“How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace,
who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.””
Isaiah 52:7
WELL HELLO THERE! 2015 is getting better by the day, right? This month has been busy and exciting with a lot of changes and a lot of rest thrown in. I'm still on winter vacation, but this isn't the boring kind of break from work where I sit in my apartment and stare out the window as the days drag by. Remember how much I hate that? August was like that. No más. No más. This winter break has been restful in all the right ways (sleeping, reading, hiking, baking), but it's been SUPER BUSY at the same time! I'm still commuting up to Seoul on the weekends and going back to Jeonju during the week for a little while longer. The MAIN reason I'm so busy is that I'M GOING ON MISSIONS THIS WINTER!!! We have training every weekend, and my team is busy getting prepped and bonding over dinners, and each team member has different tasks to complete
WANT TO HEAR MORE? I'm so glad you asked!!!
I have the privilege of being sent to Nepal to share the Gospel through my church, New Philadelphia, an English Ministry in Seoul. We'll be serving in Kathmandu, the capital city, and Hetauda, a small town in the Himalayas, from January 30 – February 6.
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| Photo cred: http://www.sevensummittreks.com/Nepal-1-1.html |
YOU GUYS. We're going to the mountains to share the beautiful news that God (who created the world and sits on the throne in Heaven) looooooves you. More than you can imagine. You might think you're not good enough to be loved like that, and you're right, but He sent his very self, in human form, to take the punishment that we deserve, to provide a way to connect with Him forever. God came to us. We don't have to clean ourselves up first and figure everything out, we just respond by running into the open, loving arms of a good Father. That's the Good News that are going to share! That's the Gospel.
Because I believe that, I MUST tell people! Because I believe that His death on the cross redeems people, giving us freedom, grace, and a relationship with the Maker of the Universe… Because I believe Him and accept that great love for me, I have share that great news! I’m so excited to do that in Nepal!! I’m thrilled about this opportunity! Every time God gives me a chance to talk about his freedom, grace, and salvation, I’m blown away. Oh, how He loves us!
WANNA HEAR MORE? OKAY!
We will be doing ministry with Nepalese and Tibetan refugee communities, hosting worship services, and encouraging local pastors and youth leaders. It's gonna be INCREDIBLE. We are going to experience God in a way I've never seen, and I can't wait to be in the middle of it. God does crazy things. I've seen more of that this year than ever before... He's preparing us for some magnificence. (Is magnificence a word? I'm gonna go with it.)
If you've been around me for very long, you know I’ve been on a few mission trips before with different organizations. I've seen them done well, and I've seen them done poorly. I tell you what, New Philly missions are on the up and up. We're not interested in creating welfare states and dependent nations. We want to see the power of Christ change lives, change communities, and let that transformation change nations. We have seen it happen in Korea! We seek to do ministry that is transformative and meets needs. We partner with NPWM, which is Native Partners for World Mission. NPWM has a network of local pastors all over Asia, so when we do missions, we aren't telling people the Good News and then leaving like, welp good luck! Jesus loves you... we gotta go, yo. That's not how we roll. When we share this glorious story, we are supporting local pastors and the work that they're doing long-term in the community. We might be a novelty with our white, black, and/or Korean faces, we might draw in the curious with the *newness* off it all, but at the end of the day it's not about us. It's not about what we do. It's about what God is doing in these lives. We are confident that He sees the least. What we do is to serve the King of all creation. He sees every person. He loves every person. He wants to use His followers to do good work for his creation. We get to partner in that. It's a big responsibility, one that we don't take lightly. We are able to love people and share the love that God has for them, then help them connect with local ministers that can usher them closer and closer to God through discipleship, into maturity in their faith. IT'S AWESOME. I love every bit!!
I’ve never received the missions training that I’m getting through New Philadelphia. Because of the power that we know we'll see, we have received specific ministry training, VBS training, body worship training (that means dance practice and it is so challenging and fun!), training for support raising (that means money. don't be scared...), training for fasting, for healing, for specific challenges that we might see in the field. This will be the most powerful mission trip I’ve ever been on! Our team is stacked with powerful people who love Jesus mightily and want to share the relationship we have with Him. We want to see broken people made whole. We want to see hurt people be healed. We want to see lost people become known. We want to see it all, and we know the only answer that lasts... is Jesus.
