We choose to fight!

1 Timothy 6:11-12

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Paul wrote a letter to Timothy to encourage him to flee away from false teaching and the love of money (amongst other things earlier in the letter). Even though these words were written centuries ago, God still uses them today to encourage the rest of us to continue on. Human nature hasn't changed much since those days. People are still greedy when it comes to possessions, money and trying to figure out life apart from Christ.

Why are we writing about this? As we get closer to the Technical Evaluation date for Mission Aviation Fellowship and start to whittle down our bible classes, medical checks, flight prep requirements and everything else that needs to get done; other things are popping up to try to discourage us from our calling and moving forward. Which is to be expected because the closer you get and the further you get to serving God, the enemy will fight THAT MUCH harder to discourage you and try to get you not to serve.

So... after being discouraged for a few days and questioning everything, we choose to fight. We believe that God has called us to use our abilities in aviation/computers and teaching in some arena for Him. Right now we are pursuing missions because we both feel this is the direction God is calling our family. We are content whatever the outcome of the tech eval because we know that if God tells us that MAF is not the route to go, we'll pray and search out where he wants us to use our talents. Just because He closes a door, doesn't mean he can't open others. We just faithfully fight for what we feel called to do and press on (See Phillipians 3:14) towards Christ no matter what things come our way that try to discourage us so that Christ be glorified through our faith.

We encourage all of you to keep fighting the good fight for what you feel called to do no matter what the enemy throws at you. Nothing is more important that serving Christ. Nothing. Reminds us of a saying we hear moms say from time to time,"I put you in this world, I can take you out!" While this is said in jest, it's really true when you think about it from Christ's angle. God brought us into this world, He can and will take us out. When that happens is determined by Him. So in the mean time it's very important to seek God and to follow Him with all your heart.(see Matthew 6:33) Things of the world will try to distract you, but if you follow Christ...things will fall into place according to His plan for your life.

That is what we are trying to do. It's easy to get distracted by money and other things. Instead of focusing on those unknown questions of the future, we focus on what we do know... Christ. If we focus on Christ then the rest of it will come into place in HIS timing, not ours. We just have to be obedient to listen and follow where He leads.

A new avenue for ministry

I (Kristine) posted a little about this on our baby blog, but I thought it would be quite fitting on here too. Yesterday I had kind of a revelation. Yes I had strange dreams last night, but that's not what I am talking about. I realized even more so yesterday how God giving us our precious Jennavieve will aid in my being able to reach out and minister to perfect strangers. Here's what I posted about the Winco trip that was kinda surreal for me (you can read the original post here):

At Winco I put her in my front pack because she was too active to just sit in a car seat. The moment we stepped away from the car, the stares started. Everyone was looking at us. It was kinda like that Inception movie, but in a good way. Actually, I should say everyone wasn't looking at US they were looking at Jenna. When we got into Winco the stares continued and people stopped to comment on how beautiful she was and how cute she was. Perfect strangers stopped from their grocery shopping to come look at Jenna and smile and talk to me. It was surreal. Jenna, decided to step it up a notch and held onto the grocery cart handle with me. When I stopped to let some people look at her cause they were commenting about her I tried to step back from the cart but Jenna held on and pulled the loaded cart back! Then we got the stares of amazement at how strong she is.

One teenage girl was overwhelmed with emotion and came over to us and said how Jenna was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. She wanted to hold Jenna's hand and talk to Jenna. So, against my better judgement I let her. Jenna smiled at the girl and the girl was overjoyed. (No, I am seriously not exaggerating!!!) She couldn't contain herself and told her guy friend how beautiful Jenna was and everyone stopped and looked at us and smiled. It sounds like something out of a movie, it was the weirdest, nicest strangest thing ever.

That whole experience got me thinking... God's using this little girl to help me reach out to people that otherwise would be hard to reach or talk to. Neighbors talk with Eric and I more because of her. Actually, everyone talks with us more because of her. I just need to be on my game and ask people what their names are and get to know their stories. Then REMEMBER those names the next time I see them or just pray for them. You never know who you are going to meet while out and about. God can use you to change someone's life dramatically. Jenna may just be the key. (Yes, I am VERY overprotective of her. So no worries about me handing her to perfect strangers or putting us in un-necessary dangerous places.)

I can see how in the future God could use this to help me branch out and meet people. In the US and outside the US. You generally look less threatening when you have a child with you AND sometimes people are less apt to mess with you when there's a child involved. Sometimes that's the opposite, but I like the idea of being less threatening. :)

Blessings to you,

Kristine

Psalm 127:3-5:

³ Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.