{"id":285,"date":"2011-11-24T07:15:13","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T11:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/?p=285"},"modified":"2012-04-25T08:33:31","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T12:33:31","slug":"outreach-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/2011\/11\/24\/outreach-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Outreach?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Its always nice to see the bridge in 'good' shape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ever feel like a yo-yo?\u00a0 We have to say that after making the long, exhausting trip up to village M with soaring hopes of setting a date for an outreach, we felt like a yo-yo that had reached its peak and then suddenly hit the floor (and was then kicked, stepped on\u2026you get the picture!)\u00a0 Apparently, after meeting with the rest of the village leaders, the main leader and the group decided that they would not go against the bigger religious organization of which they are members and authorize a full scale community outreach.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 You invited us up here to tell us no?\u00a0 Again??\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t have sent someone to tell us that message?\u00a0 Honestly, we were shocked.\u00a0 About 15-20 believers from here in village S, along with Jeremiah, Jordan, Gary, his daughter Charis, and Ralf, they all hiked the 3 \u00bd hours up (and most of it is an unrelenting UP) through the cold rain, endured the slippery and dangerous trail (some of it through a strong river), crossed over 2 very precarious \u00a0bamboo bridges, all to encourage the village that they were making the right decision, that the Message they\u2019d been taught had changed their lives and that they were so excited that they, their beloved family and friends, would be hearing it soon as well.\u00a0 But the words seemed to fall on deaf ears. They would not listen.\u00a0 HOWEVER, these words from 2 Corinthians bring great encouragement and hope to us\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cFor we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u00a0 For God, who said, \u201cLight shall shine out of darkness,\u201d is the ONE who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.\u00a0 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.\u201d\u00a0 2 Cor. 4:5-10<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have a wonderful, God-given peace that comforts us as we remember that this Light is alive and well, existing here in our village brothers and sisters, and will exist here still long after we are gone from this country.\u00a0 He may not desire at this point to use us foreigners to reach this group, but who knows what He will do with that Light that resides in others, so we need not despair, we are not destroyed, that Light was made to shine, with or without us! \u00a0So while we still wait and hope for a change of heart, we will not discount the many Christians who live nearby and who brush shoulders with their countrymen in M day in and day out, and we will pray that the surpassing greatness of the power of God<\/em> will be manifest in such a way through the testimony of those faithful ones, that many will be drawn to Him!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the main reason for hiking up was to meet with leaders, Jeremiah and Gary first went to visit the first outreach village, T, and fellowship with the young believers there overnight and then enjoy the morning in the Word together and watch the teachers give the lesson.\u00a0 What an encouragement that was!\u00a0 Equipped with the Word in their own language, these two teachers, Lukas (from here) and Areke (a fairly young believer from T who is just now being trained as a teacher) shared the Word with excitement, passion and conviction, challenging each of us in our personal walks with the Lord.\u00a0 We are encouraged by their growth, watching the Lord bring these young believers along the road to maturity is sometimes hard, as it is for a parent to watch their children go through heartbreaking circumstances.\u00a0 But they are growing in leaps and bounds, a sobering reminder that growth and maturity usually come as the result of seeing and trusting in God\u2019s faithfulness through the trials and heartaches of life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We know that so many of you have been praying with us and that you were led to believe (since we believed it as well!) that this story would end differently.\u00a0 Do not be discouraged!\u00a0 We admit that we have no idea what the Lord is doing, but we do know that He IS working, though His ways and His timing are often different than ours.\u00a0 We do have hope that we may be able to still teach a smaller group of people in M that want to hear God\u2019s Word in their language.\u00a0 We were told that we couldn\u2019t teach in a community setting, but there is a possibility that we could teach individual clans.\u00a0 Please pray for wisdom and direction as we consider our next move in this regard.\u00a0 THANK YOU for standing with us, and please continue to pray!\u00a0 And please do pray for us, our family, and our team.\u00a0 We often are tempted to be discouraged.\u00a0 Ministry expectations turn out differently than hoped.\u00a0 Family difficulties.\u00a0 Financial struggles.\u00a0 But we know that even in what the world would consider the easiest of circumstances, peace, joy and contentment are only found in the Person of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 As Paul said, \u201cGod is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;\u201d 2\u00a0 Cor. 9:8\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>He has already supplied us with everything we need!\u00a0 Our God is Good!\u00a0 Praise Him with us today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever feel like a yo-yo?\u00a0 We have to say that after making the long, exhausting trip up to village M with soaring hopes of setting a date for an outreach, we felt like a yo-yo that had reached its peak and then suddenly hit the floor (and was then kicked, stepped on\u2026you get the picture!)\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jeremiah-markley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}