Jesus truly changes lives. I hope that you will catch and share my heart for this cause.
So I mentioned support raising, right? Can we park on that for a minute? In the spirit of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), we are called to go and make disciples, but we are also called to send (Rom. 10:14-15). There are 2 main ways that I'm talking about here. Please send me with prayer support, and please send me with financial support. I need both and I'm asking you for both. Yes you :)
1. Missions teams cannot go without prayer support.
My church is a BIG BIG BIG BIG force of prayer. God says to pray. We are God's house. We pray up and down, sideways, day after day, reminding each other to pray, gathering together to pray, staring meetings with prayer... do I need to say that prayer is a big thing? IT'S A BIG THING. So when it comes to missions, we pray hard. Every team member is covered. Every team member feels the covering. Crazy supernatural things happen that are only, only a result of prayer. God hears prayers. Please please join us. First and foremost, this blog post is an invitation to pray with me before, during, and after the trip. Prayer is essential to ministry!
If you want to pray for us specifically, please check the New Philly facebook page for prayer points every day! This missions season, we are sending out 12 missions teams over 4 different waves. Wave 1 returned recently, Wave 2 leaves in a week, Wave 3 leaves in a week and a half, and Wave 4 leaves on January 30!! THAT'S ME!!! I'm in Wave 4! Anyway, there will be updates and pictures of the different teams up on the facebook page. If you go to the page and pray for us, please "like" the prayer point that you prayed! This is very very very very encouraging to missionaries who come back, so we can see the prayers that have been prayed and answered! Again, check out https://www.facebook.com/newphilly and keep all the missions teams covered in prayer. THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE YOU THE END.
2. Missions teams cannot go without financial support.
Money. I know. It makes people uncomfortable. It also used to make me uncomfortable to ask for it. I had this mindset that I should pay my own way or, "well people should just give to the missions fund at church, then the church can fund the missions," but... God's been changing that mindset in me. Missionaries are ambassadors, not beggars. I love missions, I love the way God commands us to GO, get out there and talk about what He's done, but I never realized that it's important to let other people be part of that. Not everyone has time or the ability to go across the world to talk about Jesus. I am in a place in my life where I have time and I am physically able to go. But what if someone can't physically go to the mission field? What if they don't have vacation time? What if they have 10 kids and can't leave for a week? How can they be part of the Great Commission? They can live missionally, they can send missionaries, they can pray and they can fund.
It gives a whole 'nother level of responsibility to the ones being sent out. When I'm fasting and training and praying and preparing, I am extra mindful of the people who have sacrificed and paid into my personal mission fund. I have to be faithful to what God's called me to for His sake, yes, but also for the sake of the ones who have trusted me with their money for the Kingdom purposes. I can not, must not squander their investment. It's my job to be faithful to give them a good return on their investment. They're literally investing in the trip. They'll see fruit, they'll see photos of the great things God is preparing for us in Nepal!! It helps me prepare, knowing that I'm going to be held responsible for stewarding their money. It's a great responsibility.
SO, if you're still reading, hahaha, I am still raising financial support. My entire trip cost is around $1,700, so, if you can invest in the trip, I would gratefully receive your contribution. As I write this, I'm currently at 77% of my support raising for the trip. I was hoping to be at 85% by last Friday... help me out! I need about $380 to be fully funded.
To donate, please visit my support page here, and if I'm fully funded by the time you read this, maybe you'd like to support other members of my team by clicking here! By funding our team, you're giving a voice to the Gospel. God told us to tell everyone. People need to hear! Thank you for being part of that, and I'm not kidding when I say we take our responsibility seriously! We've worked very hard already and we're not even there yet. This. is. gonna. be. awesome. God is powerful and He can do all things!!
Thank you for your interest in our trip! If you have any questions, you know I'll be oh so happy to talk more about it with you! Shoot me an e-mail, text, facebook message, twitter DM, smoke signal, whatevs. I'm a big fan of Jesus, and I pretty much can't shut up about it.
I love you muchly. Thanks for reading :):)
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors,
as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
2 Corinthians 5:20
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