We are headed off next week for a 3 ½ month Home Assignment – a concentrated time of connecting/interacting with Prayer, Support, and Ministry partnership churches and individuals in the U.S. We will begin our time in Texas, move on to California, spend Holy Week in ministry in Mexico, spend time in Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Maine, and pass through Florida on our return to Colombia in early July. Right before we leave Mary Lou will be vested and Consecrated as a Long Term Missionary at the ECC Annual Meeting. So we have a full schedule and agenda before us during these next few months.
We have many friends and acquaintances and family that we look forward to spending time with. We know that we will meet many new faces and people and friends as we move around. We also will have many opportunities to fulfill and experience Matthew’s words in the 18th chapter of his gospel, when he says, “19 Whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.”
Home Assignment is full of times when two or three or four are together and we are there with them and are a part of them. It happens in homes where we stay, in happens before and after ministry group gatherings, and home groups, and Worship services where we are sharing. It happens during meals that are shared. Our focus and our hope is that those times of coming together will be done in Jesus’ name and there will be a real understanding of what is happening as we “come together”. We hope that we are not just two more individuals, two more missionaries, who are traveling around and meeting people and fulfilling expectations and speaking and telling stories and showing pictures. We hope to learn from all those that we encounter and have our eyes and hearts opened to the challenges that they are facing in the world where they live and breathe. We know about our part of the world where we live and breathe and we want to share about that, but not necessarily just to inform, but, rather, to look for ways to “come together” with those that we are with.
The world population has surpassed 7.3 billion people as of this week. That is a lot of individuals. Our hope, as we spend these next few months, meeting with people that we don’t normally meet with, that we will be a participant with some of the 7.3 billion “coming together in agreement in Jesus’ name”. We don’t want it to be just an “us” and “them”, we want it to be a “we”.
