Mission to Macedonia Blog

Weekend in Negotino

2009-10-05T03:36:00.001-07:00

Every Tuesday and Saturday, we have had the privilege to teach English classes in Negotino. Brittany has been teaching the beginners, with little to no English understanding. Dustin's class is more conversational for Macedonians who know the foundations of the English language. Brittany is teaching the basics of grammar (alphabet, numbers, simple sentences and basic English phrases) and Dustin is helping his students speak English correctly (reviewing more advanced material and helping them with more advanced conversation exercises). Brittany has about 15 students and Dustin has around 13 students. These classes started at the beginning of October and will continue until the end of December. This is a great tool for the church as many people do not trust the protestant church. They call the Christian believers "New Faith People" and say that we wrote our own Bible. The majority of people in our groups have never set foot in the church, so it is great to get the word out there about the Evangelical Church and show them that we are just normal people. Please pray that our student's hearts will be open to hearing about Jesus and will want to visit the church on Sundays.
Also, our youth group has been going strong. We still have around 5-10 youth but they are consistent and we are enjoying the time we have to teach them more about God. This past Saturday, Dustin preached a message about the importance of reading the Bible. As a prop, we painted a large, cardboard "Bible" and put things in it to represent what the Bible is. Some things in the "Bible" included: a flashlight, pillow, mirror, and instruction manual (to show that the Bible illuminates our path, provides comfort, shows us who we really are, and instructs us about how to live). Overall, a very interesting lesson!

Prayer Requests

2009-09-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

If you think about it, please pray for the following needs for our ministry here in Macedonia:

1. Language Acquisition
We continue to have Macedonian lessons three times a week and we learn more every day. We are able to say many things, but the biggest challenge is understanding. Please pray that God will continue to help us learn the language at an accelerated pace. When it comes to one-on-one ministry, especially in youth group, this is a huge need for us.

2. Albanian Church Plant
We will begin to lead worship for a new church plant on the Albanian side of Skopje in a couple of weeks. We are specifically trying to reach out to Muslims, so we need both God's direction and protection. We are going to be learning songs in the Albanian language, so we need prayer for that as well. Please remember the missionaries, the church and us as we participate in this exciting new endeavor.

3. Girl From Youth Ministry
We have a girl who has recently been banned by her father to come to the church anymore. He has even threatened physical violence against her, her family and the leaders of the church. Please pray that God would intervene and that the father would not only have a change of heart, but come to know Jesus in the process!

Two Days, Four Cities

2009-09-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, we had a great time traveling around the country for ministry. We started on Saturday evening in Negotino with guitar lessons and youth service. We had several visitors from Veles, along with our usual group, so it was a good crowd. Things are going well there as we continue to make improvements to our service format.

Sunday morning, we were in Kratovo to preach at the church there. We are enjoying getting to know Anita and the church there. We stayed and had fellowship over lunch, and walked around the city and talked. We will be doing our best to go and preach in Kratovo every month as we are able.

From Kratovo, we stopped in Stip and visited the church there. Several of the pastors in Macedonia have come out of the ministry of the church in Stip and we had not been able to meet anyone there until last weekend. We met with the pastor of the church there and spent a little time getting to know them. Unfortunately, we had to leave to get to our next service, but it was nice to at least introduce ourselves and meet some new faces.

From Stip, we traveled to Veles for the evening service. Pastor Dragan was out of the country, so he asked us to come and preach. We had a great time there as well. When we finally got back home, we were very tired, but it was a very exciting and productive evening for us.

Youth Ministry Updates

2009-09-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well, much has happened since our last post. We are getting into the regular pattern of the school year, so we haven't posted much lately so that we don't get too redundant on our post. Almost every week, we travel out to Negotino for our youth meeting. Things are going well there. We have around 5 students coming on a regular basis. Each week, we try to add another element into the service to make it more like what we want. We have a good friend from Veles, named Borche, who comes out each week to interpret and help out on the praise team. Dustin plays guitar and sings, Brittany is on keyboard and vocals, and Borche helps on bass or guitar. It is challenging to concentrate on playing and singing words in Cyrillic at the same time. We try to learn a couple of songs for each service.

