a late start this morning, not eating breakfast until about 8 NM time.  We girls started out cleaning out two of the sheds at the Benallys' house and then Tiffany gave us the rest of the time before lunch off.  Meanwhile, the guys moved the shed that was beside the fellowship hall, pulled the north wall off the fellowship hall, and framed two doorways and a large window opening, erected showers, and put up the Big Top.  After lunch, several of us took naps, and then Rebekah, Hannah, Melissa, and I painted the back shed at the Benallys' all afternoon.  I ended up with a horrible headache from the heat and slept on the floor in the house for the last two hours before supper while the other three girls continued to paint.  I couldn't force myself to really eat anything at supper, so I just laid on a cot outside and slept until the very end of the girls' shower time.  Then there was the regular bonfire and four-wheeler rides to end the day.  Audrey and Cherise requested that Karen bring me to say goodnight to them, and then I went to bed myself.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008, 11:08pm NM time

Today, as we began organizing cans of paint and figuring out what colors were inside, Bro. & Mrs. Hymer and Bro. & Mrs. Armstrong arrived, surprising almost everyone! They immediately jumped in to help, starting with tug-o-wars to get covers off paint rollers and Mrs. A sticking her arm up to her elbow in a bucket of paint to mix it.  Diane, Rachel, Hannah, Melissa, Liz, and I packed lunches and took some of the paint to paint inside and out a church building at a lady's house.  Mrs. Hymer started out with us and then had to leave.  Then later, Mr. A joined us for the rest of the time, acting absolutely insane! After finishing the paint job, Mr. A drove us back (which we barely survived!), then we showered and ate (making sure to sing "happy birthday" to Cherise at supper) before services.  Services were less than 2 hours, surprising us all, and then we had refreshments. During that time, Adam and I talked and played with Mach 1 for nearly 2 hours and then Karen came to get me so we could go get ready for bed.

Quote of the day: "Maria, you'd better not drink anymore Gatorade or you'll be as bad as Mr. A!" ~Rachel W.~

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Thursday, June 19, 2008, 11:02pm NM time

This morning started with getting up extra early to have choir practice at 6:45, where no one was warmed up or awake, meaning we were all FLAT.  Then after breakfast, Melissa, Susan, Mrs. Howard, and I were assigned to sorting donated clothes all day, and we got to keep whatever we wanted!  We found several cute things and just had a good time working together.  When we had gone back to the church to eat lunch, the cement truck came to pour the foundation of the kitchen addition and where the sidewalk needed to be repaired.  After finishing sorting for the day, we came back and cleaned up, which was made particularly difficult by all the wind we've been having.  Then I helped serve at supper, and then we had choir practice and services.  Luckily, the choir special, "Be Thou My Vision", sounded a lot better than it had first thing this morning.  Bro. Armstrong played guitar and sang for his last night here, after having worked on fixing the church's piano all day.  After the song service, Bro. Black brought a lesson about Noah's Ark while Bryan made a cool chalk drawing. Then after the almost 2-hour service was over, we had refreshments and said goodbye to the Hymers and Armstrongs.  Afterwards, Austin, Adam, Marcia, and I went out away from the church a little bit to stand on a trailer and practice "The Love of God" for a special.  It took us a while to actually start seriously practicing because we were running so low on sanity and it was getting late.  After wiping tears from my eyes and us actually running through the song, Karen and I played with our cameras for a little while before heading to bed (where I'm now listening to VERY noisy boys goofing off in the big tent...).

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Friday, June 20, 2008, 11:11pm NM time

We woke up early again this morning to have choir practice at 6:45 (the last time, thank goodness!).  Then we headed back to sorting clothes all day, only Susan was replaced by Karen and Andrew H. came along.  We got quite a bit done, especially with some additional help from Adam, Rob, Heidi, and Rachel P.  The pod that had been crammed full before we started is nearly half empty and the other pod called the "store" is almost completely organized.  When we came back to camp at the end of the day, Melissa and I rode on the back of Mrs. Howard's Suburban for fun.  Then when supper came along, I kept trying to talk to Austin about our special and he kept kinda putting it off.  Ten minutes before services, it finally clicked with him that we were singing tonight!  It still went rather well, even though we'd only run through it once before and Marcia started singing when she wasn't supposed to and made us improvise a little.  Bro. Black brought another lesson about Noah while Bryan did another awesome chalk drawing.  After the 2+ hour service, Bro. Black, Bryan, Adam, Austin, and I stood around for quite a while discussing pre-flood life vs. today.  After that riveting conversation, Austin, Adam, and I got some refreshments (including fry bread!) and discussed having another special on Sunday.  Austin took us back out to where the trailer had been and sang a song he'd like to do.  Then we ended up playing with my MP3 player to find songs, goofing off with funny songs occasionally, too.  With that, Bro. Black announced bedtime and we parted ways.

