Weekly Update: November 21st, 2012

Weekly Update: Wednesday 10/21/2012

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We pray that God will bless all of you and show you all the things that He has done for you this year!

Our time in the Netherlands is going well.

We have an understanding of how the next couple months will look for us and God is providing for all of our needs to accomplish them. Within the next months we are hoping to see the Enschede Prayer Team continue, we are having a missions fair at our home church here in Enschede, and I will be off to Asia from December to February.

We are looking forward to a very busy and exciting time!

Though, I don’t want to miss what has been happening in the last month since I last updated our weekly update… I see the irony.

My wife is the one heading up the missions fair for our church’s  missionary members, which means she is very busy emailing, writing, and visiting people. She is also sorting things out for the immigrations sale that we will have at the same time.

While my wife works at this, our son likes getting into bookshelves and plants, and cabinets that he shouldn’t – of which there are plenty of each.

I’m reading through my fourth book dealing with early church history and trying to understand the implications it has on us today. It is really important for me to keep learning and sharing what I learn with others. Writing things down here on the blog is one way, talking about them with my father-in-law over coffee several times a day is another that I particularly enjoy.

So, with that, my mind is often caught up in several different places at the same time. What happened at this time, who said what when, Jay Edward trying to pull down a great big potted plant  or playing with his grandpa’s books now, etc.

In all this I am preparing to travel to Asia; I have the opportunity to teach at a discipleship training school, help a couple of outreach teams, and learning/showing how to make water filters out of clay pots, sand, gravel, and water.

Out of those three, doing the research and showing people how to filter water will have the most impact on my time there.

It is a project that comes out of our prayers for Asia.

During my first trip to Asia we learned how terrible the water there can be. As we prayed about what to do we felt that God wanted us to bring water filters, but we never found a way how. Since then, our outreach have been focused on helping people learn about basic hygiene and preventable sicknesses.

Yet, we’ve still had the problem that most people do not have access to clean water.

Earlier  this year I learned of a water filter that may fit our unique demands. On this trip I’ll research them more, see if I get sick when I drink the water, and do my best to share them with my other friends who will be able to share the water filters with even more people.

Be praying for my time away from family, success in the water filter project, and safe travels!

Thanks for partnering with our family!

 

Other Updates:

– We had an update this past week that the National Visa Center, in the US, has all of our documents again. Please pray that the process will go smoothly from here!

– In order to use my time well in the Netherlands, I’ve begun pioneering a prayer team for the various ministries in Enschede. This project is going well and I’ve sent invitations to other ministries to see if more will join the prayer team.

 

Scripture:

The last time I wrote here I had just finished Isaiah and was in Jeremiah, now I’m finished with Jeremiah and am in Ezekiel.

The two books are very similar; it seems that Ezekiel is written even more like a journal than Jeremiah. Ezekiel writes about the amazing visions and experiences he has with God and the strange and very persistent ways that God has him speak to the people who have been taken captive by the Babylonians. They speak at the same time, to the same group of people, about most of the same things, but in completely different places.

Jeremiah speaks from Jerusalem and later from Egypt, Ezekiel speaks from Babylon after being taken there as a captive himself.

You need a really good imagination to see the things that Ezekiel writes about. He writes about God’s throne sitting on towering angels, being spiritually taken to Jerusalem and digging through walls, and hearing God tell him to do dig a hole through his own house’s wall and act like he’s going into exile – just so people will ask and give God an opportunity to speak to them!

It’s an interesting and challenging read!

 

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God for our time in the Netherlands!

– Please continue praying for my wife’s visa application!

– Please pray for our family’s finances and continued support!

– Please pray that our family would receive everything God has for us during these months together in the Netherlands and after we are apart!

 

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom

Weekly Update: April 19th, 2012

Weekly Update: Thursday, 04/19/12

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I made it safely back from South-East Asia! My wife and son met me at the airport and it was great to see them again!

The trip went pretty smooth. I was able to visit ministries and pioneering teams in four large cities, visit the only SOAP currently running in Asia, and make connections with several leaders who we may be able to partner with in the future. Of course, that means I have more follow up work to do with our base and I am very excited about that!

One of the high points of the trip was when I was able to talk to a girl considering to join the ministry herself. She was very nervous and wasn’t sure about what to do. I was able to encourage her to know that if God was calling her into the ministry that He would make that clear. Also, if He would call her into the ministry He would call her to a place that fits who she is.

Those were both important lessons for me to learn.

I am very excited to continue to do what God has placed in my heart to do! As my trip came to an end it definitely felt like it wouldn’t be the last time to see the country. There is so much He wants to do there! One of the leaders I met with shared the statistics of the church in the where he will be pioneering; only 16 out of 10,000 people follow Jesus.

This is the challenge that God has placed on our hearts as at Y-Idaho. Join with us! With God’s grace we can change people’s lives!

Other Updates:

– There wasn’t an update last Thursday because our son went through a little bit of a growth spurt and tired out his Mom. He is back to being less cranky now.

– One of the people I met on this trip showed me a video of making water filters out of sand, gravel, stones and clay pots. I am interested in learning more about this process and it may be a way for our teams to give good old fashioned water filtering technology to villages without access to safe drinking water.

Scripture:

Last week I read through the book of Job.

It is one of the sad books in the Bible, but it comes to a good end. In the beginning Job looses almost everything he has, including his children, and is in mourning when three of his friends come to mourn with him. Throughout the book his friends try to explain why all of these evil things have happened to Job and Job defends himself in response.  After all of his friends and another young man take their jabs at Job’s condition God Himself comes and speaks through a whirlwind.

Now, Job is a big book and I am still trying to understand it better, but there was an interesting point I noticed. In the end God says to Job that he said what was right in what he said. I have gone over everything that Job said in response to his friends before God spoke, but it doesn’t seem to make sense. I could be wrong, but I don’t think God was talking about how Job defended himself.

After God talks to Job about His character and how He created the world Job responds to God. Job says this:

‘I have heard of You with my ears, but now my eyes have seen You. Wherefore I am disgusted with myself and repent in dust and ashes.’

All of Job’s arguing was based on his own righteousness, his own good doing, but when he saw who God was and what God’s character was like he couldn’t rely on himself anymore. That is where God wants us to be too, knowing God and His character so greatly that we are overwhelmed by who He is and not tempted to rely on our own good doing.

How has God shown you His greatness over the past weeks?

Praise & Prayer Report:

– Praise God that He protected me very well during the trip. I didn’t get sick like every time before and I had almost no spiritual attacks to deal with.

– Please pray for the ministries and leaders that I was able to meet with. All of the national leaders have financial needs that are important for their pioneering ministries. Also pray for their protection as they expand the kingdom in their own country!

Thanks for all your prayers!

In Christ,
The Abiding Kingdom