The Maxfields

The Maxfields

Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Power of Prayer

I want to thank everyone who has been praying for us along this journey. Your prayers are vital.  And the results of your prayers have already been seen.

Our family has been blessed with great peace since the word has finally gotten out about our journey. I have been realizing how blessed I am with an amazing group of friends who have been encouraging me and praying for me every day. And I continue to get more and more excited about this wonderful opportunity.

Every day, any time I see a picture of a precious Native American child, I get this thrill of excitement and love for them. I am so passionate for these children and I can't wait to spend every day with them.

Don't get me wrong, I know this is going to be a hard and crazy transition. But I am incredibly thankful for the peace that the Lord has given me and for the worry that he has taken away. <3

One verse that has really spoken to me this week is Romans 12:12, "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." I feel like I'm going to be able to take this verse with me when I move and I know it's going to be a great comfort.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The Journey to the Rez

Dear Friends and Family, 

If you’ve been around the Maxfield family at all the last few months you will know that the people of the Yakama Indian Reservation and the staff at Sacred Road Ministries (SRM) have become very important to us.  The Yakama people are in great need of love, compassion and care.  The staff at SRM are about giving them love, compassion and care through mercy ministries and sharing the Gospel of Christ.

Some of you have felt the call of God to do something unexpected, outside your comfort zone, beyond anything you’ve ever done before.  If that is you then you might have a taste of what we have experienced the last few months.

Well, as my pastor has said, it is hard to ignore the call of God. 

The Maxfield family is working toward joining the staff of SRM full time.  We have begun the process of raising partners to support us in prayer and through finances.  Darren will take on a Director of Operations role and look to help expand the ministry in new areas of economic development and a Christian School.  The entire family will be involved in this ministry in different ways.

This year will be a year of transition.  Raising funds, transitioning from my firm, selling our home, etc.  Our goal is to be on the Reservation January 2015.  We ask for your prayers.  

If you would like to partner with us financially in the ministry we would like to talk with you and let you know how you can do that.  We need donors to start giving on our behalf now so that we can raise the funds needed before we join Sacred Road.  The funds we will raise will go to pay our salary – i.e. our food, housing, health insurance, etc. – and other ministry related expenses.

If you want to learn more about this journey of ours you can go to our blog at www.maxfieldsintheshadow.blogspot.com If you want to learn more about SRM you can go to www.sacredroadministries.com or please call or email me.

Blessings,

Darren, Susie, Emily and Rachel Maxfield
dhmaxfield@gmail.com
425-652-1910


Sunday, January 26, 2014

Hope.

If you could see my desk, in fact, my whole room, right now, you would be appalled. It's embarrassing. But I have to set that aside. I need to write. I can't focus on Watership Down with two faces in my head: the faces of two kids whose lives really are pain. They are really two of the most beautiful kids I have ever seen; their dark eyes are so innocent but their tiny hearts have been hurt and scarred.

This entire week, I've been thinking almost nonstop about these two little kids on the Rez. He is five and she is three. They giggle, they are full of energy, and they love macaroni and cheese. They smile like any other kid out there. They make me laugh. I want to talk to them constantly. They are sweet and playful. But their hearts hurt. They lack sleep, they are malnourished, they are unkempt, they cry.

Their faces keep reminding me of the life I am living compared to theirs. I can't get over the fact that I'm eating three meals a day when they are barely eating one. That I have a closet stuffed with clothes and a tiny three-year-old wears a mismatched broken sandal and a black dress shoe. I am so incredibly blessed with a family that loves me, encourages me, feeds me, laughs with me, and comforts me; the "family" of these precious kids fell apart even before they were born. I think about their house that is covered with inappropriate dirt, compared to mine that is bursting with everything, with every need of mine already met.

I struggle with this. I struggle with the life I am living and the life they are living. My happy, complete, safe life and their broken one. From human eyes, it looks like these two sweethearts are hopeless. No one is watching out for them, no one is making sure they eat, no one is making sure they are clean. Their future is hopeless.

