It has been a while since we’ve had much to report about our ministry activities, so I wanted to take a moment to update everyone on where things stand right now.
Partnership Development
Emily and I are currently in the Recruit status with PBT, which means we are doing partnership development and preparing to move to Dallas, TX for further training and preparation before moving to the East Africa Branch. This summer we completed our initial round of presentations at some of the local churches in Delaware that we had previous relationships with. We are very grateful to these churches for hosting us and for the prayer and financial support we have received from them so far.
While we have not yet presented anything at our home church, LCC, we have had several opportunities to talk with the leadership team and missions team. There is lot of interest in what we are doing and we are hoping to receive a significant portion of our financial support from them. When we are more certain about the timing of our training in Dallas we will be able to get a clearer picture of what this will include and will then determine how much (if any) additional support we need to raise.
About Our House
Our house, in the middle of our street
The main concern we have at this point (as anyone who has spoken with us knows) is the sale of our house in Milford, DE. We purchased the house in 2005. At the time, we didn’t know that we would soon have the opportunity to join PBT in full-time overseas ministry, or that the US housing market and economy was about to take a sharp turn in an unexpected direction. Fortunately buying our home was a decision that was made with much prayer and consideration, so we are confident that everything will work out in the end.
We need to spend one semester in Dallas for training. Once our house sells, we will be looking to move to Dallas for the next semester, assuming we have enough financial support in place at the time. For example, if our house were to sell this month (and we hope that it does), we would be looking to move to Dallas in January for the Spring semester.
Our house has been on the market since December 2007. As expected, we saw very little interest throughout the winter. This summer we’ve had a number of people come and look at the house (two people just this last weekend), but we have not had any offers yet.
Waiting…
Overall we are remaining optimistic, seeing this waiting period as an opportunity to exercise patience, build relationships, and to prepare spiritually for the journey ahead. Admittedly, It is easy to become discouraged. Every time we turn on the radio or see another foreclosure notice stapled to someone’s front door (such as our neighbor’s!) we are reminded of the reality of the situation.
Fortunately, we can live above the “reality of the situation”. We believe that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, as Paul puts it in Romans 8 and as we heard preached this Sunday. We know that “all things” includes the economy, and our mortgage, and our house, and any number of factors that we are unaware of.
So we remain confident that God’s timing is perfect, that our house will sell when it’s supposed to sell, and that the support we need will come in. Even if it doesn’t, we are thankful to God for all that we do have, which, in the scope of everything really is a lot.
Also, if you know anyone who would like to buy a 3,000 square foot 4 bedroom house in Milford, you let me know.
