Don't worry.......

     The first month of being a full time missionary in deputation is quickly ending. If you have been following my blog, you will know that there were a lot of highlights. From camp to team time, guest preaching to America's great stories, family time to time with friends it was a great month!

     We also made good strides in our fundraising efforts. Camp was  exceptional, we connected with some friends who we had served with that committed to support us and we were able to speak as the featured missionaries. We raised about $700 for our mission from the offerings out there, awesome to see kids and cabin leaders wanting see God's Word advance. We also received an amazing gift from one of our supporters at the end of May that will allow us to continue full time support raising and we were completely humbled by their generosity! God has been so faithful this month and I just wanted to start this post by saying thank you to all of you. In fact you, (my audience) is at an all time high and I know that many of you are praying for me.

     There has been one thing gnawing in the back of of mind for the past month.......it has continued to grow larger over the course of the month. In the interest of full disclosure when I left Target, we lost our insurance benefits and I can not enroll in benefits at Avant until I meet a certain threshold of support. We are about 40% funded and need to be at 50%. I usually do not get to worried about much of anything, but I am concerned! God has called us to go and so we are being faithful. I know that He is always faithful to supply our needs. Would you consider giving to the Lord in support of us? I know God will keep us healthy, but the need is present!

Guest Preaching!

Readers,

I am excited to be guest preaching at Crete Berean Church this Sunday June 26, 2011. I will be talking about missions (of course), The Great Commission, and my family's journey. I am happy to announce that I had my usual pre-sermon sleepless night - last night as God though the Holy Spirit kept me up to work on finalizing the message. Crete Berean is our sending church and I am very excited for this opportunity.  If you are able to make it I would love to see you there. If not I would love your prayers.

Michael

Stormy Night

There was a huge storm blowing through the area tonight. I love sitting back and watching the shear power of many of these natural forces. The lighting dances and flashes brilliantly across a sky that has been discolored by massive angry clouds and the wind whips violently through the trees outside of my window, so much so I wonder if the ground is strong enough to hold it in! I love to watch storms. Then I turn on the news and I see that the same storm is causing power outages and severe  damage in other areas. I remember the people in places like Joplin and Tuscaloosa that have had their lives utterly destroyed by the same power that I am watching, and enjoying. How is that? Why do we find pleasure or enjoyment in something that is destructive? Is the power of the beauty more powerful than the power of destruction or just easier to focus on? Is there a false sense of safety that is equated to distance?

I think that there are many things in this life that are similar to this storm. Each of us struggle with something( food, alcohol, self image, too many video games, ect) that others would look at and find some beauty or joy. We can easily find ourselves flirting with a force that can destroy us by watching from a "safe" distance or without a personal experience of how destructive something can be. We find ourselves compelled to it.  Beauty can be deceptive and the real danger comes from forgetting that! There is an old saying that goes "if you play with fire your bound to get burned." Please be careful in this weather.

Closet Insanity!

It has been an interesting first week in full time support raising. Our daughter is off at camp, she will be home on Saturday! And while I have been working on strategy for fund raising, I have also been digging in to scripture for a up-coming guest preaching event, and performing several times for America's Great Stories. It has been a busy week!
But my largest challenge this week has been ripping into closets! Even though we pared down in 2009 when we moved from a home to an apartment, we still have so much stuff (honestly do I need both a blender with a food processor ad-on and a food processor?) We have books, clothes, and miscellaneous debris in various drawers and compartments all throughout  our home! Honestly I am one of the biggest techie geeks that I know, I found a whole bag of electronics cords that I have no idea what they are for! The rub is none of these things are going to Italy! I have to find all of it a new home! We are going to have a massive garage sale in July with all of the proceeds going to our start up costs (new furniture when we get to Italy) and we will be taking a free will offering for our mission. I will also be exploring how to sell items on e-bay and or craig list for those items that are a bit much for a yard sale (anyone interested in a trumpet or a Killzone PS jacket?) The prep work that is left to go is huge....so see you at the sale until then I will be sorting and sifting though our stuff!

The Hero Inside

The last week my family was at Maranatha Bible Camp in Maxwell, NE. We ministered to 140 fourth through sixth graders, (almost 230 when you include their counselors)  it was great! Our theme for the week was "The Hero Inside". Renee and I served as the featured missionaries and as a large group presenter for Prayer (teaching the discipline) and examining what the Bible had to say on the topic.

Our first night; the featured speaker asked the students who their Hero's are. One student said the "missionaries" are his hero. I was humbled....
A few days later I had the chance to talk with the students about my hero. I told them about our two youngest supporters: the first is a boy our son's age. He went on a retreat with his dad last year, and while there was convicted that he was dishonoring God by having too many distractions in his life. He talked with his dad after the trip and told him of an idea he had to get rid of some. He sold his video games; he gave all of the money away to God, some went to church and $100 came to our mission. Our other youngest supporter is a girl our daughter's age. She had a school project to raise money and part of her instructions were that she had to give away a potion of her proceeds to a ministry. I again was floored when a day later she handed me all of the money she made, saying "you need this more than I do".
I can see why Jesus said that we must have faith like a child! The children of the camp collected donations for us and the camp all week, they gathered almost $600 for our mission. These campers and these two kids are hero's, as well as all of our supporters. Without you we would not be able to bring the Gospel of Jesus to the lost in Italy!

Perfect ending?

Went to the baseball game tonight with our team mates. Our home team lost but it was dollar night (hot dogs, peanuts, and sodas) so we had a good time anyways. There were fireworks at the end of the game, nice presentation, and they were lit off from behind the side of the stadium that we were sitting on, at times it looked like they were right over our heads, beautiful! On the long walk back to the car; we saw some behavior that was not good. And for the first time our missionary team sprang into action! We acted with a sense of purpose and justice we were focused on a solitary goal; the safety of others. While it was good to see how we (as a team) will react in a difficult situation it was awful to see these circumstances going on in a public place. We live in a broken world and I pray that our team will be able to meet the challenges we will face with the same focus that we had tonight.