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How Missionaries Want {and Need} You to Pray for Them

By |2022-05-07T23:06:03+00:00October 7, 2019|Blog, Mission|

Missionaries often are asked: “How can I pray for you?” and most likely, we will answer: “Pray for our financial support, our witness, and our families.” These are good things to pray for, but there are some things we are ashamed of admitting and that don’t make the prayer request list. A missionary is not someone special, more gifted, or more holy than anyone else. In fact, many of us missionaries joke that God needed to take us to the mission field to teach us the hard lessons we could not to learn because of our own stubbornness and zealousness. Among missionary leaders, there is a saying that leading missionaries is like “herding cats” because of our independent streak. Missionaries can exude strength and courage, but as the years progress, I have noticed certain patterns of struggle that are unique to missionaries (and I’d venture to say much of this applies to those who are in full-time ministry, pastors, or church-planters).  We need you pray for us in the following areas.

To Have Child-Like Faith

By |2022-05-07T23:09:49+00:00September 19, 2019|Blog, Faith|

One of the covenant children in my church is a sweet little girl who has Down Syndrome. Recently, Vera burst into the fellowship hall where I was talking to her grandmother. She tugged at grandma to get her attention so that she could share what she had just learned in Sunday school. Vera had a coloring sheet showing two groups of men in long robes. One group had sad faces and she explained that these men did not know Jesus. The other group was smiling. Vera enthusiastically announced that these men knew Jesus and she did too. She just had to share the good news she had learned from her Sunday school teacher. A Simple, Child-Like Faith My church is also blessed to have gifted teaching elders who lead our adult Sunday school. Each week we have well prepared, insightful, and challenging lessons. On this particular week, we were studying the Heidelberg Catechism, working through the answer to Question 60: “How are you right with God?” We spent our time learning the differences between Augustine’s and Pelagius’ views on our sinful nature vs. free will, understanding the reformer’s perspective on the Roman Catholic’s view of synergism, and wresting with how it is we can be expected to live according to the law when we don’t have the ability to do so. It was a heavy session that stretched us, maturing our thinking on the subject. After listening to little Vera share what she had learned in Sunday school, I could not help but think how right she was with God...

A Letter to My Daughter’s Birth Mother

By |2022-05-07T23:18:43+00:00August 19, 2019|Adoption, Blog|

In a world of seven and a half billion people, it seems impossible that my words will ever find you. Still, they've been on my heart for years now and today I feel compelled to send them out wherever they may go. Maybe they will find someone else who needs to hear them, or maybe, the same sovereign hand that brought a precious baby to me will bring these words back to the one who bore her. So I send them out and trust that God will do with them whatever He sees fit. You have sent out and trusted in far more unimaginable and enormous ways than I can ever comprehend.This is why I write. She is playing on the floor beside me, the one who has your eyes and your smile, and your laugh. I don't know your name, and you don't know mine, but those small pieces of you I do know—I know them so very well. They are memorized like a piece of my own heart now.You must be so beautiful, because she is. My husband sometimes says that there is an empty seat at our table, meaning maybe there is still another child out there for our family. He does this to be funny, in truth. But I admit to sometimes noticing that empty chair. Except it's not a child who is missing, in my mind. No matter how much she smiles, your empty chair in her world will always be there.Loss is like a haunting. It's a vital cord being cut, the ends left loose, never to be retied again this side of eternity. That cord searches for its other end nevertheless, with a gaping openness where there should be closure. Sometimes it looks like seeing a face in a crowd that isn't there. I remember searching for my own mother's face when she left this earth too early, and I have to wonder: are you on the other side of the world today haunted by the absence of a little girl? Do you see an empty chair too and wonder?...

