T-Shirt Anyone?

We have some awesome t-shirts to sell, if you're looking to update your wardrobe, we're looking to fill your closet! :)

Check out this link, there's a blue men's tshirt and a red women's tshirt available! This booster campaign is live for the next 13 days so ACT FAST if you'd like a shirt! We'd LOVE you to have one! Our minimum print requirement is 15 shirts, so tell all your friends!

http://www.booster.com/zachtrauthaiti

Here's a sneak peek of the design:

Trust. To Let Go.

 

We just wanted to share our fundraising successes thus far and thank EVERYONE for all the ways they have been sewing into us! I have been loved on very deeply by the support that is coming from all our dear friends. Humbled. Speechless. Emotional. I have been moved to tears at the gift of generosity that I don't know if words would ever describe. There has been moments where the devil has whispered a lie that has penetrated my heart with stabbing pain and moments later one of YOU came as a gift, a kiss from the Lord, in support of us and renewed my faith to keep pressing on! And that's how I've been muttling along, moment to moment.

We are a little over half-way funded with 14 days left to come up with the remainder of the fees! FOURTEEN DAYS...I'm not going to lie, when I say this out loud, look at the calendar and even type it, the wind deflates from my lungs and I hear dramatic scary-music beating in the back of my mind knowing that we planned, developed & exhausted our brains for months for the ideas we fundraised with over the past 2+ months to come up with nearly the same amount that is due in 2 short weeks. I have sold everything I could on the garage sale except for my husband! LOL! I am straight-up, out of magic tricks and fundraising ideas. BUT, God has a plan....the control freak in me would really love to know that plan too, but for now I must learn to trust Him even more. So now is the time I fix my gaze upon the eyes of Jesus [some days whimpering like a scaredy baby] and not look even for a moment at this raging storm all around me, or I'll sink to the bottom of the sea!

In an attempt to maintain transparency, I'll just share a day in the life of this stay at home mom ~ pass me the wipes and a diaper and have a seat on the dirty floor, amongst the chaos and in between diaper changes and flying toys, I'll share the secrets of my heart. I have been discovering over these past months that I have some deep seeded trust issues I didn't know were hiding way down, deep in there, undisturbed...I mean, I thought I was already over that mountain! God's actually been telling me this for over a year with His sweet, quiet whispers when my heart agonizes in mystery with questions that are pain-filled from disappointments too great to speak of...I'll hear this thought buzz through my mind like a faint whisper on the winds whistling through the cornfield "you're not trusting Me". And I ignore it, thinking, I simply don't understand what you could mean, Lord. I trust you. I do! I promise, I do. I may not trust, Tom, Dick, Harry or even Donny at times...but I trust YOU! But over the course of the past few months, when God called me, a stay-at-home-mom, who works a full-time job but earns NO INCOME, to shepherd her son on a mission trip to Haiti that costs $4600 real green dollars, that she did not have one red penny for, I thought I TRUSTED, blindly, when I leapt off that cliff with my wide-eyed, adrenaline pumping heart as we answered YES to the call of God to "walk on the water" and I came to quickly realize that it's time I learn to TRUST Him on a whole 'nother level that makes me incredibly vulnerable....and my flesh says...OH YUCK.

As the months quickly fleeted by with a simple blink of an eye and the financial reality began to feel more like impending doom of a brick that someone tied to my leg as I'm trying to walk on the water to meet my Jesus, I started sinking as I began to carry this weight as my own. I continue to sink and keep sinking. What is happening, questions bubbled up like water filling my lungs and so I scrambled to do what anyone who's drowning would do...fight for survival. Life suddenly becomes so loud when you live in 'survival mode'...everything is noisy, even the silence is deafening...it's so very hard to hear that whisper of life, that whisper you need for sustenance; it's nearly impossible to hear, but the lies are noisy, so very loud & noisy and that will keep your days BUSY. Suddenly I watched myself transition into a familiar role that I knew how to fulfill: self-reliance, independence, trusting no-one but myself, knowing Maria will have to handle this or everything will fall apart; carry this load and don't let anyone know how heavy it is, hiding behind the facade of an "independent spirit" with an orphan heart believing that I MUST provide the means necessary with constant reassurance from the lies that I am completely alone on this although don't forget others are DEPENDING ON ME TO COME THROUGH...so do not let them down, all of them noisy voices! Yikes, so there it is...that trust issue, bubbling right up to the surface, stealing my oxygen, stinging my lungs with every.single.gasp.for air.... "I CAN ONLY DEPEND ON ME"...Oh, so is that what you meant, Lord? This giant monster under my bed with the neon flashing light, hiding in plain sight...is that the trust issue you've been talking about? So I guess I can't put my money where my mouth is, literally, on this one. TRUST: 5 letters that make up one of the most terrifying words I know and hardly a person on the planet I'd ever use in a description of. Never seemed to be a big deal...until now. This is more than a small issue, isn't it Lord? This is probably causing a problem or two in my life, isn't it Lord?...

