We knew, getting into this phase of work, that it would be hard. We were told repeatedly that the difficulty would be multi-dimensional. Fund-raising and leaving what you know for something totally different will tax your-
marriage finances relationship with your child relationship with your friends spiritual well-being sanity
I’d just like to verify that all of those things are true. This has been a difficult ‘season’. Make no mistake, every day is a blessing. Every phone call is an opportunity for personal, relational and spiritual growth. Every day is a new day to praise God and show him to others (starting with my family, the family we are living with and beyond). Those blessings and the eternal promises that people of faith can hold on to do not make it easier. — Sure, on the scale of easy to mortally difficult I’m not sure where we are currently falling but I know it is no where near the latter, but there are several aspects of this that are tiring.
It was a tremendous experience to be involved with a small group for married couples last night at our church. We weren’t leading (in fact we were the youngest couple) but we did get a chance to be involved. — I love the field of France. I love talking about it. I love raising awareness and perhaps a few more Christians on mission that will follow where we’d like to go. I wouldn’t pass up any chance to talk about the field but there has to be something to be said about the sustaining value of fellowship outside of teaching.
This reminds me of a valuable lesson that is tied into some goals we have. Without a local church there would be no opportunity to grow like that. I’m not sure what the local church always looks like nor do I think there is truly a fail-safe formula for what it should look like but I know that it must exist. The Church is a part of God. It was commanded by Him and should be seen as a necessity in following Him. I pray you have and love a local church that is part of The Church. I pray you see the importance for every tongue, tribe and field to have that same experience. We were not made to seek out Christ alone. We were made to seek Christ together.
1 Corinthians 12.13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
