As a father of two little boys (who are awesome) it is common around our house to hear the Rocket Countdown. You know, 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...BLASTOFF!!! With a 3 year old it is more like 10...9...8...2...1...BWAST OFF!!!
Well this is were we are at on our journey to Rwanda. We are now at 10 months and counting down. As you can imagine this means many more long nights and unfortunately a few stress "discussions" between me and my dearest wife. Yes, we are human and we admit it.
The past month has been so amazing. God has been so faithful to us and repeatedly shown us his great commitment to answering our prayers.
At the beginning of this month I was becoming a little stressed about our fund raising when an amazing thing happened. A great man came to me and actually said, "I want to be in charge of your fund raising". Now, I polled numerous missionaries and none of them have ever had such a thing happen. God is amazing. This has given me more peace than I could have imagined at this point in our journey.
After this the missions chair at Glenwood called and said that the missions team and mission elders had agreed that Glenwood would be our sponsoring church. Within a month we had our entire mission salary committed by the mission committee, Elders and church body.
The same month we had our dear family from Hershey, PA call and invite us to give our mission presentation to the church body. After 3 days there we felt like we had never left. The church just took us in and loved us. They have committed to helping us and we are now awaiting the decision from their budget team about that commitment.
It is not their faithful commitment to the Lord that impresses me because I see that all the time in them but it is the faith that these two bodies have placed in me that not only impresses me but humbles me.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
After all this, I was actually able to sit down at a table in Lindale with Marty Koonce and have breakfast. It was unfortunate that he was here because he had to rush back for the funeral of a close family member. In spite of this I was so blessed and my heart was filled up with joy and I had the joy of reliving the excitement that we experienced the day we sat in our home with the Koonces and made that monumental and faithful decision to move to Africa. Praise God and God bless the Koonces, His great tool in this amazing and intricate plan.
Our prayer requests for this month are:
1. our children. they seem to be adjusting but we are just getting into a busy part of this journey and they do drop hints (likely unintentional) of their thoughts on Rwanda. They go back and forth between being excited and being sad.
2. We continue to seek support for our start up funds and future work funds. please pray for the churches that are still "pondering" our request for funds. Rt. 230 Church of Christ, Park Plaza Church of Christ, New Hope Church of Christ, Cinco Ranch Church of Christ and Preston Road Church of Christ.
3. We want to lift up thanks and praise to God for Glenwood Church of Christ and Rt. 230 Church of Christ for their faith in us.
4. Peace in our home while we begin to pack and plan for packing our container.
Thank you all so much for your love and faith. Thank you and bless you.
Brian and Kristin
