Dear Friends and Family,
We wish you all a very happy new year from Aiken, South Carolina. 2010 was a very exciting year for us following the Lord's plans to Mexico and serving Him there in every way we could. As 2011 begins, it's hard to imagine just what all this year might bring our way. We're excited about the birth of our first child in about 7 weeks, if the Lord wills. We're anticipating preparations to move to Europe, if the Lord wills. And we're settling into the South for a few months, looking for ways to serve the Lord here, for as long as He wills. We're writing now to update you on our life and ministry.
Although we're not exactly anticipating a "normal" life, Abby and I have noted that now is the most settled time we've had since our wedding in May of 2009. I think, too, that it will be good for Abby to have a place where she can settle in, have the baby, and learn to adjust to new-parent life. We've rented a small apartment here in Aiken for the next several months and we're only about a mile from her parents house so she's able to be close to family for this special time. She's been a busy little bee getting the baby's room all painted and decorated while working with a very small budget and borrowing as much furniture and accessories as she can. For all of you who follow her blog, I'm sure you'll see lots of pictures and posts going up in the next several weeks!
I am very thankful to have been able to find a job here in town. I was unsure if many places would be willing to hire me, knowing we plan to be here for less than a year. I also wanted a job that would allow me much time at home to be with Abby and Kyle, but still give me enough hours to provide for the medical bills we'll have coming up soon. I won't take a job where I have to work Sundays and my conscience won't allow me a job where I could be serving alcohol. So the Lord provided me a job at the Chick-fil-A here in town. It is really a perfect fit! For any of you in the North who don't know what Chick-fil-A is, they are a Christian-owned company (the inventors of the chicken sandwich, in fact!) whose stated corporate purpose is "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A" (Try finding a statement like that from McDonalds or Burger King!). Obviously, this doesn't mean that everyone I work with is a Christian or even goes to church (though most I've met so far do). But the fact that this company is run on Christian ethics and principles makes us distinctly different. Seriously, customers ask us why we're different than everyone else. We promote things to our employees like "Second-Mile Service" (Matthew 5) to go beyond the normal service of fast-food restaurants. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays to allow people to be with family and attend church. I am glad to be able to serve in a company like this to help provide for my family during this time.
For our ministry plans, here is where we stand. Our applications with Operation Mobilization have been approved. Once this part of the process is complete, we will go to Atlanta for a week of Outbound training after the baby is born. There may be some additional training or meetings overseas for us, but I'm not sure what those will be yet. Then as I said in the last update, OM sends out their new missionaries in August and in January. We will likely need to do some more support-raising because of the higher cost of living in Europe compared to Mexico. If that support is brought in by August, we could move then. Otherwise, we would continue raising support until January.
For the time being, we are still running our financial support through Cornerstone, our home church, and not OM yet. When that changes, we will be sure to let all of you know the details on how to send your contributions through OM, etc. My job here in town is really just to supplement our income because of the hospital bills we'll have and because our support budget that we lived on in Mexico isn't enough to live on here in the USA. So we are very grateful to those of you who support us financially to allow us to be here for this time.
Lastly, for all of you who are a part of our prayer support team, I pray that this update will let you know where we are, what our prayer needs are now, and what our requests are concerning the future. We pray also for you and if any of you have specific requests that we could keep in mind, please email me at jonstclair14@gmail.com or contact us on Facebook and we will pray for you as well. Thank you so much for your partnership in our ministry. May God bless you all and richly repay you for your faithfulness to Him and your investments in us.
We love you all!
- Jonathan and Abby (and Kyle!)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
December Update
Dear Friends and Family,
After several months of praying, waiting, and planning, we are finally able to update all of you on what the Lord has been doing in our lives and where He is leading us for the future. As we've already written, we came home from Mexico at the end of August and have been traveling to various places around the States. We had a very blessed time in Mexico serving the Lord with Iglesia Bautista Cristo Te Ama and ministering to various other churches and villages. Through our time there, the Lord taught us many things and, we believe, began preparing us for the ministry He has for us in the future.
During our time in Mexico, the Lord began to really shake up our plans for the future and put us in a place where we had to fully trust Him and simply walk day by day following what He showed us. In May, our home church contacted us by email and asked us to pray about coming back to Illinois and serving full-time as pastoral staff. Obviously, this was quite a shock to us and would involve a drastic change of plans, but it was only asked that we pray about it. So we did. There were several questions we wrestled through before God. Did He really want us to leave the mission field and go back to the States? Was there no one else to fill the position at Cornerstone? Are we abandoning the billions of people who have yet to hear the gospel? Or would we be better able to reach them by being a strong support and a voice for them from the US, financially backing native missionaries who were going to the unreached areas of the world? As we prayed through these things, we both agreed that we only want to follow the Lord's plans for us - and He had brought this about; we did not pursue it ourselves. We would not want to stay in missions if the Lord wanted us serving in Illinois, nor would we want to move back to America if the Lord wanted on the other side of the earth. So we determined that we would follow up on this opportunity, trusting that the Lord would close the door if He did not intend for us to walk through it.
Thus, for the past three months, we have been communicating with the deacons and elders of Cornerstone, visiting twice for interviews, spending much time in prayer, and waiting for the Lord to make His will clear to us. We have been trusting that if the Lord wants us to come back, He will make it perfectly clear. That is how He has always operated in our lives. Each time we have had to make a major life decision, all of our spiritual counselors, our authority structure, our parents, and everyone involved in the decision-making process has been in agreement and confirmed what we felt the Lord wanted us doing. There has always been a clear peace - that sometimes passes understanding - when we were following the Lord's will. So after much time and prayer spent on this decision, we don't collectively have that peace. We feel, therefore, that God is closing this door.
So here is where we stand now. Our most immediate plans are to make preparations for our son to be born near the end of February. We will be moving down to Aiken, South Carolina - where Abby's family lives and our other supporting church, Millbrook Baptist, meets - until the baby is born. We plan to rent an apartment for a few months and though we're still living on support, I plan to find some short-term work to supply for the extra financial needs we'll have for hospitals and doctors, etc. As far as ministry goes, we do still feel that the Lord is leading us away from Mexico and Central America. There are a number of reasons for that - the main being the shortage of unreached people and the surplus of missionaries trying to reach them. We have put in applications to Operation Mobilization and are in contact with their placement staff concerning a need they have in Spain for an assistant pastor in an area with no other gospel witness. We are just in the opening stages of this process with them and, in truth, we really have no idea where the Lord will place us. Spain obviously caught our attention because we can both speak Spanish. But we are honestly willing to go anywhere the Lord leads. It is always exciting to follow the Lord! Yes, it requires much faith and involves a lot of uncertainty, but we love knowing that He is in control and will work out His plans for us.
For any who don't know, Operation Mobilization is an independent mission board which has been sending out missionaries all over the world for many years, whose goal is to mobilize the church to reach the last unreached areas and unreached people groups of our world with the gospel. They oversee the technical operations of missionaries, manage their financial situations, and handle the international paperwork. They do not finance their missionaries, as the International Missions Board does. Each missionary family is responsible to raise their support from supporting churches and individuals. If the Lord does indeed lead us overseas, we may need to do some more support raising, as the cost of living is higher in Europe than in Mexico, but we will let you know that when we have more information on our financial needs. OM's USA base is in Atlanta, Georgia, so will be able to travel there easily from Aiken for meetings, stateside training, etc. over the next several months. They commission and send out their new missionaries in August and in January. So if our finances are raised, we could move overseas in August; if it requires more time, we wouldn't be leaving at least until January.
