Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Getting prepared...

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10


Wow...only 6 weeks to go until we leave (July 11th). Time is flying by! We continue seeing God's hand at work every step of the way as we press on toward Swaziland Africa. Attention to detail has become all important at this stage: signing up for frequent flyer miles, making copies of passports (2 of the group's passports have not yet returned...please pray!!), finishing up the immunizations, ordering the malaria pills, trusting God to provide the last bit of financial support and getting the shoes and clothes in order that we'll need to bring with us. In answer to prayer we have seen:

  • Every one of the 25 members of our 'team' in attendance at the most recent team building session May 20th (even Bryan and Gerianne from Chicago were there....yeah God!). Please pray that we'll all be together for our final group session June 24th.
  • Someone from the Visiting Nurse Association of Davison come to us and administer the typhoid shots for just the cost of the shot. (Lauren wasn't smiling quite so much afterwards...:-)

  • Our Team Flight plan, rooming list and Daily Work Schedules laid out before us in detail.
  • God identify Project Leaders and grouping them together with their subgroups for travel, music, crafts, fencing, crop harvesting and prayer.
  • God draw us closer to Himself and eachother through the prayer and Bible study time.

In addition to our time spent together as a group preparing, God has been using certain books to prepare our family's hearts for this mission work. Here are some quotes that are hitting home the nearer we get:

  • "I had found what I had been searching for, there was no doubt about it. But this was no game; this was not the happy feel-good contribution I had expected. Who was I to be the hope for these people? I felt completely inadequate. I had sought purpose, but this was so much more. People were dying and they looked to me as their only help. I began to question if I had taken on more than I was prepared for." (from Erik Mirandette's book "The Only Road North")
  • "To engage in mission is to participate in the coming of the Kingdom of God."
  • "One cannot follow Jesus simply by adding allegiance to Him on top of other commitments......as followers of Christ we have no life apart from the life of God." (both quotes taken from "The Short-term Missions Workbook")
  • "People are worth dying for." (from Rob Bell's book "Sex God"...don't let the title fool you, it's profound!)

God says in His Book that we are to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39) Please keep us in your prayers as we continue letting God prepare us to do just that. God bless.

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