We want to say an extra special THANKS to all the kids and workers at the Cosmic City vacation Bible school that took place at First Christian Church recently. Over the course of 5 short days, they managed to raise $1,101.32 to help get us through training and to Japan. SUGOI! Amazing! God never ceases to amaze us with His provisions and we feel very blessed having such a great support team in Kissimmee. Also thanks for letting us share a bit about our mission training efforts at CIT in the daily video update.

Labels: praises

On our quest to find a Bank of America ATM to make a deposit, we happened upon a First Christian Church in the city of Marion north of Union Mills. We attended Sunday morning service and were excited with our experience. Everybody was friendly and the message was powerful. The end of the service concluded with an anointing with oil to bless our family and protect us on our mission. Pastor Don was gracious enough to take us out to lunch at a most excellent barbecue buffet. He also invited us back for their quarterly Western North Carolina Evangelizing Church meeting Monday night where dinner would be served and extended us an opportunity to share more about our mission. We graciously accepted and dinner was outstanding. You can't beat Southern cooking and hospitality. Weiling and I spoke for about 10 minutes and the board made the decision to send us a check to offset the preparation costs. What an unexpected blessing! God is good - ALL THE TIME.

Labels: blessings, outreach

Today we learned about Learning Styles and how it is not necessarily related to personality or gender. I am a high 'Concrete Random' learner which means that I'm likely to ask questions like "How much of this is really necessary?" and I like to be challenged. I don't like routine and I tend to be a multi-tasker and adventurous. Weiling is a 'Concrete Sequential' learner and that means she prefers routine, facts, and is stable and dependable. She can be a perfectionist and is not much for change. As with the DISC profile, these Mind Styles translate into something tangible we can use to integrate into a foreign culture in addition to knowing how to relate with others on the field. It also demonstrates that our children are not necessarily clones of us and are unique in their own way. We should allow them to be engaged in their areas of learning styles as well.

The rabbits here are ginormous.

Labels: CIT

Each Sunday we venture to visit a different church in the neighboring towns. Today we opted for Round Hill Baptist Church. It was walking distance from where we're staying and their website was clean and recently updated, so we thought it would be a good chance to visit. Sunday school was at 10 and Worship at 11. The kids had their own Bible study while we went with the adults. Class lasted about 20 minutes and there wasn't much discussion about the Hebrews 1:1-4 passages we read. During the worship hour we sang three traditional hymns of which only Nothing But the Blood did I recognize. One of the younger guys sang a solo of a toe-tappin country song entitled Long Black Train which everyone enjoyed. The sermon was given by visiting Rev Charles who filled in for regular pastor who was away at an uncle's funeral. Rev Charles gave us a primer on the history of Union Mills and that it used to be called Crab Tree Gap. This area spawned the lumber industry and thus Union Mills came to be. This particular church grew out of the call to "Survey the people" to fill a need, then "be ready to plant". That's not too different from what we're trying to do in Japan. Rev Charles expounded on the meaning of two important words in Scripture - AMEN and HALLELUJAH. He also drew the connection to how our worship should mirror the book of Revelation. Rev Charles served in the military and flew over Hiroshima following the tragedies that ended World War II. He agrees that Japan has a harvest ripe for evangelism through missions. I reckon no visit to a Baptist church would be complete without a Sunday afternoon luncheon and my favorite sweet tea. The LORD is good!

Labels: CIT