August, 2009

Hello Family and Friends,
Bethyl and I would like to share with you that we are now officially “appointees” with www.interserveusa.org. This mission agency is one of the world’s best kept secrets . It’s about 160 years old and has 850 partners in 25 countries around the world. The first 110 years it consisted of women only-- mostly women from the UK to India. Then in the past 50 years they allowed us men to join with them as “servants in the hard places.” The partners are primarily professional people who go to a country and practice a holistic type of missionary work. If you’re a doctor, you do doctoring; lawyers practice law, and so on. You live your life as a follower of Jesus and are more or less verbal about it depending on culture and context. The key is to live joyfully, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. That life is contagious. We hope to add to that group and essentially become member care “saw sharpeners” that help keep missionary partners alive and well in their ministries.

We head out to explore just where God will want to settle us. A few weeks from now, from mid-September to mid-October, we’ll be visiting Interserve partners in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Maylaysia. We’re intent on sniffing out God’s plan and purposes for our path. We’re reading and listening to Scripture, family, friends’ and colleagues’ input; and Divine UIPs (unidentified inner promptings ). Together these inputs join our own desires and opportunities. As we mull, learn, and follow the “just enoughness” of our little light for today, we trust God to shed more of his “just enough” light for tomorrow. It forces us to walk in a closer relationship with Jesus, learning to listen to His voice (UIPs) in order to find our way.

An example of this is that we’ve had our house on the market for 5 months. No offers yet, but we’re not discouraged. We have learned and continue to learn patience, waiting, and not busting open doors that God either has closed or not opened yet. Like the creation described in Romans 8, we grow great with this mission child, expectant, becoming more and not less in our waiting.

We had a wonderful road trip across North America—twice! Just the two of us—two geezers driving a third, our 16 yr old camper van. We drove 9,173 miles, attending candidate school in Philadelphia in the middle of our 6 week journey. We drove up the west coast, across Canada, down the east coast through Virginia, nd then back across the USA—with stops along the way. It was a true adventure in listening to God’s voice, inquiring of God about small and large things alike before we acted on them. We felt blessed to overflowing.

We pray for you and us alike that we will live out our beliefs (just like in our picture posted above): “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" John 7:38