Shots, shots and more shots

I am tired this week. We have began making plans for our first trip to Uganda and Rwanda. We are certainly excited but to say the least overwhelmed. This week started the shots. Shots, shots and more shots. To say the least, Grace is reconsidering her excitement about traveling to Africa. Madelyn could get hit by a truck and brush it off but Grace; Imagine a very large nurse with a needle in one hand and a determined look on her face, wildly poking at a moving target that is Graces arm with my hand around it. The odds of the needle going into her arm rather than my hand is not 1:1. My hand is in serious danger and I just had the same immunization and I certainly don't want it again, in the back of my hand. We made it. She is now immune to Meningococci. Near fatal death if caught by a teenager but fatal if caught by an 8 year old. The argument, It will be good for you in the long run did not help matters.
I have been continuing my class on the Prison Epistles online at Harding. I absolutely love it. I was sitting on a plane coming back from San Diego after a weekend plagued by delayed and canceled flights, and I realized that I had actually been reading my bible and my text for about 10 hours. I found joy in this. I do not boast because I have to say most of the time was re-reading what some British commentator had to say about Philippians. He doesn't write the way I talk. I can understand why some people get so excited about the depth of this kind of study. I can tell that I already have more confidence and ability to speak God's word (not really very good at it). I find that filling a half hour at bible study is easier. Part of this is that over the last 3 months I have continually prayed for God to give me a greater gift for speaking his word out loud to others. I'm not a great speaker nor a great student of the word but God has energized me through the deep meaning of his word. The pace at which one is expected to read the textbooks and write papers is nearly overwhelming. I certainly need prayers for this. Oddly enough I have been fasting directly for this issue and even my patients ask nearly every day if I have lost wt. Don't know how you can tell in a man who was already at 136.
Our prayer requests are for our trip to Africa. We want to be an encouragement for the Cashes. We ask that we will not be a burden on the Cashes. We ask for a safe flight. We pray that God will connect us to the other missionaries in Rwanda the way he has to the Koonces and the Crowsons.
We ask for prayer for fund raising. We pray for people and churches who can first pray for us and then pray for their giving. We ask God to provide for us in a stable way during our commitment. We pray that God will move churches and people in the year to come and prepare them financially for this giving. We have been in contact with multiple churches and ask that the Holy Spirit will weave our path in with theirs.
We continue to ask for prayers for our families as they are still trying to grasp this entire issue. They are praying and being faithful to this commitment of prayer.

I continually pray for all of you who have prayed for us.
God bless.

Climbing Water Towers

God has been showing me for months just exactly how he wants me to see him and how he wants me to trust in him and rely upon him for my future.

I missed this lesson for months but as I was relating a story about my son Samuel I realized that God had been speaking to me for a long time about what I would say is our future in Rwanda.

For over a year Samuel has been conjuring up ideas in his head of what he wanted to be when he was big. He first followed the same path as many boys his age and said he wanted to be a cowboy. He then graduated to being a cowboy and living on a farm with a big RV that he and daddy lived in. He wanted me to work on the farm with him when he was older. I could think of nothing more wonderful than living with my son on a farm. After a couple of months he changed his plans and decided that he wanted to be a water tower painter. He and I were to climb the towers and paint them when towns called us. We spent months listening to the loud cries of a 4 year old in the back seat each time we passed a water tower, "Daddy, we're going to paint that water tower, you and me!" Then it was on to moving to Hershey Pennsylvania, where I did my medical training, to work in the chocolate factory. He and I are going to make Hershey Kisses and candy bars.

In each plan, he has one recurring theme. It will be he and I. (english majors keep silent about that last statement) He has no concept of a future without me right there with him, helping him do whatever hard work there is to do. He is not even afraid of climbing water towers as long as I am there with him. WOW! What a picture of God.

Deuteronomy 31:6
So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

Romans 8:31
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

I can go on and on. But my point is that just like Samuel, I know if my Father goes ahead of me and is there when I get there, I will not fail. I will be able to climb water towers. And they will be beautiful towers when we are done.

