May 2020
Last week, Quinn and I finished reading Amy Carmichael’s children’s biography, With Daring Faith. Over the years I’ve been so inspired by Amy Carmichael’s life, even placing her on a pedestal for the incredible life she lived. She was indeed a faithful servant of God for fifty-five years in India. Her fearlessness in rescuing children from Hindu temples speaks loudly of why we name her among the great women of the faith we look up too. But what has stood out to me over the past month of reading her story are the following illustrations of her faithfulness that were not as well known to me.
Amy was faithful even through the physical pain she suffered daily. She had a condition called neuralgia that caused her constant pain. This struck a cord with me. How many days do we feel sick, something hurts or we’re just plain tired? What an incredible testimony that even through the pain, she still took the time to travel to other villages, to witness to others, and to give freely of herself to her many children. Her pain was an every day reality, but even more so was her love for Jesus. She was determined to love Jesus more than dwell on her pain. As moms, this is a reminder, that even on the tough days, our God is faithful to give us strength to make it through the tough moments.
Following God faithfully doesn’t mean our days will be free of weeping. Honestly, I was stunned at the number of people close to her that she lost in death. I found myself crying multiple times as she encountered new hardships. She lost co-workers, children, babies, her mother and dear friends. The timing of these difficult things could have easily consumed her in grief. Grief can make us question God and find it hard to trust our lives to Him. It has been such a difficult emotion for me to process and yet I draw confidence from Amy’s example. Even in the midst of grief and uncertainty to what lay ahead, she continued to press on. She was a light for Christ in this dark world that could not be quenched. She determined that the harder the winds blew the more steadfast she would stand in Christ. Her own words speak beautifully of this:
“Let us not be surprised when we have to face difficulties. When the wind blows hard on a tree, the roots stretch and grow the stronger, let it be so with us. Let us not be weaklings, yielding to every wind that blows, but strong in spirit to resist.”
Amy Carmichael
Amy finished her life strong in spirit, unshaken in every trial, because she knew God was faithful even in the hardest things. She suffered an unfortunate fall and spent almost the last twenty years of her life, bedridden. Even, in her bedridden state, she continued to bring glory to God by writing countless books and spending hours in prayer. Instead of questioning God, she chose to accept His plan for her life. This consistent obedience that allowed her to rest in the Almighty’s hands gave her a ministry that extends even to this day through her writings that continue to encourage and help us grow in our faith.
Amy Carmichael had no idea during her lifetime what a hero of the faith she would be to us today. Her life reminds us that a faithful finish is founded in God’s Promises and not our achievements. Her life reminds us that we can draw joy from our circumstances, because it is these things that remind us our strength is found in Him alone. May we be encouraged today as we experience pain, grief and mundane days to keep following our Great Shepherd. He is everything we need and He calls us to press on even in the hardest moments of life, so that we may rejoice when His glory is revealed.
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed”
1 Peter 4:12-13
Ministry Update
We are excited to see restrictions being lifted here in Germany. Our weekly outreach has been greatly affected through the past couple months in our ability to connect weekly with families. We have used special opportunities to provide care packages to families and have used our church’s online services to graciously invite families into opportunities to hear the gospel. Muslims have been celebrating Ramadan this past month, which gave an opportunity for Chad to visit families in the local refugee shelter we are working in, after they invited him to one of their fast breaks. It was an opportunity to help serve families, talk about faith and ultimately provided an opportunity to continue building redemptive relationships.
As we are allowed to begin meeting once again Chad looks forward to working closer with two groups of men working here in the city for the purpose of planting churches in two unreached people groups here in the city. One team is working with Arabic speaking people from the Middle East and the other group with Turks here in the city. These men are well-equipped for this purpose and we hope to support them specifically in finding ways to engage these people groups through community and sports. These men are becoming close brothers in Christ and they are meeting consistently to encourage one another and pray for these people groups. Please pray for the gospel to gain ground within the Turkish, Syrian, Afghani, Iraqi and Iranian people here in the city that these teams are focusing their efforts on.
The past two months have provided many opportunities for Chad to teach both to our church body on Sunday alongside other men in the church, as well as to our young families small group and teens. We are thankful for the other workers we work alongside in Crossway International Church. Each of them is gifted in specific ways that make for a diverse team. We are thankful for the spirit of unity in Christ that we have realized working alongside each of these close friends and partners in ministry. We are excited at the vision that is being sharpened for effectively gathering believers together for the purpose of making mature disciples, and then encouraging these believers to scatter here in Berlin and across the world to be messengers of God’s grace. Please pray for wisdom and guidance as we hope to begin meeting again together in person in the coming month.
Family Update
The last month has been an encouraging time for our family. In a way, it has been a healing time and time to regroup for the task ahead. In fact, it feels like we have finally been able to catch a breath for the first time since arriving here almost three years ago. God was gracious to allow us to hit the ground running when we arrived in July 2017. We jumped into learning a new language, a new school, culture and way of life, as well as figuring out how to balance ministry. We are thankful for this, but also thankful for the time God has given us over these past weeks to pour into each other.
A good example of this is Quinn. She has struggled with many things since we moved here from finding good friends to feeling inadequate in her reading abilities to even struggling with her breathing. But in all these things we praise God for His faithfulness. He has given her a Christian friend that moved to Berlin this past year that she feels really close too. He’s given us individual time with her at home in her online schooling to allow her to make tremendous strides in her reading and even opportunity to shape a Biblical world view that she would not be getting in her school’s science classroom. Even today, we just got back from a visit with a great doctor that we found here in the city that is helping her with her breathing. It’s not that these past weeks have not been hard, because there have been many challenging times, but we also see God’s grace in it all.
We are encouraged at the opportunities that lie ahead and we look forward to a coming advance into dark places. We recently completed our annual ministry report for the purpose of bringing transparency to how we are on mission here in Berlin. If you would like to know more about how we have spent our time over the past year or our vision and goals for the next year, you can find this at the link below.
Prayer Update
Pray for wisdom for our church leadership as we begin to transition from online services back to regular services.
Pray for Quinn and Gracie as they go back to school next week, that they would adjust well back into old routines.
Pray for us to be sensitive to opportunities for outreach with the weekly changes to restrictions being lifted.
Pray for Quinn with her recent dyslexia testing and breathing related problems.