Lack of Power?

I had made arrangements to meet Pastor Doug Cuthbert for breakfast in Sister Lakes. Pastor Cuthbert was my youth pastor when I was growing up at Sister Lakes Community Church (SLCC). Later he and his wife were in other ministries and eventually were asked to take the position of senior pastor at SLCC.

He and I had made arrangements to meet Saturday morning for breakfast at the Corner Cafe at 9am, and then we would both go on to the funeral of Bob (Grampa) Doorn, who had died earlier that week.

I was accidentally 30 min. early to our 9am breakfast engagement at Corner Cafe, so I sat drinking coffee reading and thinking thoughts. About 10 min. 'til 9 all the power went out. The cook finished what she had cooking on the grill with the waitress holding a flash light.

Pastor Doug came in at about 9am with one of the church leaders not far behind. They had to figure out a way to have a funeral dinner with no electricity. Pastor Doug and I chatted for about an hour. As we were leaving he said hello other patrons at the diner. Several were volunteer fire fighters. Before we had left the room, they had made arrangements to help with generators so that the funeral dinner would take place.

I really appreciated the sensitivity and community spirit in evidence in the small town. I know that it really touched the heart of the bereaved, and it spoke to me about people helping each other in need, even when it isn't in your job description.

Adam

Family Fun

It was a weekend of reunion with family, and sharing with our loved ones where we believe God is leading us.

Friday night we enjoyed my nephew Anothy's wedding to Yasuko. It was their big night, but we still got lots of questions about missions from our family. We enjoyed the evening and it was fun to share how God is leading us.

Then Saturday morning we traveled down to central Illinois for the annual Blunier family reunion. It's always something different. One year the zoo, one year a boat ride, one year a camp out. This year we all met at the Midwest Food bank, and helped organize and box up food for about four hours.

Like the Parmenter's the Blunier's like to work hard, and they did. Afterward we enjoyed a meal together, played a few games, and then various family members that had been on missions trips shared their slides. Marge and I had the opportunity to present our call to serve in the Czech Republic.

It's a treasure to being a family that honors God.

Devon Church

Marge, the children, and I spent the weekend in Evanston, IL visiting my sister Beverly, her husband John, and their daughter Mercedes. We helped lead worship at their home church Devon Church in Chicago, and Michael and I sang solos.

I was a privilege to be part of their worship service. One line from Pastor Carlini's message stuck with me. He said, "There is no such thing as personal sin. One a person sins it always has an impact on the community (i.e. family, and church) around him."

It's so true. Sin damages our relationship with God, and when I sin it has an impact on my biological family and my church family. How important it is to live lives of repentance and to be transparent in our dealings.

Adam

Pre-Field Beginning

It's amazing the mass of details to attend to while we are getting our self ready to raise support and be prepared for the field. Part of the effort is to take the information and materials from Candidate Seminar and start to sift back through them.

I haven't started that yet. What I have been doing is starting to write some letters and work on a presentation that I'll be giving to our home church's missions committee. I'll then give a similar presentation to our whole church.

We are also starting to meeting in homes with various friends and family to share what God has called us to do. I have a lap top, but don't yet have a projector, so I'm going to do what ABWE calls "down-teching", and bringing handouts.

In the meantime, we will be making arrangements with a photographer for a family photo so that we can get our prayer card made, and start pulling together an informational package that will be sent to churches. It's a fair amount of work, but it's actually enjoyable. It's important that we present our selves well, and that we present ourselves clearly. Doing all of this work of presenting helps us clarify the what and why of our missionary call.

I firmly believe that when God calls some one to do something, that He provides what is needed to do the work. In our case then, I can only assume that he has prepared churches and individuals who will feel called to support us through prayer and monthly financial giving. It's not our job to convince people to give, but our job is to mobilize the ones God has called.

A big effort, but an enjoyable one.

Adam