Poland update

After asking you all to pray and support my missions trip, I would be remiss if I didn't give an update about the status of our team. We made it to the 100% deadline with about 85% of the funds that we needed to go - which means, unfortunately, that we are required to drop the person with the lowest amount of money. So Hadassah won't be going - and we are all very sad, but we know that God is in control and has great plans for her summer. We also got two new members - the leaders of team Czech, which was canceled. That's what is up with us - it is hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks of school, and after that we're headed to ropes & out of the country. Please continue to pray for our team to adjust to all of these changes and be able to go in a spirit of unity. God is faithful, and we've definitely seen that. Thank you all for your support - it is truly appreciated!

Poland 2008!

I promise this is the last time you'll get this spiel from me this year :o) but my mission team is still about $12,000 short of our goal for funds, and the deadline is this Friday (April 4) at 5 pm. Personally, I'm about $1500 shy of the amount I need to be able to go. What I would ask is that each of you take a few minutes to pray for my team, specifically that all of us would be able to go and that God would show Himself faithful as He always does. If you would like to give towards our trip, the best way to do so is to go to http://orumissions.blogspot.com/ and click on the "Online Donations" section on the top right. Fundraising is always my least favorite part of missions - at the same time, though, I love missions (even including fundraising) because it showcases God's faithfulness and proves over and over how awesome our God is and how much He loves people.

I believe that God has a plan for this trip that goes beyond anything that we can see in the natural - and experience with Him has shown that He always does more than we can even begin to ask or think. This year has been a challenge for me because of how different my experience with the process has been than it was last year. It's been challenging to allow God to uncover things in my heart that I had never imagined were there - wrong motives, false confidences, and selfish pride in my own "expertise" in serving God. The question burning in my heart has been "Why are you going on missions?" For me, it's always been the default mode to go when the opportunity presents itself. However, going just to go isn't the best that God has. As I've been reading the gospels recently, the aspect of Jesus' life that has impacted me the most is His relationship with the Father. We think, in our limited revelation, that Jesus came to save us. While that's definitely true, the overarching theme that I stumbled across was that Jesus lived and died to please His Father. That's it. The first commandment is first for a reason, and without a doubt it is true that the greatest lovers of God make the greatest servants of men. So that's what I'm striving towards on this journey and as the team embarks on this trip - keeping the love of the Father the primary motivator in my heart, and not my desire to do the right thing or to impress the right people.

If you would like to see a little bit more of the type of ministry that we will be doing, you can visit last year's blog at http://www.teampoland2007.com/

Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support - I thank God that He has surrounded me with such an amazing and encouraging family of believers!