Sunday, December 23, 2007

Merry Christmas!

Our first Sunday without staff duties found us returning to a former church for worship.

Thirty-one years ago, David was Minister of Music and Education at First Baptist Church in Greensboro, Georgia when we met on a cool rainy December evening at a PTO meeting in Macon. Little did we know that evening where the meeting would take us. We began dating in January 1977, driving back and forth between Greensboro and Macon each weekend. We were engaged on Good Friday in April and then married August 6, 1977. Wow, the journey has been exciting! So today we returned to First Baptist Church, Greensboro. It was rewarding to see some of the folks whose lives we touched and see the manifestation of God in their lives and share with them what God is doing in our lives and where the journey of faith is taking us. All in all it was a wonderful day of worship. And then we were able to spend some special time with our special friends who were newlyweds like us thirty years ago. It is so good to get together with them - you know, there are some friends that no matter the time and distance that separates us, we just pick up where we left off the last time. There are friends and then there are FRIENDS - Dean and Francis are some of them.

Then this afternoon we traveled to Macon to my mom's to bring her home to spend Christmas with us. This morning became a bit overwhelming for me as I thought that this would be the last time for us to share Christmas together for several years. We have shared Christmas for the past 56 years, I have never had Christmas without her! Ever since we married, David and I have been blessed to be able to spend Christmas eve and Christmas morning with my folks (including my dad until 1990) in Macon and then travel to his family's celebration in East Dublin/Adrian just an hours' drive away for Christmas Day and the day after. Last year was the first year without his mom as she made the journey to heaven in October 2006 even though most of the family is still able to gather together. But what a special Christmas celebration we have been blessed to have all these years. I must admit I did shed a "few" tears as I thought about it all. But then ONE day, what a Christmas celebration we will all share as we gather in the very presence of the Christ Child, our Savior and Lord. Oh what singing! Oh what shouting! Oh what a day! In the very presence of Him who has redeemed us! This year will be a special time of storing memories.

We pray that this year will be a special year for you as well as you store memories of family and friends sharing time together celebrating the Gift of God bringing Salvation to all to will receive Him. There are still so many who need to hear that the Gift of Salvation is available to them. How can they know unless someone goes to share Him? That is our call - to go, to share so they might know and receive Him too and one day gather with us in the very presence of Him who has redeemed us! Merry Christmas to you all!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

David Stephen...

As many of you know there is much paperwork that must be completed to live overseas. Last Friday, we found that David's spelling on his birth certificate had been amended in 1965 without David's knowledge. All these years he has been David Stephen, all official documents from diplomas, driver's license, marriage license, children's birth certificates to passports have been David Stephen. Now they tell us that he is David Steven! And oh the tangle to return him to David Stephen!

He has begun the paperwork but the time frame is now totally changed! Pray with us that the officials will understand the situation and expediate the process. He must petition the court, go through the time frame here and have the documentation notarized and certified the notary is valid, return to the vital records in Atlanta for the change to the amended birth certificate and certification, to the Secretary of State for the certificate to be authenticated and then to the consulates for Costa Rica and Guatemala for their authentication. And all this neeeds to be completed before the end of January!

Continue to pray for the sale of the house! Know anyone moving to the area and looking for a home? Know anyone in the area looking for a new home? Continue to pray for the family and the circumstances that must take place before they can move. We are looking at the underside of the finished tapestry of God's plan for us that God has already woven and from this side there seems to be a lot of loose threads and hanging knots. We are claiming the finished tapestry but these threads and knots keep getting in the way!!

Wonderful Day

Truly Sunday was a wonderful day.

Abilene Baptist honored us with a special commissioning service as a goodby for the eight years of service with them. Since our pastor is Chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, he invited Dr. Morris Chapman, President and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee to be the special speaker. Dr. Bob White, Executive Director and CEO of the GA Baptist Comvention, Rev. Don Wheeless, Associational Missionary of the Augusta Baptist Association, and Rev. Charles Drummond, a GA Baptist ministry consultant also attended and made comments. Don presented us with a bilingual NIV version of the Bible. David has worked with each of these men throughout our ministry here and they each wanted to be a part of the service. What a honor for them to attend!

