So much has happened in the last few weeks for our family. We have found out our seventh child is a girl, and she appears to be growing healthy and on schedule. Ray and I enjoyed a wonderful Christmas season with our family. We also began attending services solely at Pillar Church in Locust Grove, VA. This new group of believers is a church plant about 45 minutes south of our former church Pillar Church in Dumfries, VA. We had our first Sunday Morning service this past week and it was a wonderfully exciting time for all of us.
We have also partnered with a mission board that specializes in "tentmaking" missions. This is a special blessing for us as they will be able to help us in ways traditional mission boards cannot. You see many countries forbid missionaries entrance so traditional mission boards use the guise of "consultant services" to get many people in, this is risky and often ends up creating trouble down the road for missionaries when it becomes clear that they are not running successful businesses and are not contributing financially to the country. Many mission boards flat out said they won't work with the countries God is leading us too, they said it can't be done, and maybe they are right. It probably can't be done they way they are accustomed to doing it, that's why it so wonderful that their are other options. Tentmaking is not superior to fully supported missions or vice versa, but these two models of church planting used together enable many more people to be reached with the gospel than using one method exclusively. Countries much more readily accept qualified professionals already aligned with existing corporations, and it is technically illegal to enter these countries for missions purposes.
G.O., Global Opps, is a organization that specializes in assisting tentmaking professionals who have "surrendered their professions to Jesus Christ" they understand the many challenges and blessings of serving this way and we are so excited to be able to partner with such a wonderful group of Christians. We will be attending our first Missions Conference in March. We are very grateful for their help, and it's wonderful not feeling like the odd man out. Many godly Christians we know are still under the false unbiblical impression that tentmaking is not really valid vehicle for missions, and after being shot down by almost every mission board with whom we could doctrinally align ourselves, it is a real blessing to have found fellowship among these believers.
God has slowly been narrowing down His scope for us, he has made it clear that we are heading to the Eastern European Block, all of these post soviet countries were enslaved by orthodoxy until the last few decades, and now they face the onslaught of all forms of ungodly teaching and the immigration crusade of Islam. The cultures are very similar to each other. The main difference is the languages spoken. All of these countries are "closed" to traditional missionaries and within each of these nations there are gypsy tribes, which are unreached people groups who have no known bible in their language. There is little evangelical presence in these countries and we are excited about all these possibilities and are continuing to trust God has He leads us down this path.
Continue to pray for our family as God prepares us for all that lies ahead, and please praise the Lord with us for all the support we have found from G.O. and our local body of believers here in northern Virginia.
