Weekly Update: March 22nd, 2012

Weekly Update: Thursday, 03/22/12

Hello everyone,

In less than six days I will be traveling to South-East Asia. I still haven’t packed, but there are plenty of things to do here in the Netherlands before I start doing that.

Last Sunday I was able to talk to  couple of high-school aged friends about the trip. They wanted to know about the cities I would visit, what I would do there, and, lastly,  whether it was safe to go there. They spoke pretty good English, so I was able to answer most of their questions.

You know, they had pretty good questions.

The first two were pretty easy to answer. The cities are both beautiful and terribly polluted; throughout them you see a wonderful blend of ancient culture and new buildings, in many ways these two are still trying to find their place as they develop. In one of the cities I will go to there is the river Ganga (or Ganges). It’s a holy river to the people there, but it is lined with old factories that pollute it. The rest of the city doesn’t have any clean drinking water.

Now, that short description might not sound like best reason to visit a city. It isn’t, I am going there because God has called me to love the place.

Have you read the book of Mathew in the Bible?

There is a very important set of verses in there to understand why I can say such a thing like that. In Matthew 20: 34-40, we read that we are called to, ‘love God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves’. This is the basis for everything we do as followers of Jesus.

My wife and I were struck with that question yesterday while out on a walk. We were pretty wrapped up in our conversation as we made our way through a nearby park when we came around a corner and found two young people making out on a bench along the path – very awkward.  We kept going at first, trying to see as little was going on as possible, but both of us felt like we couldn’t just keep walking on.

After a little ways we stopped and prayed about whether God wanted us to do anything.

His answer was yes.

Both of us were scared, we weren’t really sure what to do, both of us had second thoughts, but God had called us to do something – regardless of what would happen we were set on following Him. So, both of us made our way back and introduced ourselves. We didn’t come yelling or trying to make them feel bad, we simply came to tell them that God loves them.

They received the message well.

They didn’t immediately start confessing their sins or give their lives to Christ right on the spot, but we were faithful to tell them that God loves them and they listened.

That is a picture of what it means to ‘love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.’

Are we willing to love God even if it means doing something that risks our own pride? Are we willing to love others enough to tell them the truth?

Likewise, as I go to other nations, that is what God has called me to do.

As I go on this occasion I will be looking for ways to partner with other followers of Jesus who are called to do the same thing.

Is it safe? That was the last question my friends asked me. Well, no, it is not completely safe, but when has helping others ever really been that safe? Many times the most loving thing to do is far from being safe. However, the things that are the most valuable to do in life revolve around loving God and loving others.

So, in that way, lets live a very unsafe life given to God.

Other Updates:

– Today, my wife and I have started support raising again. Our family has grown, we feel that God is bringing us into a refreshed place of doing ministry, and God has already started answering our prayers. Please consider if joining our support team is something that God is calling you to do!

Scripture:

What gives us our faith?

Well, the quickest answer to that is God, but in reality God brings us through many things that help us have faith in Him. In 1 Samuel 17:31-37, we read about David’s faith in God as he tells King Saul why he knows God will help him beat the giant Goliath.

Go read it! What are ways that God has prepared you for what you will face next in life?

Praise & Prayer Report:

– God has begun answering our prayers for people to join our support team! Praise God for this and pray that more will join us in ministry too!

– Please be praying with us for my wife’s visa! While I am able to stay in the Netherlands for another 90 days, out of the next 180 days, we do not know if her visa will be approved before I have to leave The Netherlands. We are not sure of what we will do if the visa does not come before I need to leave again.

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: March 15th, 2012

Weekly Update: Thursday, 03/15/12

Hello everyone,

My wife and I have enjoyed our week in England very much! We are back in Enschede, The Netherlands, now and are getting back into the swing of things.

England is really cool! The landscape as we traveled by train from Manchester to Ulverston reminded me of Tennessee or Kentucky in some places. There are sheep everywhere and most of the fences are walls made out of stone with rich green pastures in between. On the coast we saw tidal bays that separate small arms of land that reach into the north Atlantic ocean. The lake district, as it is called, is a very beautiful place!

Our son also learned to get used to the new surroundings a few days after we got there. He was a bit unsure of traveling at first, or at least he looked so, but he handled it all really well. He slept through most of the train rides and slept each time the plane landed too.

For me, our week at the Red Lion Bed & Breakfast was good for sorting my heart out.

Often times I can forget that God still has a lot of work to do in me. I know that He has called me to write, I know He has called me to teach, and I know He has called me to pioneer new things for His kingdom; though, I can become disillusioned that I know how to do these things better than anyone else. When I set my hands to something I want it to succeed and to be amazing; not that God would get the glory for it, but that I wouldn’t be embarrassed by its failure or that I needed help to do it well.

