Mission Preparations through Denese’s Eyes

Mission preparations…fund raising, vaccinations, international driver’s licenses, visa applications, travel arrangements, culling 23 years’ worth of stuff…what do we take, what do we give away?  So much focus on earthly things, when I want my focus to be on God alone.  Even when I am praying or reading my Bible, too often my thoughts drift away to things that need to be done. I knew mission preparation would be difficult, but I never thought it would make me focus so much on temporal things.  In the beginning of our preparations, it was very refreshing and uplifting to let go of material things, now it is just plain work, one more task to complete.

 

We are about a week away from moving out of our home.  I look forward to it with great anticipation!  To finally be free from all of our stuff!  I know we still have more preparations in the last few weeks before we leave.  Even when we get to Ghana there will be so much to do, so much to learn just to survive, but I am looking forward to the time when my focus can be more on ministry and less on logistics.

Even as I complain about wanting to keep my focus on God, He is stepping in and giving me refreshment for my soul.  Powerful prayer meetings at church, Bible studies with friends, awesome worship services all allow me to refocus on God and forget earthly things, even if only for a while.  God is also using those precious moments to strengthen my shield of faith against the enemy’s barrage of fiery arrows, and the arrows truly are fiery.  That imagery was never as poignant as it is now as we leave behind our children, our parents and all their problems and needs…those jumbled up feelings of obligation to our family trying to compete with our allegiance and obedience to God.  Satan knows his warfare well.  He knows just how to attack the tenderest part of our heart.  God is greater, though, than anything we face and He is our strength, our refuge, our joy.

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Philippians 3:7-14

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

May God richly bless all of you and place His hedge of protection around you.  May He fill you with His joy and may it be your strength. Thank you for praying for us and loving us.  We love you all so much!