Hi everybody!
So it has been quite awhile since we have blogged, but don't worry, we are still alive! It has been a very busy last couple of weeks, so just to catch up, we will give y'all a giant overload of what has been going on! This way, you will get the whole picture of what we have been learning, experiencing, and praying through! So here it goes....
Early in October, we were blessed with the opportunity to meet George Patterson! He is a church planting guru who has been all over the world, and has witnessed many church planting movements. He inspired us to take the lives of Jesus and his disciples seriously. So when Jesus said "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." This is just incredible. Jesus gives us the command to go to all nations and share what we know about Jesus, not by ourselves... but with the presence of the Lord! I think Jesus knows this seems easier said than done...which is why he said, "Be sure of this: I am with you always." This isn't as hard as we sometimes make it, if we truly realize that the Holy Spirit is with us, all the time. Period. We learned how to simplify church, and strip the message of Jesus from the westerern ideas we have attached to it, therefore making it possible for Jesus to speak to ALL cultures! Not just ours! I would love to explain this more, but I could write 3 pages easily on what I learned from Mr. George. I would encourage you to find a book of his!
After George Patterson's class, we came back to Texas for our best friends wedding (which was AWESOME by the way! We love you Mr. and Mrs. Linville :-))! It was a crazy weekend filled with celebration, engagement photos and catching up with our awesome friends and family!! It was great to get rejuvenated and now we are ready to get planning for our outreach to Cambodia! Woo Hoo!
Right now, we are probably in the most intense part of the program! We are finishing up Elijah House (woo hoo, only three more sessions to go), working on individual Missionary Biography Devos (each week, one of us researches the life of a missionary and facilitates a devotional), doing a group book report on the Ragamuffin Gospel (SUCH a good book, I recommend it for all the people like us who are coming out of legalism and the people pleasing disease), continuing CHE (a program that works to help communities world-wide by meeting their spiritual, physical, and emotional health needs), learning the Khmere language (10, 2 hour sessions for 5 weeks), learning the basics to linguistics, preparing and forming partnership teams for our adventure to Cambodia, and planning a wedding! Woo Hoo! Very many exciting things going on, huh!?
Speaking of Cambodia, we have some exciting news! Last Wednesday, we had a Cambodia team meeting with Jonie Wise (All Nations church planter in Phnom Penh, Cambodia), where we learned more about what we will be doing, and the opportunities that we will have. Meghan will be able to work with young girls that are at risk for human trafficking. This will give her the opportunity to use her skills to teach the girls the trade of hairstyling, while also developing deep relationships! Chris will be able to work on the prospect of starting an actual hairstyling school for these girls to attend, and also start a mentoring project for the young boys. We are so excited about the amazing opportunities that God has put in front of us.
So, as you can see, there is a LOT going on up here in KC! We have more to update you on, but figured we can just blog later this week about other details! Thank you all for your prayers, support and love! Have a great week!
Love
Chris and Meghan
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Give us more Jesus!
Hello All!!
I hope you are doing well! Once again, sorry for being slackers as far as updating our blog, but we are getting the hang of it! Promise. Since we last updated, lots has been going on. We have been catching up on Elijah house 6 hours/week and will be done next week! Yay. It has been such an AWESOME experience, and God has used the course greatly to encourage our faith, show us what all he has done in us already, and how he is promising to do even more! I was pretty intimidated about Elijah house before we started, I mean, its kind of scary to think that your going to rummage around in your closet and tackle the skeletons head on! But, God is faithful, that is for sure. In the past 3 weeks, God has set us free in many ways. Sometimes I think I really underestimate the Lord. Yes, God is mighty and sovereign...but my troubles and wounds are too deep for him?!? No way, lies lies lies. So, for you that have found yourself in the same boat, there is certainly hope. Tremendous hope. God is teaching (Notice I didn't put "taught"...because it is an ongoing process of course) me to forgive even when it means possibly getting hurt again. He is teaching me to: quit the performance mentality, quit picking up other peoples burdens for them, but instead walk beside them...if the Lord asks me to, how to pray and listen to people while God does the work.
So most of the above stuff has been in addition to normal class, which has been packed, and way awesome! In the past two weeks, we have covered many things including: how to form Partnership teams (a core group of people who want to be a part of what we are passionate about and what we are doing overseas), how to be able to tell our personal stories, and stories from the bible in a way that can be contexualized in every culture, more about the Church Planting Movements going on around the Globe (I reccommend the book that has more info "Church Planting Movements" by David Garrison), more about how Community Health Evangelists provide organic ways of spreading the gospel, while maintaining, improving, and preventing all forms of health issues. This has been particularly encouraging to me because when I see needs both physically and spiritually, I have found it hard to balance both. This is an awesome method! So...there is class time in a nutshell. :-)
As far as what we have been learning outside of the classroom, we have been hanging out on UMKC campus, just meeting and praying for students, and we also went through the "Village Experience" last weekend Sept. 26 & 27. Being on UMKC campus has been fun because I can remember how it way to be a student, and how nice it would have been if someone just came up to me and said, "hey how are you? Is there anything I can pray for you about?" I mean, most of the time I have thought of this to be pushy, but honestly, its just a blessing. Im not pushing my faith on anybody, I am simply asking if they would like to be prayed for and loved on? This has been an awesome new perspective for me!! As far as the Village Experience...it was mind blowing, and awesome. I can't share a whole lot because it is a simulation program that equips and prepares people for what they might encouter on the mission field, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody!! :-) Lets just say that we walked...A LOT, we're confused A LOT, accidently got converted to a fake religion, and by the end of it, we were ready for a hot bath and a cozy bed! This experience opened my eyes so much to the different cultures around the world, and why the presence of the Holy Spirit is SO important :-). So what can I say, we are learning A LOT! But mostly, we are learning more about who Jesus is, and how he views his people and his body/church! Great stuff!