If it weren't for Christ, they would be hopeless. But God's grace and God's Kingdom are for little children like these. It is for the helpless, the scarred, the broken. His Kingdom is for the five-year-olds and the three-year-olds on the Rez. They have hope. Their King will return.

I can only finish with this: Come Lord Jesus.

Scrambled Eggs on a Porch Swing

Something strange is going on.  It's kind of like nesting.  You know.  When you are "expecting" and you feel the need to have the house in complete order before the baby arrives?  (And no, I'm not pregnant.)

I am nesting while we wait to get to the reservation.  We feel anxious to be there.  We want to know what the staff is doing.  We're wishing we could be there to come alongside and help where needed.  And how are the children doing?  We love them so much yet we hardly know them.  The few that we have met are embedded in our thoughts and hearts. 

Cooking is my nesting obsession right now.  I don't know if that is because I might be doing more cooking when I am on the reservation.  Preparing meals before various events?  Providing a meal for someone who needs encouragement?  Cookies for the after school tutoring program?  Feeding a homeless youth? 

When I was little my mom told me stories about my grandma who would make scrambled eggs for various homeless people that showed up on her doorstep.  My grandpa was the pastor of the town and when a hungry, homeless person found that out, they would come knocking on the "preacher's" door.  There was a porch swing she would tell them to sit on while she went inside and prepared some scrambled eggs.  I loved hearing that story.  I loved knowing that even though my grandparents lived on a meager income, they found a way to provide a warm meal to someone who had a need.  I like to imagine she prayed for them while she cracked and stirred the eggs.  Perhaps it may have seemed like an "interruption" to her day. 

Will I embrace the "interruptions" in my life like my grandmother did?   I'm ashamed to admit this, but sometimes the idea of leaving this "white picket fence" life seems like an interruption. 

But God is changing my heart.  He's opening my eyes to His plan for my life.  And it is good.  He reminds me that when my eyes are on myself things tend to be interpreted as interruptions.  But when my eyes are on Him, He shows me that He has a special job for me to do on an Indian Reservation.  And this makes me excited.    

So for now, I'll keep cooking and hoping He might give me a porch swing too. 

Matthew 25:44-45, "They will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or in prison, and did not help you?  He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." 

You want me to do what?

Prior to my week at White Swan this last summer I would have said that I would be the last person to be called to the mission field.  I have always felt that I was called to be a Christian in my local church and a CPA in a public accounting firm.  The Lord has used me in various ways in my local church.  I am a pretty good CPA as well.

Susie experienced a sense of calling to the mission field in high school.  Unfortunately, she married a person that did not have that calling (at that time in our life).  We’ve served the Lord here in the Seattle area.

But the Lord used that week to show me a small picture of the suffering in the world and the need for Christ in that suffering.  I am not able to read Scripture the same way I did before.  I am not able to rationalize and breeze by the many passages regarding the cost of following Him, helping the poor and needy, aiding those afflicted.

The Lord has also been showing us that our faith in Christ has been one of our own making.  We serve him as it is comfortable for us to do.  We give of our time and money as it is comfortable for us to do.  We structure our life in a way that does not require faith that He will provide.  The Lord is showing us that way of living is no longer sufficient.  Not all are called to this, but we feel the Lord is calling us, now.

I wake up in the morning thinking about the Yakama Indians and the Sacred Road staff.  I go to sleep thinking about them as well.  The Lord has not allowed me to go back to my old way of thinking about the world and my role in it.  As we have continued to pray for the Lord’s guidance He has only opened door after door. 

I pray that the Lord will never allow me to do as the rich young ruler did – “He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”  Matthew 19:22

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Here am I. Send me.

Its my turn now to share what the Lord has done in my own life this past year. Here is a brief summary of the past 5 years of my life (has it really been that long?).

