In many ways, it feels like this has been a really long process. Traveling, meeting new people, sharing with churches and individuals, keeping up with communication, and so much more has gone into the last 8 months of Partnership Development. But the cool thing is, when I take a step back and look at all that has happened, I am fully convinced that it has been God all along. He didn’t just start raising up our partnership team 8 months ago. He’s been doing it since before we even knew where we were going; before we went to Bible School, and before Allegra and I even knew each other. On a bigger scale, God was setting this up even before time began.
It hasn’t been a result of our hard work or charm that God has raised up over 70% of our support/partnership team. It’s been due to His work and faithfulness to provide for what He directs us to do. For several months this Spring and Summer we weren’t making any progress when it came down to numbers for our partnership goal. We were being faithful to do what God directed but not much was happening. The whole time we knew that God had to be the one raising up partners, but it was becoming more and more of a reality that if He didn’t come through in that area, then there was no chance of us leaving for Asia-Pacific in March. We prayed in light of that, knowing that it had to be Him–our efforts weren’t (and aren’t) enough.
All of a sudden people began saying that they wanted to partner with us! People that we didn’t expect. Then we had the opportunity to share at a new church and they decided to join our team! It was just so obvious that it was all God and over the last 2 months our partnership level has nearly doubled; not just financially, but in every way. Praise God for His work.
He is good; and whether He does what we think is best or not, it’s cool to see Him work in such obvious ways. It has encouraged and reminded us that God is behind this and will go before us as we go. We follow Him.
Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power.”