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Saturday, June 21, 2008, 11:55pm NM time

Today was spent once again in the storage pods sorting, the first half of the day with Diane & Rebekah, and the second half with Adam & Jeremiah (which got pretty interesting at times!).  We came nowhere near to finishing all the sorting, but we made a lot of progress from where we started two days ago.  Adam and Bryan had a water fight at lunch, which all started when Adam was laying in the shade under the table to talk to me (the chair was in the sun and hot) and Bryan came and tried to throw water on Adam's head.  So, at supper Adam convinced me to sit under the big tent in the shade.  The service tonight was about 2 1/2 hours, in which Bro. Black finished his lessons on the flood and Bryan's drawing included really cool blacklight effects.  Then we had refreshments and Austin wrote down the words to "In Christ Alone" for me, him, and Adam to sing for services in the morning.  We went out a little ways once again for practicing (although, it turns out that everyone around the church could hear us singing anyway!), but with a little less insanity this time.  Then we came back into camp so I could copy the words for Adam.  While copying, my paper started to blow away.  When I reached to grab it, I got a big chunk of wood under my nail from the picnic table, which Adam ended up having to pull out for me (I think he loved getting to use his knife on me... :^) )  I then rushed and finished writing all but the last line of the song before we were sent to bed.

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Sunday, June 22, 2008, 11:10pm NM time

This morning I actually awoke chipper because I woke up at 7:30 when I was ready to get up, rather than being screamed at by an alarm.  I got ready for services and headed outside to copy lyrics again, this time to sing by.  After breakfast, Austin, Adam, and I practiced our song again and then went to practice "It Is Well" for our last choir special of the trip.  Our trio of "In Christ Alone" came off rather well, and then Bro. Benally preached with Bro. Peter interpreting.  After the 2 hour service, we went to get ready for lunch with the rest of the church.  I then sat around to talk for a while, watched skit practice, and took a nap in the big tent.  Just a couple of minutes before the start of the evening service, Austin, Adam, and I kinda made an abrupt decision to sing "Amazing Grace" during the open mic time with no practice.  It went rather well, and after a 2-hour song service, Bro. Black gave a lesson on walking with God while Bro. Peter translated again and Bryan did a chalk drawing.  That entire service was about 3 hours long, and then several of us gathered around the windows of the church to watch the skit while waiting on our turn at supper.  While eating, we watched a video of the skit, then pictures from the previous three years' trips.  Some of the kids tried to reenact the skit, and then a large group played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?"  Then some girls went to shower while all others went to bed.  I really don't feel like sleeping, though, as end-of-mission-trip blues sets in...