As far as our location for outreach...WE ARE GOING TO CAMBODIA!! Yay! So far our team consists of a family of four originally from Australia; Joe and Sue (the parents) and David and Anna (the awesome teenagers) and possibly Gabi who is from Germany. We will be working with All Nations long time Church Planter, Joni. She is an awesome woman and I can't wait to learn from her for 3 months! Oh..and did I mention that me and Chris will be married? :-). Yup! We are having a small party (some like to call it a wedding ;-P) to celebrate what the Lord has done in and through us in November! So of course, all prayers are greatly appreciated in this awesome time of transition and newness!
So I hope that you now feel like you are getting in on a little bit of what we are learning, and if you want to know more references on some of the topics, or just ask question about anything, feel free to comment, facebook or email us (thejourneykc@gmail.com) We are praying for everyone this week and if anybody has any specific prayer or support needs, please let us know! We want to know about ya'll too! :-) We love you and hope your weekend is blessed! Thank you for all of your encouragement, support, and prayers!
Love you lots
Meghan
I hope you are doing well! Once again, sorry for being slackers as far as updating our blog, but we are getting the hang of it! Promise. Since we last updated, lots has been going on. We have been catching up on Elijah house 6 hours/week and will be done next week! Yay. It has been such an AWESOME experience, and God has used the course greatly to encourage our faith, show us what all he has done in us already, and how he is promising to do even more! I was pretty intimidated about Elijah house before we started, I mean, its kind of scary to think that your going to rummage around in your closet and tackle the skeletons head on! But, God is faithful, that is for sure. In the past 3 weeks, God has set us free in many ways. Sometimes I think I really underestimate the Lord. Yes, God is mighty and sovereign...but my troubles and wounds are too deep for him?!? No way, lies lies lies. So, for you that have found yourself in the same boat, there is certainly hope. Tremendous hope. God is teaching (Notice I didn't put "taught"...because it is an ongoing process of course) me to forgive even when it means possibly getting hurt again. He is teaching me to: quit the performance mentality, quit picking up other peoples burdens for them, but instead walk beside them...if the Lord asks me to, how to pray and listen to people while God does the work.
So most of the above stuff has been in addition to normal class, which has been packed, and way awesome! In the past two weeks, we have covered many things including: how to form Partnership teams (a core group of people who want to be a part of what we are passionate about and what we are doing overseas), how to be able to tell our personal stories, and stories from the bible in a way that can be contexualized in every culture, more about the Church Planting Movements going on around the Globe (I reccommend the book that has more info "Church Planting Movements" by David Garrison), more about how Community Health Evangelists provide organic ways of spreading the gospel, while maintaining, improving, and preventing all forms of health issues. This has been particularly encouraging to me because when I see needs both physically and spiritually, I have found it hard to balance both. This is an awesome method! So...there is class time in a nutshell. :-)
As far as what we have been learning outside of the classroom, we have been hanging out on UMKC campus, just meeting and praying for students, and we also went through the "Village Experience" last weekend Sept. 26 & 27. Being on UMKC campus has been fun because I can remember how it way to be a student, and how nice it would have been if someone just came up to me and said, "hey how are you? Is there anything I can pray for you about?" I mean, most of the time I have thought of this to be pushy, but honestly, its just a blessing. Im not pushing my faith on anybody, I am simply asking if they would like to be prayed for and loved on? This has been an awesome new perspective for me!! As far as the Village Experience...it was mind blowing, and awesome. I can't share a whole lot because it is a simulation program that equips and prepares people for what they might encouter on the mission field, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody!! :-) Lets just say that we walked...A LOT, we're confused A LOT, accidently got converted to a fake religion, and by the end of it, we were ready for a hot bath and a cozy bed! This experience opened my eyes so much to the different cultures around the world, and why the presence of the Holy Spirit is SO important :-). So what can I say, we are learning A LOT! But mostly, we are learning more about who Jesus is, and how he views his people and his body/church! Great stuff!
As far as our location for outreach...WE ARE GOING TO CAMBODIA!! Yay! So far our team consists of a family of four originally from Australia; Joe and Sue (the parents) and David and Anna (the awesome teenagers) and possibly Gabi who is from Germany. We will be working with All Nations long time Church Planter, Joni. She is an awesome woman and I can't wait to learn from her for 3 months! Oh..and did I mention that me and Chris will be married? :-). Yup! We are having a small party (some like to call it a wedding ;-P) to celebrate what the Lord has done in and through us in November! So of course, all prayers are greatly appreciated in this awesome time of transition and newness!
So I hope that you now feel like you are getting in on a little bit of what we are learning, and if you want to know more references on some of the topics, or just ask question about anything, feel free to comment, facebook or email us (thejourneykc@gmail.com) We are praying for everyone this week and if anybody has any specific prayer or support needs, please let us know! We want to know about ya'll too! :-) We love you and hope your weekend is blessed! Thank you for all of your encouragement, support, and prayers!
Love you lots
Meghan
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