We arrive each week early to have guitar lessons with two of the teenagers in our group. Our hope is to teach them until they are comfortable playing on the team with us. So far, everything is going well with the lessons.

Our youth service consists of some worship, a game, some Bible quiz questions, preaching and prayer. We are teaching a series called "Kingdom Living." Last week, we talked about being a servant. In the next few weeks, we will cover the topics of prayer, fasting, worship, giving, and talk about what the Scriptures teach us about how to live in the Kingdom of God here on earth. We are excited about being able to work with these young believers.

We have had the great opportunity to meet many of the believers and church leaders throughout the country. It is exciting for us to feel more accepted by them and feel like we are actually a part of what is going on here. We talked with some of the leadership about an idea that we had for a short winter teenager camp, and we have scheduled a three day event in January that we will help coordinate. It is very exciting to be a part of the team. Pray that our numbers will grow so more will be reached.

Trip to Strumica/Hiking Mount Vodno

2009-08-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we were invited to come out to the city of Strumica to visit with friends of ours there. Strumica is located in Southeast Macedonia. We met Zivko and Stephanie at youth camp in Struga. They are the leaders of the youth in the Evangelical Church in Strumica. When we arrived, we walked around beautiful downtown Strumica, which is nestled in between mountains. That evening, we went to the youth service, where Dustin was able to preach the Word and sing a few of his rap songs. After service we were able to fellowship with some of the youth we had met at camp and meet a few new ones. We had fun getting to know them better and practicing our Macedonian. The next morning, we went to the village church outside of Strumica and worshiped with the fellow believers. After that service, we went to the afternoon service in downtown Strumica for a wonderful service. When the service ended, Zivko and Stephanie took us to see the church that is being built in Strumica. When completed, it will be a beautiful building. The only thing they are lacking are funds to complete the building. Please pray that God will give them the money to complete this church. After visiting with the head pastor, Pastor Toni, his family, Zivko and Stephanie, for lunch, we headed back to Skopje.

Yesterday, Wednesday the 26th, we decided to climb Mount Vodno with Caleb and Daniella (the White's teenage kids) to see the cross up close. We live at the base of Vodno and see the cross daily from our window. The cross is at the peak 1066 m up (3497 feet up). Eddie took us halfway up toward the back. From there, it normally takes two hours to hike up hill to the cross. It took us 2 1/2 hours to arrive. But when we did it was well worth it. The millennium cross is 66 meters high (217 feet) and is the biggest cross in the world. We took many pictures and rested, then, we started the climb down. We were supposed to meet Eddie at a hotel halfway down which would take us 1 1/2 hours. We followed the main road some of the time and trails the rest. We never saw the hotel and got lost several times on small trails. After curving down and walking straight down the mountain for hours, we realized that we landed at the bottom right by the White's house. By the time we arrived at their house, we had walked about 3 hours!!! We may not do that again for a long time, but it was worth it! Enjoy the pictures that do not compare to the real thing.

Seven Days of Youth Camp!

2009-08-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

We just got back on Sunday (August 9th) from seven days in Struga at the Evangelical Church Youth Camp for all of Macedonia. There were about 100 students from all around the country that came together for this event. It was a great time for us to build relationships with youth and meet people that we otherwise might not have a chance to meet. We had a chance to really work on our Macedonian language practice. The students were patient with us as we stumbled and fumbled with our words. Quite a few of them spoke English and were able to help us understand what was going on. Every morning, we had breakfast and a worship service with a devotional message from different leaders from around Macedonia. We then broke into small groups. We helped to lead a small group of students who were 15-16. We shared about our lives, played games, and discussed spiritual things. Two of the students in our small group were students from Negotino, where we will start working every week in September. It was especially great to get to know them on a deeper level.

