January 27, 2010
Our mission’s video department is now in full swing, producing videos for individual missionaries and the mission at large. The video below focuses on a unique opportunity to support all of Biblical Ministries Worldwide’s missionaries at the same time. We make a very short appearance in the video. It’s amusing to me that we ended up being the video’s preview.
If, after watching the video, you are interested in being a part of this strategy, you can visit our mission’s website to find out more.
January 25, 2010
Our future partner Joyce Howerton recently posted this on her facebook wall. Since we have different contacts and prayer partners I thought it might be helpful to post it here to. If the following interests you, let us know and we’ll get you contact info for Joyce.
Joyce wrote:
“Joyce Howerton is looking for/praying about a homeschool partner in crime…I could really use some assistance. If you are interested in serving in Romania for a year or two or longer let me know and I will give you more details!
January 19, 2010
This past weekend, we ministered at Family Bible Church in Martinez, GA. We found the people to be excited about the Lord’s work and endeavoring to work towards a ministry of multiplicative discipleship. The pastor has begun discipleship with the goal of making disciple-makers. More American churches would greatly benefit by taking such a strategy.
After our meeting with the church was over, Andrew, a seven-year-old boy, helped me take some of our materials to our car. After he helped me pack some other things, we sat down and talked about legos and other nifty toys. As we looked through a catalog, he talked about the different toys that he had, what he was saving up for, and what he thought Athan, our 11 month old son, might be interested in. He told me that he had saved up $7.50 to purchase some additions to his toy castle. I had a good time talking with Andrew and was impressed by the focus he seemed to have on helping others, but before I left God used this boy to completely astound me with His ability to provide.
Having packed up all our belongings, I entered the boys house a final time to say goodbye to everyone. As I walked into the living room, Andrew presented me with $6.25 (out of his total savings of $7.50). What a precious gift. The whole drive home, I considered God’s working in this boy’s heart, God’s faithful provision through unlikely sources, and my responsibility to use God’s resources faithfully.
Laurel accurately compared Andrew’s gift to the gift given by the young boy in the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus miraculously fed five thousand men with the boy’s five barley loaves and two fishes. May the Lord use this $6.25 to spiritually minister to the youth in Romania as He used the little boy’s meager offering of loaves and fishes.
December 23, 2009
Yikes! It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted on here. The busyness of the holiday season seems to have crowded out most of my blogging time. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep everyone a bit more updated soon.
Our family is currently in Ohio. We’re privileged to be with Joshua’s family for Christmas and thrilled to have a meeting at the church he attended when in college, Cornerstone Baptist, the Sunday after Christmas.
Early in December our sending church did a children’s Christmas program in which the children presented monologue testimonies from some of Community’s current missionaries. The paragraphs below are a copy of one of the testimonies from our family. We thought that you might enjoy rejoicing with us through some of the lessons that the Lord has taught us over the last two years.
We all know that God is good, that God is in control of everything and that God answers prayer, right? If you’d asked me those questions two years ago, I definitely would have said, “Of course God is good. Of course He is in control. And of course he answers prayer.” But you know, even though I knew I would say “of course” with my head, a lot of times, my heart was actually whispered slyly in the background, “Well, maybe He’s good sometimes, maybe He’s in control, and maybe He answers prayer.” The reason I know that that’s what my heart was whispering behind the back of my head-knowledge is because my heart was really skilled at a certain activity –worry.
I worried about a lot of things and trust me deputation provides lots of fuel for a worrying mind to keep at a slow burn. I worried about not having money to pay for a trip we had to take to the Emergency Room, about places to stay as we traveled, about putting my foot in my mouth, about the insensitive things people said to me or my husband, about maybe never being able to have a child, about what would happen if our ’89 Buick broke down and died, about no one wanting to partner with us financially because of the economic downturn, about Joshua or Athan or I getting Tuberculosis when we move to Romania, and the list goes on.
You know what? In reference to a lot of the above, there wasn’t much Joshua or I could do to fix those worries and many of them actually happened. We had to cry out to God and actually believe that He was good and in control. And guess what He completely provided for our medical bill, has always been faithful in providing us with places to stay, has taught me humility over that pesky foot that wanders up to my mouth so often, has taught us to care more about what He thinks than what people do, has given us four children –2 in heaven, 1 here with us and 1 on the way, replaced our dying ’89 Buick with a 2005 Toyota Highlander, and has again and again proven Himself bigger than the economy! We haven’t yet moved to Romania and none of us have contracted TB. I hope we don’t but if we do, I know the Lord can provide all we need in sickness or in health.
