by Tina | Jun 19, 2012 | Devotional
Mark 2:13-14 tells us~ Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to Him, and He bean to teach them. As He walked along, He saw Levi Son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed Him.
Today I am going to share with you the things that God has used in our lives to mold us and shape us to start this journey of being a “Missionary”. Why I use missionary with quotation marks is because I believe is we have a relationship with Christ we are already a missionary. We are mandated to share God’s love and the Redemption Story with all we meet. But, first that starts with relationship. We need to be different than the world around us. When people look at us, our goal is for them to see Jesus through us. Wherever we are, whatever we do. How do we show Jesus to each person we come in contact with? He tells us in the bible, “We are to be Salt and Light”.
After Dan and I were married, we started learning more about each other and each others families. We loved being married and we loved spending all the time we could together. The first thing I learned is consistency. The third Sunday we were married I said to Dan, “I’m not going to go to church today”. Dan said, “Are you really sick?”. I said, “No, I just don’t feel like it”. Well, I hate to admit it, but he spent a few Sundays during that first year dragging me to church. You see, my family went to church if they felt like it. Dans philosophy was, even in those first weeks, “our children will grow up to know that when church is open, we are there”.
After I got done with school and started working at about month number two of marriage I received my first paycheck and told Dan that I was going to go to “Leslie’s”( a high end clothing shop in our town) and buy some clothes. Dan said , “That money is for bills”. I said, “Your money is for bills, mine is for clothes”. Needless to say, I was convinced otherwise.
From the start, Dan has been the most consistent person I have ever known. Growing up, things were very random in our house. One day I would do something or say something and it was fine and the next day I got in trouble for it. I grew to be very inconsistent in my beliefs and practices. I, have now spent 30 years TRYING to be consistent in all I do. It is an on-going challenge, but I have to say, each day becomes a little easier.
I grew up with a lot of broken promises. There is One who does not break His promise to me. He has called me and He will equip me. He tells us this in His Word.
Enough for this stage of life.
The Point is, God brings people into your lives to help you. Your spouse is your number one help-meet. That means where I am weak, Dan is strong, and the opposite is true. We need to let the Lord show us what is right and what is true.
by Tina | Jun 14, 2012 | Devotional
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed Him.
When He had gone a little farther, He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him. Mark 1:14-20
Today I am just going to reminisce about God’s invitation to two farm kids, two little people on this great big world that God created.
He invites each of us to join Him. Is it a short sprint? Maybe for some. For most of us, it’s a daily walk, step by step, day by day, listening to our Father’s voice and morphing and changing our inner beings to reflect His glory.
Dan and I grew up in Rural Minnesota, with hard-working, patriotic, God-fearing parents who taught us that if we did good in school, worked hard, God would bless. That may not be what they intended to teach us, but that is what we got out of it. We met when I (Tina) was in Fifth Grade and Dan was in Eighth Grade. We were in the same Church Class and got to know each other at church. When we were 18 and 21 we married in that little church. Did God have a plan for those rural children way back in the 70’s? I believe He did.
We grew up in a wonderful little community church where we got to experience missionary conferences every year and knew missionaries as real people doing God’s work in another part of our World. As we get ready to go to the Biannual Meeting of Converge and be Commissioned to our denomination, I want to share how God has brought us to this point of our response to His Invitation.
My point for today is: We need to spiritually feed and nurture our children and bring them into the reality of what God is doing in this world and that with His help and guidance they can do anything THROUGH HIM and FOR HIM.
by Tina | May 21, 2012 | Devotional
This coming Sunday, May 27, we will be speaking at the 10:30 service at Pine Mountain Gospel in Backus, MN! We are so excited about getting to share with some very long-time friends what God is doing in our lives.
Please pray that we can communicate clearly how God is working and molding us to partner at GECHAAN and that we can verbalize that vision well.
by Tina | May 11, 2012 | Devotional
I was reading in Matthew this morning and I read Matthew 6:25-34 in a whole new light.
25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying what shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or what shall we wear? 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Since our appointment by Converge, we have finished the Perspectives Class (yeah! No more homework nightly!) We have also wound down the AWANA year, Apples of Gold, and Dan is not doing as many bids for Curbing. I am also quite thankful that my leg is healing nicely! I have had no infection and I believe both wounds will be totally scabbed over in a week. God is Good! We are working on our missionary display for visiting churches, and trying to clean our house.
“Well, Tina”, you might say, “it doesn’t sound as if there is much to worry about, is there?”. I would agree, but here are the things we need to do in the near future.
Clean out 16 years of memories in this house, get rid of (hopefully sell) most of our possessions, pack up what we do want to keep to use when we return in approximately 10-15 years. Sell a stack of cars, snowplow equipment, etc. either sell our house or hire a property manager to rent it out, raise $10,000.00 approximately a month support, help re-design my current job, and train people to do it, facilitate Vacation Bible School in June, CEF event in July, summer Sunday school with very little help and rotating schedules for all. On top of this, I would like to spend time with family and friends while we are still here. All of this can cause a minor panic attack in my seldomly worried little brain!
Well, today God is telling me, “One step at a time”, work like it depends on you and pray like it depends on Me. I have you, right here in the palm of my hand. Do your part, I will do mine. This is such a comfort to me! I just need to be faithful one day at a time, so many people are offering to help in so many ways. I need to take advantage of this, and not try to do everything the way I like, by myself, and enjoy this process! I believe God has more to teach us in the steps we need to take to get to Nigeria!
by Tina | Apr 19, 2012 | Devotional, Next Step
Yesterday at 1:00 we interviewed with 4 people from the Overseer Board of Converge. Last night we had supper with the whole board and it was very fun and interesting to connect with these leaders of our Denomination.
An hour ago we went before the whole board and briefly told our story up to this point (we gave them information last night that they could read through) and answer any questions that they had. They voted to accept us as missionaries unanimously!
We are so excited to be officially “Missionaries”. Now on to the next steps. Raising support, selling the house, getting rid of our tons of “stuff”.
Please continue to pray as I am still healing, for God to keep infection away and for us to be able to do the things needed in God’s timing. Thank you so much for praying!!
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