We had lunch and them free time until dinner. We went to the beach, out on paddle boats, played soccer (or football as it is called almost everywhere but the U.S.), badminton, corn hole, swam in the lake, played volleyball, video games and had organized team relays. It was a blast!

Every evening we had a worship service with a conference speaker. The theme of the camp was "What is my identity?" and we discussed with the students what the Bible says about who they are. The worship team was called Tora, from Strumitsa, and they were incredible. We then played games after the service. The last night, we had a talent show. The students asked Dustin to rap and he shared "Redeemed" with them.

We had at least two students ask Christ into their heart for the first time and had someone get baptized on the final day.

We also had a chance one afternoon to go to Ohrid and see a few of the historic sites there. There were several churches with artwork dating back to the 13th century and earlier. We also got to see an ancient fortress. It is the most historic part of Macedonia and the history of the country is fascinating.

It was an exhausting week for us, but one that was invaluable. Now we have friends around the country, and were able to make connections with many students and leaders. We were also encouraged to press on in our language study because there was much that we were unable to say that we wished we could. Overall, we are glad to be back in Skopje, and will be busy preparing for weekly youth services and other prospective ministries beginning this September!

It's still all Greek to me!

2009-07-29T09:45:00.001-07:00

We had an incredible opportunity to help out with a youth missions team in Thessaloniki, Greece. Almost every Greek person will claim to be a part of the Orthodox Church, although very few are actually devout. A pastor there shared with me that around 98% of Greeks claim to be Orthodox, but if he had to guess, maybe 2 or 3% actually practice it. Protestant Missionaries are not allowed to move into the country for religious reasons because of the strong Orthodox roots. There was a team of about 25 students who came from the States to do ministry there. We arrived on Tuesday night(July 21st). If I wasn't confident to drive a standard before, I certainly got my practice. I (Dustin) drove the 10 passenger van that we have on the field for the team that week. Thessaloniki is a city with narrow streets on steep hills. By the end of the week, I felt like I could do almost anything in a stick shift.

On Wednesday morning, we helped to drive the team to a small gypsy village to start a three day Vacation Bible School type outreach. There were dramas, testimonies, dancing, games, Scripture reading, face-painting, snacks and much more. The kids really enjoyed us being there for the three days we were there.

Thursday morning we continued with the ministry for the Roma (Gypsy) kids. That evening, we split up into teams of 4-5 and each went to a different Starbucks location in the city. The students had passed out flyers earlier that week that advertised conversational English practice. After a while, our group realized that we would not have any takers, so we decided to go out and approach people with a brief survey about their culture and church participation. After speaking to a couple of young people, both of whom were not faithful to church, Brittany and I began to get discouraged, as our conversations were not leading to any deeper discussion. We decided to approach one more person on the street. She was a girl from Spain who was visiting Greece. We asked her about her culture and whether or not she went to church. She immediately opened up to us about her spiritual search and her openness to God. We told her, "We probably will never see you again, but we need to tell you that God loves you and sent His Son, Jesus to die for your sins." We were able to have a brief conversation about our beliefs about Christianity and then she had to leave for Spain. We believe God put her in our path to direct her toward Him. Please pray for her that our short conversation would lead her to think more seriously about Jesus Christ.

The following night, we teamed up with a ministry in Greece called A21, that assists in fighting against human trafficking. Sadly, prostitution is legal in Greece, which makes it a huge market for human traffickers. Trafficking in many countries, especially in our area (Macedonia included) is not limited to women for prostitution. Children are often trafficked and forced to work or beg to make money for their owner. Elderly men and women, and the handicapped are targets as well for this terrible industry. We went around Thess and handed out sandwiches to over 300 people who were most likely victims of trafficking and also gave them a card that said "If you are being trafficked and want to get out, contact us" in five languages. We pray that this ministry would be effective in reaching people who are victims in this worldwide epidemic.

After the last afternoon with the Gypsy children, we prepared that night for a community outreach in a city park. We played games with kids in the park and setup for an outreach. We had several dramas, dancing and testimonies and had a large group of people gathered. We had a lot of fun interacting with the kids and showing them God's love. It was a great time.