Most of all, we covet your prayers. As we live in Aiken, we plan to continue ministering to Spanish-speakers and other needy people by volunteering at Christ Central Ministries. And we look forward to being able to be involved in the ministries of Millbrook as well. We thank you also for your faithful support over this past year. You have enabled us to follow the Lord's leading and, we pray, impact many lives for the kingdom of God. Please be praying for wisdom as we move through this process and for Abby as she carries our son for a few more months. We'll keep you all posted on our lives and plans as they progress. God bless you all!
- Jonathan and Abby St.Clair
Monday, October 4, 2010
Lessons from Mexico
Hi Everyone,
Well, our time of training in Mexico is completed. Abby and I are back in the States, visiting family in South Carolina and Georgia. Looking back over this past year and everything the Lord has done in our lives since January, we expect it will take some time for us to fully process everything we've learned. But we would like to take some time to write down a few of those lessons and share them with all of you who have supported us, followed us, and prayed for us.
Some lessons we learned in Mexico:
1. God's plans are not the same as our plans, but His are better.
2. God always provides for His children, even above and beyond.
3. We take so many things for granted here in the USA.
4. God's work will always be accomplished
5. We answer to God alone for what we do with our lives.
6. God does everything in His own perfect timing.
1. God had a much different plan for us than we had for ourselves when we moved to Mexico in January.We expected to be going to a missions training school in the Yucatan to live and work with American missionaries while we would study Spanish, help in the ministry, and assist visiting groups from the States. What God had planned was much different. It's no news to anyone that Mexico has had an explosion of problems in the past couple of years. Between the swine flu scare, the violence of drug cartels, and the US economic recession, activity at the mission has dwindled. We never took any formal Spanish classes. We did assist with a few groups, I believe three over the 9 months. During most of our time, we were the only Americans at the mission. In essence, our plans never happened.
But God's plan for us was so much better. The first Sunday we were there, we went to church with the Mexican couple we lived and worked most directly with. Iglesia Bautista Cristo Te Ama is the place that the Lord was sending us for our training. These people were incredible. The church was begun, continued, and fully funded by nationals. Pastor Martin started the church 9 years ago, discipled the first believers, raised up the church leadership, and is now sending out missionaries from their congregation to other parts of Mexico to continue reaching the unreached areas of the country. We got plugged in immediately with this church, helping out in the praise team, preaching one Sunday, translating the sermon for an American group that visited us, working with the children during VBS, teaching in a village discipleship program every Saturday, attending midweek Bible study, going on a church missions trip to central Mexico, and playing on the church soccer team.
The church people were such a blessing to us! They were very patient with us, as we would sit around talking with them, asking questions, and trying to learn Spanish. They gave us opportunities to minister and they ministered to us in the meantime. They invited us to their homes for dinner. They let us work with their children and lead songs and teach Bible lessons. We did get the training that we needed; it just didn't come like we were expecting it. God's plans were not our plans, but His were much better.
- "God will insure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine." - Francis Chan, Crazy Love
2. A second lesson that we learned, or rather re-learned, was that God always provides for our needs. As anyone who has ever lived on financial support will tell you, it can be difficult at times. Each month your income is different - sometimes it is higher than normal, sometimes lower. Obviously, it is not difficult in a month where you receive a higher check, but you must still live as frugally as possible in case the next month is lower. It requires faith and then stretches that faith farther than you thought it could be stretched. At times, I battled the thought that I was not being a responsible husband. I thought, "It's one thing to live like this by myself, but now I'm supposed to be providing for my wife." But God was always faithful to us. We always had our needs met.
In addition, we had excess at times. And the Lord taught how we are to be channels through which He can work and provide for others. In months where we had more than we needed, we would try to discern if the extra was for us to save for a coming low month or for us to pass on and meet needs for somebody else. We learned and can testify to what the Bible says: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Our slogan became, "You can never give too much." It was such a joy to be able to give much more than we would have thought possible, living as missionaries. For example, when Cristo Te Ama planned the missions trip to central Mexico, Pastor Martin encouraged people to sign up for the trip even if they weren't sure they would be able to afford the average cost of $80 per person. So through the support of our friends in the States, we were able to give an extra portion of the money needed for the trip, allowing people to go who wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. We learned that God always provides for His children, even more than we need.
3. Life's difficulties showed us how much we take for granted here in the USA. This is probably not a surprise, certainly not to anyone who has ever been on a foreign missions trip. I would say this is the number one thing I hear from people after returning from a foreign country: "I never realized how good we have it in America." To be clear, I am speaking of purely financial and material things. I have come to believe that, in most cases, believers in other countries have a much better spiritual life than we do in America. There are some things you just can't learn without going through hardship and spiritual persecution. We don't have that advantage here in the USA. But speaking in physical terms, life in America is unbelievably easier to live. Our degree of wealth and comfort is truly unimaginable to most Mexicans. The conveniences that we don't even think of are not enjoyed by most of the world.
A month or so ago, Abby wrote a very detailed and humorous account of some of the little things we so often took for granted. Instead of rewriting all of that, I'll just post the link to her blog so you can all read it for yourselves. http://abbymtstclair.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-in-life.html This was the third lesson we learned: We take much for granted here in the States.
4. The fourth lesson we learned was really just seeing firsthand what we already knew to be true. That is that God is sovereign. He is in control of everything that takes place in this world and He orchestrates it all together - the evil and the good - to accomplish His predetermined plan of redeeming a bride for His Son from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation in the world. The Bible teaches that clearly. But I think sometimes, when it comes to missions, we tend to think or operate as if the cause of global missions is doomed to failure without the involvement of the United States, our great "Christian" nation. We think our finances are the only hope of supporting the world's missionaries. We think our influence and training are the only method capable of raising up native pastors, missionaries, and churches. This belief is untrue. God does not need us Americans; He will accomplish His will. What we do have, more than any other nation, is the capability of surrendering our finances, our time, and our resources to be involved in God's purposes which He is accomplishing around the world.
We learned this lesson through the life of a man named, Jorge Patron Flores. Jorge was one of the church leaders, though not a deacon or pastor. He led the music with the praise team. He had taught the youth group at one point. He worked as a taxi driver for several years before he became a Christian. Shortly thereafter, he felt he could no longer work in that lucrative job, because of the rampant drug use and immorality by the many tourists and vacationers he would drive around town. So he got another job working nearly 50 hours a week as a groundskeeper of a golf course for a minimal salary. He was constantly sacrificial with his time, going to the village discipleship every Saturday in spite of his exhausting work schedule. He always maintained a joyful spirit and a true desire to serve the Lord. Soon after we began to serve alongside him in the church, Jorge told me that he and his wife felt that the Lord wanted them to serve in full-time ministry sometime in the future. He didn't know whether that would be as a missionary or a pastor or church planter, but told me that both of their hearts were ready to serve the Lord as their career.
