Do we dare hope?
First of all, if you want to WATCH this update rather than read it, we have a video version of it posted in our Facebook Ministry Group here. Feel free to watch and comment. Or you could open it up and just listen as you cook dinner or…I would say on your daily commute, but who has those right now 😉
Like most of you, our lives have undergone SO much change and upheaval these past 6 weeks. So, in some ways we didn’t want to try and draw much attention to what we’re doing right now because it’s not as if you have all the time in the world.
You all have the same challenges as us: you’re “home-schooling” your kids or at least serving as their online education coach (which mostly means you’re ad-hoc tech support for Zoom.)
You’re either trying to also be productive and work from home as well, or hoping you have a job to go back to when it’s safe to leave your house for more than just groceries. Or even harder, you might not have a job anymore.
Some of you have lost loved ones. Some of you have had to give up weddings, graduations and other milestone events. We get it. And that’s why we’ve been quiet.
God is still at work in this world and we, the Potters are still on a mission.
But first, a little transparency. It has, honestly, been a struggle for me, Joel, to sit down each day and focus on the task at hand. Remember what that task was? I’ll just quickly refresh us.
Our task, simply put, was to try and raise an additional $2020 in regular monthly support in this year of 2020. Or more accurately, we are asking God to move in the hearts of our friends in our community to partner with us in giving. We have always believed that it is God’s work to put that idea on people’s hearts and our responsibility to help people understand the life-changing work that we are a part of. We get to “send the invite” but it’s God who causes people to RSVP and show up.
From a human point-of-view It’s not easy work in the best of times. Imagine how hard it is during a global pandemic.
Here’s the thing though. It should be easy. It should be easy to trust God to provide for us as He has made clear that he will. It should be easy to share in all the ways we can, stories that bring what we are a part of, to life, for our community. That should be easy.
But when an easily emotional husband, dad and caregiver gets his focus off of the Father, it gets really hard! Of course, I’m talking about myself here. I’ve struggled big time these last 6+ weeks. Some days I have ideas and inspiration and then others (most of the others), I sit in front of a screen with doubt in my mind that I can encourage anyone. Add in other challenges like the ones I mentioned earlier and a few unpleasant injuries and you’ve got a recipe for discouragement and the feeling of wasted time.
The thing is, God is such a good Father. He perfectly knows how to let us, his kids go through hard times but enables us to learn so much and see his constant love. That’s been my experience. I won’t recount them here, but I can look back and see so many instances of grace and mercy to help when I had need. That’s Him being faithful to his promise in Hebrews. Let us approach the throne of grace that we may find grace and mercy to help in time of need!
So, what’s next?
It does feel with all the conversation happening about “re-opening” like we are on the brink of moving into a new period. And with that we have some optimism that we can keep going with the in-person part of raising support and building up our community.
There is still so much we don’t know about what life in the next stage will look like. We have to be especially careful still and won’t be the first ones to embrace normal social activity. Jack is in the seriously immune compromised category so we’ll move really slowly.
It’s our hope though, to not give into the discouragement that comes from being distracted by what all could go wrong or how we’ll never get back what we lost in normalness. It’s our hope to resume the role of being story-tellers, encouraging you all to keep your eyes on the good father and His work in redeeming people from every nation on earth.
Whether we can do it in person or via a medium like this, God knows. We just want to be faithful to use the opportunities well.
Here we go friends!
We don’t know what comes next. We don’t know when or if “normal life” will return. But we do know that the God who does know all things is with us, and is for us as a loving father roots for his kids. Let’s do what comes next, what He brings into our paths later today, tomorrow and next month with this in mind!
Would you pray for us as we “re-open”?
- Pray that we’ll have encouragement to keep sharing and inspiring people with how good God is.
- Pray that we’ll have realistic expectations of ourselves in this continued unusual time.
- Pray that God will continue to build the momentum that He had begun earlier this year. We had four new families join our support team and were making progress to our goal of $2020.
- Pray for the needed wisdom when we can plan to do things in person. Things like our postponed passport dinner with our church and other gatherings are still things we hope we can do this year. And Bethany is still waiting on the go-ahead to schedule the previously postponed redo of the failed PRK eye surgery as well as another procedure that will help her circulatory system.
Is there anything else besides pray that YOU can do?
☑️ Join the The Potter Mission Community…
You bet there is! If you’re not a part of our Facebook Ministry Group, GO and JOIN, please! Head to our group and make sure you’re a member of it if you’re not already.
☑️ Partner with us and help us reach our financial goal…
Our goal is to raise an additional $2020 in regularly monthly support by the end of this year, 2020. If you want to be a part, head here!