We arrived home on Saturday, July 25th very tired, but excited about all that went on. Being with the youth from America reminded us why we love youth ministry and gave us a fresh vision to reach young people here.

Preaching in Kratovo

2009-07-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

We were invited out to a small city about an hour and a half away called Kratovo on July 15. There is a small Evangelical Church that meets there and is being lead by a lady named Anita. We arrived in Kratovo after a long drive out into seemingly nowhere. The people were very nice and we lead our first two songs completely in Macedonian. Dustin preached about the importance of the Resurrection of Christ as a historic event, a present reality and a future hope. Afterward, we went to a restaurant and had fellowship. The church runs a youth center upstairs where around 25 students come to play the games and hang out. The adults are able to share the Gospel through conversation and are hoping to build a bridge to bring the youth into the church. As in many places in Macedonia, the Protestant Church is seen as a cult, so getting people just to come and see that the Christians are normal people who love God is a challenge. Please remember to pray for Anita and her church that the Lord would move in a powerful way and that they would be able to reach Macedonians of all ages with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Youth Picnic and Fellowship

2009-07-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

We went to a lake outside of Veles on July 11th for a get together with youth from several of the churches in the country. We had a time of worship and Philip from Veles shared a short message. We went swimming in the lake, had a target shooting competition and had Bible trivia (our American team lost! Oops!). It was great to meet many of the young people around the country and have everyone get together in one location. The youth need encouragement from other Christian believers because they are so few. We had a great time getting to know each of them.

Back in the U.S.A

2009-07-15T12:56:00.001-07:00

We had a great time in the Ohio over the last week and a half. We left Macedonia on June 19th and returned July 9th. We were able to be a part of Becca's wedding. Everything went great. Brittany was a bridesmaid and Dustin officiated the first half of the ceremony (which was the first wedding he was able to minister at). We had a wonderful time there. Dustin ate at Taco Bell three times and drank probably 3 or 4 gallons of Mountain Dew. It wasn't as strange to be back as we thought it would be, but it was more like we'd been away on a long vacation. Coming back (other than the jetlag) was great. It really felt like we were coming home and not going to a foreign country.

Outreach in Remote Village

2009-07-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry that we are back tracking here. We spent nine days in the States to get our VISA and to participate in Brittany's sister, Becca's wedding. I (Dustin) had the privilege of being able to be a part of an evangelistic outreach on June 26th with the Evangelical Church in Veles. We traveled through the mountains for over an hour into a remote village that has been unreached by Protestant Christians for many years. The church had gone there and handed out literature once, but this was the first outreach that had been done there. We set up our equipment and there was music ministry (I was even able to sing one song and play with the worship team), a couple of testimonies and the Word brought by Pastor Dragan. It was really amazing to see the heart of the church to reach people that no one else is.

The Events of Last Week/Weekend

2009-06-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday of last week, I (Dustin) had the privilege of traveling, with Pastor Mirche from the Evangelical Church in Skopje, around the country. There are two Gypsy churches that are being built. The first was in Prilep and is being renovated. We met with the pastor and talked about the progress of the building. Things are really coming along. They have just started on the second level and are continuing with the work every day. The second was about 3 hours from Skopje in a city called Bitola. This was a newly acquired piece of land. The two story building on the property is over 100 years old, so it needs to be torn down and a church built on it. It was exciting to see what God was doing throughout the country and to hear about the Gypsy people being reached.

On Friday night, we were invited to help minister in the city of Veles. We arrived at around 5:00. We traveled up a hill close to where Pastor Isa's church building is. We set up and started giving out balloons and stickers to the children who were gathered there. We had a crowd of about 50 people of all ages by the time we began with puppets. I shared a few hip hop songs, which we had translated onto Powerpoint slides behind me. Then I shared my testimony and Pastor Isa came and shared for a few moments. The purpose of the outreach was for the community to get to know Pastor Isa better. His work is fairly new there, and he was pleased with the outcome.