In July, both Jorge and his wife Celene went on the missions trip to Campo Mazahua in the central state of Mexico. During that trip, the Lord used Jorge in a special way to help spread the gospel to the nearby towns, disciple one of the believers in the church, and lead several young people to salvation in Christ. As we prepared to leave and go back home, Jorge shared with our whole church group that he never knew the Lord would use him in such a special way. The church there was without a pastor and people were praying as we left that the Lord would raise up a pastor for them. The Saturday after we got back, Jorge shared with me that he and Celene believed the Lord was leading them to go back to Mazahua as missionaries. He told Pastor Martin who heartily agreed. Pastor had told me months before, "I really like that guy. He is a good Christian. I believe God has a big plan for him." So Jorge and Celene are now in the process of planning and preparing to pack up their lives and move to another part of the country to serve the Lord in missions.
America had nothing to do with God's call on Pastor Martin. The U.S. didn't fund the planting of Cristo Te Ama. America didn't take the gospel to Jorge Patron. We Americans didn't commission Jorge to leave for Mazahua. This is how we saw in life what Jesus said: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." We saw that God doesn't need us. He will do His work and accomplish His plans through somebody. And we can make ourselves available to be that somebody!
5. Fifthly, we learned that we answer to God for our lives. This is both a comfort and a challenge at times. The comfort is that this leaves us alone before God as a family to prayerfully decide what we believe the Lord wants from our lives. It requires much prayer and patience, along with a genuine willingness to do anything He leads us to do. But it is also a challenge because the people around you won't always see things the same way you do. There have been some people around us who thought we were crazy to leave our home country and go to a place where we could be in much greater danger of physical harm, much less discomfort. Others questioned where we should go on the mission field, whom we should work with, and how we should minister.
This lesson, I had seen played out in my own parents' lives. There will always be naysayers and it is not our job to defend our reputation or be overly concerned about what people think of us. As Paul wrote in Galatians 1:10, "Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." Each one of us will answer to God one day for the way we lived our lives and how we followed His direction to us. We are answerable directly to Him for our lives.
6. Finally, we learned that God's timing is not our timing. If any of you read our initial blog entries or our support letter, you'll remember that our plan was to spend almost a year in Mexico for missions training and then go on to wherever the Lord wants us full-time. Well, here we are at the end of that time, and we are still waiting for the Lord to make clear His plans for us. Throughout the year, the Lord has presented us with different ministry possibilities for our future. With each one, we have prayed through it and then fully pursued, until we felt that the Lord was closing that door. Right now, there are a couple more open doors that we are praying about and pursuing, trusting still that the Lord will lead us into the right one.
In all of our lives, God lead us one step at a time. There is a reason the Lord says that His word is a "lamp" unto our feet, not a "floodlight" unto our path. As we take every step that the lamp illumines, the light shines another step further. Someone has said that God is never in a hurry, but He is always on time. We know that will be true in our lives as well.
We want to conclude with a big "Thank You" to all of you who have supported us financially, upheld us in prayer, and kept up with us through our time in Mexico. You have enabled us to serve the Lord this year and to learn and grow into who He wants us to be. We pray that the Lord will bless each of you in your lives and repay and reward you for being such a blessing to us. We love you all and will share more of our lives as soon as we are able. Stay faithful to Jesus!
- Jonathan & Abby
Well, our time of training in Mexico is completed. Abby and I are back in the States, visiting family in South Carolina and Georgia. Looking back over this past year and everything the Lord has done in our lives since January, we expect it will take some time for us to fully process everything we've learned. But we would like to take some time to write down a few of those lessons and share them with all of you who have supported us, followed us, and prayed for us.
Some lessons we learned in Mexico:
1. God's plans are not the same as our plans, but His are better.
2. God always provides for His children, even above and beyond.
3. We take so many things for granted here in the USA.
4. God's work will always be accomplished
5. We answer to God alone for what we do with our lives.
6. God does everything in His own perfect timing.
1. God had a much different plan for us than we had for ourselves when we moved to Mexico in January.We expected to be going to a missions training school in the Yucatan to live and work with American missionaries while we would study Spanish, help in the ministry, and assist visiting groups from the States. What God had planned was much different. It's no news to anyone that Mexico has had an explosion of problems in the past couple of years. Between the swine flu scare, the violence of drug cartels, and the US economic recession, activity at the mission has dwindled. We never took any formal Spanish classes. We did assist with a few groups, I believe three over the 9 months. During most of our time, we were the only Americans at the mission. In essence, our plans never happened.
But God's plan for us was so much better. The first Sunday we were there, we went to church with the Mexican couple we lived and worked most directly with. Iglesia Bautista Cristo Te Ama is the place that the Lord was sending us for our training. These people were incredible. The church was begun, continued, and fully funded by nationals. Pastor Martin started the church 9 years ago, discipled the first believers, raised up the church leadership, and is now sending out missionaries from their congregation to other parts of Mexico to continue reaching the unreached areas of the country. We got plugged in immediately with this church, helping out in the praise team, preaching one Sunday, translating the sermon for an American group that visited us, working with the children during VBS, teaching in a village discipleship program every Saturday, attending midweek Bible study, going on a church missions trip to central Mexico, and playing on the church soccer team.
The church people were such a blessing to us! They were very patient with us, as we would sit around talking with them, asking questions, and trying to learn Spanish. They gave us opportunities to minister and they ministered to us in the meantime. They invited us to their homes for dinner. They let us work with their children and lead songs and teach Bible lessons. We did get the training that we needed; it just didn't come like we were expecting it. God's plans were not our plans, but His were much better.
- "God will insure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine." - Francis Chan, Crazy Love
2. A second lesson that we learned, or rather re-learned, was that God always provides for our needs. As anyone who has ever lived on financial support will tell you, it can be difficult at times. Each month your income is different - sometimes it is higher than normal, sometimes lower. Obviously, it is not difficult in a month where you receive a higher check, but you must still live as frugally as possible in case the next month is lower. It requires faith and then stretches that faith farther than you thought it could be stretched. At times, I battled the thought that I was not being a responsible husband. I thought, "It's one thing to live like this by myself, but now I'm supposed to be providing for my wife." But God was always faithful to us. We always had our needs met.
In addition, we had excess at times. And the Lord taught how we are to be channels through which He can work and provide for others. In months where we had more than we needed, we would try to discern if the extra was for us to save for a coming low month or for us to pass on and meet needs for somebody else. We learned and can testify to what the Bible says: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Our slogan became, "You can never give too much." It was such a joy to be able to give much more than we would have thought possible, living as missionaries. For example, when Cristo Te Ama planned the missions trip to central Mexico, Pastor Martin encouraged people to sign up for the trip even if they weren't sure they would be able to afford the average cost of $80 per person. So through the support of our friends in the States, we were able to give an extra portion of the money needed for the trip, allowing people to go who wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. We learned that God always provides for His children, even more than we need.
3. Life's difficulties showed us how much we take for granted here in the USA. This is probably not a surprise, certainly not to anyone who has ever been on a foreign missions trip. I would say this is the number one thing I hear from people after returning from a foreign country: "I never realized how good we have it in America." To be clear, I am speaking of purely financial and material things. I have come to believe that, in most cases, believers in other countries have a much better spiritual life than we do in America. There are some things you just can't learn without going through hardship and spiritual persecution. We don't have that advantage here in the USA. But speaking in physical terms, life in America is unbelievably easier to live. Our degree of wealth and comfort is truly unimaginable to most Mexicans. The conveniences that we don't even think of are not enjoyed by most of the world.
A month or so ago, Abby wrote a very detailed and humorous account of some of the little things we so often took for granted. Instead of rewriting all of that, I'll just post the link to her blog so you can all read it for yourselves. http://abbymtstclair.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-in-life.html This was the third lesson we learned: We take much for granted here in the States.
