“How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?”
I came across this verse as I was reading Exodus 14 this morning. After sending plagues on Egypt, freeing the Israelites from slavery, parting the Red Sea, leading them through the desert, providing manna and quail for them to eat, giving them fresh water, speaking to Moses to give them His commands, and showing them the promised land, they took one look at the giant people there and said, “Nah. No way can God handle this one. We’re not going there.”
How stupid can they be? God had brought them this far. Of course God could help them with the next step! But, do you know why that verse popped out to me today? Because I do the very same thing. Even though God has been so faithful in the past, I worry about the future, and doubt that He’s going to come through for me again. I struggle with waiting on His promises. Yet over and over again He has been faithful. So I will choose to believe that He will be faithful in the future.
We are continuing to strive to serve Him with all of our hearts wherever he has us. Matt continues to serve by filling a much-needed maintenance and construction role. He has been able to take some of the load off of missionaries who are serving on the center. He has also been able to be an encouragement to one of the national workers there who is going through a hard time. Another way he has been able to serve is by driving all the missionary kids who need to get to school from this center to the center with the school. A few weeks ago, he started teaching a junior high boys’ Bible class at the school. He is teaching through Proverbs, and talking about the wisdom that God has for us in His Word. He has already gotten to clarify the gospel to a couple of the kids in his class! Junior high was an influential time for Matt in his spiritual life, and he is so thankful he gets to hopefully have an impact on these kids’ walks with God. Karissa continues to homeschool Ty and hold down the fort at home.
In a couple of weeks we will get to go to another center and visit the new missionaries who have come. This will be just a few days to meet them and get to know them a little bit. Our hope is that some of them will want to talk with us further about joining our team. If they do, we will be happy about that, but we will still have some more waiting to do. They will finish their orientation in December and we could start doing more serious discussion about partnering then.
We are thankful for you praying for us, waiting with us, and seeing what God will do.
Till all know,
Matt, Karissa, Ty, and Wyck
A picture of our current team- us and the Hernandezes. I’m not sure what we were laughing at!
Just a couple of superheroes doing school.
Please Pray:
– That Matt can be an encouragement to those he works with
– That Matt’s students will grow in their relationships with God
– For energy for Matt as he is very tired from his work each day
– That God will provide another family for us to partner with
– That we can obey God with our “todays” and trust God with our “tomorrows”
Praise God:
– Homeschooling Ty is going much better
– Karissa’s headaches continue to be manageable
– It seems like Ty’s acid reflux is improving
– Matt is getting opportunities to talk about the gospel with his students
– Recently some national believers did a teaching nearby our center, and some people accepted Christ!