Happy New Year! I hope that all of you had a good Christmas season. I know I enjoyed the time with family. One of my brothers and myself do not live at home anymore, and so it is always a special time when the family gets back together. Having time off from school is nice as well and I have been using the time to work on support raising in addition to learning a little about English culture. I am reading a book that was recommended to me by the Pastor I will be working with called Watching the English by Kate Fox about the distinctives of English culture. (More interesting facts to come in a separate post about English culture)
On the support raising front, I am now in full gear. Over the last month I have sent out a new batch of letters and am in the process of following up with those people. I have also gotten the chance to talk to more people and have received some very positive responses. The result is that I am beginning to build up a good support base and I now have 17% of my support raised. This is up from where I had been hovering for a while at 2%. Obviously, I still have a long way to go, but I believe this is significant progress and I am thankful for it! I am praying that God will continue to bless me as I talk to people. Also, I will be sharing with my home church’s Presbytery this Saturday (01/08/2011) about what I will be doing next year in hopes that this will open up opportunities to visit Churches in the Presbytery to broaden my support base. I appreciate your prayer for this.
On a personal level, I am learning that support raising is not something I can make happen on my own strength. Really nothing is possible without our sovereign God; we just convince ourselves that we control many things in our lives. Then something comes along that we don’t feel confident enough to handle, and we see some of the magnitude of our dependence on the King of the Universe. For me support raising has done this. In addition, when I have received unlooked for successes, they have turned my heart to God is praise!
As I start into the New Year, I am looking forward to continuing to build my support team and then head to England hopefully early in the summer! As I go through this journey, I am thankful that God has provided spiritual brothers and sisters to walk along side me and support me. Your prayer over the next six months as I try to balance school, support raising, a part time job, and a internship at my home church is especially appreciated. My prayer for each of you, and for myself as well, is that God would grant us a year full of Himself in His word, in prayer, and in His Church that we might fall more in love with His beauty and be better lights in this dark world wherever He has placed us!
Paul wrote the following words in thankfulness for the Ephesians faith, but I would echo them here in thanks for your financial and continued prayer support!
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:16-23
