The Timing of God

Just wanted to give an update to those who are following along as we go through the missionary application process. It has been 5 months (April 4th) since my wife shared with me she had the same sense of urgency, desire, passion and call for missions. In that time our lives have been turned upside down!

I had enrolled at Liberty University online the Friday before. During the summer term I took 15 hours (5 courses) which about did me in! I managed to make it with 3 'A's' and 2 'B's'. I am taking another 15 hours for fall term. I am working towards completing 30 hours as part of the requirement for our missions agency, but enrolled in the MDiv in Missional Studies program. My wife will soon be taking 9 hours in order to meet a similar education requirement.

We knew we needed to sell our house, so we prepared it and decided to do a 'For Sale By Owner' (FSBO) strategy before using a realtor to keep costs down. We decided to wait until the end of August and if we didn't have any luck with the fsbo strategy we would seek a realtor. The house has been on craig's list, on facebook, and we put up a few signs and had some interest. The last week or so we have experienced more interest than the previous months. At the time of this post, it looks like we have an offer and continue to pray it all works out.

This will allow us to focus on a few other areas as we deal with the process of purging and mourning the loss of 'stuff'. Some of this 'stuff' is exactly what it is, 'stuff'; other things are more sentimental yet we still recognize we have to purge. It will be an adjustment for us, and our girls.

We also received confirmation that we would be moving along in our process with the International Mission Board (IMB). There are still many steps to go, but it is one step closer than we were last week. We continue to pray about an area of service and are working towards that end in several ways. There are two restaurants we are frequenting in order to develop and learn cross-culturally. We are also working with a Nepalese fellowship about once a month and have tremendously enjoyed worshiping with them.

There is such an urgency, such need, and we are thankful God has called us to this journey. It seems like there is so much to do that at times we feel overwhelmed, discouraged, and impatient.  Wednesday night my wife shared an amazing testimony about our journey so far. She received great encouragement from our church family and the next day we received confirmation of the next step with the IMB and also had an offer on our house. While I am not one to read into events 'signs and wonders', I do believe in a Sovereign God! Looking back over the past 4 months we see a clear picture developing ~ at the moments of our complete surrender and total dependence on God the movement of God is seen. However, at the end of each day we know it is all in the timing of God.

We ask for your prayers as we step out by faith on this journey! There will be more change in our lives, but our desire is to be obedient and follow.