Travel Plans

We are heading back to India!!

I want to write the whole story. But words don't seem adequate as my heart is bursting. Tears come easily because the hugeness of what's happened to bring us to this point, and the ginormity of what we feel, sense, perceive, KNOW that God will do in the next 2 weeks and in our lifetime.

Marty and I are standing together with open arms.
Willing to let go of our 'present reality'.
Asking God to chose US!

And yet if we pause long enough to think what this could mean for our day to day lives, we sense that the "letting go" will more likely entail the Holy Spirit prying open our clenched fists and ripping out of our hands all the worldliness we cling to.

But that's okay.
We want to live transformed lives.
We are weary of just being 'Christians'.
I know that God's grace is enough; all we ever need.
We are N.O.T. saved by works.

But we've been hanging out with Jesus for a LONG time.
We love Him.

And it's about time we gave some of our life back to him.
It's time we got our hands dirty, our knees caked with muddy soil.
It's time we start laboring for the harvest of souls (Luke 10:2).
We've loved Jesus with our hearts and minds and now we want to love him our actions; with our sacrifice.

What does this look like?
We're not sure. And we don't care to know the details in advance.
We trust that our Creator has a plan.....
"to prosper us and not to harm us" (Jeremiah 29:11)
And that he has a work for us to do....
"that he prepared in advance" (Ephesians 2:10).

But for now it means that this Friday Marty and I will depart for Southern India (leaving behind our 3 amazing beautiful children) to spend 2 weeks with the Literacy Mission Center and my Great Aunt Esther. (I hope to write more about her when we return -- there is also a documentary in the works about her life) .

We **plan to become Trustees of the mission.
We have **plans to create a website.
And we have 10 year visas and **plan to return very soon.

But we know what the LORD says about our plans...

"In his heart a man plans his course,

but the LORD determines his steps." (Proverbs 16:9) and "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." (Proverbs 19:21)

We would be honored if you would pray for this trip.
For all the basic details that accompany a trip abroad and leaving behind small children.
But most importantly pray that we would be "living sacrifices" (Romans 12:1), bringing with us the aroma of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15); the truth of our Salvation in Jesus to the lost (Ephesians 1:13), and encouragement of fellowship to my Great Aunt, the Pastors and their families.

The scripture that God has stamped on our hearts as a theme for this trip is Philipians 2:3-5
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus..."