God Opens Doors

Lifestyle Changes

Our lifestyle has changed considerably over the last couple of months.  It's 10:30 p.m. here in Chile.  We are still adjusting to this nocturnal lifestyle.  For the most part, we keep our 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. bedtime during the week (Monday - Wednesday).  From Thursday through Sunday it is late, late, late nights.  Church usually ends on Thursday and Sunday evenings between 10:45 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.  Sometimes it is later.  It is just a reminder of what Paul said, "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible", I Corinthians 9:19.  I have more respect for Paul more than I ever did.  I have been pondering about his going from area to area and adapting to whom he was ministering whether Jew or Greek or other.  His ultimate goal was never to comprise the message of the Gospel, but to compromise his way of doing things according to the needs of each person.  Which is exactly what Jesus did and why Jesus was able to minister to all kinds of people.  He sat in the presence of sinners and stood before the assembly in the temple.  He still does this today and thankfully, we are now His representatives just as Paul.  We are learning through the Holy Spirit how to change our lifestyle in order that we too might win some.

After more drama than I care to share, we finally received our van - praise the Lord.  It has been a huge blessing although we have barely had it a week.  We both are getting accustomed to driving again after almost 2 1/2 years of not driving.  I find I am much less aggressive than before, but considering you have to be aggressive just to pull out in the road I will get over that soon.  Driving is about like riding a bike.  It is not something you forget easily.

We are leaving for Tacna this afternoon to meet with the missionary there about the medical team coming.  There is a lot of ground work to cover to prepare for teams.  This team will take more preparation as they plan to treat an average of 250 patients a day!  We are very excited and ask you to pray with us that Jesus would be glorified and that many people will come to know Jesus personally and begin a walk with Him. 

Random

• Once the team left, we traveled to Santiago to renew the boys passports.  Praise the Lord they arrived two days ago. 
• We should hear next month about our permanent visas here in Chile.  We are praying everything will be in order for this go through.
• We found a vehicle this week and we hope to close on it today or tomorrow.  Things just move slower here as we had hoped to close on Tuesday.  It is a 2001 Nissan Van!  They recommend buying something no newer than 10 years old because the parts are difficult to obtain if something goes with it.  We are excited.  Unlike our van in Costa Rica, it has power-steering and is an automatic. 
• Tyler is working now on the weekends.  One of the church members has a cell phone business which sells phones and makes cell phone repairs.  He makes about $1.25 an hour which is normal pay for part-time employees.  (Kind of makes you thankful for the minimum wage of over $7 in the States!)  The good thing is Tyler doesn't know the difference.
• We are going to help tutor kids in our neighborhood with English.  It is not our desire not to teach classes at this point, however, we do want to help the kids understand their homework better.

Missions Recap

Everything has finally settled down. Our team was great. They set the bar high for our future groups. Although we had a few bumps during the border crossings, they were super flexible. When living and working with the natives in your place of service, you must learn to decide which battles to fight. We try as much as we can to submit to them because when the Lord moves us on, they'll still be here. The Lord didn't send us here to redo their thinking or even the way they do things. Believe me, there are many things I would like to change. But, we have found while they might try our way, in the end they go back to doing things the way they have always done it. We are used to the madness; however, at time it is difficult for groups to adjust. Plans change at the last minute and sometimes we don't get everything on our list accomplished! Amidst all the drama, the Lord did a deep work in the group. He challenged all of us to go deeper in prayer and prayer is something the people we are working with does right. We will receive groups of all kinds; but there is something extra special about receiving families. The Wilson family, Van, Kim, Jessica, and Rachel gave us joy beyond words. The Lancaster's shared how far the Lord had brought their family since they first stepped over the border to Mexico a few years ago. Families are normally thrown in different directions and watching them decide to use Spring break to go on a mission trip together was an encouragement for us to dig deeper. One of our desire's living overseas is to model what a Christian family looks like. We are not perfect, but our hope is to see families begin taking time together and moving out in missions together. We had a single mom, Sarah, along with her daughter Luckey. There was also, Kay, with her niece Lauren. Ryan and Melissa Scone work with the Lancaster's in downtown Jackson. Two other students completed the group, James, an MC student, and Leighton. We spent the first half of the trip in Tacna, Peru. The men were able to travel to the jail and minister on Sunday. The group evangelized in areas in the city including praying for people at the hospital and traveling above the city to minister in an area which more of the poor live. In this area, we gave out around 75 bags of food and made contacts with whom the church in Tacna will be able to go back and work. In Arica, we evangelized in neighborhoods also and had church services on several evenings. The Lord moved in many ways. People were healed, restored, and delivered. What has been neat for us is remaining after the team leaves. We can see the fruit of the team's visit. The Peru cell group had five visitors last week! The Lancaster's led the team and they have been a great encouragement to us and we are thankful for their partnership and friendship. They are awesome and we would recommend to anyone looking for a Mississippi mission trip to check out their website at www.wewillgo.org.

Missions March 2009

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