Now two years after starting pre-field ministry with my husband, I can tell you confidently with my head that God is good, God is in control of everything, and God most definitely answers prayer.
December 2, 2009
Bed rest is over!
For those of you praying for Laurel and our unborn daughter, thank you. After returning from Florida, Laurel visited both our physician and midwife. Everything now seems to be normal, and she is so grateful that she is allowed to pick up Athan and that she doesn’t have to stay in bed. We still don’t know what went wrong, but we are rejoicing that everything seems fine with the pregnancy now.
The Van is “Toast”
Yesterday our co-workers the Howerton’s had a rather exciting evening — their white van that they use for transporting people to church caught on fire and as Joyce put it is now, “toast.” They are rejoicing that no one was hurt, that Pastor Howerton “enjoyed getting to know church neighbors as they brought out their buckets and hoses to help,” and that God in His sovereignty 
has a plan to turn what seems like a frustrating tragedy into something good. The Howerton’s aren’t yet sure how they are going to be able to transport people to who rely on van-pickup to church, but they are confident that the Lord will show Himself to be a provider in this need.
Just this week we received a note from some friends we met when we lived in South Korea saying that they would like to support us. Praise the Lord with us for His provision! Their pledge pushed us over the 50% mark. Please continue to pray with us that the Lord would rapidly bring in the other 50%. We would really like to be setting a date to move to Romania soon. We are so hoping to move over this coming summer.
November 17, 2009
Late Thursday night through today has been a bit of a whirlwind. Thursday was a fairly normal and productive day of contacting pastors. I finished the first wave of all the Georgia cold calls and called several of the churches on the list that I didn’t reach a second time (about 35 calls in all).
However, as we were brushing our teeth, preparing for bed, feeling the satisfaction of a productive day’s work, little did we realize that our day was hours away from being over.
As we were settling down for bed, we discovered that Laurel was bleeding. After calling our midwife, we headed to the hospital. We were given a room very swiftly, but we remained in triage from about 10:30 p.m. until 2:30 a.m. We were told that our unborn daughter seemed fine, and that they couldn’t find anything wrong with Laurel (except the bleeding of course) but that they wanted to observe Laurel overnight. So she stayed at Manatee Memorial, and I headed home to make sure everything was fine with Athan (who was being cared for by his great grandpa). I was very happy to find them both sleeping when I made it home. I was called back to pick Laurel up from the hospital at 5:30 a.m. We went home with instructions that included bed-rest through Tuesday and no heavy lifting for Laurel including Athan who is now, in answer to prayer, close to 20 pounds.
On Friday, operating on only about two hours of sleep, God was gracious to help me make it through the day. With Laurel confined to bed, I spent the day discovering how much she usually does in a day. It’s quite a lot. In spite of all the added responsibilities, God blessed us with the scheduling of a meeting in Ohio for December 27, 2009!
We had planned for the entire family to travel to Leesburg, FL on Saturday afternoon so that we could make it to a church fellowship with Grace Bible Baptist, the church that we were presenting at on Sunday. However we had to adjust our plans. Instead I stayed in Palmetto until about 7:30 p.m. and put Athan to bed before traveling up to Leesburg for Sunday’s meeting.
On Sunday, Laurel’s aunt and cousin took turns taking care of Athan while I ministered two hours away. I was able to give a brief testimony during the morning service and enjoyed ministering during the bulk of the time at Grace Bible Baptist Church’s evening service. The people seemed very interested, and the pastor was positive about the possibility of future support. He indicated that it would be a little while before that was likely to happen though.
Today was much like Friday, in that I took care of Athan while trying to seize in a bit of ministry productivity as well.
Laurel hasn’t had any more complications since Friday morning, so we’re hoping that after tomorrow things will be back to normal. But to press forward we will continue to need the Lord’s strength. The past few days have been a vivid reminder of how limited our own strength is. Thank you for continuing to pray for us.
November 12, 2009
Last night Joshua traveled to Lehigh Acres near Ft. Myers, Fl to report to Gunnery Road Baptist about his survey trip this last summer. The drive went well, and Joshua really enjoyed catching up with some friends that he knows from graduate school. He also enjoyed updating the church on what the Lord is doing in Romania.
There were no indications of the church or any individuals financially supporting us, but a couple of people indicated that they would pray, and the church gave us a generous love offering. So that was very helpful, and we are praising the Lord for His provision. This is our third time to visit this church and Joshua especially rejoiced in getting to know people that we’ve met before a little bit better.
November 10, 2009
We were so excited to see our support inch up just a bit last week—the same week that ten people committed to pray daily for God’s speeding us to Romania.