On Saturday evening, we headed over to Negotino for a youth service. There was a group of about 8 teens who showed up. They have been meeting and having a Bible study for some time. We enjoyed getting to know them personally and spending more time with Pastor Goran. We will continue to travel to Negotino and work with the youth there. Our goal is to establish a strong ministry and train a national to become the youth pastor there. We are also praying about some other possibilities in that city, such as starting an English class to reach young people.

On Sunday night, we were invited to preach at the Evangelical Church in Veles for Pastor Dragan. Dustin preached on Joseph and his dreams and encouraged the people there to hold on to the calling that God has on their lives no matter what. We enjoyed being with the people there and will be joining them for an outreach in a village outside of Veles this Friday evening.

Preparing for Weekend Ministry

2009-06-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Please be in prayer for us this week. We are preparing for several ministry invitations that we have had for this weekend.

On this Friday, we've been invited by a Pastor in Veles to come and be a part of an evangelistic outreach. We are in the process of having some hip-hop songs translated into Macedonian. I'll be sharing a few songs, with the words in Macedonia projected behind me, my testimony and closing with a presentation of the Gospel and an altar call. The targeted group is the young gypsy kids and teens, but our location is on a hill that overlooks the city, so we will probably attract many different age and culture groups. Please pray for a receptive audience and that many will come to know the Lord.

On Saturday, we are traveling back to Negotino and meeting with Pastor Goran about working with the youth there. We will probably be working with them and structuring a youth ministry there, with the intention of identifying and training a national youth pastor. Please pray for the Lord's direction for us and the young people of Negotino.

On Sunday night, we have been invited to come and preach in Veles at Pastor Dragon's church. Please pray that the Lord would anoint the message and that we would have a great service with the people there.

Thank you for everyone who is supporting us with prayer and financial support. We could not do what we do without all of you.

Weekend of Ministry

2009-06-08T01:58:00.001-07:00

We had a busy weekend the last couple of days. On Saturday night, we lead the junior high school group at the Evangelical Church in Skopje. We spent some time getting to know each other, and spoke about servanthood. Afterwards, we had a party for Caleb and Daniella (Eddie and Patti's son and daughter) for their birthdays (shown in Picture 1).

We had an invitation to preach in Negotino at the Evangelical Church Sunday morning. Dustin spoke on hearing God's voice, and we spent time in fellowship with Pastor Goran and speaking about ways that we can help the church to reach teenagers (Picture 3 and 4). He has a Bible study with them once a week. He said that it is very hard for Christian teenagers in Macedonia because there are so few Christians, on the weekend, all of their other friends go out and drink alcohol and hang out in dangerous places. We are praying for direction about whether or not we can help to start some kind of alternative place for them to go and have a good time.

In between services, we traveled to Prilep, where there is a church building being built for the Roma (Gypsie) church there (Picture 2). We met with the Pastor of the church for a minute and headed out for another village called Veles. We met with Pastor Esa and Pastor Dragon and some of the gypsie teens. We had an opportunity to fellowship, share my testimony and share a devotional from the Word. We are going to put on an evangelistic outreach there on June 26th with hip-hop music and sharing the Gospel to the young Roma people. Please be in prayer for this exciting opportunity. We want to help the small group of young believers there grow!

Southeastern Europe Retreat

2009-06-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from the Southeastern Europe Retreat. It was held in Chaldiki, Greece, which is in the "first finger". It was a time a relaxation, training, and fellowship. This retreat only happens once a year, but we were fortunate to be able to attend when we have just arrived. While there, we were able to meet missionaries to Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria and more! It was great to be able to spend time with missionaries who have been on the field for many years. There were many stories of the work that God is doing all over this difficult part of the world. We were challenged by the teaching of Greg Mundis (the director over the Europe region) and Kevin Beery (Southeastern Europe's area director). We enjoyed getting to know all of them. For two of the sessions, Dustin and I had the privilege of leading worship. Coming back to our apartment in Skopje felt like we were coming home more than ever before. Our language lessons start this Friday!