4. The fourth lesson we learned was really just seeing firsthand what we already knew to be true. That is that God is sovereign. He is in control of everything that takes place in this world and He orchestrates it all together - the evil and the good - to accomplish His predetermined plan of redeeming a bride for His Son from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation in the world. The Bible teaches that clearly. But I think sometimes, when it comes to missions, we tend to think or operate as if the cause of global missions is doomed to failure without the involvement of the United States, our great "Christian" nation. We think our finances are the only hope of supporting the world's missionaries. We think our influence and training are the only method capable of raising up native pastors, missionaries, and churches. This belief is untrue. God does not need us Americans; He will accomplish His will. What we do have, more than any other nation, is the capability of surrendering our finances, our time, and our resources to be involved in God's purposes which He is accomplishing around the world.
We learned this lesson through the life of a man named, Jorge Patron Flores. Jorge was one of the church leaders, though not a deacon or pastor. He led the music with the praise team. He had taught the youth group at one point. He worked as a taxi driver for several years before he became a Christian. Shortly thereafter, he felt he could no longer work in that lucrative job, because of the rampant drug use and immorality by the many tourists and vacationers he would drive around town. So he got another job working nearly 50 hours a week as a groundskeeper of a golf course for a minimal salary. He was constantly sacrificial with his time, going to the village discipleship every Saturday in spite of his exhausting work schedule. He always maintained a joyful spirit and a true desire to serve the Lord. Soon after we began to serve alongside him in the church, Jorge told me that he and his wife felt that the Lord wanted them to serve in full-time ministry sometime in the future. He didn't know whether that would be as a missionary or a pastor or church planter, but told me that both of their hearts were ready to serve the Lord as their career.
In July, both Jorge and his wife Celene went on the missions trip to Campo Mazahua in the central state of Mexico. During that trip, the Lord used Jorge in a special way to help spread the gospel to the nearby towns, disciple one of the believers in the church, and lead several young people to salvation in Christ. As we prepared to leave and go back home, Jorge shared with our whole church group that he never knew the Lord would use him in such a special way. The church there was without a pastor and people were praying as we left that the Lord would raise up a pastor for them. The Saturday after we got back, Jorge shared with me that he and Celene believed the Lord was leading them to go back to Mazahua as missionaries. He told Pastor Martin who heartily agreed. Pastor had told me months before, "I really like that guy. He is a good Christian. I believe God has a big plan for him." So Jorge and Celene are now in the process of planning and preparing to pack up their lives and move to another part of the country to serve the Lord in missions.
America had nothing to do with God's call on Pastor Martin. The U.S. didn't fund the planting of Cristo Te Ama. America didn't take the gospel to Jorge Patron. We Americans didn't commission Jorge to leave for Mazahua. This is how we saw in life what Jesus said: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." We saw that God doesn't need us. He will do His work and accomplish His plans through somebody. And we can make ourselves available to be that somebody!
5. Fifthly, we learned that we answer to God for our lives. This is both a comfort and a challenge at times. The comfort is that this leaves us alone before God as a family to prayerfully decide what we believe the Lord wants from our lives. It requires much prayer and patience, along with a genuine willingness to do anything He leads us to do. But it is also a challenge because the people around you won't always see things the same way you do. There have been some people around us who thought we were crazy to leave our home country and go to a place where we could be in much greater danger of physical harm, much less discomfort. Others questioned where we should go on the mission field, whom we should work with, and how we should minister.
This lesson, I had seen played out in my own parents' lives. There will always be naysayers and it is not our job to defend our reputation or be overly concerned about what people think of us. As Paul wrote in Galatians 1:10, "Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." Each one of us will answer to God one day for the way we lived our lives and how we followed His direction to us. We are answerable directly to Him for our lives.
6. Finally, we learned that God's timing is not our timing. If any of you read our initial blog entries or our support letter, you'll remember that our plan was to spend almost a year in Mexico for missions training and then go on to wherever the Lord wants us full-time. Well, here we are at the end of that time, and we are still waiting for the Lord to make clear His plans for us. Throughout the year, the Lord has presented us with different ministry possibilities for our future. With each one, we have prayed through it and then fully pursued, until we felt that the Lord was closing that door. Right now, there are a couple more open doors that we are praying about and pursuing, trusting still that the Lord will lead us into the right one.
In all of our lives, God lead us one step at a time. There is a reason the Lord says that His word is a "lamp" unto our feet, not a "floodlight" unto our path. As we take every step that the lamp illumines, the light shines another step further. Someone has said that God is never in a hurry, but He is always on time. We know that will be true in our lives as well.
We want to conclude with a big "Thank You" to all of you who have supported us financially, upheld us in prayer, and kept up with us through our time in Mexico. You have enabled us to serve the Lord this year and to learn and grow into who He wants us to be. We pray that the Lord will bless each of you in your lives and repay and reward you for being such a blessing to us. We love you all and will share more of our lives as soon as we are able. Stay faithful to Jesus!
- Jonathan & Abby
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Central Mexico Missions Trip
Hi everyone,
We'd like to begin by thanking all of you for your prayers. In our last update, we told you that we'd be taking a missions trip to central Mexico with our church and asked you to be praying. God did indeed work in a very powerful way on this trip and so we wanted to share that with all of you who were praying, so that you can hear the answers that the Lord sent to your prayers.
First of all, the Lord did provide for the many people who were wanting to go on the trip, but didn't have the money yet. I heard of four people specifically share a testimony of how the Lord provided their $1000 pesos that they didn't have at the time they signed up. I'm sure there were more than those 4, but at least them. We took some food with us for the trip and some was provided by the church there. I was reminded of what Jesus said of the widow in the temple, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." The people of Mazahua were very poor, yet they gave abundantly to provide for the needs of this group of 30+ people. Like the churches in Macedonia, "...in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord..." They were truly a blessing to us!
The trip was over 30 hours long, and we passed the time in the bus in fellowship, singing, reading, praying, eating, and sleeping. We rented a bus to take the group which was a much better plan than our initial plan of driving a caravan of vehicles. The trip was to Iglesia Bautista Esmirna in Campo Mazahua, Mexico. The church was started by our pastor here at Cristo Te Ama, Pastor Martin Lemus, while he was in seminary or immediately after. The town is about an hour northwest of Toluca, the capital city of the state of Mexico. It was a small village spread out over various hills and valleys. The area was very pretty, with lots of flowers, fruits, rivers, animals, and houses. It rained quite a lot - ironic, because we had thought the name was "Campo Mas Agua" or "Field of More Water".
The purposes of our trip was threefold - VBS (or Escuela Biblica de Vacaciones), evangelism, and discipleship. The VBS program that we did was the same that we taught at Cristo Te Ama the previous week. The evangelism was, obviously, for the purpose of spreading the gospel, growing the church, and reaching the lost. The discipleship was a specific need of the church, as they are without a pastor and have been heavily influenced by a lot of false teachings coming out of the USA and Canada. Pastor Martin was concerned that this church he had begun would carry on in sound doctrine and be rooted in the Word. I believe it was this area that sparked the interest in making this trip in the first place.
