Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I Came to the Desert Alone


Sometimes life feels like you are walking in the desert. Alone. There are no two sets of footprints. Just yours. And you know that it is good. You have read the stories of the men and women of God who have gone before. You empathize with their struggles and trials. And yet, you desperately want to get to the end of the chapter. To see how God is going to turn things around to the amazing. To the more than you can ask or imagine. From the harm that the enemy wishes to do to the good that will save many others. Dezi and the family were able to drive down to Arizona for a weekend last month, and we took a day to visit the desert. The real one. It was good for the family to come together and see where God seems to be leading us. Overlooking the Phoenix area on top of South Mountain, the kids were reminded of Taipei and all the millions of people who still do not know Jesus. We all realized that though we may live in the desert for a time, we are living for something bigger. And we need to wait to see how the chapter unfolds. We don’t want it to end quite yet. We can’t write the story ourselves. We must wait. We must trust. And sometimes, trusting feels like... the desert.

We really are not alone though. If not for you, we couldn’t be on this journey. We want to know that you are amazing. That your giving to us is like a drink of cold water in arid places, like Phoenix. Well it’s a dry heat. But thank you. Really. We are still living two lives. Dezi is in Moberly and has put our house up for sale. She’s finishing up the last semester of teaching Chinese and allowing our kids to finish out their school year. I am adapting to working out of Christ’s Church of the Valley and learning… and being challenged to believe in something much larger. Every church is fully capable of winning the lost. CCV is an excellent model. We expect recruitment to increase just as soon as we all get to the desert together.