tjandlily.com

I apologize for not keeping to my commitment of updating my blog every week!  A few weeks ago we had the privilege of watching our 2 nephews and 1 niece, Levi, Judah, and Amelie while their mom and dad went away on a cruise.  It was our utter and complete pleasure to help Kyle and Cherie in this way, however everyone in our house got sick that week, and so there was not much sleep to be had nor was there much time to write my blog.

The Gang

TJ and I have been trying to figure out what life looks like right now here in Port St. John, and with our church Trinity Community Church.  Our desire is to get to know our church and it has felt difficult, yet I feel like we have turned a corner.  I have noticed that we are actually getting to know people.  There is a couple people that I feel completely comfortable inviting myself over (you know you’ve got something when you can do that).  As we continue to stick our necks out we are enjoying building relationships with our church family.

I have realized something important.  Our goal and desire is to follow God, and right now we are following him to Africa… for the soul purpose of giving people the opportunity to have a personal relationship with our almighty God.  Satan doesn’t like that.  So will we find opposition?  Yes.

Our Florida Sending Church

So yesterday we had the incredible opportunity to take an entire service to share with our home church WHO we are, WHY we’re “GOING” and, WHAT we’re going to be doing.  We got to share a lot of the things God has done in our own personal lives, which makes it possible for people to actually relate to us.  We also were able to give people a good understanding of what missions looks like for us.  Is this something Satan wants us to communicate clearly?  No.

We painted Africa and Senegal on our Wall since we are going to be needing to paint it anyway.

So, what did the week prior to speaking look like?  CRAZY!!!  Supposedly it was a fairly normal week, but we had some finishing touches to do on our presentation as well as some extra things we wanted to make sure happened.  Our heads felt cloudy, our time seemed to dissolve.  Our marriage felt as though it was suffering, our girls were a little more crazy and disobedient than normal.

When we brought our slideshow to church to enter into the computer the Thursday before, the pictures ended up not being saved, and we had to re-enter them another day.  We were feeling discouraged finding out a lot of people weren’t going to be making it.  All week I was calling Wycliff trying to find the 60 page long list of the 2,500 unreached people groups, they kept transferring me to the wrong department and didn’t get to me until Friday.   So we went to Sanford to New Tribes headquarters where they said it was for sale in the bookstore, turns out it wasn’t what I thought.  Finally someone from Wycliff called me back and said they had it… yaaaaaay!  After TJ fixed our tire that had a screw in it, we ended up driving from Sanford to Wycliff to pick it up.  The main reason for getting it was to give a visual of how many people there really are without God’s word.

By the end of the week we recognized that our family was under spiritual attack.  My main realization was that we NEED to rely on God, and that this is totally and completely impossible without him!  Wow, I think this was the first time it has sunk in so deep.  If we are being attacked here and now through these small things, just think how our family will be attacked in a foreign land, the Devil will always find some way to come up against us. What is the solution?  Jesus.  Yes… Jesus.

I shared with a friend from church some of our struggles of the week, right away she felt that she needed to send me this verse…. Thank you God for the body of Christ and for the way you speak to us!

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Sunday morning we arrived at church safe and sound, we set up our Africa table, our cameras to record the service for those who missed it… And we shared our heart, our story and what we’re going to be doing.  I definitely feel like the church connected with us, and related with us.  I think they have a better idea of what it means to be a sending church and to truly fill that role.  I think they have a better understanding of what it means to take the gospel to the nations.  At the end of the day I couldn’t help but feel like the principality and powers of darkness were just a little defeated.  But when it was all said and done, it was tiring NOT relying on God, if I was to do this last week over again, I would have gone before the Lord a lot more intensely.  But because God is God he still got the message across he wanted people to get, and He prevailed.  God prevailed.

Pray with us as we continue to share our hearts and our ministry that God will be burdening people for us, and for what we’re doing!

Ava’s been going to gymnastics class, which she LOVES!!

12 vials of blood…. Waiting patiently for results