Sarah and Keane

This past week, Keane and I took part in Teach Beyond’s orientation for its new missionary candidates. We gathered with over 80 other people to cover a wide variety of topics pertaining to moving, living, and serving overseas. Every day a different Teach Beyond staff member led us in a devotional, and a few of the other sessions felt more like devotionals than seminars. Here are a few of the passages that were covered this past week. Can you find any themes?

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
    along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
    and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
    I will not forsake them. (Is. 42:16)

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31)

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (1 Cor. 1:27)

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions,in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power.Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you. (2 Cor. 13:4)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. (Eph. 6:10)

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

What do these passages have in common? We are weak; God is strong. What immediately pops into my mind is that old Sunday School song, “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty! There’s nothing my God cannot do for you!” And in my memory, I hear a multitude of children’s voices shouting those lyrics with all their might, maybe just enjoying the singing and the motions that go along with the words, but also able in that childlike-faith way to believe the words and to know God is big and strong and mighty.

I don’t think there was a single person in our orientation group who did NOT identify with this topic of feeling weak. I know I did. And every time I was reminded that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, I felt a resounding YES swell up inside me.

What struck me mid-week, though, is that this shouldn’t be a new feeling. This awareness that I am weak and that God is strong should not be a phenomenon that accompanies moving to a new country and raising support. It is reality. The problem is that, most of the time, I actually feel pretty okay. We are a married couple with two incomes and no kids; we lead a reasonably comfortable life; we have a nice emergency fund stored away; we have health insurance and life insurance and (tiny) retirement accounts. And before I quit my job and started focusing on going overseas, if I wasn’t careful, I could have gone days without recognizing my need for God and my own weakness. There is a huge disconnect in my mind between my physical needs (financial security, etc.) and my spiritual needs, and sometimes it isn’t until the former is impacted that the latter comes to mind. Is this a culturally American thing? Is this a human nature thing? Or just a middle class thing? I don’t know. But this past week I was prompted to repent of my so-called self-sufficiency and to rejoice in this new awareness of my weakness. Truly, this weakness is not new, but I thank God that I now recognize it. It brings a certain gladness, knowing that “Christ’s power may rest on me” and that, as blind and weak as I am, he is leading me along the unfamiliar paths.

 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor. 4:7)

Earlier this week, my good friend Katie stopped by to help me sort through the stuff in my closet (she has become proficient in this over the last year), and before she left to go home, she prayed for me. In and of itself, her prayer was so encouraging and caring, but one specific part of her prayer really hit home. She thanked God that, during these times of struggle when we face the unknown, we learn so much about God’s character.

I’ve been having a hard time with raising financial support. (Maybe no one has an easy time with it.) I find myself feeling envious of other missionaries who raise support and then go to the field; we are raising support and going to the field with a deadline, which probably isn’t that much more stressful than regular support-raising, but to me right now, I am feeling the pressure of wanting to arrive at BFA before the beginning of the next school year. And I don’t know about you, but when I am in difficult, stressful circumstances, there are times when I realize that I have begun to subconsciously doubt the character of God. It’s not that I don’t think he is faithful or loving or powerful; it’s that I assume that a faithful, loving, and powerful God would do things a certain way (read: MY way) that would preclude me from experiencing the pain and frustration and confusion of waiting for his provision. After all, this is what he asked us to do. After all, this is for his glory.

I don’t mean to slip into this kind of thinking. But I sometimes do. And after a while, a passage from the Bible or a well-timed word from a friend will stop me in my thoughts and remind me of the truth. Just because God calls us to something does not mean it will be easy; in fact, the opposite is probably true. He doesn’t flatten the mountain before us; he gives us the strength to climb it. My family experienced many truly difficult and painful things when we lived overseas–sickness, spiritual attack, loneliness, loss. He delivered us through them, every time. That is faithfulness. And those times enable us to help those who walk through the valley behind us. As I was reminded by my dear friend Emily today: God isn’t safe, but he is good.

I hope this encourages you today in whatever trial you may be facing. I love you, friends!

Hello all!

We wanted to send out another update about support raising, particularly after Keane’s update a couple weeks ago in which we outlined a possible breakdown of how to raise our remaining support. This is just one small scenario and is meant to be more of a visual help to those who appreciate having that kind of thing.

To date, we have $1,760 in monthly pledges raised out of the total $4,700 we need to raise (37%!). Hooray!

If each month we can have…

…12 people support us at $25 (down from 15 people!)
…and 23 people support us at $50 (down from 25 people!)
…and 10 people support us at $100 (down from 11 people!)
…and 2 very generous people support us at $150
…and 1 ridiculously generous person to support us at $200

(or just 1 person to do the whole thing)

Here is a link for giving.

We also need about $8,000 in one-time start-up costs (maybe more, depending on plane tickets), and we have $3,600 toward that! This is wonderful progress and we are so grateful that God is in this.

Hey everybody! Sarah here. The last few weeks have been jam packed with work and weddings and paperwork and good-bye parties and appointments and to-do lists, and I just want to throw this question out into the huge void we call the internet: Does life ever slow down???

One of the things that has taken up most of my time and energy over the last month has been wrapping up my job at my school. Between the typical end-of-year paperwork and everything I tried to put together for the person taking over my position, I have been running on fumes for a while. Last Friday was my last day of work at the high school, and I am praising God that it was a beautiful filled with sweet memories of my students. Our therapeutic groups have what we call Termination Groups (I know-they sound scary) when someone leaves. It’s a time when students can reflect on the progress their departing peer has made and can give them advice for the future. I was able to share some parting words with each of my students, and then, to my utter surprise, they each wanted to share some thoughts with me. I will hold their words in my heart forever. It was a sweet time of tears and laughter and saying good-bye.

I am so glad to be able to have finished my work and to now be able to focus on raising support and packing for Germany. If I could ask you to pray for a few things this week, they would be:

• -In light of all the busyness and good-byes of the last few weeks, I feel emotionally weary. Please pray that God would restore me.
• -We are flying to Florida tonight to spend a few days with my grandma. Please pray that this would be a sweet time and that we would be a blessing to her. This will be a hard good-bye for me.
• -Please pray that I would be diligent in contacting people about joining our support crew. Sometimes the prospect of it can be quite intimidating!
• -Please pray for my students who are transitioning to having a new social worker. Today is their first day of summer school and some of these students really struggle with change.

Love you all!

-sarah