Building People

One of the things I do the most here is to equip, empower, and encourage people into their calling. Whether it's with the St. Mark's Worship Team, working with university students around the region, or in AGI's School of Advanced Leadership Training God has positioned us to build people up.

Something that I see more clearly with every step is that the key to building the Kingdom of God is to build people. My temptation (particularly as an American) is to put my energy into building systems. However, I'm constantly reminded that Jesus' primary concern was people.

Here's a few things I see in how Jesus walked with the disciples...

• The VAST majority of Jesus' time was spend living life directly alongside his disciples. People over tasks.
• He did not equip His followers simply to be good inviters to events. He equipped them to go to where the people were. He prepared them to do the ministry of prayer, witness, and discipleship in normal, mainstream life.
• To our eyes, He took a HUGE gamble leaving the disciples with the mission to build the Kingdom of God. Most leaders (including myself) would never have released the ministry to disciples at that moment.

The key, according to Jesus' efforts and priorities, are people. People taking up the responsibility to "go unto all the world and make disciples." People stepping into the call of the priesthood of all believers. Systems and organizations aren't bad. Sometimes, they're necessary. However, first and foremost, our priority must always be building individuals, who will then build individuals, who will then build individuals, who will then build individuals...

Jesus model of evangelism was multiplication through discipleship, being in mainstream society, and meeting people's needs. When I build teams in whatever context, this is my aim.

The Final Countdown

We are officially 36 weeks along in pregnancy. Only a month to go until our world is completely rocked...again! Thanks to everyone who knew about my hip pain and prayed. I was having difficulty walking (even across the room) in spite of all I was trying to do. God started working a miracle before I was able to see the physical therapist. Within a few days, I was back to normal and able to do all of my regular activities. Praise God! In most pregnancies, pain like this does not just disappear. 

It is definitely different this time around. We are way more tired and a bit overwhelmed at what we know is coming. However, because we know what it is like to love our first born, we are so excited for the additional love on the way. My due date is June 19th. The bag is packed and the tentative plan is in place for the logistics of the big day! My mom, Roxanne, arrived yesterday and will be here until early July. She will pass the grandmother baton to Blake's mom, Suzanne, who will arrive at the end of June and stay until mid July. We are so thankful that our family is able to be close to us during this exciting and exhausting time. 

Please be in prayer for myself and baby - for a healthy rest of the pregnancy and smooth delivery. Please also pray for Blake and Eden to get good rest, bonding time, and are ready for our new little guy. Lastly, if anyone is in the mood to somehow air mail me some Chick fil a or a snowball (for everyone not in the South - snow cone), that would be the most awesome thing ever. 

Waiting For Our Visa

We've had SO many people asking us about our visa situation. Just to let you know, we have not heard anything back from Immigration. Our visas officially expired yesterday. Here's the good news...this is exactly what happened last year (minus the initial rejection). 

How it went down in 2015:

• We sent our request to reapply in February. 
• As our expiration date approached I emailed and called everyone I could in immigration. (It's surprisingly difficult to contact them.) They all said the same thing. "Your documents are being processed. There's nothing you can do. Just wait until you hear back."
• We finally got the reply approving our request one week after our visas expired. 

I'll be honest with you. I thought our visa expired a few days from now, so I didn't do any preemptive communication to immigration. Taking into account their response from last year, I think we're fine. Here's why we're not worried.

• God is in control.
• When we got rejected in February of this year the reply letter came within two weeks. We have now been waiting well over two months since we sent our appeal letter.
• We received a letter a few weeks ago from immigration saying they received our docs and they will be reviewed. We received the same letter last year and were approved a month or two later.

We will let you know as soon as we hear back from immigration regarding our visa. We hope it's sooner rather than later, but either way, we trust God. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support, specifically in this area.

Some days it feels scary. Some days we're not worried. Everyday, regardless of how we feel, God is in control.