Dear friends and supporters,
We are taking a break from our massive pre-trip
cleaning/packing/baking/car tune-up routine to bring you all with us on our next
journey! Lord willing, we will be leaving for Cottage Cove
to spend another summer ministering to faithful ministers of inner city
Nashville. The goal of this project is to renovate another section of the
facility, providing better opportunity for these children to learn, be loved,
and ultimately be introduced to faith in Christ. We will also be filling in
wherever there is need in the summer programming since they are facing a packed
summer short staffed! Please come along
with us whether it is in prayer for the work at Cottage Cove or perhaps
following God’s leading to join His work in a physical way. We are praising
God that we get to be together as a family for this trip and would cherish your
prayers as we seek to draw our children and each other closer to our Father in
the midst of leaving behind “normal” life for a while. We want to be fully
dependent on Him for strength and only display HIS power and provision through
us this summer.
Some of you may not have heard updates since our last newsletter…Joel
has been able to serve with teams in Liberia on the school project and in Kentucky
providing tornado relief. Both trips were successful and we continue to pray
for guidance as the need in both of these areas is vast. We also had a
wonderful opportunity to travel the midwest visiting our church families at
Gulfhaven Mennonite in Mississippi and Rockport Baptist in Missouri! It was an
honor to share in both of these places how God is working with Steppin-Out and
we were so refreshed and encouraged by the people we came across. It is always
amazing as we share our stories with others and likewise, hear theirs, to see
what God has done in our midst! As trips fly by and blur together it’s so easy
to lose sight of His amazing provision and blessing if we don’t make an effort
to recall them. We are so thankful for those of you we were able to fellowship
with and hope to be with more of you at some point in the future!
That about brings us up to date…with a lot of potty
training, homeschooling, frog catching and princess dances in between.J Today, as I write
this, we will be attending and Joel will be performing the wedding of some dear
friends that met on one of our projects in Guatemala two years ago! Yet again,
it is beautiful to see the hand of our generous God on the lives of His
children!
There is no way to describe the feeling of knowing that we
take each trip and each day for that matter riding on the prayers of all of you
who so faithfully lift us to our Father, who send us, and who love us with
Christ’s love. A lot has happened in the last month (personal to our church
family here) that has caused us to recognize our own inadequacies and to wonder
at how God could use us in our weakness.
Along with numerous other even greater questions involved, we couldn’t
see how plans for this summer would be possible. But our faithful God makes the
way for His work to be accomplished! He has so tenderly ministered to us and
those around us in ways we have never known. We’ve been learning to walk
constantly in His presence, turning every thought, every waking moment over to
conversing with and meditating on Him. We are far from there but just striving
for it and knowing that this is the kind of intimate relationship He wants with
us changes everything! He is a sovereign God who has so much happening in this
world! We’ll miss out if we can’t see just how much He desires ALL of our love
and just how much He wants to do great and mighty things through the humblest
of His creation. We pray that we will be counted in that number and pray the
same for all of you. We travel with you this summer and pray that the blessing
of His constant presence is heavy upon you at every moment.
By His Grace Alone,
Joel & Meg