Then one day I read these words from Wendy Backlund: Trust is sometimes a hard thing for people (perhaps because they don't understand what it means to trust someone). It doesn't mean I trust you to never hurt me or fail me; but it means that when you hurt me or fail me, I will trust that you love me despite the imperfections and weaknesses that I see. I will trust in your motives, I will trust that you are trying to improve and grow in areas. I will trust that you are sorry for hurting me.

I Corinthians 13 mentions that love "believes all things and hopes all things." Can we understand that only perfect people can keep from hurting us or misunderstanding us? When we believe in the goodness and love of someone's heart for us, it doesn't hurt as much when they fail us, say something wrong about us, or get mad at us. This can be true because out of an attitude of trust, we are able to make a case for their love for us, rather than a case against them.

Trust is similar to faith in that our trust isn't tested until the evidence seems to contradict what we believe. Many people hold back trust because they want to be able to trust "safely." I don't believe we should put ourselves in reckless situations by trusting just any body; however, we cannot raise the bar so high that we do not trust anyone. If you have no one whom you trust then you probably need to adjust your perspective of what trust means.

And after I read that devotional one morning, my heart had a Homer Simpson moment and I sat there...thinking "Doh".  I once heard it said that money will reveal what's hiding in a person's heart...well in my case, the lack thereof, has revealed an incredible insecurity of distrust and unworthiness hiding in mine....which reminds me of a favorite Bill Johnson quote "insecurity is wrong security exposed"...guess I'm the new poster child for this one. Funny how I did not start this blog out to go to this 'confessional place', I just wanted to be thankful and celebrate all your support while I work on my insecurities back here in Buckman where no one has to see them and then somehow we took a hard right and here I am airing out my underwear while we sit here changing diapers as I attempt to conquer this giant by just being stark honest, in the thick of this heavenly adoption process, confessing that I'm on a journey of learning how to let God have even greater access to the secret places of my heart, I don't have it all figured out, I'm terrified stiff most days as I watch that ticker on the calendar counting down 14 more days at the speed of light! This "insecurity" has unveiled a deep brokenness in me like a pressure cooker and for the life of me all I can think of is all the times I thought God was going to come through, like I knew, that I knew, that I knew, with a supernatural gift of faith...and YET it didn't happen....and when I try and turn to the Lord in all this mess, desperate for His voice all I hear is two tiny words "let go"....which feels like a total loaded gun. So I have a decision to make, I have a freedom to fight for, I have a 2 ton brick to let go of, I have a God who wants me to trust Him as my provider and I have to get out of the boat and try to walk on this water again because there's a glory story waiting for me and I want to find it.

Thanks for listening...time to put this baby to bed! 

*Important* Quick Update

I need to ask a huge favor from y'all. If you have ordered a t-shirt online in support of our trip, could you email me [mariatraut@gmail.com] and let me know how many items you purchased. There happens to be a "kink in the spokes" so to speak with their new e-store software and for us to get our credit, I may need to submit the numbers of items purchased. We will no longer be fundraising through selling t-shirts (I am removing the blog post with the info) because we have decided to pursue this other route and sell these SUPER FUN bracelets that we have just received: 

More on these to come soon!!!!

Garage Sale Goodness!!

So we're jumping in head first on this idea of raising some funds for our Haiti Mission Trip! We'd love your advice on how to do such a thing cuz we only have one plan in place with wheels in motion....and if I am stark honest with you all, I'd have to admit, *asking* for money makes the skin crawl right off my back so becoming a "fundraiser" is about as outside of my element as one could possibly SHOVE ME. But inventive ways to earn some cashola has my thinker workin' overtime, my engine revving, wheels turning, exhaust rolling...or maybe I'm just burning rubber over here? Please DeAr FrIeNdS...this is our plea to you: we'd love all the wild advice and crazy ideas we can get on this one as we have just weeks to prepare and as much as we've rubbed our two pennies together, they're not multiplying over here!

