Ready for the Rains!

The final week of house construction was – in a word – grueling. For Don and I, it was the ‘leave everything on the field’ moment… a final push to wrap up three months of hard work, long days, cot-and-tent sleeping, missing family, unbelievable logistics, and a relentless deadline imposed by the coming rainy season. We’d given all we had, and the weight of stress and exhaustion fell heavily upon us. Yet – as ever before – God was faithful to uphold and sustain us! Furthermore, we were not alone.

With the dedicated efforts of Crossroads Bible Church’s building team, we reached all of our primary goals for this first phase of house construction. Together we planned, adapted, sweat (a lot… it was hot!), and pushed – working through the challenges which arose, whether anticipated or not. As we found while working with the Peaceful Valley team, some surprises required creative adjustments – yet, by the end of the week, we found that God had brought things together such that the house was where it needed to be. Bring on the rains!

Coming home from such a long time apart in the mountains, our family’s long-awaited reunion was wonderful. Amy and I attended the graduation of our eldest niece, Bonnie – then headed out with our kids to NTM Mexico’s biannual field conference! The teaching was excellent and the fellowship sweet as ever, but the best part was simply being back together as a family.

Plans for our next ministry steps are already in motion, and there is much we look forward to sharing with you in the months to come. There remain travel plans to make, construction logistics to work out, build teams to organize, and more! However – for today – it is enough to simply pause, and thank God for His great kindnesses and faithfulness to us during the challenges of this last season of life. He has always been enough, no matter what He has allowed us to face… and we know that this truth will never change.

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Quick Notes & Things I’ve Been Reading:

• One of our missionary training’s over-arching themes was ‘becoming’ – change in central ways from home culture preferences to live more like the unreached people among whom we live. Our coworker Katie explores how this works out among the Nahuatl people in her ‘A Normal Day’ blog series: [Katie’s Blog: Become]
• Intelligent Design (ID) is a widely misunderstood scientific theory – often erroneously conflated with pseudoscience or Creationism. Geophysicist Dr. Stephen Meyer answers basic questions on ID and evolution in 30 seconds or less: [Evolution News: The Universe, but Make It Brief]
• How ought we to view missionaries within the context of the local church – are they outsiders, or integral to the proper functioning of the body?
  [Ethnos360 Magazine: What are They Doing on this Team?]

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Thank God with us!

• For the completion of this first phase of house construction, and particularly for Don’s help through it all!
• Field conference was a rich time of blessing together with all of our co-workers here in Mexico.
• It is so good to have our family back together!

Ways you can pray:

• That God grant us wisdom as we plan out time Stateside over the next few months, during Las Moras’ rainy season.
• We are in great need of rest, individually and as a family, as a very stressful season of life comes to a close.
• The NTM Mexico missionary training center, Rancho Siloe, is in particular need of teachers for the upcoming semester. The staff needs help simply to keep things going for already incoming students… please pray for God’s provision of trainers for the next generation of missionary candidates!