Service in Negotina

2009-05-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, we had the pleasure of meeting with Evangelical believers from all around Macedonia for a tent service in Negotina. There we joined with hundreds of other believers in song, communion, and a sermon. At the end of the service, we were able to witness a baptism for several of the areas teens and adults. It was exciting to see them show, outwardly, their commitment to Christ. Eddie stated that this gathering represented about a third of the born-again Christians in the whole country. That is amazing considering how many people live in Macedonia! Pictured below are several of the pastors we will be working with standing in the front.

We Found a Place to Live!

2009-05-20T11:14:00.001-07:00

The last three days have been very stressful. We saw over ten houses/apartments. Each one had its positives and its negatives, but most were out of our price range. We were getting frustrated at the experience. Today, Pastor Mirce (the senior pastor of the Evangelical Church in Skopje-pronounced Meerchay) had us meet with a realtor, who had an apartment close to the church for us to live. We walked up to the second floor and walked in. It had everything we wanted. It wasn’t too far up, had a small yard out front, allowed dogs, had an updated kitchen and fairly modern furniture and was within a five minute walk from the church. Here are some pictures. The view from the balcony is beautiful and the price was the lowest of any place we looked at. Praise the Lord for His direction! As soon as we walked into the apartment, we felt the peace of God. He is so good!

The View From the Balcony

Everyone went to lunch today with Pastor Mirce (pronounced Meerchay) and some of the other leaders of the Evangelical Church. One of them, named Stole (pronounced Stolay), was talking to me about his advice for us to get acclimated to the culture. He turned to me and said, “The one thing that Americans need to understand about Macedonia, is that you need to relax. If you get only 1% out of 100% of the things that you want to accomplish in a day finished, you should be very happy!” For an American who lies down in bed at night trying to figure out how much he has gotten accomplished that day, 1% seems like an utter failure. It will be challenging to slow down and learn to value relationship building over project finishing, but it is exciting to be here and we are enjoying our stay.

Early Reflections on Macedonia

2009-05-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Macedonia is a very unique place. Moving to a foreign country that you have never been to was an interesting process. As we left the United States on that plane to Austria, we just looked at each other with a look like, “Are we really doing this?” We had absolutely no idea what to expect. We’d seen pictures and a couple of short video clips, but we knew that wasn’t enough to really get a feel for what it would be like. Stepping off of the plane, and driving around the city, however gave us a strange feeling that we were home.

Eddie drove us through one of the gypsy neighborhoods here. He said he admires them because they are very hardworking people. The men spend much of their time traveling around Skopje, looking through dumpsters to find anything remotely usable. They bring it home and try to clean it up or fix it, and the neighborhood has community yard sales to sell it to the other locals. They cannot get jobs because the gypsies are the lowest in the society. They speak their own language (Roma), have their own government, and keep to themselves.

Racial conflict is strong here. There are neighborhoods with only Macedonians on one side of the river, sections of town for Albanians only on the other side and very few sections that are “mixed”. There was a civil war between the two groups just a few years ago. Even though peace has been somewhat established, each group keeps to themselves except for an occasional business deal.

It is actually very hot here. We expected it to be colder. It felt like Florida, which was a nice surprise for me (Dustin) after staying in chilly Ohio for six weeks. We have had a lot of first time experiences. Yesterday, I went to an ATM and exchanged U.S. dollars for Denari, which we found out is the preferred currency here. Euros are mostly used in Greece and many of the surrounding countries. We went to church yesterday morning and tried to sing along with the Macedonian songs. The people were great there. The pastor was very welcoming. It was very nice to be in fellowship with other believers in a country with less than a half a percent of Christ followers. Eddie turned to me after service and said, "Now you've met more than 3% of the Christians in the country".

