September 2020 Update

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT – Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

We are trusting God in this time of uncertainty.  We long to be back with our friends in south Asia, but God has us here for an undetermined amount of time.  We do feel called to use the time as best we can to visit churches, small groups, Bible Studies, etc. to spur them on in their faith.  There are so many messages burning on our hearts.

We have a message to follow Jesus.  You cannot say that you are a follower of Jesus and then not follow Jesus.  You can not say Jesus is your LORD without doing what he asks you to do.

We also have a message to follow Jesus and his example of sacrificial living and giving.  Christ paid it all, gave it all for you.  We need to follow his example.

1 John 3:16-18 NLT – 16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion–how can God’s love be in that person? 18 Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

Please pray that God will continue to open doors with churches, Bible studies, small groups, etc. so we can share his message!

Please pray that God will continue to open doors with churches, Bible studies, small groups, etc. so we can share the message he has put on our hearts.  Below is a video of a recent visit to a church where we sang some Hindi worship songs!

Last year when we started our journey on August 9th, we didn’t know everything that God had in store for us.  We just knew he had something good in mind.  How can we say that?  We do know that God has a plan for us, we also know in Romans 12:2 that God’s will is good and perfect and pleasing.  God doesn’t promise us a smooth road or a life without troubles; God uses those troubles to refine and to prove if our faith is real (1 Peter 1:7). 

We have had many challenges in our travels, but we saw God in all of them.  We traveled by plane, bus, car, rickshaw, train, van and even by boat.  The majority of miles were for the flights to and within the countries we were serving in.  Below is one of the rickshaw rides we took during our time in India.

We surely miss our friends and colleagues overseas and we long to be with them.  I have the pleasure of continuing to teach the teams each week.  I have been teaching them remotely via Zoom since the first part of June.  I teach one lessons each week, three different times.  I teach Nepali teams on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and I teach the India teams on Thursday morning.  As our teams have been growing, so have the numbers attending these teaching sessions.  It has averaged about 100 participants the last 15 weeks. 

I am currently teaching through 1 Corinthians and it has been a joy to encourage them in their faith and their trust in our marvelous savior.  Below is a short video of what our teaching.

We were disappointed to come back to the U.S. a little early than expected.  We really wanted to stay with the ministry overseas.  Being back in the United States left us with a lot of unknowns as to how God wanted to use us.  He has certainly been faithful and shown us his heart and his plan.

When we were overseas we developed a passion for the lost especially those in the church, those that say they are Christians.  Jesus shares many parables in the Gospels and they can be used to understand his plan.  One story is the parable of the soils in Matthew 13.  Jesus says that the Kingdom of God can be described as a farmer casting seed.  Some seed fell on the hard path, other seed fell on rocky soil, some on thorny soil and also some on good soil.  Jesus went on to describe the seeds.  The seeds that fell on the hard path represent those that hear the message, but they don’t understand and the devil snatches the message away.  The rocky soil is those that received the message with joy, but when trials and testing came they fell away because they didn’t have deep roots.  The thorny soil is from those that receive the message, but then the message is crowded out by the cares of this life and not fruit is produced.  Finally we have the good soil that produced a huge harvest, 30, 60, 100 fold.  

If Jesus tells us that this explains the Kingdom of God then we know that there are people among us, in our churches that this describes their hearts.  You can not assume you are good soil, because if you are not producing fruit, you are not good soil. 

Jesus continues in Matthew 13 with the story of the wheat and the weeds.  Once again, we cannot assume that everyone in the church, those attending on Sunday morning are truly saved.  If Jesus knows all hearts, he knows that there are weeds in our churches too.  

Hebrews 4:1 tells us we ought to tremble with fear that some of us might not make it in.  I think there is a reason that the path to salvation is narrow and very few find it, but the path to destruction is wide for all who choose that path.

Our heart is to preach and help the church to examine themselves to make sure that they are in the faith!