| TUESDAY August 13, 2024 |
| “There is no disappointment in your eyes. There is no shame, there is only pride. Oh, I am loved. Father I’m loved by you.” -Mack Brock |
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| “And he gives grace generously.” -James 4:6a |
| I have a friend who is always messing up! She makes stupid mistakes about things when she should’ve known better. Just a couple of weeks ago she cleaned her brand new toilet seat with a very abrasive cleaner and scratched it! Every time I see it I remind her what a dumb mistake that was. She also recently had a great witnessing opportunity, but she talked about “the Lord” instead of saying “Jesus,” which would have been much clearer. She really screwed that one up. Just last month she was riding this electric scooter and she took one hand off the handle and totally wiped out. While she was sitting there bleeding I berated her for being so dumb! She should have kept both hands on it. Right now you’re probably thinking that I need to show my friend a little grace! Well, first of all, “my friend” is me, but second of all, you’re right! This is not only an issue of how I talk to myself, but it is also an issue because often how I view myself is tied to how I think God views me. I can tend to think of God as constantly disappointed with me, expecting perfection and thinking that I never measure up. However, that is actually SO anti- the gospel. The gospel says that yes, we don’t measure up, but Jesus died for us, and so He loves to extend us grace, grace, and more grace! Through our ministry in PNG I have seen more and more that what people in every situation need is Jesus’ grace. What does the person need who is living in a remote jungle village, trying hard to appease the spirits or please God through works? An understanding of Jesus’ grace. What do the missionaries need who are burning themselves out and beating themselves up? An understanding of Jesus’ grace. What do you need as you deal with the struggles of life and an awareness of your own failings? An understanding of Jesus’ grace. So, we keep working so that the lost can hear how to be saved through the grace of Jesus. We keep ministering to missionaries so that they can learn to experience joy through the grace of Jesus. We keep sharing with you what God is teaching us so that you can accept and extend the grace of Jesus to others. Till all know, Matt, Karissa, Ty, and Wyck |
| Please Pray: -For Matt as he starts his class on Friday (Acute Stress, Grief, and Trauma) -For us as we seek to love those around us well -For us as we prepare to start doing more support raising -For people we love that are struggling, that we would know how to encourage them well Praise God: -We have been able to have some sweet time with family this month -We were able to have some time together celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary -We are enjoying plugging in to our church more -We got all our homeschool curriculum ordered for the year   Our family up north Croquet with Karissa’s cousins  What are we supporting? This month’s tribal focus: Pray for the Masa church. Missionary Andre Tousch writes, “The Masa church has started a literacy program in the neighboring village across the river. In 2019 during the outreach in Masa, a few people from that village came to the meetings, so we visited them regularly in their village to chat with them and talk about the gospel. But after a few weeks we had to stop going to the village, because the majority of the population was opposed to the teaching. There had even been death threats against a Christian lady in this village. What joy to see that even among the leaders of the community, now many want to hear the gospel, and Christians are free to come to their village! The literacy program is a prelude to the outreach that is expected to begin later this year. That way, those who will have learned to read will be able to read Scripture during the outreach.” |