We are anticipating starting ministry here, but are still recovering from jetlag. One of us wakes up sometime around 2:00 AM and lies in bed wide awake for about two hours each night. They said that we should be back to normal within a week. We started hunting for somewhere to live yesterday and will continue throughout the week. (written Monday May 18th)

Traveling Fiasco / We're Finally Here!

2009-05-17T06:39:00.001-07:00

We have finally arrived in Macedonia! Thanks for all of your prayers and support for our ministry. Getting here was quite the adventure. Here's a quick recap of what took place:

1. Bought tickets for Thursday morning from Dayton Ohio
2. Arrive in Dayton, check in 6 bags and a dog and wait at our terminal
3. Find out the plane will be delayed for hours, change our tickets for Friday instead, check our luggage and dog back out and go back home.
4. Go back to airport on Friday and do it all again
5. Leave Friday morning on a plane from Dayton to Dulles in Washington D.C.
6. 6 hour layover in D.C.
7. Board the longest flight we've ever been on to Vienna, Austria
8. We look at each other and ask "What in the world have we gotten ourselves into?"
9. 5 hour layover in Vienna- Sleep on blankets on the granite floor
10. Fly in to Macedonia Saturday at 3:30 PM and try to catch up on sleep

Sleeping in Austria with Reese

Austrian Airport Sign

When the Lord Calls- He Provides

2009-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

I've often heard it said that God won't call anyone to a ministry that He won't provide for. We have certainly seen that to be true in our lives the last 10 months. God has exceeded our expectations in the itineration process. We have been all over the state of Florida and to several churches in Ohio, and we are excited to announce that we are at 75% of our budget! We are hoping to leave by the end of this April. Please continue to remember us in your prayers that we will reach our goal! Pray that the Lord will continue to move in our upcoming services. Thank you for your faithfulness in praying and giving! We cannot do this without you!

The Three-Fold Joy of Itineration!

2008-10-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

The last seven months has been quite the journey for us as we began our itineration process. We've traveled all over the state of Florida and will continue to do so until our support is raised. When we received approval to itinerate, I must admit, we were quite nervous. What will we say?...How will we be received?...All questions that ran through our minds. Before itineration, I'd mostly preached in youth settings, what would it be like to preach in main services? Now that we are in the middle of this exciting process, I must say that the positives far outweigh the negatives.

It certainly is challenging, with the pressure of trying to fill our schedule, traveling thousands of miles in our car, sometimes getting home in the late hours of the night, and being away from our church family at our local body...but it is worth it. I want to briefly share three elements of itineration that make it all worthwhile:

1. The Joy of Being With God's People
Traveling from church to church, we have been able to meet so many wonderful people who have brought joy into our lives. We get to hear stories of God's faithfulness and how He is working in churches in special ways, and we would not have that opportunity without intinerating.

2. The Joy of Seeing God's Power
Through this process of traveling and speaking, we've had the immense joy of seeing God's hand at work. We've seen the Holy Spirit show up in some of our services in special ways. The Lord has not only minstered through us, but to us as well. I can honestly say that if it were not for this season in our lives, I would not be as equipped to go onto a foreign field and minister.

3. The Joy of Witnessing God's Faithfulness
If there is one thing that has brought us joy in this process, it is seeing God's faithfulness and the faithfulness of His People. In a time where the world is worrying about the economy, the stock market has turned into a roller coaster, and much of the attention is: How will this affect ME?- We have seen the Body of Christ come through for us in a miraculous way. Thank you for your faithfulness, which has helped us to raise over 65% of our budget so far!

I was thinking this morning, and if someone had come along seven months ago with a check written out for our entire budget and offered to pay the whole thing off if we wouldn't itinerate, knowing what I know now, I'd have to say "no." The joys of itineration are too great, and getting to know you has been too wonderful and growing in the Lord has been too valuable to us and our lives.

New Way To Communicate

2008-10-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

This post begins a blog of our journey through the itineration process and onto the mission field. We wanted a way to keep in touch with family, friends, prayer and financial supporters, and contacts we've made in our travels. We hope that you will join us on this journey and feel free to respond to us through this blog.