I can trace it back to 6th grade. I went to school, Covenant Christian Middle School, with three of the Granberry children; I heard weekly about the ups and downs of the Rez. The stories sometimes made me laugh and at other times they made me feel like crying. But from the very beginning, I was excited about the Lord's work on the Rez and was hearing, over the course of three years, about the spiritual growth that was taking place in such a broken place. Looking back, I know that the Lord ordained all of what took place: He allowed a spot at CCMS to open up for me in 6th grade and knew that the Granberry kids would be my classmates. He used this time to stir in me a desire to visit the Rez for myself, to see firsthand the effects that Sacred Road Ministries was having over there.

I know for a fact that from 7th to 9th grade I asked often for Exile Pres. to take a team and serve for a week on the Rez. However, I wasn't aware of the fact that the trip sign ups fill up extremely quickly, and each year we didn't get started on the process fast enough.

Again, I see the Lord's hand in all of this. His timing is impeccable. At the beginning of 9th grade, my dad and I were graciously invited to join with my uncle's church, Resurrection Presbyterian in Puyallup to go for a week in July to serve the Yakama natives! I was so excited! And I still am. I am so excited that we went last summer. I haven't taken down any of the pictures from the trip that I put up in my room, and I'm not planning to.

I came back from the trip to my sophomore year of high school. Life is busy, I can guarantee you that. I'm not living the same life that I was before the trip. Three-year-olds have shaped me into who I am today. Three-year-olds helped me see that our world is truly fallen, but "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" (Romans 10:14-15). These Yakama people and these kids are impoverished, abused, hurting, and broken. The kids on the Rez helped me see that I have a role in this too. I have a part to play: "How are they to preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:15). These people can't help themselves without the help of Christ. I can name at least ten kids right now that have unbelievable home situations. Who is going to help them? Who is going to show them that there is hope? That someone actually loves them? Is God really telling me that I'm the one who can be His advocate? I'm the one that will comfort weeping children at church and hold their hand? I'm fifteen; I'm a high school student with no experience in this area of life whatsoever. I'm not going to lie: I've tried to deny all of this, I've tried to push this whole idea under the rug and make myself believe that this job is for someone else; someone more prepared, or more experienced, or even just someone older. I've tried to tell myself that it's okay for me to go on living my life in suburbia at a Christian school with everything I want. But "then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me'" (Isaiah 6:8).

This whole adventure that the Lord has us on is amazing. I never would have thought that we would be doing this, that I would be a "missionary's kid." I wouldn't have ever believed you if you would have told me that I would leave Cedar Park after just two years. I never would have thought that I would be telling people that I am moving to "an Indian Reservation" or that I would even be writing this blog post. It's pretty crazy, and I don't blame anyone for thinking so, because I think it to myself all the time. But now that we're doing it, now that we're taking the first steps as missionaries, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Love is Sacrifice

Well, I suppose it's my turn. These past few months have been CRAZY. At the end of summer, right before my dad and sister went on their mission trip, I thought I knew everything that God had in store for me for the next stage of my life. I'd finish up homeschooling this 8th grade year, I'd go to Cedar Park Christian for high school, and I'd probably go to a great college. I'd have lots of friends and I'd probably have a pretty great life. No worries, no money problems; you could say, a perfect life. Now that I'm looking back, it would be a perfect life. Ha.

Then my dad and sister came back. When I started hearing their stories and how emotional they were, I knew that nothing would ever be the same for us. At this point I was pretty excited, because I didn't know exactly what that meant. I assumed it would mean us visiting the Rez often and giving money. Whatever. Not a big deal. It wouldn't really affect me and I was happy we could be doing something.

So much has happened since then. Over these past few months, even though I go through the occasional 'freak out' stages, the Lord has been shaping me and changing my heart. It's quite amazing to look back at how I felt when I first realized what moving would mean to how I feel now. At first, I was in shock and I knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave my friends. My house. My life.

Now, I wouldn't change what we're doing for anything. I've only been on the Rez a few times and I already feel longing to be there. The kids are precious, and they need us. I love them. I know it's going to be hard, and I still have moments of 'what-I-can't-move-what-are-we-doing' but when I stand back and look at the big picture, I know that we have to. I want to.