David was honored to baptize three men Sunday morning as well. The first man was a youth who was saved the week before and wanted David to baptize him since David had recently baptized his mother and sister. The second young man recently came to faith in Christ through the faithful witness of his wife and her family and requested David baptize him as he had baptized his wife and son. Then the last man was saved years before, was walking with him but had not entered immersion baptism. What a special experience for them in their different stages of spiritual growth! May they continue to grow and be mighty men of God!

Our children were here. Living from Columbus, GA to Raleigh, NC, they are not able to all gather at the same time but a couple of times during the year so we were very thankful they were all to all attend. Many of our extended family were also able to come and join with us. How thankful we are for a family who love and support us in our journey.

As the choir began their special song of worship, David leaned over and said to me, "Uh-oh, this is like the girls' wedding songs." They sang "Thank You" as many of the church leaders and others came to us to hug and thank us - not a dry eye in the place including ours!

What a day! What a blessing! What a send off!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Coming to a Close

Life as we have known it for many years is coming to a close.

Only one other time in our life have we known life apart from being church staff - the eleven months, August 1985-July 1986 - we spent in New Orleans as David completed his MRE at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And yet, as of Sunday, we will no longer be church staff but in reality RLMs - Real Live Missionaries. Sunday, December 16th, our church will commission us as missionaries leaving from Abilene Baptist Church where we have served the past eight years.

We have often laughed and said that David is actually the Minister of Next - wherever was Next he did. And this journey of service is next. There has been a lifetime of preparation and heart filled with whatever He wanted and wherever He sent.

I first knew of God's call on my life as a preschooler when He called me to Himself in salvation. I didn't understand the dynamics of salvation but I knew that He loved me to provide the death of His only Son as payment for my sins. I knew that even as a preschooler I had sinned and that sin separated me forever from God and if I confessed my sin, acknowledged His death for me, and believed that God has raised Him from the dead I would be saved. Now that knowledge has grown and deepened over the years, but I was as saved then as I am now many years later.

My home church was an incubator for my spiritual life. My pastor and the countless missionaries and other godly men and women who passed through our church in Bible and missions conferences were the role models and proclaimers of God's Word that guided my understanding of God, His Word, and the lostness of mankind. So my parents were not at all surprised when at age 8 or 9 I told them that God would send me to the mission field.

And He has - the mission field of school, the mission field of preparation, the mission field of teaching, the mission field of raising a family as the wife of a godly man and as the mother of four children, the mission field of church service...the mission field of whatever He set before us and wherever He called us. All along the way, I questioned if now was the time and He seemed to be saying, "Be faithful in the place I have set you." And so we continued on. We grew content with carrying as many as we could to foreign places to expose them to the heart of God and missions.

Then He began to show, first David and then me, that the direction of the mission field had changed. I must admit that I asked God if He had looked at us lately. We are now in our fifties, grayhaired, and aging and I think He must have laughed.

God continued to speak Joshua 1:9 to David and he showed me God's message - "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whitersoever thou goest." So God has called us, not to ease down in these later years of ministry, but to finish STRONG and head to the hard country being strong, with good courage, without dismay, knowing the He, our Lord, our God, is with us wherever we go.

Years ago, God gave me the example of Abraham's servant when he was sent to find a wife for Issac,. His response to Abraham after finding Rebecca was - "I being in the way, the Lord led me." That has been the way we have lived - being in the way; He has continued to lead each step of the way. Now as the Minister of Next, we close this chapter of ministry as we head into final preparations for foreign service.

Thank you for praying for us. He has provided a home for Floppy, a dear man who needed the companionship she will provide for himself and his ten year old basset who is going blind. And if God is concerned and provided a home for her, shall He not also provide a buyer for our home? God has reminded me lately to pray for the family who will purchase our home. Things must occur in their lives to bring them to this place - may they rest in His leading, just as much as we.

May you and your family celebrate this Christmas season as never before - secure in the gift of salvation that Christ, the new-born King provided for all mankind.

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them."
Isaiah 42:16 (NKJV)