HOME!

For all of you who were thinking of us during our trip home to see family, thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  The girls were amazing all through the travels and it was good to connect with those we don’t get to see very often. Now that we’re home, reality is sinking in a bit more as we look at the things we need to accomplish in the next 6 months.  Our goal is to get to Brussels by the end of July.  Currently, we are at around 27% monthly support and we need to be at 100% by the summer.  In order to accomplish this, we need 100 more people who would support us at $50 a month.  We believe that what we find impossible God finds easy and because He owns the cattle on a thousand hills this sum of 5,000 a month is nothing to Him.  We’re excited about seeing how God will come through for us. Another thing on our hearts is trying to prepare little talks to give to small groups who are interested in hearing about Brussels and Christian Associates.  We’d appreciate your prayer as we begin to formulate the best way to express our passion for what we will be doing. Last night we met with the core leaders who will run our advocacy group when we are gone.  We see this group meeting supporting us so that we can get to Brussels and to keep us there once we’ve arrived through praise, encouragement and petition.  It is a wonderful group of people who have a heart for missions and especially for Europe.  It was so much fun thinking big dreams together about church planting and even about how we can stay connected across the ocean. So we are home and we hit the road with a running start.  Thanks for taking the time to pray for us! 

Christmas Greetings!

Here’s a little summary of 2007.  Enjoy and Happy New Year!

This year, for us, has held a continuing theme of gifts.  Gifts given and gifts received in a new way.  It was evident at David’s farewell ceremony with the Navy in Aug. that the past 5 years have been a special gift from God to us.  It was bittersweet saying goodbye because we enjoyed our time in the military.  We also, at the same time, realized the incredible gift ahead of us: being mission interns at our church while we raise support to launch to Brussels, Belgium within the next year to plant churches.

            We have now been interning at Tabernacle Church of Norfolk for 3 months and have continued to watch God give us the gift of the body of Christ coming alongside us in our journey to another land.  People have given gifts of time such as babysitting our girls, gifts of prayer for us as we have struggled to find our way in this big transition, and gifts of money by supporting us financially not only for our internship, but also towards our final goal of being funded 100% for Brussels by July of 2008.  We’ve been surprised over and over as God has used people to meet our practical needs for fundraising events.  We could tell you many stories about how God laid on someone’s heart to give the exact thing, and amount we were lacking.  These gifts have built our faith and caused us to be humbled and acknowledge that it is only through us working in community that we will accomplish the task ahead of us.

            We have been given the gift to grow in areas of our lives that we are sure we will use in Brussels.  David has been doing a lot of teaching at the church and both of us are mentoring others while being mentored as well, along with helping plan strategic outreaches and being involved in the international ministry at Tab.  It has grown us to learn how to communicate our needs to others and to allow people to come alongside us in our endeavors.  David is also trying to finish his seminary work while Joanna stays busy as a mom and a supporter in the ministry.  The most difficult challenge for us this past year has been learning how to work together in a new way.  Discovering who can do what best has helped us lighten the load we both were carrying.

            Our family of four has been a constant gift from the Lord.  We’ve been learning in a new way what family looks like in the middle of full time ministry.  The girls have a way of reminding us of our priorities, and it’s amazing the joy and perspective they bring to both of us.  Eleri is 3 and Adley is approaching 2 this coming May.  They both are the best of friends…most days, and are growing not only physically but also spiritually as we see them respond to God working in their hearts.  Eleri especially is recognizing the truths that God wants to help her make right choices and she often says to us “God keeps her safe”.  It’s a blessing to watch Adley, who is not far behind, follow in her sister’s footsteps.

            As we wrap up 2007 we see the gift of friends, family, and ministry.  Just by getting this card we want you to know that we consider you a special gift in our lives from God.  Our prayer for you this season is that you will not miss the most perfect gift of all, the arrival of our King and Savior!  His presence is gift enough for us all.

 

3 Months and 20%

It’s been three months since we officially separated from the Navy and began living on support. It was quite the jump for us and although we knew in our hearts that God was leading, it took a lot of his grace and strength to step out. Our Belgium breakfast in Sept. was the first big event to share with all our friends what God had laid on our hearts. It also was the first time we publicly let people know that we needed to partner with them to make this happen. Since then, we have seen the faithfulness of God in so many ways. Today, we now have $1600 in monthly support coming in. That is nearly 20% of our final goal before we can launch to Brussels, and it is over half of our internship monthly support that we need! God has exceeded our expectations and we feel blessed beyond measure by the friends that have heard his call to partner as a team with us. If you are one of them reading this, we want to say THANK YOU, and if you happen to be one of those people who have been waiting to join the team, we say COME ON BOARD!! It is an awesome experience watching lots of others come alongside willing to journey the road as well. Thanks and God bless!

When it rains it pours…

We’ve been seeing lately how much God blesses us and how often He showers His love and grace upon us. This past week was no exception. On Halloween we had the privilege of running the snack shack at the Harvest Festival at church and making money for our internship. It was so beautiful being able to serve alongside our friends and supporters. We even had Steve Adams from Christian Associates staying with us and he was able to come and connect with the people we knew who came to the festival. As most of you know, we needed lots of food donated, and just like God came through for us with our big breakfast event, by the day of, we had nearly every food item donated….including the money for pizza! It is truly amazing to see how faithful our God is and how the body of Christ makes such a difference in the lives around them.

