Quickly Moving Forward!

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this:  He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn.”  Psalm 37:5-6

Our training is going along quickly and well.  The team is working beautifully together.    There is quite a bit of reading to do during this training and, fortunately, it is all very interesting and informative.  While we would not presume to completely understand the Chinese culture, we have some excellent materials that will help us to connect better with our Chinese sisters and brothers.

 

The talks are progressing and they promise to be excellent and helpful.  Some of the topics include “Parenting with a Purpose,” “The Lies We Believe,” “You Are Not Alone,” and “God Transforms Us Through Loss and Grief.”  Several other talks are being planned.

 

The team is busy raising funds for this mission.  The funding has been slow coming in but we are confident that our Lord will provide all that we need! 

 

Our beautiful prayer cards are ready to be dispersed.  The Chinese bookmarks and Scripture Blessings pamphlet are ready to pack to take to our friends in China.  EFCC’s Bill Fredrick has designed gorgeous materials for the Connecting with China ministry!

God has been faithful and close as we courageously step forward to serve Him in Beijing.  It is always a joy to see how God transforms each team member from the beginning of training and through the end of the mission. 

 

Serving our Lord in China is a life changing experience!

Mary Waring

  

Mary for the Team

 

 

 

 

Prayer and Scripture are Essential Training Tools!

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”
Philippians 4:13 NLT

A couple of surprising aspects of being on a short term mission is there is no lag time in team preparation and unexpected lessons are learned!  For example, once the team is formed, the calendar is set for meetings and deadlines are set for topics, study preparations, personal preparations, team building, support letters and travel.  The next four months are packed with responsibilities, studies, writing, team building and prayer, prayer, prayer!

After our second meeting, I calendared my commitments for blogging, teaching on One World Two Minds, the Cultural Revolution and my talk for the Chinese Women.  The next morning I woke up at 4am with great anxiety about not being adequate for the tasks ahead and desperate feelings of being overwhelmed.  God revealed to me that this was not from Him and I was under attack by Satan to slow me down and prevent me from doing effective work for Him.  He then reminded me of Philippians 4:13 and my true responsibility was to rely on Him for the infilling of all that I am committed to teach and write about!  Whew! This was an intense lesson which God turned into a rich blessing.  Now, when a whisper of inadequacy comes, I turn in prayer to Philippians 4:13 as my truth and am able to dismiss the lie.  Praise God!

Another lesson I am learning is about the blessings involved in asking and receiving support for our mission.  I am gaining a deeper understanding that there are many of you who care about the Chinese women and since you can’t go in person, you truly want to support us in prayer and when possible with financial support.  You want to be a blessing by being our team “on the ground” here at home.  You are important in making this mission a reality that glorifies God!  Thank you and it is my joy and the team’s joy to be able to share our mission with you.

God bless you richly,

Linda for the team