{"id":160,"date":"2014-10-21T12:40:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T16:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/2014\/10\/21\/beautiful-things\/"},"modified":"2015-05-28T11:25:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T15:25:39","slug":"beautiful-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/2014\/10\/beautiful-things\/","title":{"rendered":"beautiful things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It has been a <b>heavy<\/b> week around here, and really around the globe. Our world has been rocked and our hearts are hurting. As one of the executives here at the office said, <i>&#8220;I&#8217;m ready to take that step of faith into the Jordan and follow Jesus; but I can&#8217;t find the Jordan!&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Early last week one of our pilots in Papua New Guinea was in a motorcycle accident which resulted in him losing his leg. <a href=\"http:\/\/theleedahls.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jon and Adie Leedahl <\/a>were already a step of faith by the NTMA leadership, as they were sent to PNG to train with a<b> different<\/b> mission organization on an airplane that <b>we didn&#8217;t have <\/b>yet. Shortly after that, we received our <i>first Kodiak<\/i>, and then our <i>second<\/i>. God made it very clear that the aviation program in PNG should be continued and strengthened; <b>all we needed to do was follow Him and let Him work.<\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><object class=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"266\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\" data-thumbnail-src=\"https:\/\/ytimg.googleusercontent.com\/vi\/3Cp6F2orRYo\/0.jpg\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"https:\/\/youtube.googleapis.com\/v\/3Cp6F2orRYo&amp;source=uds\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#FFFFFF\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"320\" height=\"266\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.googleapis.com\/v\/3Cp6F2orRYo&amp;source=uds\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" \/><\/object><\/div>\n<p>Now things look bad. <i><b>A man lost his leg<\/b><\/i>. Jon has a long time of recovery and relearning everything ahead of him. Adie has a hard job of adjustment ahead of her. At least for the foreseeable future, there&#8217;s<i> no one to fly<\/i> for NTMA in Papua New Guinea. We have two brand new Kodiak&#8217;s sitting in our hangar here, being outfitted for exportation to PNG, with <i>no pilot<\/i>. There are two brand new pilots who arrived on-field this summer, with <i>no one to train<\/i> them in-country. Between people retiring from the mission or simply not in a position to take over, the personnel needs in PNG were already huge, and now they are even more <b><i>dire<\/i><\/b>. This is one of those impossible situations that <b><i>only God can fix<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>We <i>could<\/i> look at this as a list of things to discourage and sadden us, or we <i>could <\/i>look at it as an <b><i>opportunity to watch God do amazing things<\/i><\/b>. Yeah, there are <b>a lot<\/b> of unknowns right now. Yeah, it makes it hard to know what to think or do or even pray (seriously, what do you pray in this situation except for a miracle?!). But my God is bigger than even this. He is <b>always good<\/b>, <b>always perfect<\/b>, and His plan is <b>always completed beautifully<\/b>. I don&#8217;t see it now, and it really doesn&#8217;t feel good or perfect; but I trust Him.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3Cp6F2orRYo\" target=\"_blank\">This song<\/a> came on the radio right after we heard about Jon&#8217;s accident, and all of the questions about what would happen now began spinning around our head. Josh and I both found it to be such an encouraging reminder of God&#8217;s love and power. <i><b>This accident will change a lot <\/b><\/i>of things for <i>NTMA here<\/i> and <i>in PNG,<\/i> it will also change things <i>for us<\/i>. We don&#8217;t know what any of it will be. But God does.<\/p>\n<table style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><a style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/files\/2014\/10\/beautiful-2Bthings.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/files\/2014\/10\/beautiful-2Bthings.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/shop\/truecotton?ref=unav_listing-r\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>God makes beautiful things out of the ashes we bring to Him, we just have to step into the Jordan (once we find it!) and follow Him.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/files\/2014\/10\/erin1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/files\/2014\/10\/erin1.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been a heavy week around here, and really around the globe. Our world has been rocked and our hearts are hurting. As one of the executives here at the office said, &#8220;I&#8217;m ready to take that step of faith into the Jordan and follow Jesus; but I can&#8217;t find the Jordan!&#8221; Early last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[456,1239,1249,67183,2396,91613,91837,1196,85834,637,2147,490,638],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-arizona","tag-aviation","tag-erin","tag-jon-and-adie-leedahl","tag-josh","tag-josh-and-erin-verdonck","tag-josh-verdonck","tag-missionary-aviation","tag-missionary-life","tag-new-tribes-mission","tag-new-tribes-mission-aviation","tag-ntma","tag-papua-new-guinea","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}