Alli and I had a yard sale a few weeks ago to sell all our remaining things that we couldn’t get rid of on Craigslist. We partnered with some friends of ours and we ended up having a TON of stuff between the three couples! The video posted below is a record of how it went. Hope you enjoy!!
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IN THIS ECONOMY!?!?!?
Yep, you heard me. Alli and I are preparing to leave our jobs at the end of April in order to prepare to leave for the mission field. After much anguish, groaning, and gnashing of teeth, we finally decided that it was time to take that next step of faith in our journey and step away from our jobs and a few inches closer to Latin America. Allison is turning in her one month’s notice tomorrow and I have turned in my notice to leave Nehemiah; my last day being May 8th.
eMi has suggested that it would be beneficial to me and Alli if we stepped away from our jobs about a month prior to leaving for Costa Rica as it will help us to “slow down” and begin preparing, more importantly, spiritually for the journey ahead. Alli and I are so busy with our day-to-day lives, that it seems that we barely have time to breath. Obviously, leaving our jobs behind also means leaving behind income. In light of this, and other reasons, we’ve decided to move out of our apartment at the end of April, having sold almost all that we own. The money made from selling our things here, will go towards purchasing furniture, utensils, etc. in Costa Rica. Having our clothes, small essentials, and sentimental items, we’ll then spend the remainder of our time in the States staying with family and friends. This will afford us the opportunity to spend good, quality time with everyone before we leave. We hope to make the move at the end of May, following some training required by eMi in mid-May.
As you can imagine, this is an exciting time, but a scary one as well. On one hand, we are quite excited to be making yet another step towards fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives. On the other hand, it is still quite scary to leave behind our comfort, security, and suredness of our home and the income that God has so graciously blessed us with. I guess this is “where the rubber meets the road”. I must say it is nice to finally get some traction!
We want all of you who are on our Ministry Support Team to know that we take comfort in knowing that you are there for us and that you will be praying for us during this leg of the journey. Change can be dificult at times and we covet your prayers for us during this time. Pray for those who will be housing us for the coming month of May; that we would be a blessing to them, not a bother or hindrance; and that God would bless this time with family. Pray that it would be fruitful and that God would comfort the hearts of our families. Please let us know how you are doing as well. We want to be “plugged in” with you as well!
“Therefore, be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. 8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
- 1 Peter 4:7 & 8
We love you all!!!!
Okay, so I was reading in the book of Matthew the other day and I ran across the passage between Matt. 25: 14-30. In this passage, you’ll find the age-old story of the three servants who were all given talents by their master. As is common among Bible-belters like myself, “glossing” over this passage with your eyes in lieu of actually reading it with your mind is very easy to do. But, in one of those holy-spirit-saying-holdup moments, God introduced me to an aspect of this parable that had never occurred to me back in those felt-board Sunday School days.
Yes, this parable can have some value in those church financial seminars (even more so in these economic times). This time, however, it took on a whole new meaning. Sure, the master gave the three servants differing amounts of talents. But, what I had missed noticing were the attitudes and hearts of the servants. The two who recieved more talents than the third immediately ran out and “invested” the talents and gained a return. I think these two can fairly be described as “eager to please their master”. In fact, in verse 20 you can almost hear the childish excitement in the first servant’s voice when he says, “Master’, he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.”
Notice the third servant’s heart. Out of fear of losing the one talent that had been entrusted to him, he simply buries it in the ground. Its this motivation of fear that ultimately brings the master to say, “You wicked, lazy servant!”
I pray that you and I would motivated, not out of fear of losing or fear of being put to shame, but out of excitement and gratitude that the Master has entrusted to us a responsibility in serving Him. What would the master have said to the third servant if he’d lost the only talent that had been entrusted to him, you say? I’d like to think that the Master would have been pleased that, out of a pure heart of love and service, we’d lost it all in our attempts to bring glory to Him.
“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”
- Peter 4:10
Hey guys! Just a quick update on where we are with raising living expenses for the mission field:
We appreciate any help you might be able to give!!!
For the King,
Josh & Alli
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord[…]
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
- Ephesians 5
In sunday school this morning, we revisited the oft quoted and much maligned verses from Ephesians addressing the wives’ submission to their husbands. For the world it sounds ridiculous. For wives who follow Christ, it sounds difficult, unfruitful, not worth it, nearly impossible. In a singularly monumental moment, a flash of brilliance, a record-scratching, tire-squealing-to-a-halt moment, God spoke to me:
Why is it so hard for wives to submit to their husbands? You can pontificate all you want about the causes, but I know this to be true: We, as men, followers of Christ, the supposed “spiritual leader of the home and family”, we sure don’t make it easy on them. As a matter of fact, very seldom do we exhibit anything trustworthy….worthy of their submission!
You want a New Year’s resolution? Join me in striving to become a husband who is, at the very least, easier to submit to.
i’m so tired of fake
when the flags of fake fly
the colors needed to cover them are brighter by far
where did real go?
why must it be so skittish,
so hard to find,
yet so simple an idea?
God only comes in the real
so what does that mean for a manufactured world?
We like to think that our “reality” is so different from our God…so detached. But. What if. What if God is so real and our reality is so fake, that we miss Him? What if, instead of being spiritually blind, we are truly blind? How much of the idea being discussed do we miss while listening to Spanish radio? How much of God do we miss while listening and viewing our phony world? Why does it feel like I just popped into my favorite movie when I catch a glimpse of real? They only come on ever so often, it seems. I miss real like I miss home.
it rises from within
no power can defeat it
no faction can arrest it
the very rumor of it makes them tremble,
for they cannot squelch it
they cannot destroy it
it blooms from somewhere deep
the sensation presses upward
choking out the weeds of words
even the crowds of noise
when singing can no longer drown
the love it shine forth
that feeling we speak of
is as simple as God
yet as complex as love
as safe as father
as dangerous as warfare
even still, evil powers tremble
within us all, Christ’s power compels
compels and inspires this uprising…rising up.
Taken from my journal - June 3, 2004 (but crazy relevant for today):
The Lord has been showing me more and more in Ephesians as I study it. In Eph. 2:11-22, Paul speaks of the peace we have in this world. He points out that the law cannot bring peace. It never was meant to bring peace among men. Christ himself is our peace. What an awesome promise!! To know that our peace is not at all dependent upon the decisions of our world’s leaders or the successes of an army. Ultimate peace is found in the God-man Jesus Christ.
I pulled down an old Bible off the shelf tonight and began thumbing through it. As I opened the pages that had seemed to be sealed for centuries, the smell of an old library permeated the room; you know the smell: that sweet funk of your old elementary school library that you only stepped foot in on “Reading Day” to pick out your favorite “Clifford the Big Red Dog” booklet. I quickly flipped to the torn pages of notebook paper and spiral bound shreds of scrap my grandmother had scrawled her notes on. Inside her Bible were the remnants of lessons learned and lessons taught, trails of late night pursuits of God and early morning strolls through the Garden. One page that fell in my lap all too conveniently had, in elderly handwriting, a list of “sayin’s” she’d heard or invented over the years to better teach and understand those biblical concepts she read. I thought I’d post a few below for you:
“God never promised it would be easy. But He did promise it would be worth it.”
“Acceptance is a big word, but a very important one.”
“Knowing something is wrong and doing nothing is worse than doing the deed.”
“It takes a few clouds to make a beautiful sunset.”
And mixed in among grocery lists, recipes, balanced (or unbalanced) budgets, and phone numbers was the following line:
“You can’t do anything about the past. But you sure can ruin today by worrying about tommorrow.”
