God's disproportionate goodness

God’s provision

Since the beginning of this journey of living by faith we have been praying prayers similar to David Brainerd and George Muller – that God would work in us in ways that are disproportionate to who we are.  God has again shown us that He is able to do far more than what we could ask or even imagine!  After losing some support and dropping to 65% - we are now 100% supported!

Over the last 2 months we have had several people join our support team as well as The Summit and this has brought our support total up to 100%.  This has been awesome.  This is both helpful for living, but also encouraging and validating.  We are so grateful for all the people that have been praying for us and who have been supporting us.  We love working here at The Summit.  There are people getting saved and growing and being sent out and we just love getting to be a part of it.  We know that circumstances change and so we ask that you continue to pray for us and consider being a part of our team.

George Muller

From the Journals of George Muller

I send you the enclosed small sum, for which you may thank, not the unknown giver, but the Lord, who turneth the hearts like rivers of water. Hold fast the faith which God has given you by His Holy Spirit; it is the most precious treasure in this life, and it contains in itself true happiness. Only seek by watching and prayer more and more to be delivered from all vanity and self-complacency, by which even the true believer may be ensnared when he least expects it. Let it be your chief aim to be more and more humble, faithful, and quiet. May we not belong to those who say and write continually,' Lord,' 'Lord,' but who have Him not deeply in their hearts. Christianity consists not in words, but in power. There must be life in us. For, therefore, God loved us first that we might love Him in return; and that loving we might receive power, to be faithful to Him, and to conquer ourselves, the world, distress, and death. May His Spirit strengthen you for this, that you may be an able messenger of His Gospel! Amen.

I read a biography of George Muller about a year and a half ago.  The faith of George Muller is well known and the stories surrounding the ways that God provided for the orphanages that he directed as well as all the many other ministries that he led are inspiring.  The truth is that God used this biography to encourage us to take the steps that have led to this journey of living by faith that we have been on for the last year.  God has been kind to us and has grown our love for Him.  We have also seen the generosity and kindness of others.  This was one of the many things that I loved about the Muller story.  While George Muller is central to the story of amazing faith, I am also amazed by the responses of so many others who gave to the ministry that he led.  The stories of people showing up with just the exact amount for the bill due at that very hour reveal a sensitivity and awareness of God’s leading – and a response to it.  There were many stories of people on their way to work feeling compelled to stop what they were doing and go to Muller’s office and deliver a check – again, at just the right moment.  This is such a great example of how God is at work all over and in the lives of everyone and how he desires to use everyone to participate in the work of making Jesus known throughout the whole world.  We love doing what we’re doing.  Our support has not been increasing very much and in fact over the last month we lost a few supporters due to changes in work and church.  We are continuing to trust God to bring people to our team that will partner with us to make much of Jesus in Durham and around the world.  Thank you for praying for us.

August Newsletter Article

The Summer In Conclusion…

Since May 31 I have spent the summer with 22 interns and a bunch of staff who were part of The City Project hosted by The Summit Church.  Our goal was to expose this team of students to the many ways that God is at work in the world – locally (the church and local not-for-profits), domestically (NYC) and internationally (Kenya and Malaysia).  I was so impressed by this team.  It gives me great hope for the future seeing what God is doing in this generation!  I love being a part of shaping their lives and helping to teach them how to demonstrate the effects of the gospel of Jesus by serving and loving people.  Many of these students will be small group leaders, discipling other students this fall when we launch SummitCollege.  Ana, Mary, Phoebe and Kate really enjoyed getting to know the team and I loved watching my girls getting to know the girls on the team – they are great role models, and Liz and I thank God for the chance that our girls have to be around them.  After City Project ended we went to NJ and western PA for a week.  We were able to go to Ocean City, celebrate my mom’s 60^th birthday, meet Ethan Henry Edwards and experience God’s kindness through family and friends.  It was a great way to conclude a wonderful summer.  Liz is recently recovering from knee surgery.  It went really well and the doctors think Liz will be up and running soon.  We are also preparing to homeschool Ana and Mary this fall.  Liz and I are excited about this and the girls seem to be as well.  We are so grateful that we are in Durham and working with and learning from so many people who love Jesus and want to live their lives for his glory and the advance of his kingdom.  Thanks for your prayer and financial support that allows us to be here serving at The Summit and RDU.  

