As mentioned, our target date of departure is late September. We are slowly making progress to meet that goal, but God is sovereign. It is up to Him ultimately, not us...and that produces a peace that surpasses all understanding. Apart from Him, I am impatient and doubting. Praise be to God, we who belong to Him, are not left to ourselves.
We are about to finalize our partnership with Harvest International (http://www.harvestinternational.org/), a sending agency. We are excited to join them hand in hand to advance the gospel. I will have more to come regarding Harvest International (HI) when we are "finalized" with them. HI has a requirement of attaining 200 physical addresses to send monthly newsletters out with updates. If you are reading this and I have not gotten your address, please email me (jmd2980@gmail.com) it with "address" in the subject line if you are interested. We would appreciate that very much!
Spiritually, Celia and I are withstanding a lot of Spiritual warfare, but Christ is conforming us to His image throughout it all. We are discovering our roles as husband and wife more fully and how we (as a couple) are to reflect the gospel in our marriage-deep stuff. Speaking of the gospel, I am constantly praying for the gospel to be more and more magnificent to me than it has ever been. I desire this so I can bring more glory to God by praising and appreciating Him and His grace more. I also desire this so I will be more passionate about sharing the gospel. I could go on and on, but I just wanted to mention a few things.
Monetarily/materially, we are about 1/4 of the way to our goal. I know that sounds bad, but I think we are about to see some real headway. Again, God owns cattle on 1000 hills (Ps. 50:10) and He can sell any of them anytime He wants! He can do more than that, He can make money appear in the mouth of a fish (Mat. 17:27) for crying out loud! So, needless to say, God's got this. If you are reading this and would like to partner with us financially, please email me at jmd2980@gmail.com.
Please be in prayer for us in these two areas. We have a long ways to go in both areas and we are trusting in the power of prayer to get us there.
Also, if you are reading this, please sign up to become a member. That will encourage me to update more often :) If you do become a member (or even if you don't) please contact us about receiving prayer cards, 3 fold brochures, bookmarks, and/or business cards. HI is printing those up for us. Get one, or request a lot to hand out at your church/ small group. Thanks!