The VBS program we did was called "Vuela Mas Alto" based on Isaiah 40:31. The theme was wisdom from on high and every day we spent time teaching the kids lessons about wisdom, using the stories of Daniel and his three companions. I worked with the 7-9 year old class for both weeks and on this trip our class teacher, Dora, was not able to come, so I had the opportunity to teach the class all 5 days. I was grateful the Lord got me through it, as it's not easy to teach in another language without much time to prepare. We had a great time with the children and I really do feel that our kids were able to learn more of the Bible and grow spiritually during the course of the week. At the beginning, they just came to have fun, get a snack, and play soccer, but by the end of the week, they would show up with their Bible verse of the day memorized, remembering last week's Bible story, and ready to hear this week's. I was very grateful for Karla, Diannis, Karina, and Ixtzul for helping me out with the kids throughout the week.
After VBS was finished in the morning, the group was divided in the afternoon between evangelism groups and discipleship groups. On different days, I went with both groups. The evangelism was door-to-door, knocking, avoiding dogs, inviting people to the church, and sharing the gospel. One or two people would go to the door to talk while one or two would stay nearby and pray for them. Every day of the trip, at least one group would come back saying that someone had prayed to receive Christ. And most of the time, we would see those same people at the church later throughout the week. Each day the groups would go a different direction and visit different houses until on the last few days, they actually had to drive further out, because every house nearby had been visited. Each night, we also had an evangelistic service. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, one of us from Cristo Te Ama would preach a gospel sermon and on Tuesday and Thursday, we would show a gospel film and Pastor would give an invitation afterwards. I preached on Monday night of the hope of our salvation. Afterwards, I gave an invitation for people to come forward and talk to someone rather than my leading them in a prayer. One young woman came forward and talked to Marta. Afterwards, Marta told me that she had received Christ and would be bringing her husband the next day. The next day, her husband was saved after the video. The following day, some of our church people went to visit them to follow up. The next day, that couple came to our evening devotional and shared their testimony of salvation and thanked God for keeping them together through the difficult times and now saving them. The man had had problems with alcohol and testified of his commitment to change. He said, "I don't know if any of you have lived the type of life that I lived up until yesterday, but it is a hard life and I'm grateful to God for rescuing me from it."
While the groups were out evangelizing, the church people of Esmirna would meet with some from Cristo Te Ama for discipleship. Pastor Martin led a time of collective teaching for the church leaders and deacons. He focused on areas of doctrine that had been in question from the teachings coming out of the US and Canada. He had prepared some lessons on key areas as well as having time for questions leading into further Bible study and spiritual growth. I couldn't help but pity these believers, as Jesus had pity on the multitudes who were "as sheep without a shepherd". Without someone to care for the spiritual well-being of the flock, certainly the wolves of the false teachers will come in, "not sparing the flock." As Pastor led the church leaders, several others met one-on-one with people to personally disciple them in their walk with the Lord. And the people from Esmirna were committed to being discipled. You can see that this man is quite old, but he came faithfully to learn, as did another woman who was over 70 years old - every day she was there! It was so neat to see these people fulfilling the Great Commission to "go and make disciples of every nation".
I have to share one more story and then I'll finish this off. The man in the picture above is Jorge Patron Flores, one of our dear friends at Cristo Te Ama. One day he was waiting for this man to show up so he could disciple him, but the man was late. As he was waiting, there was a teenager standing outside the church building. Jorge felt the Lord leading him to talk to him. As he did, he shared the gospel with him and the young man accepted Christ. Shortly after, Jorge's disciple showed up and they met for their time together. Jorge said when he got back outside, there was a line waiting for him. The teenager who had just been saved had gone home to get his brothers and sisters to hear about Jesus. They, too, received Christ! Jorge was moved to tears as he shared the story with us that evening. We truly serve an amazing God and we are privileged to be in His work, allowing Him to work through us!
"To God be the glory, great things He has done!"
We'd like to begin by thanking all of you for your prayers. In our last update, we told you that we'd be taking a missions trip to central Mexico with our church and asked you to be praying. God did indeed work in a very powerful way on this trip and so we wanted to share that with all of you who were praying, so that you can hear the answers that the Lord sent to your prayers.
First of all, the Lord did provide for the many people who were wanting to go on the trip, but didn't have the money yet. I heard of four people specifically share a testimony of how the Lord provided their $1000 pesos that they didn't have at the time they signed up. I'm sure there were more than those 4, but at least them. We took some food with us for the trip and some was provided by the church there. I was reminded of what Jesus said of the widow in the temple, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." The people of Mazahua were very poor, yet they gave abundantly to provide for the needs of this group of 30+ people. Like the churches in Macedonia, "...in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord..." They were truly a blessing to us!
The purposes of our trip was threefold - VBS (or Escuela Biblica de Vacaciones), evangelism, and discipleship. The VBS program that we did was the same that we taught at Cristo Te Ama the previous week. The evangelism was, obviously, for the purpose of spreading the gospel, growing the church, and reaching the lost. The discipleship was a specific need of the church, as they are without a pastor and have been heavily influenced by a lot of false teachings coming out of the USA and Canada. Pastor Martin was concerned that this church he had begun would carry on in sound doctrine and be rooted in the Word. I believe it was this area that sparked the interest in making this trip in the first place.
The VBS program we did was called "Vuela Mas Alto" based on Isaiah 40:31. The theme was wisdom from on high and every day we spent time teaching the kids lessons about wisdom, using the stories of Daniel and his three companions. I worked with the 7-9 year old class for both weeks and on this trip our class teacher, Dora, was not able to come, so I had the opportunity to teach the class all 5 days. I was grateful the Lord got me through it, as it's not easy to teach in another language without much time to prepare. We had a great time with the children and I really do feel that our kids were able to learn more of the Bible and grow spiritually during the course of the week. At the beginning, they just came to have fun, get a snack, and play soccer, but by the end of the week, they would show up with their Bible verse of the day memorized, remembering last week's Bible story, and ready to hear this week's. I was very grateful for Karla, Diannis, Karina, and Ixtzul for helping me out with the kids throughout the week.
After VBS was finished in the morning, the group was divided in the afternoon between evangelism groups and discipleship groups. On different days, I went with both groups. The evangelism was door-to-door, knocking, avoiding dogs, inviting people to the church, and sharing the gospel. One or two people would go to the door to talk while one or two would stay nearby and pray for them. Every day of the trip, at least one group would come back saying that someone had prayed to receive Christ. And most of the time, we would see those same people at the church later throughout the week. Each day the groups would go a different direction and visit different houses until on the last few days, they actually had to drive further out, because every house nearby had been visited. Each night, we also had an evangelistic service. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, one of us from Cristo Te Ama would preach a gospel sermon and on Tuesday and Thursday, we would show a gospel film and Pastor would give an invitation afterwards. I preached on Monday night of the hope of our salvation. Afterwards, I gave an invitation for people to come forward and talk to someone rather than my leading them in a prayer. One young woman came forward and talked to Marta. Afterwards, Marta told me that she had received Christ and would be bringing her husband the next day. The next day, her husband was saved after the video. The following day, some of our church people went to visit them to follow up. The next day, that couple came to our evening devotional and shared their testimony of salvation and thanked God for keeping them together through the difficult times and now saving them. The man had had problems with alcohol and testified of his commitment to change. He said, "I don't know if any of you have lived the type of life that I lived up until yesterday, but it is a hard life and I'm grateful to God for rescuing me from it."
