How I Pray

I rarely pray that things will go according to my plan, and when I do, I don't really have a peace about it. I pray that God would pay off my student loans because I know He doesn't want me to have any outstanding debts, and I pray that He would do it in a miraculous way because I love to see God glorified and magnified!

Heidi and I set a date for our departure, August 2009. We prayerfully set that date because we wanted to cast a vision for the people who are supporting us. We wanted to have a goal because without a goal there is nothing to work toward. But now I'm wondering why we set a goal based on our ignorance. We don't know how God is working in believer's lives, and we don't know how He wants to provide for us. We don't know how God is moving in hearts in France and Mali. We don't know His timing.

Early on we set support-raising goals. We said, "God has us here to: Encourage the Church, Challenge the Church to Obey Scripture, and Inform the Church About what God is Doing Around the World." That still feels right to me. Those are things I see in scripture. I can be passionate about that.

How can I be truly passionate about leaving in August? It's a month in the year. I am passionate about going as soon as God opens the doors because I believe God has called us to go. I was passionate about going in August 2008 which came and went. It wasn't God's time, and I don't know if August 2009 is God's time either. We are resolved to keep working toward the August 2009 departure because we prayerfully set that date, and we want to work faithfully until God says otherwise. I think it is more important to be faithful than it is to second guess the future. God is capable, and we will work toward an August departure in hopeful expectation of God working miracles.

If August comes and goes and we are still in California, I will say, "My hope was in the Lord Who was able to send us in August, and my hope is still in the Lord Who is still able to send us when He sees fit."

So I don't pray, "Lord send us in August." I pray, "Lord, You are faithful, knowledgeable, and capable. Use me to make Yourself known. Use our family to take the good news about Jesus to the Malian people. We are waiting on You, Lord."

I'm asking for consideration and forgiveness.

So Heidi has had a lot of people ask her if she wants their stuff that they're not going to use any more. They're thinking she could sell it and make money to get us to Mali. She is good at that, and she's a hard worker so she always says yes, but she also tries to explain that we need people to commit to supporting us. Our mission decides if we can leave for the field based on those commitments. I can't think of anyone who has first offered us stuff and then decided to commit to pray for us or support us financially. Though it has happened the other way around: people supported us and then came up with different ways to help us raise one time funds.
So... Here's what went through my head. Why don't you just make a commitment to us and not buy things you don't need or use. If it's a numbers game (and it's not) it would take less than a $7/mo commitment from each person on our mailing list to put us on the field. Better yet, commit to pray for us regularly. Jesus said that where your treasure is your heart will be also. He was certainly talking about money. But if you commit to pray for something, you will also grow to treasure it.
There is a battle in every believer between the person he or she used to be and the person you are with Christ in your life. I am compelled to help people win that battle. We need to obey what Jesus told us to do. We need to cut ourselves free from the things we used to love. We are Jesus bride, and He will not tolerate other lovers. In Luke 16, Jesus expressly said, "Sell your possessions, and give to the poor." It will be painful, but it's a good pain, a healing pain, a pain that will make us healthier and more alive. Giving up things we love is the draining of a wound, the cleansing of a burn. It's removing the old dead flesh that is still clinging to us.
Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
2 Corinthians 4:10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

I was recently reading a church website in the section about how they support missions. They said, "There are goers, senders, and the disobedient." I'm still thinking that over in light of scripture, but it rings true to me.
Here is where I need forgiveness. In that moment of thinking about selling things to raise our support, I let myself forget God and picture California soccer moms as the source of the support we need. I know that God is never late. He will take us to Mali when He wants to. We are striving to be attentive and obedient to Him every step of the way. And there is no room for me to question the motives of other people. Forgive me for taking my eyes off Christ and letting division creep in among the family of believers.

Shut up about the economy.

"Oh, it must be really tough to raise support in this economy."
That has been the most common thing we have heard from people in the last six months. I'm so disappointed.
Do you really think American is in some dire straights? We're all fat and happy. We're not shopping because we can't. We're not shopping because we're bored with getting whatever we want. It's kind of like a challenge. We imagine that we're 'returning to a simpler time' like we're in some episode of "Little House on the Prairie." Yes, there's stress and uncertainty, but that just makes the game more interesting. It makes us feel more accomplished and more important.
Meanwhile, children around the world die from diarrhea, and we say, "I'd help if I could." Or, "When we get back on our feet we'll give to help take the good news about Jesus to dying people." Maybe we even think, "If God wanted me to do something, He would give me more. This economy is God's way of showing me that He doesn't want me to give right now. Maybe we should just be focusing on our relationship with Him."
NO! Listen to what Jesus said, and obey!

Luke 12:29-34

And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 16:13-15

"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."

I sincerely appreciate peoples desire to empathize with us. So let me help you flesh out your empathy by telling you what's going on inside us.

We are eager to go! We have no doubt that God will send us when He wants us to go. We never think about how the economy is effecting our support raising. We long for the American church to be healthy and obedient. We are passionate about teaching and discipling the people around us to pursue God's kingdom first. We are convicted that we need to be more focused and work harder to be in more churches, small groups, and homes to plead with people to invest their treasure in heaven.

I find no comfort in speculations about the economy. If you want to encourage me, dovote yourself to making disciples. Pray that God woud send workers into the ripe harvest. Quote scripture to me. Draw my focus to God and Jesus Christ. Talk to me about what God is capable of doing with a person filled with His Spirit.

resonator dobro ,Baritone 8 string guitar demo with stompbox

Some day... I'll play.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

At I talked to Eric over a simmering pot of chanterelle soup, he told me that one of his pastors (from a church that supports us) talked about a new way of sending missionaries. It would involve a large fund to buy one way airplane tickets for those who felt called to foreign missions.
Now, it would take that church over 22 years to buy my family airplane tickets to Mali at their current support level. So it doesn't sound to me like he was proposing a well thought out solution to reaching the world with the gospel, but I think I can see where his thinking came from.
I know I wrestle with the disparity between our family and the families we want to minister to. We support missionaries too. I know it's hard to see how it is better to send missionaries, at great cost, to cross cultures instead of sending the money to believers already in these places, except of course in the cases where there are no believers.
Here is where I stand now. Money is not the most important part of this equation. Obedience trumps sacrifice. It is imperative that we, the Body of Christ, strive to reach all ethnolinguistic people groups (a fancy way of saying everybody reflecting Matt. 28:19). We must respond to God's call to go to Mali. Giving is good. Giving a lot is great. Giving all is obedience.
Here is what we have done about our beliefs. We have contacted people on the field and asked them how much it costs them to live there. We coupled that with our beliefs that saving for retirement has the potential to steel the joy of the church in caring for it's elders and some other stuff like that, and we have a proposed budget for our support that is about 60% of what the mission originally told us to raise.
I can also see how cutting our support has the potential to cut the number of Christians I am driven to reach with the good news about the grace of giving and the joy of spreading the Gospel around the world.
Let me hear what you think. Trying to figure all this out humbles me and makes me look young and inexperienced in my own eyes.

Memories of Friends at an Old Job in Pictures

This was drawn for me by May Victoria Solis. I don't imagine many people will find it as funny as those of us in the photo, but it's not every day you get a hand-drawn portrait of yourself. I recently found the drawing in my stuff.

“Give me 100 men who hate nothing but sin and love God with all their hearts and I will shake the world for Christ!” - John Wesley