I am back from my trip out West, feeling great and am getting back into the groove of missions prep and support raising. Unfortunately, I came back to some disappointing news about church support. One of my churches is unable to continue monthly support after October through the next fiscal year. I will reapply for support and hope to have them as a part of this team again in the near future.

All of that to say, I need your prayers about this financial aspect. Sometimes it feels like I’m constantly taking three steps forward and two steps back. Please pray for my heart as here is another opportunity to trust God, persevere and believe Him for BIG things. My heart has been sad because I was just beginning to get so excited about the reality of going. But this financial support is nothing compared to the power of our BIG God. I have to ingrain that in my thinking and living.

I love that one of my dear friends sent me a text saying she was praying Ephesians 3:16-20 for me. Not sure if she knew those verses were ones that I base the name “tandem living” upon:

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

practically speaking
Practically here’s what is needed in order for me to leave in early January: $675, but I would like to raise $975 to cover the additional $300 that was cut from my budget back in November.

Here’s how you can pray:
• pray for God’s wisdom and direction in creativity and opportunity for this monthly amount
• pray that God would raise up the additional families and churches to be a part of what He’s doing in Austria
• pray that this church would be able to continue support in the near future
• pray specifically for God to provide this $675 so I can leave in early January but ultimately for His will to be done in provision and timing and for Him to receive even greater glory . . . period.
• pray that I would live and breathe those words in Ephesians and allow God’s love to so consume me, His Spirit transform me and continue to believe Him for His immeasurable power and grace!

what a catch!
My dad’s birthday was Sunday, but while we were in Seattle we celebrated by eating at the top of the Space Needle. My dad loves to fish, but I don’t think he’s ever caught anything that looked like what he ordered.

Two Vietnamese women asked him what he ordered because they wanted a fish like that too. Then he had a birthday dessert called the Lunar Orbiter that had a dry ice display. Talk about celebration!!

More photos and even videos coming soon! For those of you I got to see in CO, WA and OR: Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!! I had so much fun!!

living underneath?
On this trip I read the book, Teaching to Change Lives by Dr. Howard Hendricks. Amazing book! I think this portion of the book is an adequate way to end this post:

“Wherever I go I can expect to run into a Christian with a severe case of the blahs. His face looks like the frontispiece to the book of Lamentations. I’ll say, ‘How are you, man?’

‘Oh, pretty good,’ he says, ‘under the circumstances.’

‘And what in the world,’ I ask, ‘are you doing under there?'”

Maybe this is something I should ask myself every day. Have a great week!