Connections

I was up most of the night Saturday because it finally hit me that we are leaving in 2 weeks! As of today, we have 13 days left in NWA, I will be honest, that makes me a bit anxious. I have been so focused on my "to-do" list, that I have not given much thought to our departure and now I keep thinking about all of our family and friends that I am going to miss.

I know this is what God has called our family to do, there are too many things that have come together for it not to be His hands making the plans. He continues to reveal himself to me and Tim, and is really taking us on a journey down memory lane.

This weekend, we went to Geyer Springs FBC in Little Rock who has agreed to be a prayer partner with us. Our connection there is a couple who used to go to FBCR and are graciously letting us live in there house right now. As we were talking with their class, we met an Aggie, a woman whose brother is a missionary in Turkey (used to live in Africa), a woman who is dear friends with one of the pastors of our church here in NWA and a family who has adopted. Connections, the Lord is the Master of connecting His people!

We also discovered that the owner of the agency we used to adopt Nathan is a part of the congregation. It is amazing to me, when God reveals a part of His plan to me. Plans that are greater than I could ever imagine. We thought our relationship with the adoption agency was all about Nathan, but God is using it as He sends us overseas also!

Everyday, I have been amazed by the Lord's hand in our journey. Part of our assignment before training was to gather prayer support. Prayer is vital to our success overseas as satan certainly does not want the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be shared with the world. We know that we will be attacked in many ways, we can see it happening already in small things. So as we were trying to figure out 5 SBC churches that we could contact, Tim and I honestly were drawing a blank. We did not know who to contact but names of friends and family quickly started coming to mind and we made a list.

As we started contacting friends, connections started happening...amazing connections. In Alabama, we contacted my sister-in-laws parents, whom I have known for about 20 years (they were at our wedding). They graciously agreed to speak with their pastor but also mentioned a dear friend who pastors a church nearby that was a missionary for 10 years, and part of that time was in Kenya!

Locally, our pastor contacted several churches for us, including FBC Centerton, which is across the street from where we are living right now. They graciously agreed to partner with us and have a passion for missions and Africa, they have a trip already scheduled to Kenya in the summer of 2012!

Another dear friend at our church reminded me that her father is a pastor at a church in Texas and he agreed to be our partner, we look forward to meeting him and his church family when we return to the States.

So something that started out as a huge task, really an overwhelming task for Tim and I, has turned out to be an amazing display of God's glory. He has connected His people in so many different ways and I am looking forward to seeing how he uses these connections in the future.