How to Pray for us Now

Usually when someone asks me how to pray for us right now, I will use the words "faith" and "diligence."  Those are easy things to ask people to pray for, and they sound reasonable and even spiritual.  But here is what lies beneath the surface of that prayer request. 

1. We know that we are servants of the Lord, doing His work, since He has called us to raise support to go to Peru, but sometimes my faith falters and I feel pressure to meet the expectations of those who are already supporting us, as if they are the ones we work for now.  The truth of the matter, though, is that we all serve the same master in different ways, and we must all seek approval from the one who, in fact, determines the outcome of our efforts.
2. We believe that God has called people to partner with us in sending the gospel to Peru.  We don't know who those people are, though, so we are tasked with the uncomfortable obligation to find out!  So in meeting with, phoning with, e-mailing and texting with literally just about every person we know, we need faith to believe God will work in their hearts to respond graciously - whether the answer is yes or no (or that God will give us the grace to accept and move on from a less than gracious response).  We also need diligence to ask even when we don't feel like we have that faith.
3. Every time we share with people about the need in Peru and our future ministry, we need faith to believe that it's not about us, but about God.  It's His ministry, not ours.  We must not ask people to invest in us, but to invest in what God is doing in Peru.  We are merely tools in His hands alongside those who choose to send us.  We so easily forget this and lapse into the orphan mentality of trying to earn others' trust and impress them with our smooth presentations.
4. We need diligence to work together on a project that is very different from anything we've ever done before in a way that is honoring to God and healthy for our marriage!  As all married couples know, different people have different approaches to work and time management, and so finding a healthy and productive rhythm of work and family life during this support raising phase is something that requires constant attention.
5.  We need faith to believe that support raising too is ministry.  We are not just here waiting for the real ministry to begin.  God has called us to mobilize His people for the work He is doing in Peru, and for now, that is our ministry, and not something to be ashamed of.

We're back from CCMI!

We're back in Birmingham safe and sound!  Unfortunately we never had time to write additional posts while in Belgium, but we'll try to make up for that some now.  We are very thankful for the things that we learned during our time there, despite the many challenges we faced.

At the end of our time at CCMI (Cross Cultural Ministry Internship) we were assigned to do a presentation to capture our experience over the course of the month.  We used a prezi presentation for ours, and you can view it at the following link.  It includes many pictures from our time in Belgium and while not everything will make sense without explanation, I think it'll provide those who are interested with a good overview of our experience.

http://prezi.com/mhd-lqwcwvdc/present/?auth_key=7hcdot5&follow=kkjplkruomrn&kw=present-mhd-lqwcwvdc&rc=ref-5764308

Feel free to comment with questions you might have about anything you see in the presentation!