Prayer Requests

1. I have set up meetings with many people/organizations in Bangladesh and couple in India. My main goal for this trip is to find a 6-8 month paid internship with someone currently doing Business as Missions. I want to be mentored by a Godly man in what it looks like to minister to people through business; meeting needs both spiritually and physically. This will have life changing and far reaching ramifications.
2. I have seen and glimpsed poverty, but I don’t think I have seen it as wide spread and prevalent as I am about to see it. The average person in India and Bangladesh lives on less than $2 US per day. Pray for wisdom in how to deal with that mentally and practically as I meet beggars and people in need.
3. I have lined up meetings with a school, an orphanage, businessmen, missionaries and there will be more lining up of meetings once I’m on the ground. I will encounter encouragement, discouragement, wisdom, foolishness, good advice, horrible advice, and who knows what else. I know that He will teach me a lot by listening to and talking with those who have gone before me. Pray that I will have wisdom and discernment. Pray that I will ask good questions and be open to the things He has to teach me.
4. God has been good in providing sufficient work to where I can take this trip. and I'm very thankful for a few sponsors who also helped to make it possible. Praise God for providing everything I need.
5. Pray that I won’t be a sponge. It will be easy for me to make this trip about me and my future, but that is a very small clip in a much larger picture. Pray that I will overflow with His grace and be able to bless, challenge, and encourage those around me—both believers and non.
6. I met with a travel nurse last week and apparently there are a myriad of bugs, sicknesses, and diseases I could catch between the cities and jungles of South Asia. I have always been a strong healthy young man but she didn’t think that was enough to keep me from getting one of the dozens of words I haven’t seen before. I’m armed with malaria medicine, anti-diarrhea, and antibiotics. Pray that I won’t catch anything too incapacitating.
7. Pray overall that His will is accomplished in me and through me and that He will be glorified.

Stress and Grace

As I look at the next year I have no concrete plans of where I will be or what I will be doing. I have goals, vision, motivation, reasons, passions and pursuits. Where does that play out? How does that play out? Well I don’t know. Honestly, I think that should scare me or stress me out . . . but I’m quite ok with it for now. I know what I’d like to be doing, but it is going to take God lining things up and a lot of trusting and patience on my part. I am naturally a go getter. I set an objective and I go after it with all I have until it is achieved. In pursuing opportunities in Bangladesh this has led to me going over there for a survey trip. It’s been a long time of actively waiting. Limited to email and Skype, I have had to learn to wait on and trust God. I have some ideas, some hopes, and prayers about long-term opportunities that I want God to reveal to me in January . . . but once again I’m waiting—waiting to go, waiting to meet the opportunity, waiting for the next step, more waiting. Don’t get me wrong, the waiting is not passive by any means. I have learned active waiting. There are many things I can do and have done, but after I have talked to the boards, set up the meetings, read the books, attained the skills, and so on; I still have to wait on Him.
All that to say, I have learned more about trust than I have about stress. It is sweet place to know that as I wisely and passionately pursue the things He is passionate about, He will take care of me and He will guide me. While I trust Him, He is clearing the road before me; and though at times it may be really foggy or dark and I can’t see very far in front of me, He promises to be the light for my path and that is something that brings peace. By His grace I am where I am, and by His grace I will go where He takes me and I can hardly wait to see what that looks like. In the meantime I actively wait, I take comfort in His sovereignty, I read His word and I get to know my Savior better. This is my prayer for you all as well: Know Him, love Him, trust Him for He is good.

Asia Bound

This week I bought tickets. In January I'm finally going to Asia to see first hand what opportunities there are. As I think about the possibilities I must say I'm slightly intimidated. I don't think that I'm anxious. Paul tells us not to be anxious but rather to pursue things with prayer and supplication, but that intimidates me even more. I think one of the things that makes me uncomfortable is the idea of being uncomfortable. Despite fighting it, I think I have grown comfortable and complacent here. On a given day I know what to expect. I know who I will run into and converse with, I can choose to engage or avoid awkward and challenging situations, I feel like I am in control of things. As I pray and seek His will, and look at my deep desires as a believer I know there is so much more that He has for me. I know the desires He has for reaching the lost, helping the needy, and healing the hurting. I know that He is growing these things in my deepest desires and directing me to engage this work head on. As glorious and altruistic as that all sounds, when it comes down to it, these tasks are really messy and really hard. I wonder if I'm up to the challenge. I know that His grace is sufficient and that His strength will be my strength.

In one sense I have big expectations and am praying for specific things. He has placed this area of the world on my heart. He has placed a desire to meet people's physical needs through business. He wants to to use me to tell the lost and hurting that there is life and healing and fullness in Him. Why this part of the world? What city? What business? What partners? What local body of believers? How long? What is the next step? For now I know the next step is to pray and fast and seek Him. In January I'm adding to this going to seek out more answers in a few specific cities. I've seen God answer huge prayers before and I can't wait to see what he chooses to reveal in the next few months.