prayer

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December 23, 2009

Prayer

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under lessons, praise, prayer
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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.

 

November 17, 2009

challenging limitations

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under meetings, prayer
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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 10, 2009

Join our prayer force, and watch God work!

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under prayer
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say-your-prayersWe 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 6, 2009

Cultural Challenges Missionaries Face

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under lessons, prayer, prep
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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.

 

September 5, 2009

preparing to return

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under prayer
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I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me and Laurel during my time in Europe. It’s been exciting to have so many of you lifting us up before the Lord. He used you mightily.

Sharing my experiences with you has been a privilege. I will write a little more about the trip after I return. I am scheduled to leave Lugoj in under three hours and to get into South Carolina on Sunday night. Please pray for my safe return.

 

September 2, 2009

overcoming financial limbo

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under needs, prayer
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our dream home

our dream home

We have located a modest, well-maintained, functional, and reasonably priced home for sale near Lugoj. The home has a kitchen, one bathroom, two bedrooms, a small living area, a very small room off the kitchen that could be used as a school room or a laundry room, and an annex room (not attached to the house) that could be used as an office for Joshua. The house also has a barn attached that could be turned into additional bedrooms if the Lord sees fit to grow our family someday. Another advantage of this home is the courtyard area and land out back which could be used for ministry activity during the summer months. And to top it all off, the sellers are including all of their furniture with the sale of the house.

The price for the house is reasonable because the home is located in a village near Lugoj instead of actually being in the city. If we were to look in the city, prices for similar pieces of property could easily run as high as $300,000.

The only problem is that, as reasonable as the price is, we do not have a lump sum of 55,000 € ($78,000) in our pockets.

If we were buying a home in America, we would seek to take out a home loan. However, as Americans seeking to purchase a house in Romania, we are finding ourselves in an awkward situation with regard to financing. American banks are not willing to give home loans to those buying overseas. That roadblock would logically lead one to seek financing in Romania. But the Romanian banks are not willing to give home loans to people who earn their income outside the country. This double denial leaves us in financial limbo.

Our first response to this situation has been and will continue to be prayer. In our human wisdom, this home seems perfect, but it may be that God has a different plan. Above all, we want the Lord’s will for our housing. In my prayers about this matter, I have been very open with God about my desire for this house, but my heart is willing to live elsewhere if that is what God chooses.

We are seeking to find a solution, and if anyone knows of any other responsible financing options, please let us know. In the mean time, please join us in prayer about this matter. God knows if this house is best for us, and He can provide if He chooses. Please pray that however He leads, we will follow willingly and that our faith will grow.

 

August 31, 2009

the house search

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under needs, prayer
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Searching for a house in Romania is a lot of work, and we’ve only just begun! Baron and I spent most of Saturday and all of Monday driving around Lugoj and some of the surrounding villages, checking out the exterior of houses up for sale.

We found plenty of homes that will not work and a few that might. Tomorrow we hope to go inside the few that I’m interested in and to find out how much they cost. Some of the pictures of the many houses we looked at can be seen below.

Please pray for wisdom and that God provides in a faith building way. Laurel and I are getting excited about the possibility of having a home here, but we don’t want to act on our own and regret things later.

house 23house 22house 21house 20house 19house 17house 16house 15house 14house 13house 12house 10house 09house 06house 05

 

August 30, 2009

survey trip (phase 3)

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under needs, prayer
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The other three members of our survey team left flew out on Friday. My final week here in Lugoj will be spent scoping out possible housing options for when Laurel and I move over.

Please pray that God will use this time to show us how to proceed. Please pray also that we will trust Him for all our needs.

This week’s to-do list:

• Find out about lead in paint.
• Compare prices of homes in city and villages.
• Find out pluses and minuses of villages.
• Find out about buying land without homes on them.
• Compare prices of houses verses apartments.
• See if solar power is available.
• Explore financing options for home purchases.
✔ Find out information about language school.
 

August 30, 2009

two days with Livada

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under needs, prayer
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God continues to use our time at different foundations to give me a fuller understanding of the possibilities and challenges ahead of us. Kelly, Livada’s assistant director, spent quite a bit of time with us, showing us around and answering questions. She took our survey team to Livada’s group homes, their mentoring apartments, and to a nearby baby hospital.

this baby really enjoyed feeling my prickly face

this baby really enjoyed feeling my prickly face

The baby hospital is working hard to make the best of a difficult situation. Many things had improved since Laurel’s and my visit in 2007. The walls were more colorful, painted mostly with Disney characters. The babies had more toys to play with. And it seemed like the babies were being picked up more often than before. However, the staff member from Livada who was regularly visiting the hospital, has moved back to England; there were more babies in the hospital this time than there were last time; and when we arrived at the hospital, the babies were all just in their cribs.

We really enjoyed holding the babies. But there is so much more that can be done. Please pray that God opens doors for us to minister in the hospitals in Lugoj. Currently, they do not allow any foreigners in with the babies.

 

August 24, 2009

Upcoming Week in Romania (#2)

Posted by Joshua and Laurel under prayer
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Here is the schedule for this week. Monday’s activities have already been completed. I will write a post about them soon.

Monday: day center and baby hospital
Tuesday: visit Livada Orphan Care
Wednesday: visit Livada Orphan Care
Thursday: visit Potter’s House (possibly) and give the Howertons a day off
Friday: everyone but me returns to America

 

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