{"id":90,"date":"2014-07-25T10:10:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T15:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/psvoland\/?page_id=90"},"modified":"2016-12-22T02:13:14","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T08:13:14","slug":"how-did-we-get-here","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/psvoland\/how-did-we-get-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Our journey toward mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"IMG_2730\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our journey in ministry has been quite an adventure. \u00a0In many ways, the process has felt like a roller-coaster ride. After seminary graduation, we pursued several professional ministry paths, but God closed the door each time.\u00a0 We had envisioned Stephanie pasturing a local church and Phillip working part-time in ministry and staying home with our daughters.\u00a0 Needless to say, this didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Stephanie contacted a mission sending organization just\u00a0to see what they had to say. After missing the initial Skype appointment, we made another appointment and were taken with the thought of serving overseas.\u00a0 We were more than a little skeptical about various aspects of missions work, but we felt we must turn this rock over completely.\u00a0 We spent time in prayer discerning where we could offer our gifts and about a year into the process, but were eventually told that there were no openings for us to serve with this organization because of our age and lacked of formal ministry experience.\u00a0 Like so many other doors had done previously, this one was closing.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until our local church pastor advised us to pursue missions with the Evangelical Covenant Church that we found our home.\u00a0 We met with some of the directors and sensed God speaking to us about entering into the discernment process with the ECC. They had countless options for us to serve no matter what our ages were.\u00a0 We immediately started to complete paperwork and pray about this decision.\u00a0 We decided it was the right fit for our family and we moved forward.<\/p>\n

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While interviewing for a ministry position in Belgium, God confirmed the call to work in Western Europe. Our hearts became burdened for the church in this area of the world.\u00a0 However, the church in Belgium needed different gifts then we offered, so we parted ways.\u00a0 It seemed we had another closed door.\u00a0 It wasn’t until about seven months after returning from our trip and processing this experience, did we learn about the opening available for us with the Free Evangelical Church of Germany (FeG).<\/p>\n

Before we left for our vision trip to Belgium, a director from the FeG came to our home.\u00a0 He was visiting family in a nearby town and wanted to see if we might be a good fit for church-planting ministry in Germany.\u00a0 We shared\u00a0an immediate connection\u00a0with him and his wife and said to each another, “Wouldn\u2019t it be awesome to work with this organization, maybe someday down the road?\u201d\u00a0 God often has a funny sense of humor and uses everything we experience, even if we are not aware how the story will unfold.\u00a0 We eventually made the trip to Hamburg, Germany and shortly after, were offered an official invitation to serve with the FeG.\u00a0\u00a0 We are so grateful for this experience and can now see how useful every aspect of it was and will be.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0 Our journey in ministry has been quite an adventure. \u00a0In many ways, the process has felt like a roller-coaster ride. After seminary graduation, we pursued several professional ministry paths, but God closed the door each time.\u00a0 We had envisioned Stephanie pasturing a local church and Phillip working part-time in ministry and staying home with … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-90","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nOur journey toward mission - Two Hamburgers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/psvoland\/how-did-we-get-here\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our journey toward mission - Two Hamburgers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 Our journey in ministry has been quite an adventure. \u00a0In many ways, the process has felt like a roller-coaster ride. 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