We are in the Land! This will be short as I’m past curfew and must get up in 6 hours, but I wanted to throw up a quick update on the scene here. Today was an arrival day so we spent much of the day in airports. Kara and I didn’t get more than an hour sleep last night between the plane trips, but we had a lovely cappuccino and pastry in the Roman airport! The Texas crew was there before we were and so we all headed back to the hostel. I was asked to drive and so a new car and we began driving back. I didn’t know the way, and foolishly allowed someone to get between our leader’s car and mine. Then several more got in front of him, and I was quickly lost thinking that our leader had exited when he had not. So our car spent an hour or more trying to find the hostel (from my memory of two years ago when I was not a driver) and then got the call from David to head back to the airport. We all met up there and are all back (most of us asleep already).
Israel has now had all the world turn against her. Of course the Bible says that this would be so, but it was sad to see in the last week or two that the President of the United States who has stood beside Israel and been incredibly blessed most of his last century and the Pope both calling for Israel to give away the land that God has decreed is theirs. What right do they have to give away what God has declared is theirs?
So a theme of this trip that we would love your prayer for is that the Lord will empower us to bring HOPE to this people who have the whole world against them. As a microcosm of this, our leaders tell us that already some plans are changing because a congregation that we planned to rely on for support is facing a lot of difficulties, so we will look to aid them as the Lord calls. Please pray that we are a blessing to those He calls us to. That our hearts would move as His heart moves (not as it might be conditioned to by our experience and life) and that we will be used as a pure vessel to freely and boldly speak His Truth (not some prepared words.)
Finally, I believe I’m going to try to write these reports a little differently than I have in the past. I’m afraid it will make for slightly less interesting stories, but I hope they will be made more powerful by bringing the focus to God and not the team member. I’m particularly thinking about myself. I live in this body that types these words and see the world from my perspective. I’m thinking about doing my best to take myself out of these stories by telling them without the names of those involved. I imagine some stories will be of ways that God is using me. Others will involve other team members, but I’m thinking of doing all this without using names (or perhaps I’ll use made up names?). I’m not sure, but I’m wondering…as the Holy Spirit works to bring Glory to Messiah anonymously, can these stories be written in just that way? do you have any ideas on how this can be done? Would love to hear them. Thanks!