Here is our list so far, what do you have to add ~ creativity wins extra points!! ha!

We are taking donations for our garage sale if you have anything you'd like to part ways with we'd gladly accept some items to make our sale a lil more "beefy". We'd also LOVE for you to tell all your friends, especially all your Buckman & Pierz friends so they can come shopping.

When He Whispers...

I've been waiting for a few months to share this testimony and reveal the secrets of our heart in celebration of a wondrously big God who calls us to walk upon the deep waters with Him! I've been "holding this secret" since April and I want to BURST. Every time I sit down to express my heart, there are no words. That's a first for me (I see you nodding your head in agreement as you've all received a 'Maria War & Peace Novel' under the guise of an email response). Usually my fingers can not keep up to the speed of my spirit when I sit down to "pour out" onto the "paper"....but not this time. Time and again I sat down to complete blankness. So I waited for Him to give me the words, after all it is His story and so I must wait on Him to share it!

I feel that time has arrived. So here goes nothing:

Early this past spring, I sensed the Lord whispering to me in a way that only could have been His voice speaking. He was sending me intimately personalized signs, one after another, as if to say He wanted my undivided attention! Once I realized it was truly the Lord's heartbeat I was hearing, I was overwhelmed with excitement as He downloaded the secrets of His heart to me. Of course, I immediately ran off to Donny to share all that God had been wildly revealing to me and as always, when the details poured from my rambling mouth, I watched my husband's eyes grow to the size of watermelons and dislodge from his sockets and fall onto his lap. But we agreed to join together in prayer, listening for Him and pressing in for confirmation. And confirmation we did receive, in abundance, because God is that good and He knows just how to speak in a way that His children will assuredly hear His voice!

So what is it that God was speaking to me that was so glorious and terrifying that it could cause my husbands eyes to morph into some reaction reminiscent of a scene from Beetlejuice? It was an invitation of grand-proportion to see God calling our first born son as a man.

God began to reveal His heart to me about my son Zachary. He showed me deeply personal secrets of the visions & dreams that the God of the UNIVERSE carries over Zach's life AS A MAN and my heart began to unravel at the seams in awe & wonder over the magnitude of God's calling upon our son. I knew it was time for this mama to grab a new pair of eyeballs herself! I needed to open my eyes to start seeing this "little boy" of ours as the man that God could see. And I began to wonder if David's mother seen him in a new light after God called out that puny, little, pubescent, teenage boy to step into his calling by entering a ring to battle Goliath with a kid's sling-shot carrying a man's legacy as future king called to be a world changer, with a warrior's heart and the faith of an intimate worshiper? Did his mama look at him with those eyes? Did she see sitting before her a boy who was destined to overcome the impossible with just a little rock? Did she realize that day God began to reveal to all of us one of the most epic tales of a hero's legacy found in the Old Testament? While she looked in the face of that pubescent boy coming home excitedly telling her eye-socket-popping tales at the kitchen table over his peanut butter & jelly sandwich...did she see a man?

I'll tell you God doesn't see us the way we see ourselves or even see each other...and I'm so thankful for that. It is my life's pursuit of love to always see the way God sees. I have a long way to go, but every day I get the chance to practice! So on with spilling the secret;

After I had clearly received all the signs, knew God's voice was obviously pointing in this one direction, resuscitated my husband back to life, prayed together with fervency; we decided we had to bring this invitation to the table for Zach to pray about as well after all, it was more about him than either of us anyway..this much I knew. So one night I sat down with Zach while Donny was out of town to share with him the vision that God had shown me and ask him to pray with us. I was wildly excited, but my heart was reserved as I didn't actually believe Zach would EVER agree to something so monumentally big & scary for a 12yr old, not-to-mention it was going to be costly for him to accept. So I shared, that God was asking us, mother & son, if we'd go on a mission trip to Haiti together in November 2014. It would require that Zach spend his birthday in Haiti and that he would miss rifle hunting in Minnesota this year (his greatest passionate obsession with his dad), he'd miss school for a week and possibly some basketball practice. As you can imagine ~ he reacted in our new "Traut tradition" and I had to catch his eyeballs too as they lept off his face like spring-loaded bouncy balls!