I have to share one more story and then I'll finish this off. The man in the picture above is Jorge Patron Flores, one of our dear friends at Cristo Te Ama. One day he was waiting for this man to show up so he could disciple him, but the man was late. As he was waiting, there was a teenager standing outside the church building. Jorge felt the Lord leading him to talk to him. As he did, he shared the gospel with him and the young man accepted Christ. Shortly after, Jorge's disciple showed up and they met for their time together. Jorge said when he got back outside, there was a line waiting for him. The teenager who had just been saved had gone home to get his brothers and sisters to hear about Jesus. They, too, received Christ! Jorge was moved to tears as he shared the story with us that evening. We truly serve an amazing God and we are privileged to be in His work, allowing Him to work through us!
"To God be the glory, great things He has done!"
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
June Update
Hey everyone,
Today officially marks the longest amount of time that either Abby or myself have been out of the United States. We do miss a lot of things about being in the States, typically the small things that we never even thought about in the States, but we are truly enjoying serving the Lord, waiting on Him, watching Him work, and taking opportunities He gives us to minister. We've had a variety of different ministry opportunities and even some new ones this past week. We'd like to update all of you who are having such a vital role in our lives through your prayers and finances.
>>> FINANCIAL GIVING OPPORTUNITY <<<
From July 17th-25th a group of 25-30 members of Cristo Te Ama will be taking a missions trip to Campo Mas Agua near Mexico City. Sunday night we had a meeting about the trip and got the details laid down. The estimated cost of the total trip is about 35,000 pesos - or $3,000 USD. That's gas, food, lodging for all 30 people for a week. Abby and I offered to pay a portion of that and another man in the church offered to pay another portion. Pastor Martin's sermon on Sunday was about missions work and he encouraged everyone to be involved in the trip - either by going or by helping someone else go. If any of you, our brothers and sisters in the States, would like to help out some of the people who have signed up for this trip and are trusting God to bring in the money, you may send the money to us through Cornerstone and we will put it all towards the cost of this trip. We don't want to pressure you, but do want you to have the opportunity to be a part of this trip and its crucial role in the life of this church. This is the furthest missions trip the church has taken in its 12 year history and one day, Pastor Martin wants to take the church to a foreign country to minister and share the gospel as well.
If you want to contribute to this missions trip, please send your check to Cornerstone Baptist Church c/o Jonathan & Abby St.Clair and mark it specifically for "Campo Mas Agua Trip". This will keep us from confusing it with our normal financial support. Also, if you are already one of our regular financial supporters and would like to give to the trip but prefer to write a single check, please just mark how much of your gift you want to designate for the trip.
Today officially marks the longest amount of time that either Abby or myself have been out of the United States. We do miss a lot of things about being in the States, typically the small things that we never even thought about in the States, but we are truly enjoying serving the Lord, waiting on Him, watching Him work, and taking opportunities He gives us to minister. We've had a variety of different ministry opportunities and even some new ones this past week. We'd like to update all of you who are having such a vital role in our lives through your prayers and finances.
Visiting: May 16th marked our first wedding anniversary! It is so amazing to look back and see how much the Lord has done in our lives this year. He has directed and provided for us, taught and corrected me, and grown and stretched us. I do believe that we are closer to the Lord and closer to each other than we were at this time last year. I pray that every year this will be true! For the week of our anniversary, Abby's parents flew down here to visit with us, take a relaxing weekend in a hotel, and share in ministry with us here in the Yucatan. It was really neat that they, as a part of our financial support team, were able to come visit the people and church and villages that they've directly invested money in as the Lord led.
Preaching: On Sunday, the 23rd, I was able to preach my third sermon in Spanish during the evening service at Iglesia Bautista Cristo Te Ama. I had planned initially to preach the same Spanish sermon I'd prepared in Jimenez in 2008 on the Great Commission. But in response to the spiritual climate we've sensed here in Cancun, the Lord led me instead to preach on the book of Jude and the need to "contend for the faith" in the midst of a postmodern culture of religious superstition, doctrinal confusion, and biblical skepticism. This area abounds with churches, but as we've visited, discussed, and observed many of them, we've found that the majority of them are weak, uneducated, corrupt, cultist, or floundering with no theological or doctrinal certainty and blown around with every new wind of teaching, healing, or miracles. To the contrary, Jesus Loves You Baptist Church, founded and pastored by Martin Lemus Patiño, is a solid, Bible-teaching body of believers who study and teach the Word every day of the week. They are based on Christ, the Solid Rock. I pray the sermon was an encouragement to them and to Pastor Martin as well as a wake-up call to confront the culture of confusion with the truth of God's Word.
Serving: This week we received another special blessing in the form of a ministry opportunity. We had a couple of college students come to visit us for the week with a desire to spend some time with orphans. So we got online to look for orphanages here in Cancun. First of all, for a city of over 750,000, there aren't nearly enough! Second, we drove to find those couple of orphanages we had seen online. One that we found is "Casa Hogar Esperanza" (The Hope Home) run by Pastor Asencio and his wife Esther. They began the orphanage in 1993 when a woman left her child on their doorstep. Today they have 19 orphans, ages 3-18 who live with them. The next we visited was called "La Casita" and is an institution for helping children, teenagers, and single moms who have come out of abusive situations. They have about 80 people living with them as they care for their needs, help the moms find jobs, and legally fight for the rights of the abused. Over the past week, we've gone to each of these orphanages twice and just spent time playing with the children. We played basketball, soccer, kickball (or "foot-base" as they call it), tag, soccer, coloring, making bracelets, soccer, baseball, and soccer! We actually kept playing soccer until one of the boys kicked the ball over the huge wall into a neighborhood and we never saw it again! Then we also visited an elementary school where a lady from our church teaches special needs children - anything from Down's Syndrome to autism, learning disability, crippled, blind, deaf or hard of hearing, any special need. We came to the end of the week very physically exhausted, but internally refreshed by spending time with such sweet children.
But there is not really time to rest up just yet. Tomorrow morning, Abby, Brad, and I are flying to Monterrey, Mexico to visit with a ministry that the Lord has introduced us to that also serves orphans. The ministry is called Back 2 Back Ministries and we met them about 3 months ago through some really neat God-directed circumstances. They are praying about beginning a new ministry center for orphans here in Cancun in the near future and invited us to come up and see what they do in their ministry. So we'll be there from June 3rd-8th and then come back down here again. After that, it looks like things will slow down for a few weeks before July.
In July, we're looking forward to having our first official visitors from Cornerstone! A couple of girls from the youth group, Kristi Fanning and Brittney Beal, are coming to visit us for a week and join us in ministry to experience it first-hand. We're really excited to have some familiar faces around here and get caught up with old friends and new. Then in the middle of July, we have another very exciting adventure planned! We will be driving with a group from the church to Mexico City for a missions trip. In fact, if anyone is looking for an opportunity to help out with a financial need, here it is:
From July 17th-25th a group of 25-30 members of Cristo Te Ama will be taking a missions trip to Campo Mas Agua near Mexico City. Sunday night we had a meeting about the trip and got the details laid down. The estimated cost of the total trip is about 35,000 pesos - or $3,000 USD. That's gas, food, lodging for all 30 people for a week. Abby and I offered to pay a portion of that and another man in the church offered to pay another portion. Pastor Martin's sermon on Sunday was about missions work and he encouraged everyone to be involved in the trip - either by going or by helping someone else go. If any of you, our brothers and sisters in the States, would like to help out some of the people who have signed up for this trip and are trusting God to bring in the money, you may send the money to us through Cornerstone and we will put it all towards the cost of this trip. We don't want to pressure you, but do want you to have the opportunity to be a part of this trip and its crucial role in the life of this church. This is the furthest missions trip the church has taken in its 12 year history and one day, Pastor Martin wants to take the church to a foreign country to minister and share the gospel as well.