June Newsletter...

life in Durham

It has been 2 months since we moved to Durham and we are still trying to get settled.  We love living in Durham, and working and attending The Summit Church.  Our housing situation has been challenging with lots of repairs that needed to be addressed shortly after we moved in.  Our landlords have been great, but it has made it difficult to feel settled.  We love living in our house on 1610 University Drive and still believe that God has led us here, but perhaps for reasons that deal with some heart issues.  The unsettledness of moving reveals how easily I am discontent and discouraged and attach my joy to my circumstances.  So, I am learning to rejoice in all things and to be content in all circumstances and to attach my joy to Jesus and what he has done.  This has been a wrestling match for me – and as you can imagine, I’m not much of a wrestler!  But I am grateful that God is taking us through these things because I really do want to be more like him and less like KJ.

Since The City Project started I have also found renewed energy as I’ve begun developing relationships with the 23 students and all the staff and volunteers.  We have already traveled to New York City and are now back in Durham interning with community organizations and Summit pastors as well as taking a seminary philosophy class through South Eastern.  The 23 students are experiencing ways of leveraging their lives for the advancement of the gospel in Durham, New York and around the world.  They are getting to share in the lives of people who are pouring themselves out in response to the gospel through the local service organizations, The Summit Church, church planting in NYC and missionaries in Kenya and Malaysia - where they will go at the end of the summer.  It is wonderful to be a part of all of this and I’m excited to see what God does with the lives of these students. 

Please pray for us.  We really need to find some additional supporters, so please pray and consider or perhaps reconsider supporting us.  I would love to talk with you about why we are doing what we’re doing and why God might want you to be a part of our support team.  Thank you so much to the 45 families and 2 businesses that are supporting us.  We are so grateful for your support and allowing us to have this ministry!

The City Project...

Well The City Project began May 31 and is going great.  We have 23 students participating and it has been so much fun getting to know them.  The first three days we spent getting to know Durham and each other and we also spent a lot of time preparing for the summer.  On June 5th we flew to New York City and met up with a guy that is planting churches in Queens in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods.  It was a great trip.  I think we were able to make many connections for the church planter.  It was also a great time for our team - getting to know one another better, exploring the city and seeing what God is doing all over the world through NYC and also learning how to explain the hope that we have in Jesus.  It was also great for me personally to be back in the northeast and to develop some deep friendships with Dave Turner the college pastor and Jeremy Dager a college intern at the Summit and a future church planter.  We're now back in Durham where the students are interning with local organizations serving Durham and also interning with a Summit pastor.  If that is not enough they are also taking a seminary course through South Eastern Baptist Theological School.  I am really excited to see how God uses this summer to impact these students, our neighbors and the world!

April Newsletter

a series of providential events… 

So much has happened since our last newsletter.  Thanks for praying for us.  We believe that all the amazing things that we’ve experienced are a result of people praying for us and God working through prayer.  I’m just gonna jump in – We moved to Durham March 31!  This is a remarkable story of God’s goodness.  About three weeks before we moved Liz and I were praying late one night feeling discouraged that our house was not selling and therefore delaying our move to Durham.  We asked God that in his kindness he would make a way for us to get to Durham soon.  The next morning at 9am we got a phone call from someone from The Summit offering us a housing stipend to cover the cost of renting in Durham until we were able to sell or rent our house  in Buies Creek.  This was so exciting and we immediately began looking for a house in Durham.  After a week of not finding anything that fit what we were looking for one day while driving I stopped the car in a neighborhood that seemed perfect and prayed again asking God that in his kindness he would provide a house for us in this neighborhood.  I continued driving around but I didn’t see a for rent sign.  When I got home Liz and I checked online to see what new housing was available – there was a house for rent about 500 feet from where I had been praying.  The house was available immediately and they were asking just what we could afford.  Everything happened quickly – we’re now in Durham trying to get settled into our house.  There have been many more answers to our prayers, including some financial support that came at just the right time providing for our needs and rescuing us from discouragement.  We’re currently at 70% of our support goal and asking God to continue to bring people to our support team who are excited about what we’re doing.  The last providential act I’ll mention here is that we have renters for our home in Buies Creek starting May 1.  It took us less than 2 weeks to find renters for our house.  We are really excited about how God has worked everything out.  There are many other ways God has been kind towards us – most notably that the girls love our new home and have been great about this transition.  Please keep praying for us.

 

Rats, French Toast and Fun...

Today (March 12, 2011) our family traveled to Raleigh to attend the Young Author's Awards for the state of North Carolina. Students from across the state in grades K-12 submitted stories for their class competition.  Ana's story advanced out of her class and out of the county all the way to the state finals, which means that you get your story published and receive a medal, and that's where we were today.  It was great to have my mom, an aspiring young author herself, with us as we celebrated with Ana and Pedro the rat. Below is Ana's story - her account of a true life ordeal from a couple years ago.  There are also some pictures from the Award Ceremony at the Raleigh Convention Center. 

