Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Wow! A contract and a kiss from God!

Psalm 117 (NIV)
1 Praise the Lord, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
2 For great is his love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!

Though God has shown me/us time and again how much he cares for us and that He is faithful, I (Ron) continue to be surprised when he shows up. That is exactly what he has done this week. Thursday is our official departure date. Yesterday, it was confirmed that our van sold. Today, we signed a contract on our house. Though we didn’t know it when we signed the papers, we later found out that we know the folks who are buying the house (we knew the wife by her name before she was married). As I look back, we remember our kids praying that we would be able to “pass along” our house to someone that we knew. Sometime in the last five months, I came to believe that prayer would not be answer and I resolved that I would be happy if it just SOLD. God did not forget that prayer, and he saw fit to answer it with a yes. Some might call it icing on the cake, I call it a kiss from God. He is real, he is personal, and he cares about us – he cares about you. We hope you know that. The Christian life is not a cake-walk, but we have found it to be joyful! We pray that our kiss from God today is an encouragement to you.

That said, it seems we need to put some new prayer requests on this here blog. God seems to have checked all of these off in the last week. We will get on that. In the meantime, please pray for our goodbyes as we leave our training here. All five of us have made great friends over the last month, and saying goodbye AGAIN will be tough. A month from now, these new friends will be scattered across the world, looking for opportunities to share the hope that we have in Jesus Christ with those who need this hope. If you think about it, please remember us Thursday as we head to the airport and fly through the night to Paris and then on Friday as we fly on to Bamako, Mali.

7 comments:

lisaqshay said...

Goodbye Millenders! We love you and pray God's fullest blessings on your family, ministry and your hearts. You will be used mightily. We count it a privilege to call you friends. We (well, i will anyway) will be watching, reading and waiting to see all the news and what you're up to far, far away.

The Sexton Crew said...

How cool is that? Interesting that He chooses to show Himself so clearly just as you are standing on the brink of the unknown. It's almost as though He knew exactly what you needed and when you needed it. Praying that you get lots of "sugars" over the next few days, weeks, years -really obvious, sloppy, wet ones!

We love you and miss you already!!!

T and T Livesay said...

PRAYING (goosebumps thinking about your next 72 hours+) for you all!!!!

t and t and tribe

the chapman crew said...

You gotta love the Mighty God we serve!

We will hold you tight in our prayers and pray God's richest blessings on your family. You guys are an amazing and I know you are going to be used in a mighty, mighty way. May the Lord continue to send you many, many "kisses" in the future!
We love you.

From the Hartman Family... said...

We will miss you guys! So glad we got to see you on Wednesday - be sure you don't spend your quarter all in one place, Chris!
We will be praying for you all as you make the transition and experience all sorts of wonderful new things!
Can't wait to hear what God has in store!

Anonymous said...

Wow, God is good! I hope you'll be back online and posting more adventures soon.

Elizabeth B.

gary & kimber said...

He is so good! I hope that by now you are safely in Africa and getting settled.