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 7:40pm NM time

Yesterday morning, I started off with taking a freezing cold shower that left me WIDE awake.  Then we did last-minute finishing of projects, which meant going back to the pods for me.  Then we packed up and cleaned around the church grounds before loading up around 5pm to head toward the Badlands.  I ended up with a large group of 15 that eventually split up, leaving me with Marcia, Adam, Karen, Dan Avery, and Rebekah.  We then came back to eat supper and ride four-wheelers (I got to drive one).  It rained off and on for a little while.  After the sun started setting, we started the bonfire and then had singing and testimonies, in which I spoke again.  We headed back to the church and got there after 1 or so.  Then while some went to sleep, others of us gathered in the fellowship hall for a large game of "Do You Love Your Neighbor?"  I stayed in the game until about 3:30, then got up to get a root beer and then had to change jeans after sitting in a muddy chair.  I went back in to find them playing "Electricity" and laid across some chairs to doze.  Sometime later, I awoke as Austin left the spot where he'd been dozing, and decided I was too sore from the chairs.  There was a small space on the floor between Karen and Katie that I claimed, and then awoke shivering at 5:15 to find Suzi sleeping right at my feet.  Karen woke up to get a sleeping bag to put over me and her, but I got up shortly to get ready to go.  I came outside to discover that everyone had left the fellowship hall earlier to play with an electric shocker and were now playing "Hide-and-Go-Seek".  Adam and Austin were trying to talk to me and my teeth were chattering so hard that I could barely hear them!  They called me pitiful and then Adam started trying to throw water on me to make me run to warm up.  I then went into the hooghan to warm up and Luke and Rachel started using the electric shocker on me and we watched my thumb just twitch from the pulses.  After breakfast and packing up, we finally got away around 8am (so much for "between 6 & 7").  The Hanfords, Blacks, Nguyens, Heidi, and maybe a few others stayed behind to head to the Grand Canyon, but didn't get away until after noon, I believe.  After nearly 12 hours in a van with the Nall twins, Adam D., Adam P., Austin, Rob, Mrs. Polson, Daniel P., Josiah, Jeremy, Mrs. Steele, and Tony, we are only in Tucumcari, NM due to vehicle troubles galore!  Earlier we had crammed 21 people in the Dobbs' 15-passenger van to go to Wal*Mart to wait for some vehicles to get fixed.  We are now sitting in the parking lot of a Flying J, trying to figure out why the Wests' van won't start.  Bryan, Gigi, Dan, and Rebekah went on home because they have work tomorrow.  The women, children, and a few guys are driving the 2 hours to Amarillo to stay the night at a hotel.  Some are staying to fix the van and the rest will be picked up by the van that is taking us.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008, 10:36 am TX time

We crammed 18 people in the Dobbs' van and 12 people in the 8-passenger Suburban of the Howards' to drive to Amarillo, arriving at about midnight Wednesday morning.  Karen, Lilly, Melissa, Mrs. West, and I shared a room, and I think the night desk clerk probably got sick of all of us coming down to ask for different things (because we didn't really have access to our luggage).  I waited after everyone else to shower so I could braid Melissa's hair, so I ended up in bed around 2am.  It just so happens that that is about the same time that Andrew, Austin, Adam, Rob, Luke, and Tony arrived at the hotel.  All the other guys that we'd left in NM just found a hotel in Tucumcari for the night.  So we got up in the morning to enjoy the hotel's continental breakfast (including Texas-shaped waffles!) and then several of us hung out in the gazebo of the hotel's courtyard.  After looking up locations of Wal*Marts and city parks online and exploring van rental options, we went to Wal*Mart to grab some food and took it all to a nearby park to eat lunch.  Some guys played football, some sat and talked in the pavilion, while the rest of us played on the playground.  Turns out that several of us that didn't really burn all week actually burned at the park!  We had gotten the call around 2pm that the others were headed our way.  So, at about 4, we met them back at the Wal*Mart and headed on home.  Austin and Adam were back to being in the same van as I, so we had fun.  The last 6 hours or so of the trip, the three of us were talking almost nonstop about interesting things: sometimes funny and entertaining, mostly thought-provoking.  We finally arrived at the church at about 11:40 pm, after Adam and Austin fit in a drunken sailor song really quick.  After loading my luggage in my car and going through several tearful goodbyes, I got home around 12:40am.

So, during these 10 days:

† a church building was painted, inside and out
† two sheds at the Benallys' were cleaned out
† three sheds at the Benallys' were painted
† a kitchen area was added to the fellowship hall
† parts of the sidewalk in front of the church were re-poured
† electrical wiring was run into the fellowship hall some
† a pod of donations was halfway emptied and organized
† a trailer that had been donated to the Benallys was worked on
† a man's house had sheetrock added to the ceiling and some walls
† the Sunday School building was mudded
† the shed at the church was relocated...several times
† 6 revival services were held, along with VBS
† and several other task were completed that I'm not even aware of!
† 69 people came together to work for the Lord and grew in their walk with Him and with each other

Once again, I had an experience in the beautiful desert that I will never forget and will be difficult to match.  I grew to love the people of my church so much more and got to know many of them very well.  It was thrilling to see God's work this last week and a half.
Praise the Lord for all He has done!

(pictures coming soon...)