Two days ago Wade and I sat down at a coffee shop and talked through ministry and life for the first time in a month! Yes its been a month since we sat down and actually had a time without the kids, that wasn’t at 9:30pm when we are both ready to be done for the day. To be honest it has been a month of ups and downs. We had a good first part of spring break and took the kids away for the night for some family fun. But since then we have have been sick with colds and the stomach flu.
After such encouraging months of support raising March has been a step back. I feel the spiritual battle happening in this process more keenly now than I have for awhile. And thats really what it is! A battle for joy each day, for spiritual strength and for physical/emotional stamina. I am so blind most of the time and automatically switching to survival mode. Not always remembering that the last thing Satan wants is for us to grow in the process and be more effective in sharing the Gospel in the Cape.
Why wouldn’t it be hard? Why do I expect that it should come easy and naturally? Can you pray with us that as we continue to move forward that our eyes would be open to what’s happening around us that that the Lord would continue to protect us from the discouragement that can creep in so easily.
A wonderful friend came over this last weekend to help me start making a list of things that we will get rid of in our move from this apartment. We are unsure how much we will take with us back to South Africa but the purging process has begun!!! The growing reality of our future moves hit me this weekend when I had to consider selling things that have been a part of our family for the whole six years of our life together.
In the next month to 6 weeks we will welcome a new daughter into our home, sell almost all of our earthly belongings, move into a home that we have never actually been inside of, and other than our little family not have much to our name. And it feels pretty great. Sometimes there is fear but mostly there is nothing but joy.
We are blessed to be called to go. Blessed to be put in a place where at the end of the day we exist and move forward because of His provision and His leading. Someone asked me the other day what our Plan B was going to be….we are moving forward and working hard to discern God’s leading in this process which is Plans A, B, and C!
Wade challenged me during our time to make a list of all the ways God has provided for us since we started this process. For me that starts when we got married. We have been praying, serving in South Africa, or on pre-field to go back since then. Wade has done the same thing and encouraged me to make that list of God’s faithfulness from the beginning of redemptive history to this moment in time every time I begin to think about Support Raising.
Reading through the Old and New Testaments gives us examples of this all over the place. We see believers recalling all the mighty works of God from the exodus until their time. Psalm 9.1-2 David says, “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”
Have you done this? Do you have a list of how God has provided for you? If not I encourage you to do the same. We are all in need of remembering and recounting the wonderful deeds of God.
I cannot end a update letter without telling you all how thankful we are for each of you who make up our team of support. You are truly a blessing and an answer to so many prayers. Thank you for your continued encouragement, financial support, and prayer in this process!!!
Team McComas 