The day after Halloween, Steve gave a talk at TAB church and shared Christian Associates vision for Europe. He also talked a lot about how he desires to see churches and the mission agency connected in an even tighter bond where we can share our resources not only to Europe, but that the church plants in Europe could share their resources with us here in America as well. The idea of a Belgium Summit happening at TAB and connecting all the consortium churches here in Hampton Roads really excites us both. Please pray with us as the vision unfolds.

For those of you who have been praying for Adley who’s had all sorts of random things such as the croup, ear infection, yeast infection, cold, teething etc…..she is finally doing better and sleeping again. That has been a huge answer to prayer for us with how rough this past month has been. My asthma is much better on the new medication, so thank you for praying for me as well. We are learning to trust God about our rental home in Virginia Beach. It isn’t rented yet, so please pray with us that God would bring the right renters our way and that we would trust Him with His timing.

I love rainy days because for me they are such a visual picture of God raining His love and blessings down on my life. We experienced His “rain” in a new way this past week and we once again feel blessed!

SCAMMED!

We know that we are trusting people but we had no idea how gullible we were and obviously we don’t watch enough TV!

Anyways, some of you know that we own a condo in Virginia Beach that we are trying to get rented. We had it advertised on craigs list and a few weeks back we had this guy respond that he was interested in renting it. He was from the UK and was coming here with his wife and 7 year old daughter to do pharmaceutical research. We communicated with him for several weeks and finally agreed upon a price and that he would send us the money for the rental deposit as he was coming in a few weeks or so.

Everything appeared to be OK and he sent us a cashier’s check for the deposit along with another 2,600 that he asked us to wire to a furniture company in CT who was furnishing the condo with furniture. For those of you who are up to date on scams I’m sure you already see what is happening. We, unfortunately, didn’t know that there could be fake cashier’s checks made, especially after we had the bank check to see if it was legit. We wired the 2,500 via western union to this guy in Connecticut and were excited to meet someone from the UK and we were even praying that God would give us a special relationship with them.

Two days after we wired the money we got an e-mail from the guy that was titled “urgent! urgent!”. After reading the e-mail we found out that he was not going to be able to come to the states because his daughter was killed in an accident and he was sorry to inconvenience us but could we send him back his security deposit for the house via western union.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth because after we prayed for him and sent him an e-mail saying that we would send him back his money (we felt really sorry for him because we had already built somewhat of a relationship with him via e-mail), we started to feel like something was not right. God directed us to people who had some great wisdom, and the bank did confirm that it was most likely a scam and that when the check bounced in a few weeks, that money would be deducted from our account. I started crying and cried for most of the morning because for us that was the money that would pay next month’s bills. After calling the FBI, and the police who did indeed say it was a scam, we sat down to pray. We hadn’t eaten all day except for breakfast and we were exhausted emotionally and physically. God had shown me the day before in my time with Him in Romans that He is a God of endurance and encouragement. We began to ask Him to encourage us and give us endurance for the time ahead. We even asked Him what we should sell around our house to help make up for the 2,500 we thought we lost. David’s prayer focused on asking God for wisdom on what to do next.

After saying “amen” David stood up and said “I need to call western union!” We had already stopped by the place where we wired the money and they said they couldn’t help us. He called the 800 number though and within minutes they said that they still had the money!! For some reason—-we believe to be God’s intervention—-no-one had picked up the 2,500 and it had been sitting there for a couple of days. David immediately said STOP THE ORDER and had it wired back to us. Within a couple of minutes he picked up the money to deposit in our account.

We can’t even express the feelings we experienced through the whole day yesterday. We do know now that without a doubt we can trust the Spirit to guide and direct. We also understand a little better the verse that says you have not because you don’t ask. Never in our dreams did we think that the money would be recovered. Even the people at western union were amazed. A few hours after we picked up the money, we got a call from our guy asking where the furniture money had gone. It was a confirmed scam for us when we asked him how he was doing after the accident and he hung up on us. God is good. We feel blessed and cared for. Thanks for your prayers. He DOES answer and we can trust Him!!

George MacDonald

One of our favorite authors is George MacDonald. He is missional in his thinking and writings. I was just reading his “The Highlander’s Last Song” and came across this prayer that not only touched me, but challenged me as well. I’d love your thoughts…

“O God, let my mother see that you are indeed truehearted; that you do not give us life by bits and pieces but abundantly; that you do not make men in order to assert your dominion over them, but that they may partake of your life. O God, have pity on me when I cannot understand, and teach me as you would a little earthly son you would carry in your arms. When pride rises in me and I feel as if I ought to walk about without your hand, then think of me and I shall know that I cannot live or think without your self-willing life. Help me to know that I am because you are, that I have no wisdom or insight of my own, that all life exists because you have breathed your being into it. Without your eternity in us, we are so small that we think ourselves great, and are thus miserably contemptible. You alone are true! Make me and my brother strong to be the very men you would have us, as your brothers, Christ, the children of your Father. You are our perfect brother-perfect in love, in courage, in tenderness. Amen, Lord! I am yours!”

So may it be for us as well!