Indeed it was a costly decision that he must pray about and hear God speak to his own heart, and he wrestled it out for a week. 7 days later we sat down to talk about a decision as a family as we had a deadline in April we had to make the choice by and it was the 11th hour. As we sat down on the couch and I could tell by Zach's behavior all week that it was a hard decision for him, I felt undoubtedly his answer was going to be "no" and I had come to terms in my own heart with "no" being the reality....but just as his eyes met mine;

I said "well, we have to make a choice tonight"
And he blurted out "I know what God wants me to do"
I said "you do?"
Then he said "yeah, God wants me to go to Haiti."
And I responded [in shock] "wow, did He give you a sign, or how did He speak to you that you're so certain?"
He then shared "well, the week before you told me about the trip, God spoke to me and said He had something really special for me on my birthday this year. Then when you were talking to me about the trip, God was speaking to me at the same time saying "this is the special thing I have for you"...then you told me the trip was over my birthday".

Yep, you guessed it...insert mom's dangling eyeballs from sockets here....with a side of speechless dad choking on his own tongue.

OH MY HEART....

At this point, it didn't matter to me if we went on the trip or not, I was in awe of my son's ability to hear the Lord speak to him and to KNOW God's voice so assuredly! This moment without doubt had me in tears of absolute joy.

Long story short(er): We didn't make a decision that night because Zach's fears and God's voice conflicted to the degree he simply couldn't answer. Zach still needed one last night to wrestle this through with God to see if his fears and/or desires were greater than God's invitation and in the morning when he woke up, he walked out into the kitchen with a new found confidence and I could see the wrestling match was over. Just knowing my son could hear the Lord's voice soooo clearly, my heart was now at peace with whatever his decision might be. And he said to me "Mom, I want to go to Haiti. Let's do it. It's more important to me to listen to God than anything else". And my heart melted into a puddle of overflowing malt-o-meal from the stove as I stood there in my pj's and bed hair, attempting to make breakfast before school and I became lost in a love encounter with God as He transformed my vision and I watched my son sitting there at my kitchen counter, eating his peanut butter toast staring back at me as a man, not a boy! A man who captured the heart of God so deep that somehow he knew at this wildly young age that following God out into the scary unknown, deep waters, listening to that whisper is always worth what we perceive to be "the cost". And I know that a very big God is waiting to show-up for my son as He polishes the gold hidden inside that young man's heart in preparation to and on the ground in Haiti, so much will birth to life that Zach never knew God had planted inside his heart and Zach will come home understanding that there never really was a cost in comparison to touch of God that radically changed him. And let's not even get started on what God's doing in & to "me"...that's a whole other novel!

[side note: just one awesome fun lil testimony of 'confirmation' we received ~ one of Zach's greatest fears leading him towards saying "no" was that he'd be the only "kid" on the trip with a bunch of old people "like me" and be stuck with all women. The day we signed up for the trip, the trip leader Becki responded to me with a quick email saying that she loved watching God orchestrate His missions ~ as Zach and I were the 4th pair of "mom & teenage son" duo's to sign up for the exact same trip!!!! Zach's face lit up like the glowing sun when I revealed the power of that one tiny detail of God's goodness and all fear was obliterated in that moment...of course...AFTER he took the leap in blind faith! Ha! Take that "fear"!!]

So here is our invitation for you to join us on this new adventure with God to Haiti. Follow us on this blog, pray for us [PLEEEEASE!], support us, walk into the heart of God with us and hopefully be gloriously ruined along side of us come November 8-15th as we venture out into the deep with the ACT Mission team!!

Much more to share in days to come! Stay tuned....

Time to RESURRECT this blog!!

We have some big news to share soon, so I just wanted to breathe a little life into these dry-bones and resurrect this blog!! A new adventure is on the horizon! STAY TUNED!!!!!

Africa missions anyone?

I just have to share this opportunity with y'all!

http://freeafricatrip.com/?fbid=yuykj5tw3b-

A FREE trip to Africa! Doesn't it make your heart skip a beat with excitement? Does mine!!