If you want to contribute to this missions trip, please send your check to Cornerstone Baptist Church c/o Jonathan & Abby St.Clair and mark it specifically for "Campo Mas Agua Trip". This will keep us from confusing it with our normal financial support. Also, if you are already one of our regular financial supporters and would like to give to the trip but prefer to write a single check, please just mark how much of your gift you want to designate for the trip.Thank you again for your faithfulness to the Lord and your support of our ministry. We are grateful to God for you all!
Monday, April 19, 2010
God Takes Care of His Children
As a young "rookie" missionary, I am trying to learn everything I can about mission work. One drawback about the way that my life has unfolded is that I was not pursuing a life as a missionary until after college, two years into the youth ministry that the Lord had led me into up to that point. Thus, I haven't had the advantage of studying missions and cross-cultural ministries at the university level. While I say this is a drawback, I don't mean to imply that it is some sort of "planning error" on God's part. Rather, we are learning from our own experiences, interaction with other missionaries, and independent study. I wanted to share a bit of this with all of you.
Independent studies - I am so grateful to God for Amazon.com producing digital reading through Kindle books. When we flew down here in January, I had to limit the number of books I could bring because of airline weight limits (I think my carry-on was actually heavier than my suitcase). While any thorough study of a subject should include a wide reading selection of several different authors, I would be confident enough to say that when it comes to biblical missions theology, one need read nothing more than John Piper's "Let the Nations Be Glad". It provides such a comprehensive view of biblical passages on the spread of the gospel as to make additional reading superfluous. I recommend it to anyone preparing for the mission field or wanting a biblical overview of missions. And I'm not even finished with it yet!
Interaction with other missionaries - We've had the opportunity to meet and work with several different missionaries here and we want to learn everything we can from them - to learn from both their successes and their mistakes. Some missionaries see their responsibility as providing people with homes, food, clothes, and generally a better life. Others see their responsibility as evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Still others see their responsibility as caring for and raising orphans and serving those whom nobody else is reaching. We are learning from all of them.
Our own experiences - We certainly are learning from everything the Lord is taking us through. I want to share one of these lessons with all of you. This was actually what prompted me to write all of this in the first place.
The longer we're here, the more painfully evident it becomes that we are rare. What I mean is that there are not many other missionaries our age nor at our stage in life. I constantly find myself wondering what the problem is and how we could be used to encourage more young couples to get involved in missions at the beginning of their lives while they have so much time left to learn and grow. One of the problems, I have come to believe, is fear. "What if we people don't support us? What kind of things will we have to give up in order to serve God? What if we can't learn another language?" May I share what we have seen and are learning?
First of all, in order to surrender your life to missions, yes, I believe you must be willing to give up some things. But if you have an eternal perspective, that really won't be difficult. To give up earthly possessions or riches for eternal rewards and riches is not a sacrifice by any stretch of the imagination. As Jim Elliot so aptly said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
BUT! Having said all of that, let me tell you what we have learned on this side of the equation. God takes care of His children!
While we are willing to give up anything to follow God's will for us, we are finding that often we don't have to. The Lord always provides everything we need and even abundantly more, even to things we don't need. For example, the question about learning the language: When I started studying Spanish because I felt the Lord was leading me to Mexico, I was able within 8 months to speak well enough to preach and witness one-on-one. When we moved here in January, everyone was asking how well Abby would pick up on Spanish. Well she is! I keep hearing from the ladies in the church that Abby is learning Spanish rapidissimo (super fast!). Ricardo tells us, "Every day your Spanish is better." The question of financial provision: While our financial support is slightly up or down every month, we have all the money we need at the time. In a month where money seems low, we find we have fewer expenses or someone gives us a special gift. In a month where it's high, we find ourselves taking a 2,000+ mile two-week adventure or we find an opportunity to give the extra money away to meet someone else's need. That's why we want to share with everyone - God takes care of His children.
In addition, God gives us opportunities we couldn't even imagine. One happened yesterday. Two of the men that we serve with in Jesus Loves You Baptist Church work at a golf course. So they offered to take Brad and me golfing after the morning service. So we drove 6 kilometers north of town to Playa Mujeres and stepped onto the most beautiful golf course I've ever seen! I didn't realize they worked at Greg Norman's signature golf course, designed by himself. We played for 5 hours, 13 holes, with the clubs the course usually rents out to tourists, riding two golf carts - all for free! I played horribly. But I just kept riding around the course admiring the beauty and thinking about how the Lord blesses us and beyond. I'm telling you all, God takes care of His children! Oh and even the 6-foot crocodile in the fairway of the 18th hole didn't bother us :o)
If there is anyone reading this who feels the Lord leading them to the mission field or into a situation where you feel you might be financially unstable, please hear our testimony. Take the risk! Follow God. Prove your faith with your actions. Test God. There is only one time in the Bible where we are told to test God and it is in relation to finances (tithing specifically). Be encouraged and watch God open the floodgates of blessing from heaven. He always takes care of His children!
Independent studies - I am so grateful to God for Amazon.com producing digital reading through Kindle books. When we flew down here in January, I had to limit the number of books I could bring because of airline weight limits (I think my carry-on was actually heavier than my suitcase). While any thorough study of a subject should include a wide reading selection of several different authors, I would be confident enough to say that when it comes to biblical missions theology, one need read nothing more than John Piper's "Let the Nations Be Glad". It provides such a comprehensive view of biblical passages on the spread of the gospel as to make additional reading superfluous. I recommend it to anyone preparing for the mission field or wanting a biblical overview of missions. And I'm not even finished with it yet!
Interaction with other missionaries - We've had the opportunity to meet and work with several different missionaries here and we want to learn everything we can from them - to learn from both their successes and their mistakes. Some missionaries see their responsibility as providing people with homes, food, clothes, and generally a better life. Others see their responsibility as evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Still others see their responsibility as caring for and raising orphans and serving those whom nobody else is reaching. We are learning from all of them.
Our own experiences - We certainly are learning from everything the Lord is taking us through. I want to share one of these lessons with all of you. This was actually what prompted me to write all of this in the first place.
The longer we're here, the more painfully evident it becomes that we are rare. What I mean is that there are not many other missionaries our age nor at our stage in life. I constantly find myself wondering what the problem is and how we could be used to encourage more young couples to get involved in missions at the beginning of their lives while they have so much time left to learn and grow. One of the problems, I have come to believe, is fear. "What if we people don't support us? What kind of things will we have to give up in order to serve God? What if we can't learn another language?" May I share what we have seen and are learning?
First of all, in order to surrender your life to missions, yes, I believe you must be willing to give up some things. But if you have an eternal perspective, that really won't be difficult. To give up earthly possessions or riches for eternal rewards and riches is not a sacrifice by any stretch of the imagination. As Jim Elliot so aptly said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
BUT! Having said all of that, let me tell you what we have learned on this side of the equation. God takes care of His children!
