Ready, set, go!

Our Lifegroup members prayed for us in the church lobby

Send off day!

Well we just went to church and feel completely energized. There was a full choir leading in worship was exceptional, completely and totally God directed. One song was especially fitting as it talked about how ALL that we are comes from and belongs to God: we belong to Him and we go where He wants us to. What a great encouragement it was to have members from both our Lifegroups gather around and send us off with prayer. This is the spirit in which we depart today for South Africa. We are His servants.

Here is a short list of things to pray about:

• God's protection and traveling mercies, that somehow the trip would seem short to us, and that we would arrive full of energy without the effects of jet lag.
• For Josiah while we are away.  He is 18 and looking forward to this independent two weeks.  Pray for his protection (and that he not burn the house down :)
• That we would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, always looking for God's divine appointments and not worrying about fulfilling our own agenda.
• For wisdom,discernment, clarity of thought and God's specific leading in every situation.

Big Bad Bug Barbecue

Just for fun!

A friend tipped me off on this video, I love the comment "the losers will be eaten." Anybody want to come to South Africa with us?

Preparing for South Africa

See Craig's Facebook Profile

Preparing for South Africa... I guess everyone has their own way of preparing for a short term mission. Kellie has read a couple of books about South African culture. Me, I 'm reading about how the gospel first arrived in Africa. No it wasn't from Western missionaries with colonialist views, rather it arrived in the first century. Wow, the Christian tradition in Africa is as old as anywhere else... As old or older than Rome and the Greek church.

In fact, while Africa is a big continent, in the Nile valley and the Maghreb the gospel was quite extensive since the first half of the first century. The contributions to Christian thought are quite impressive from Africa. “The concept of the European university was conceived there, with Origen the exegesis of Scripture matured, the language of the Trinity was fleshed out, the councilor patterns for ecumenical decisions used there was adopted by the northern church.”

Maybe there are only a few erudite friends out there who will appreciate this but I find it fascinating...

"There is, however, a precolonial African Christianity that does not depend on either Western or European sources. It is a rich and thoroughly African written intellectual tradition of the highest quality."

Shared on February 22nd, 2011 from Kindle

How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity

by Thomas C. Oden

What in the world???

Read this this morning: ^{Acts 15:36} Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”

As many of you know, Kellie and I were missionaries in Venezuela for 16 years, we've been back in the states for about 8 years, yes 8... - If you didn't know that then we need to seriously reconnect - I read the above verse today and it reminded me of the wonderful friends we left behind. Some we are in contact with via facebook etc. others we don't know about. It's always been my wish to return to Venezuela just to "see how they are doing." But here we are, getting ready to go out to South Africa, what's the deal? We sense that we are in the middle of God's will at this point of our lives and we are excited to go to a new place, make new friends and have new experiences. But, our other desire is to return to the beautiful country of Venezuela to reconnect with wonderful believers and just see...

Maybe next trip...

Hear We Go! Date of Departure Feb 27th

Ubuntu, is a local expression that mean's that we are not isolated individuals and that our lives are intricately woven into the lives of others. The actual practice is purely cultural, however the fundamental idea is very close to what we know about the Body of Christ, we need each other!

This is the motivation of our trip to South Africa. We don't consider ourselves the "pros" intending to show the South African pastors how it "should" be done, rather we all have something to give to each other. Thanks for partnering with us on this excursion, it's going to be something great!