This year our mission board has been encouraging its missionaries to grow by studying what the Bible says about prayer and then by putting what we learn into action. One practical suggestion that Biblical Ministries Worldwide has had for all of its missionaries is to build a “prayer force” of 300 people who are committed to doing their best to pray for us everyday. We are excited to announce that as of today seventeen people have committed to do their best to pray for us everyday.
Everyday is a spiritual battle, and we do need your prayers. Early in our pre-field process one of our fellow support raising missionaries and friend, Theo van Reijn (appointee to the Netherlands), pointed out in one of his prayer letters that a missionary must have a “military mindset.” Of course he meant this in the metaphorical sense, but it is a good catch phrase to help us remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in highplaces” (Eph. 6:12). Those rulers of darkness do not want us to take the light of the gospel into their strongholds in Romanian orphanages. And they will do all in their power to slow our support raising progress. We need your prayers!
No field soldier can be effective on a battle field unless he is backed by umpteen support personnel. We are asking you to be our support personnel. Please lift your voices to the one who is greater, “than he that is in the world” (1 John4:4) and speed us to Romania with the power of prayer.
November 8, 2009
For those of you praying for our meeting in Miami this weekend, thank you so much. The meeting went really well, and Joshua is now driving the five hours back to our base in the Tampa Bay area. Athan and I stayed in Palmetto and attended one of our supporting churches mostly because I’ve been swelling and getting a bit dizzy when I have to sit for hours at a time do to pregnancy.
While down in Miami, Joshua enjoyed some wonderful fellowship with his host family and enjoyed talking with a family who has adopted four children three of whom were from Romania. It was exciting to hear this family’s testimony of how God provided the money for them to adopt these children.
The Lord provided all the cash for the first Romanian child, the second was half price, and then the Lord gave them the third child completely free. This is unheard of in foreign adoption. Praise Him for making a way for these three Romanian children to have a Christian home.
We were also excited that while down in Miami two families expressed their desire to partner with us financially. In the last two weeks we’ve now has a total of four families talk with us about their desire to do this. The Lord is answering prayers and using His saints. Thank you so much for your prayers. They matter so much.
November 6, 2009
For those of you who are praying regularly for us, first, once again thank you and second, please pray for our adaptation to and wisdom for interacting within the Romanian culture.
We were reminded of just how challenging understanding and adapting to a different culture is when early this week Dr. Kevin Bauder posted a summary of his recent trip to participate in a Romanian seminary’s graduation ceremony on SharperIron.
While we were delighted to learn of the work that God is doing through this seminary, some of Dr. Bauder’s statements made Joshua and I say, “Hum, that’s different from what so and so said. Which information is correct?”
For example, can it really be true that communism kept liberal theology away from Romanian Baptists when Unitarians were fleeing to and establishing Romanian parishes as far back as the 1560s? And do Romanian Baptist pastors as a whole really view non-registered churches under the auspices of a “religious associations” as “deceitful and unethical? etc.”
While the first question may possibly be more a matter of semantics and defining terms than anything else, a missionary planning to enter a foreign culture must wrestle with and pin down the second question. His integrity rests on his ability to come to the truth.
Because we are currently in sunny Florida far away from my favorite place to do research –good ol’ Mack library — our resources for attempting to synthesize the conflicting information are a bit scant. But hey, there’s always that scholarly source, Wikipedia.
My internet searches turned up less info than I hoped for (and yes, I did look further than Wikipedia), but enough to provide me with even more questions than I had started with. Oh, the thrill of the academic hunt!
I don’t plan to abandon my search for the truth. But it does seem that the further you delve into a foreign culture especially when you are dependent on third party interpreters who are usually English speaking Americans that you have to be able to dust away the American perspective that coats all of the “facts” they generously provide.
This is an area where we need much wisdom. Especially since our own brains are also coated with a thick layer of thirty years worth of American dust. So even as we try to brush away the cultural dust of others our own dust settles on top of the newly cleaned “facts” that we are trying to synthesize.
Oh, for the day when we understand Romanian. It will make studying and understanding at least a little less grimy.
We are excited that just this week we were able to connect with a Romanian church plant in Greenville, SC and to set up an initial meeting with Pastor Aurel Keew when we return to our base in a couple of weeks. This contact thrills us. We are hoping that Pastor Keew and the members of his congregation will help up more accurately understand questions like the above from a more direct Romanian perspective.
So as we add even more “facts” and opinions to our growing collection of Romanian cultural understanding please pray that the Lord will grant us a supernatural understanding of what is truly happening in the Romanian church and that we will be able to act on that knowlege in a biblical way that will help His church grow in a way that above all pleases Him.