Prayers

Over the last number of weeks we have visited congregations we have never been to before, spoken with people we have never met and worshiped with strangers. We had people coming up to us by the end of the worship and telling us that they were praying for us and would continue to do so.

In addition, I am taking an online class and have mentioned on that website that my family and I are going to be moving to Africa and the number of people who have emailed me and told me they were praying for me was 100% of the members of my class.

These and the number of our dear friends and beloved family that continually encourage us in prayer are staggering and quite humbling.

I am truly humbled by Gods spirit in these great worriers. I have always read and been aware of the "body" analogy that Paul uses to describe the church. I don't know why I am always amazed when someone says that they are praying for me since they are the body and image of Christ. In Ephesians 1 Paul states "22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." Paul is saying that the body, the church is the fullness of Christ. It is to be and represent all that Christ is in all his attributes. Christ always prayed. He always took his fears and the needs of others to the father. I thank all of you who go before our great Father to pray and fast for me and my family, for being the essence and fullness of Christ. We cherish your prayers. Keep them coming. They are working.

We also want each of you to know that we have prayed your name to God so that your strenght and endurance will continue.

The Roller Coaster Ride

This has been quite a month. Over the last month, Kristin and I have been asking God to show us his will for our lives. We have had an emotional roller coaster and in the end, as most roller coasters do, we glided to a smooth steady halt. But unlike the roller coaster analogy, the ride is far from over. We have been praying and fasting over the month of December in order to see more clearly what the Holy Spirit has planned for us.

Not many people currently read this blog and I feel I know the names of most who do so I hope I can safely write the things that need to be said. I ask that unless previously stated, the contents of this blog will remain only in the hearts of those invited to read. A time is quickly coming when all will know what God has planned for us but today is not that day.

Over 10 years ago, God began to speak to Kristin and me about his plan for our lives. We began to feel a burden to become missionaries. As I am accustomed to doing, I took it upon myself to "figure out how this would look in the future" and after visiting the Predisan clinic in Honduras back in 2001 I was convinced that God wanted us to do full time medical missions in that region. We spent many years waiting for God to bring about the right time for this transition but he just kept saying, "No, this is not the time".

After moving to Tyler, Texas we settled into a life that was pleasant and plentiful and enjoyed this for years. The burden of our student loans and the need to begin a journey towards becoming debt free began to weigh us down. Now looking back this journey has been intermingled with the journey to fulfill our first desire. To become more for God. We had no idea that both would come at us in such amazing, but painful ways.

When we sold our house in 2005 we were just numb from the experience. We new we could afford it, we knew it was a good size for our family but it was just painful to us to be bogged down with that much debt. We began seeking God's help with our debt and after taking Crown Ministries debt class we felt that we could do more and that God had a purpose for this pain.

We spent and amazing weekend last month with Marty and Louise Koonce and after spending hours with them we have realized that God was calling us to the mission field very soon. But, we could not understand why he was not calling us to Honduras. In addition to this, we had become comfortable with where we were at and have become "emotionally attached to our future". After a month of praying and fasting we were blessed with the chance to meet Murphy and Christine Crowson while they were on furlough in Ft. Worth. We fell in love with them immediately, just as I had experienced with the Koonces. We just felt that God had pulled us together do something greater than we could have imagined for ourselves. We discovered that they and their parents had been praying for more teammates that were skilled and wired in a way that complimented their skills and personalities.

Now we look back over the last 10 years and realize that God has been calling and preparing us for this very task at every turn.

Kristin and I are giving up our emotional attachment to our future, this is painful, and we are taking our family to Rwanda in 2009 and we will accept both the difficulties and the great joy God has planned for us and our family among a people who are so spiritually scarred and lost.

We ask for the prayers of everyone. This blog is open to all who will support us and as of today it will become a place to read about our journey to Rwanda.