* We are incredibly blessed to have our dear friend, Katie Smith from Cotton Social, custom design the beautiful watercolor print and card that is featured at the beginning of this post. She perfectly brought to life the emotions we have been feeling this Easter - of beauty springing forth from such pain and sorrow. Thank you, Katie - for your encouragement, friendship, and the way you use your talent for the glory of your King.
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There was a time in our marriage when I thought we really needed to see a counselor. We never did. Thankfully, the Lord had mercy on our stubborn souls and transformed the situation as our Wonderful Counselor. But it sure would have done us well to actually go see someone. Who knew that an awesome byproduct of becoming MTW missionaries would be the organization's requirement of us to see a counselor before going to the field? Oh wait... God knew! And if right now God changed His plans and told us that He no longer wanted us to go to Romania and instead just needed to lead us through these past two years of following Him so that He could bring us closer to Himself through Dr. David Anderson, we would be cool with that. This weekend Derek and I are participating in Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church's annual Missions Conference. Let me tell you that CMPC is a model church for supporting their missionaries - and I don't just mean financially! We are blessed by them in so many ways as they show us so much love and care. In preparation for their conference, they put together a devotional from several people, and I was able to write one of their devotionals, as well. The theme for this missions conference is "A Task Unfinished."
*** I am not a Plan B. I am not a bandaid fix to an otherwise unfixable problem. I'm not a sympathy settlement after a stubborn, self-righteous group of people. I am not a Jew, but I was always a part of the Lord's plan of salvation. Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it.
Move your family of four overseas in just one 45x45x72 in pallet. Those dimensions look like this... Derek and I were invited to speak at Redeemer Presbyterian's Missions Conference in Valdosta, GA. He shared at the men's breakfast, and I was able to share at the ladie's coffee. There have been very few places in our life where we felt instantly connected and loved by a community of people. Redeemer is a special place, and the people so obviously love the Lord and each other. It was truly a privilege to feel connected to the Body of Christ at this church. But the time leading up to the conference was one of the most difficult times in my life. I had no idea what I had to share with these ladies. But it turned out to be a healing experience for me, and somehow it seems that the Lord used it to encourage others. So I decided to share it here, too. Feel free to read the text or listen to the recording. And remember that you are not alone! This part of our blog is titled "Ministry in Romania." And one of the things we want to help do when we get to Romania is to help the church there build a mercy ministry so that more Christians can be equipped to move out to their community to show the love of Christ to those in need. Derek has worked as a deacon for four years at our church, and we've participated in several volunteer and mercy opportunities. We've learned a lot and still have a long way to go to learn how to help people, but with the Syrian crisis on everyone's hearts right now, I thought we'd share a few of our thoughts here. So many of us are watching videos of Aleppo and feeling totally helpless. Some of us are moved to tears at the sights of desperate children. We feel crushed in spirit by the stories we hear of women being raped and men being beheaded. We wonder how such a travesty can even happen nowadays, and yet we have absolutely no idea what to do. Some will donate their money, and that is a wonderful, kind, generous thing. I implore every Christ follower to be really, truly, actively praying every day for these people. That is the absolute BEST thing we can do. Yet, I have been brainstorming other ways that I can help. If you live in the Atlanta area, did you know that we can serve Syrians right here in our own city? Clarkston, Georgia is considered the most diverse square-mile of land in America because there are so many nations represented in this small town. And Syrians are definitely among them! There are SO MANY ways you can help refugees as they settle here in the States - literally EVERYONE has the skills to do SOMETHING to help these people!
It's Thanksgiving, and we wanted to help tell all of you how thankful we are for your support - in all the many, many different ways you support us! So we decided to record a video. And as real life goes, we couldn't seem to get a "perfect" take. And that's okay. Because there is nothing perfect about our life. So you get to choose from two versions of our thank you message.
Option 1: The version where the camera drops in the middle and the cat jumps up in our laps, OR Option 2: The version where I make a grammar mistake and our neighbor speeds away in his roaring motorcycle.
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