As I sit here in my kitchen this morning (iPhone on Pandora playing sweet Praise and Worship Music – sipping on my homemade ice chai tea – after sweet quiet time with Jesus–life cannot get any better than this), I begin to look over my email. I came back across one that absolutely warms my heart and overwhelms my spirit. It’s entitled “Successful Fishing Trip”.

About 2 plus years ago I learned more about a refugee family I knew. If you’ll go back to a post entitled (I Refuse to Be Another Picture on a Wall) you’ll read some of that story. I learned something that truly tugged and grabbed at my heart and it involved a refugee father of ten. This father, we will name him Patrick, had been a successful fishermen in his country and longed to go fishing here in the States. I informed him that fishing around Memphis, TN was not going to be anything like the kind of fishing he might have been use to and he was even more eager to go. My being a woman (even though I’m the daughter of the best fisherman I know – my dad – and loved and went fishing a jillion times as a young girl) didn’t warrant me an appropriate opportunity to take this gentleman fishing. Nevertheless, my heart desperately wanted to see this gentleman get to go and in my heart, I had imagined my daddy taking Patrick to fish.

Now, for me to ASK men to take another man, especially a refugee man, fishing was challenging. Unfortunately, my own father’s health has gotten so bad that he is not a good candidate to have the responsibility of taking anyone new to fishing on an outdoor fishing trip. I casually mentioned to some of my American friends the gentleman I new who desperately wanted to go fishing and how wonderful of an opportunity I felt it could be if the Lord led any of them to want to do this. I imagined a Fishing Ministry, but was not sure how the Lord was going to begin it. I saw the need. I still see the sweetness in a Fishing Ministry and how so many men could come closer to God through it. But I don’t want it to be about my ideas…God has this.

So the email…many months ago I again mentioned that I knew a refugee father who wanted to go fishing and how I thought several refugee teenage boys would also enjoy this. A brother in Christ heard. Here is his email and I couldn’t help myself, I have posted pictures. The Lord is working through my new friend Dan and his wife Jil…I am thankful to them for their time and hearts commitment to serving by first, just loving. (If you’re a man and you might be interested in going fishing with refugees, please let me know.)

[For those learning more about the future of Asha’s: I guess we’ll need a large lake on our land stocked with fish!]

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Hi Jamie: See the 3 photos below from our successful fishing trip this morning. I asked God to bless our time together and He did!! We caught 25 lbs of fish in about 2 hours, but we didn’t see anyone else around us catch anything. Ahmed and Fidel had never been fishing and it was fun to hear them shout and laugh as they landed their first fish ever, and second, and third . . . It was a blast. Danny