That is what I saw in myself this weekend.

It holds me back and I don’t want it. I want to be alive and do the things God has called me to do; I don’t need to be perfect or prove that I don’t need help before that happens. It is rotten and it spoils my life with God and everyone else!

Please pray with us that God will sort this out in me! I want to be given to Him and grow in everything He has given me to love and do.

Thanks for keeping p with us!

Other Updates:

– In two weeks I will be flying into South-East Asia. I will be spending three weeks there networking with other leaders of the SOAP and other ministry leaders. I will be writing more about the trip next week.

Scripture:

What will we trust God for?

In Numbers 27:1-11, right after God tells Moses to renumber the children of Israel, we find the daughters of a man named Zelophehad asking Moses for their father’s inheritance. ‘Our father has died in the wilderness’, they say, ‘and he had no sons. We do not want our fathers name to disappear because he had no son; give us the land our father would have received.’

Now, this is a long time before woman had many rights – what do you think God’s response is?

He agrees; He says they are right and commands Moses to give them a place in the land with the rest of their father’s family. He also commands Moses to make sure that they receive their father’s inheritance.

They trusted that God would stand up for them and He did.

What are we trusting God for today?

Praise & Prayer Report:

– We’ve won 600 Pampers diapers from “Wij”, a Dutch magazine for new parents. Praise God for the blessing!

– Please be praying with us for my wife’s visa! While I am able to stay in the Netherlands for another 90 days, out of the next 180 days, we do not know if her visa will be approved before I have to leave The Netherlands. We are not sure of what we will do if the visa does not come before I need to leave again.

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: March 1st, 2012

Weekly Update: Thursday, 03/01/12

Hello everyone,

This past week my wife and I have been noticing areas that we need to improve in. It has been a little stressful at times, but God has been showing Himself very faithful through all of it.

One thing that has come up is that we still need to grow closer together; the time here in the Netherlands has been very good for us, but we realized that with Jake’s arrival we have been losing sight of what we hope for our relationship. God has been turning that around and we are a lot more excited about our future than even one week ago!

Another thing that we’ve noticed is that we need to communicate better, both between ourselves and with others. To improve our communication with others we have started setting out deadlines for updates, prayer letters, newsletters, and have been looking into writing for our churches’ newsletters too. We want to be accountable to the people who support us and to keep them informed of what God is doing through their partnership with us.

We hope that this update will be a part of that!

Other Updates:

– This Tuesday we will be traveling to England as a family. We will be staying at the Red Lion Bed & Breakfast, owned by our friend Beth’s parents. I need to leave The Netherlands for a short while now that my visa will expire soon; also, it will be one of the first times we will just be together as a family. Thanks to the Red Lion for hosting us without charge!

– This April I will be traveling by myself to South-East Asia to meet up with other leaders of the SOAP (School Of Apostolic Pioneering) and networking with other ministry leaders there. Please be praying for us as we get all of my details organized!

Scripture:

If I am correct, this will be the fourth time I have attempted to read through the book of Leviticus; the first two times ended in failure as I reached the fourth or fifth chapter and gave up. The third time I tried, or perhaps the forth in case I am wrong, I was sitting in an airport with a long layover and forced myself to read it in one sitting.

It can easily seen as a difficult book to read all the way through, but there is good stuff in it. Remind yourself to pray before trying to read it and God will help you understand it.

The scripture this week is Leviticus 18:1-5; and onwards to 29.

In the beginning of this chapter God says that He wants to be the center of what the children of Israel find right and wrong. He says that the culture that they have been a part of in Egypt should not be how they judge right and wrong, nor should the culture they will find in Canaan be what they judge right and wrong. Why is this?

At first it can seem that God wants one culture, I thought this for quite some time, but when we read on you find that this isn’t what God is talking about here. God is calling out the cultures of Egypt and Canaan for saying that things like incest, searching for sexual pleasure outside of marriage, and sacrificing their children to other gods like Molech are good.

God didn’t want these things for the children of Israel and He doesn’t want these things for any other nation or culture in the world either.

This is one of the things God says in the book of Leviticus. There is a lot more than this too, I’d like to challenge you to  try praying through it with God and see what you can find too!

Praise & Prayer Report

– The three of us have been feeling pretty sick over the past couple weeks, but everything seems to have cleared up. Our son’s stuffy nose cleared up overnight after I prayed for him! My father-in-law, is still getting over his cold.

– We’ve had contact with our lawyer handling my wife’s visa process; he has said that it seems to be taking a little longer than he had expected. Please pray that God gets us to where He wants us to be when He wants us there!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom