December 5 2020 Update

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We celebrated our 25th Anniversary by having dinner in an igloo… since indoor dining is closed

Quote of the week:

Psalm 114:1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness
1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

Dear |FNAME|

On Wednesday Robin and I celebrated a milestone.  25 years of marriage!  We expected to be back in PNG by now.  So, we did our big celebration early, when we took our trip to the gulf coast.  But, we still wanted to do something special.  With the limited dining options (being all indoor sit down restaurants are closed) we had to be creative in order to enjoy dining.  So, we found a restaurant down town that had igloos outside where you could order, and they would bring the food to you.  It was a nice dinner.

Anyway, here’s a few things you can be praying for this week.  Thank you for your valuable partnership.  Here’s some prayer requests for this week.  And as always, don’t miss my devotional thoughts at the bottom. David Watters

Prayer Requests

  1. As we are starting to get more involved with orientation, we are listening in on a WhatsApp group with all the orientee families.  2 of them have already arrived in PNG.  Another 7 families and 3 singles are due to arrive by the middle of January.  Please pray specifically for the Ricky Sanford family, Poulsens and Luke who are all still in need of support.  The time is getting very close for them to have to purchase tickets.
  2. Praise the Lord with us for the opportunity to share in a few of our churches, even in the midst of covid.  Pray we can encourage these faithful partners.  Pray also that we can challenge people with the need of laborers in the Harvest fields.  (Matt 9:37-38)
  3. Continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy for Emily.
  4. Pray for our paperwork and clearances to get into PNG in February.  
  5. Pray that the timing of the baby, and the humanitarian flight in February will work so that we can enjoy the grandbaby for a week or 2 before we have to leave.

News

This weekend we spent the weekend with Robin’s folks, seeing the church we are sharing at is up near their home.  So, Saturday was Robin’s extended family’s Christmas get together.  Several of her extended family are supporters of ours, so it was very nice to catch up with them.  Hannah and Noah joined us for the weekend.  Noah brought his guitar and was able to lead in singing some Christmas carols together.  It was very nice.

We will have several family Christmas get togethers over the next few weeks.  It’s so nice to be here in the states and be able to enjoy some of these family things.  It is still a bit weird with covid restrictions.  But, it’s nice to be able to do what we can.

Here is a list of our upcoming church meetings:

  1. 06 December Twining Baptist, Twining Michigan (Tomorrow)
  2. 13 December Wildwood Mennonite Church via Zoom, Engadine, Michigan
  3. 03 January Grace Baptist church, Birmingham, Michigan
  4. 10 January First Baptist, Caro, Michigan
  5. 17 January Aetna Calvary, White Cloud, Michigan
  6. 24 January Rives Baptist, Jackson, Michigan

The WORD For the Day

Since beginning writing “The Word For the Day” last week, I am finding that I am really enjoying taking what I have read that day and writing a quick, short devotional from what I have read.  I actually wrote 3 or 4 times this week.  So, I am going to start posting these devotionals on my blog.  Each week, I will put the links to those posts.  If you are interested in receiving the posts in your inbox, just let me know.

Here’s the links to the ones I posted this week:

I have titled today’s thoughts, “God’s Love Perfected.”

Psalm 114:1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness
1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

In the beginning of John’s gospel, He described Jesus as “The word.” (John 1:1) He said this word put on flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) For centuries God had been describing through His words, both written and verbal through the prophets, what He was like, and How much He loves us. Israel was meant to be the nation to display His words, in the flesh, to the world. But they failed. So, God sent His son, who took on the form of a man, and humbled himself, even to the place of death (Phil 2:5-8) to make Gods invisible nature, visible. To show what God really meant when He said He loves us! (1 John 4:9-10)

Now John goes on to say in 1 John 4:12 that “no one has seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected or made perfect, in us.”  When we love others, they will see God through our lives.  Because true love only comes from God, (1 John 4:8) when we love, we are doing what God does, and our love will complete His love by putting flesh on it. Our love will be the living words of God, just like Jesus was. It will be God Himself, loving others though us. 1 John 4:13 says “By this (By seeing the display of God through our lives) we know that we abide in Him and He in us!

Abiding in the love of God is more then just head knowledge and mental assent. This is the sense David talks about in finding God to be his refuge (Ps 18:1-2), his place of safety, his high tower. Crawling into Jesus lap and resting in His loving arms. His unending, marvelous, steadfast love. As His love fills our soul, as His love impacts us more deeply, 1 John 4:19-20 becomes true, “We love because He first loved us.”  Oh, and by the way, John finishes those verses by saying, “When you are in love with God, you can’t possibly hate your brother.

Not to us O lord, but to your name, because my life is now filled with, completely occupied with your steadfast love, I give you glory! (Psalm 114:1)

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