For King & Country's song, "The Proof of Your Love" has been really inspirational for me during this period of hearing the call/answering the call/worrying/being excited or I might just say, mixed emotions. :)

Let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You, and what You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love

My biggest worries and prayer requests right now are security, anxiety and the worry of loneliness (from leaving my friends).

The Lord has comforted me through the words of Isaiah 41:13 where he says "For I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you."

Until my next post, thanks for reading!
  

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Journey to Sacred Road

We can blame all of this on Emily.  She had been asking to go on a mission trip for a couple years to White Swan, WA to work with Sacred Road Ministries (SRM) and the Native Americans on the Yakama Reservation. (By the way, the city is spelled Yakima, WA, while the Native American tribe is spelled Yakama.)  So finally we signed up and went with Resurrection Pres. last July.

But getting there wasn't easy.  We had already scheduled a trip to Lake Tahoe two weeks before the mission trip.  So like every vacation, I worked major overtime and was very stressed to get out of town to go to Lake Tahoe.  Then I was back for a week really working like crazy to get organized after being gone for a week and getting ready to be gone another week.  All the time, not really happy about going on the mission trip.  I was basically just going because Emily wanted to go.  For my whole life, I've known I wasn't a missionary and was good with that.  This trip wasn't really worth the hassle that I was having to go through to get there.

We've known about the Granberrys and SRM for many years.  At Covenant I helped get the old module for Sacred Road to use.  At Exile we've financially supported the Granberrys and others for years.  We knew about the work they were doing, the conditions on the Reservation and how the Lord specifically called Chris and Mary to work in White Swan.  But hearing about these things and actually seeing and experiencing it is a different thing.

The group drove over Saturday and once I got there I realized I wasn't going to have cell coverage.  I figured I might as well enjoy myself since my contact with the outside world had ended.  After the orientation on Sunday morning I was eating my words.  I knew the week was going to be good for both of us.

By Thursday evening I knew that I wasn't going back home the same person.

That evening, Chris hosted a question and answer time.  He shared his testimony, including parts that he doesn't always share - how the Lord really haunted him to get him to the Reservation.  In addition, Chris shared specific stories about many of the kids on the Reservation.  Others shared how their week was going and how they felt about things.

By the end of the evening I was hardly able to control my emotions.  The time spent with the kids each day when I knew that many were hungry, going home to abuse or worried about where they were going to sleep was very difficult to accept.  These kids have little hope of their situation changing.  The fact that I was going to go home at the end of the week and back to my warm house, with all I could eat and more money than I need was impossible to accept.  I was just going to leave them in their situation and get back to my vain, seemingly meaningless, life.

I was worried that my life was going to change forever.  Three months later, I know that it has changed forever.

I can't get the Yakama Reservation out of my head.  Whether it is thinking about Jay, Michael, Lucas, the other kids or thinking about the work of the SRM staff.  For the last few
months all I can do, is think about sending money to SRM, figure out how I can get others to send money to SRM, try to get on the board of SRM, read a bunch of books about Native Americans, try to come up with a job description for what I could do with SRM and work on various stages of the application to join the staff at SRM.  Needless to say, I do a fair amount of talking about SRM also.

All this, while trying to talk myself out of quitting my job, selling our house, and moving to the Reservation.

Can you imagine?  I still think we are crazy sometimes.

And then think about Susie.  She doesn't go on the trip but gets to hear me talk about SRM non-stop.  And then I start talking about quitting my job.  Am I seriously asking her to leave our life here to go to the Yakama Reservation?

But then I read verses like:

 "for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God."  John 12:43

"Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?  If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday."  Isaiah 58:6-7, 9b-10

"Jesus said to him, 'If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."  Matthew 19:21-22

I was able to rationalize all these types of verses before.  I can't do that anymore.  Susie is also seeing the meaninglessness of our life here in yuppieville.

These verses don't apply the same way to everyone.  Most are called to encourage and support the mission field.  Some are called to go.  I am the last person I would ever have expected to be called to the mission field.  Probably why I have been.  Only God could have this sense of humor.