Psalm 78 and Why We Must Tell Our Stories of Redemption

By |2022-05-07T23:31:12+00:00June 27, 2019|Blog, Faith|

The time I got hit by a car while jogging.The time I was not awarded the scholarship to college that everyone thought was a shoe-in.The time I transferred colleges and met my husband in a biology lab I should not have had to take.These are the one-line titles of just a few of my redemption stories. If you read my blog or hang out around me long enough, you might just hear the whole story. How about you? When is the last time you told a story of how God rescued and redeemed you in a particular moment or season of your life?Asaph, the author of Psalm 78, convincingly argues that God’s people must know and share their stories of redemption. In the seventy-two verses of the Psalm, he demonstrates how far astray God’s people can go when they forget his mighty miracles and wonderful deeds. Right in the middle of the Psalm, Asaph reminds us of the surest hope of a forgetful people—our God never forgets to be merciful. Let’s look at how it breaks down:Part 1. A Call to Remember and Tell (Psalm 78:1-8)Asaph implores the Israelites to remember and tell of God’s redemptive work. When they recite his “glorious deeds” and “the wonders that he has done” (Psalm 78:4b, ESV), the next generation will “set their hope in God…[and] keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:7, ESV). When the Israelites remember their stories of redemption, they won’t follow in the fleeing footsteps of their “stubborn, rebellious,” ancestors (Psalm 78:8, ESV).

In a Little While: Jesus’s Promises in John 16

By |2022-05-07T23:47:23+00:00April 18, 2019|Blog, God's Word|

When my oldest daughter was six, my husband and I left the country for two weeks. Two weeks. It’s really not that long, but, from the perspective of my six-year-old, it seemed like an eternity. She was afraid to be left without us, she was sad because she was going to miss us, and she was worried about what it would be like with us gone. Knowing phone calls would be difficult at best, I left her with several things to comfort her when she was sad and strengthen her when she was afraid—a photo of us, some notes to read, and the reminder we would be praying for her. I also tried to reassure her by telling her, “We’ll be back before you know it.” After all, we were only going to be gone a little while. A little while. The phrase is used seven times in John 16. Jesus, preparing his disciples for his death, said, "A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me” (John 16:16). At the thought of Jesus leaving, the eleven disciples were like my daughter: they were afraid, sad, and worried. Not only did Jesus reassure them with the certainty they would see him again, he also promised them he would leave them three things: his Spirit, his joy, and his peace.

Life-Faking Ministry and Its Consequences

By |2022-05-07T23:51:20+00:00April 1, 2019|Blog, Ministry|

In their new book, Life-Giving Leadership, Karen Hodge and Susan Hunt explain that life-giving women’s ministry comes from confidence in Christ, not in ourselves. Without it, they warn, women’s ministry can become a life-taking, destructive activity. There is a third kind of women’s ministry. It may run smoothly and involve lots of the Bible study and service of which Karen Hodge and Susan Hunt speak in their new book, but unlike what they describe, there is no life in it. That’s because it is life-faking. The authors hint at life-faking when they say in their book Transformed, “We feel guilty and hypocritical when we try to play the part of the perfect wife, mother or daughter, but we don’t have to pretend. Paul holds before us the exhilarating idea of transformation.” Life-Faking Ministry A male example of fakery is found in the character of the older brother in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal son, after rebelling, found reconciliation after he confessed candidly to his father, saying, “I am not worthy to be called your son.” The older son, who had stayed home, revealed his divided heart when he jealously complained to his father about all the attention the younger brother received. He said, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends” (Luke 15:29). Apparently, the older son’s expectation of the relationship with his dad was not covenantal, but contractual. He demanded his due. The father’s response is poignant: “Son [note that he reminds him of that important relationship], you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (v. 30). The father points out the important part of the relationship, implying sadly, “You and I shared togetherness all this time, whereas the younger son missed out on the relationship. Isn’t closeness with me enough for you?” It wasn’t. The older son wanted to celebrate with “his friends,” apparently not with his dad. And so Jesus asks us, “Are you following me to be with me, or to get something from me? Are you in a genuine relationship with your Father, or have you been faking?”

When God’s Answer Is Different Than We Expect

By |2022-05-08T00:09:15+00:00January 14, 2019|Blog, Prayer|

It was the answer to prayer I didn’t want to get. It was not only disappointing—it was costly. It was one of those life situations that getting the answer I wanted would have had no grand effect on the universe, but have made my life (and my family’s life) quite lovely. Time, prayer, wise counsel, and careful planning had all gone into setting the stage. The answer I wanted would have allowed me to honor God in so many ways. The correct answer to my prayer was obvious, and I couldn’t wait to receive my blessing from the Lord’s hand. But the answer that seemed so right never materialized. I felt as though God had failed me even though I had done everything right. I prepared for a season of action, yet God had me continue in this season of waiting. In between the sharp pains of disappointment, questions swirled like brittle leaves on a blustery day. Why had it turned out this way? Why did I have to suffer? Didn’t God care?

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