While we are willing to give up anything to follow God's will for us, we are finding that often we don't have to. The Lord always provides everything we need and even abundantly more, even to things we don't need. For example, the question about learning the language: When I started studying Spanish because I felt the Lord was leading me to Mexico, I was able within 8 months to speak well enough to preach and witness one-on-one. When we moved here in January, everyone was asking how well Abby would pick up on Spanish. Well she is! I keep hearing from the ladies in the church that Abby is learning Spanish rapidissimo (super fast!). Ricardo tells us, "Every day your Spanish is better." The question of financial provision: While our financial support is slightly up or down every month, we have all the money we need at the time. In a month where money seems low, we find we have fewer expenses or someone gives us a special gift. In a month where it's high, we find ourselves taking a 2,000+ mile two-week adventure or we find an opportunity to give the extra money away to meet someone else's need. That's why we want to share with everyone - God takes care of His children.
In addition, God gives us opportunities we couldn't even imagine. One happened yesterday. Two of the men that we serve with in Jesus Loves You Baptist Church work at a golf course. So they offered to take Brad and me golfing after the morning service. So we drove 6 kilometers north of town to Playa Mujeres and stepped onto the most beautiful golf course I've ever seen! I didn't realize they worked at Greg Norman's signature golf course, designed by himself. We played for 5 hours, 13 holes, with the clubs the course usually rents out to tourists, riding two golf carts - all for free! I played horribly. But I just kept riding around the course admiring the beauty and thinking about how the Lord blesses us and beyond. I'm telling you all, God takes care of His children! Oh and even the 6-foot crocodile in the fairway of the 18th hole didn't bother us :o)
If there is anyone reading this who feels the Lord leading them to the mission field or into a situation where you feel you might be financially unstable, please hear our testimony. Take the risk! Follow God. Prove your faith with your actions. Test God. There is only one time in the Bible where we are told to test God and it is in relation to finances (tithing specifically). Be encouraged and watch God open the floodgates of blessing from heaven. He always takes care of His children!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Chiapas Trip - April Update
Hey everyone,
The last month has sure been a busy one for us. We arrive at the middle of April exhausted, yet very blessed at the same time - a feeling I'm sure many people in ministry can identify with!
The month of March began with our trip back to the States for the Global Impact Celebration at Millbrook Baptist Church, one of our supporting churches, in Aiken, SC. That week was certainly one of the most refreshing and encouraging times we've had since beginning the process of getting onto the mission field in October of 2008. Its only equal would be Cornerstone's Missions Conference in 2009, but Abby and I weren't able to attend that together.
In my last post, I wrote "Abby and I will get to minister with the young married's class throughout the conference." But after being there, I'm not sure if that was the case or not. I certainly hope that we were able to minister to them, but I must say that it was they who were a ministry to us. We not only spent a good amount of time with them as a group, but also individually with several different couples within the class. And at the end of the week, they presented us with an enormous amount of gifts, ministry supplies, and financial support that help us for a long time to come! We can't thank them enough and are grateful to God for people like them who support and care for us.
We then returned to Mexico, this time with Abby's brother, Bradley. He is coming down here to work with us for several months because he believes that the Lord is also leading him to be a full-time missionary. It has been really neat already to see him seek the Lord's will and begin being involved in the ministry. He has a real heart for children and a desire to meet the needs of people around us in any way he can. I know that the Lord will use him in a mighty way. Please keep him in your prayers as you pray for us too, that he'll keep picking up the language and being able to impact others.
Just a side note: The Lord orchestrated one of His special "coincidences" in our lives on our trip back. This requires a lot more information and a little more waiting, but we will certainly share the amazing details of this unfolding story later.
The week we got back, we immediately had a group from Oklahoma come to work with us for a week. The group of about 10 people comprised a youth pastor, several teenagers, and another adult sponsor. We kept busy with doing village evangelism, gospel films, one-on-one witnessing, blowing up balloons, feeding children, and handing out tracts during the week. Then we took the last day to drive south, relax, visit a beach, and go snorkeling. It was a neat time to meet new people and see them involved in missions work.
After the group left we had a few days to pack before our two-week trip to Chiapas. This trip had several purposes. 1. Vicki's spring break for Easter weekend gave us the perfect chance to drive to Chiapas to visit her grandparents (Devora's family) who live in Chiapas. 2. Knowing that Abby, Brad, and I are here to see Mexico and learn the needs of the different areas, Ricardo and Devora wanted to give us the grand tour of Mexico's poorest state so that we could conocer those places. 3. Salvador Chiñas, a.k.a."the Crazy Doc", of Oaxaca had been in Cancun and needed a ride back to his work area in Chiapas. 4. Several Mexican missionaries who live and work in Chiapas were holding a series of youth and children's meetings in various mountain villages, so we went along to give away backpacks filled with gifts. The trip was very long and at times very hard, but we were able to learn a lot along the way and see some beautiful sights, too. This trip also requires a lot more information that I'll leave for more in-depth individual posts.
So now we're back in Cancun, catching our breath and waiting for the next time to go-go-go! We never know when it will be...
The last month has sure been a busy one for us. We arrive at the middle of April exhausted, yet very blessed at the same time - a feeling I'm sure many people in ministry can identify with!
The month of March began with our trip back to the States for the Global Impact Celebration at Millbrook Baptist Church, one of our supporting churches, in Aiken, SC. That week was certainly one of the most refreshing and encouraging times we've had since beginning the process of getting onto the mission field in October of 2008. Its only equal would be Cornerstone's Missions Conference in 2009, but Abby and I weren't able to attend that together. 
In my last post, I wrote "Abby and I will get to minister with the young married's class throughout the conference." But after being there, I'm not sure if that was the case or not. I certainly hope that we were able to minister to them, but I must say that it was they who were a ministry to us. We not only spent a good amount of time with them as a group, but also individually with several different couples within the class. And at the end of the week, they presented us with an enormous amount of gifts, ministry supplies, and financial support that help us for a long time to come! We can't thank them enough and are grateful to God for people like them who support and care for us.
We then returned to Mexico, this time with Abby's brother, Bradley. He is coming down here to work with us for several months because he believes that the Lord is also leading him to be a full-time missionary. It has been really neat already to see him seek the Lord's will and begin being involved in the ministry. He has a real heart for children and a desire to meet the needs of people around us in any way he can. I know that the Lord will use him in a mighty way. Please keep him in your prayers as you pray for us too, that he'll keep picking up the language and being able to impact others.Just a side note: The Lord orchestrated one of His special "coincidences" in our lives on our trip back. This requires a lot more information and a little more waiting, but we will certainly share the amazing details of this unfolding story later.
After the group left we had a few days to pack before our two-week trip to Chiapas. This trip had several purposes. 1. Vicki's spring break for Easter weekend gave us the perfect chance to drive to Chiapas to visit her grandparents (Devora's family) who live in Chiapas. 2. Knowing that Abby, Brad, and I are here to see Mexico and learn the needs of the different areas, Ricardo and Devora wanted to give us the grand tour of Mexico's poorest state so that we could conocer those places. 3. Salvador Chiñas, a.k.a."the Crazy Doc", of Oaxaca had been in Cancun and needed a ride back to his work area in Chiapas. 4. Several Mexican missionaries who live and work in Chiapas were holding a series of youth and children's meetings in various mountain villages, so we went along to give away backpacks filled with gifts. The trip was very long and at times very hard, but we were able to learn a lot along the way and see some beautiful sights, too. This trip also requires a lot more information that I'll leave for more in-depth individual posts.
So now we're back in Cancun, catching our breath and waiting for the next time to go-go-go! We never know when it will be...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)