Accomplishing Goals

Imagine a kid shoving an object in your face and telling you to look at it. Can you see it clearly? Probably not. The object is too close to focus on. You have to put space between you and the object in order to fully see it. In order to gain perspective.

-

Suddenly, it clicked in my mind. I looked at the "senior saints" sitting in front of me in the church room and then back at my PowerPoint presentation behind me. We had done it. My team had accomplished one of our goals. I had just shared with this group the original two-fold vision of the Pemba team in early 2019: Share the Gospel with the Mwani people and mobilize Mozambican churches/Christians to get involved in ministry among the Unreached People Groups (UPGs) in the area.

I looked back at the picture of the team in Nampula. There stood Nelio and Iza, a Mozambican couple now part of the team, with hearts longing to minister to the unreached in northern Mozambique. Not only that, but a Mozambican pastor has been partnering with the team, helping reach out to the Mwani in one of the Nampula neighborhoods. 


Praise God for this. I had been excited when I heard last year that Nelio and Iza would be joining the team. I had known it was an answer to prayer. But it wasn't until my presentation for this church group that I stood in a position to fully see and connect the dots to that original two-fold vision. 

While I sit here in Michigan, the team in Mozambique continues on with the ministry. Maureen, a Kenyan called to reach the Mwani, perseveres in her Portuguese studies while establishing relationships in the area. The newer team members, Roseli, Manoel, and Danielle (all Brazilians), are finishing their final orientation training in order to be even more effective in their full-time ministry.

God is good. Even the second part of the original two-fold vision has seen progress. More Mwani people are open to the Gospel than ever before. 

It's encouraging for me to see this. To see God raising up and calling others into the ministry. Equipping them and sustaining them. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been able to step back and get perspective on all this. Who knows what He is going to do through them? It will be exciting to see. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coffee Shop Atheist

Image
My ears perked up. The three men at the table across from me in the coffee shop had started talking about the Bible. My intentions of working on my historical fiction novel got pushed aside as I started eavesdropping on their conversation. Who were they? What were they saying about the Bible? The smartly dressed, white-haired gentleman facing me pulled up Romans 8 on his phone and read part of it to the young man sitting with his back to me. Intriguing. I love Romans 8. Was it a pastor mentoring a young man in his church?  Then came the revelation. The two older men facing me identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses. I should have known. But what about the young man with his back to me? Who was he? I could hear the older men quite well, they had louder voices directed towards me. But the young man had a softer voice and was facing away from me. I couldn't hear him very well. Concern for the young man grew in my heart. I know who Jehovah's Witnesses are. I know what they
Read more

5-Day Club

Image
The big week had finally arrived! I smiled in excitement as I thought about the 5-Day Club about to happen at the Welcome House. Several refugee families had been invited of mixed beliefs and backgrounds. I was also nervous. How would it go? Would anyone get offended? Angry? Keep their kids from coming? Or stop the 5-Day Club from happening? (A 5-Day Club is a ministry of CEF, a type of backyard Bible club with stories, songs, games, and memory verses) Day 1 As the CEF teachers walked toward the tree, one talkative little boy following in my shadow went on the defensive. He said his family doesn't believe in Jesus and asked something about God having a dad. I went on alert as I listened to him. This is exactly what I was nervous about. I wanted to navigate these conversations with respect for others but in a way that the Truth could still be proclaimed. "I know you don't believe in Jesus," I said as we walked into the shade of the tree. He seemed happy that I knew thi
Read more

God's Backward Oreo

Image
"I feel like God made you an Oreo, only a backwards Oreo." I knit my eyebrow trying to follow my mom's line of thinking as I listened to her voice note. "He's got cream on two sides and the hard cookie in the middle," she continued, "As in, you're standing in the blueberry patch on Saturday just talking with Dad and suddenly this lady goes, 'Hey, I want to get your newsletter.' I mean, wow, cream, sweet cream. And then... a hard cookie." I laughed a bit sardonically as I realized where she was going, "There's a lot more layers to the 'Oreo' than that this week!" I replied. I was having a weird week and wasn't sure how to feel about it. Yes, God had given me several moments of sweet, delicious cream, but those moments of cream had been broken up by more than one hard thing. On Thursday, listening to my mom's message, I couldn't decide if the cream outweighed the hard or if the hard outweighed the cream
Read more