Rats, French Toast and Fun!

By Diana Eileen Hill

Mrs. Wilson

Fourth Grade

Buies Creek Elementary School

One day I was doing my homework at the kitchen table while my mom was cooking our dinner. She was making French toast.  I glanced out our big glass window to our backyard and what do you think I saw?  A big white lab rat!

Now at first I didn’t know it was a lab rat.   I just said to my mom, “Hey look!  There’s a mouse in our backyard!”  My mom said, “What?” and came to the window.  She couldn’t believe what she saw!  It was the biggest, whitest rat she had ever seen, leaping through the grass!  My dad and sisters came to the window, too, and we all watched as he came running towards us and disappeared around the corner of our house.  We all ran to another room to watch him out the other window.

            My mom immediately suspected that it was a lab rat from Campbell University because their scientists have a small building at the end of our street.  She called one of the professors and he said, “Oh, that’s Pedro!  Catch him and I’ll pick him up tomorrow!”  Uh uh!  My dad said he was not catching that big rat! 

            We called the professor back and he said he’d come get him that day if we caught him.   We said okay and began to think about how to catch a rat.  We thought and thought but couldn’t come up with any way to catch him without having to touch him.  Gross!  We called our neighbors the Meyers to see if they could help us catch Pedro.  Their family has all boys—ours has all girls—so they like things like rats more than we do.  They said they’d be right over.

Meanwhile, Pedro came up the porch steps and began sniffing around the front door.  That’s when we realized that he could smell our dinner cooking.  He was hungry for French toast!

            When the Meyers boys got there they began to track down the rat.  When they caught up with him, Pedro crawled under the air conditioning unit.  They tried to pull him out but that didn’t work.  Then I had an idea!  I yelled, “Here!  Give him some French toast!” and I handed them a piece out the window.  It worked!  The French toast lured him out and we caught him!

            The professor finally arrived and we gave him Pedro and he thanked us.  We had a big garden spider on our house and he took that, too!  It was a very interesting day full of rats, French toast and fun!

Life as we now know it

our new routine…

Our house in Buies Creek is for sale, but we haven’t had any activity on it.  We’re surprised but not anxious.  We know that there is a time component to God’s purposes and so we’re praying for patience.  KJ continues to commute 2-3 days a week working on raising support, getting to know Durham and also working on The City Project (http://thecityproject.summitrdu.com).  On Sundays we drive up as a family to attend church at The Summit.  This has really been a lot of fun. During the drive up we always listen to Family Music by Jason Upton and there is a song on the CD called time to move on that has become our family theme song.  These are good days and we often comment on how much we appreciate our girls’ flexible attitudes – not sure where they came from, but it makes us smile!   After church we usually drive around to explore and look at houses and then go play at a park.  It has been good family time and the girls seem to enjoy it, too.  Liz’s days are full caring for our girls and she has also been helping care for our friends the Moody’s girls while Cali has been in the hospital for the last 6 weeks.  We think it’s pretty cool that in God’s timing we haven’t moved yet and so we are able to support Chad, Sara and their girls in this way.  To hear more about Cali’s amazing story, go to  www.caringbridge.org/visit/cali.

excerpt from our 12.10 newsletter - ordinariness

embracing the ordinary:

The theme for me over the last few months, that keeps coming up through prayer, scripture, books and JD’s sermon series at The Summit (you can listen at www.summitrdu.com) is God’s desire to use humble and ordinary people to show his greatness.  I understand this truth and have learned it through many experiences and have been confronted by it at many times throughout my life – it is a part of my journey, you’d think I’d get it.  Yet I still desire to be extraordinary, in fact my whole life I have tried to resist ordinariness.  God is exposing my sinful and rebellious heart and reminding me of my continual need of a savior.  God has chosen the weak things and people of this world to display his greatness.  He wants the ordinary so that he can do the extraordinary and he’s not looking for me to try to “take it from here”.  This has been a very hard few months, but I see God’s kindness in leading me toward repentance and I see his love for me by bringing me to a place where I have to depend on Him through others (you) to meet all of our needs.  This is humbling.  This does not make me feel extraordinary, but small and unnecessary which is good because it exposes my unhealthy need for validation and my desire to find my value in something other than God’s extraordinary love.  I think the point is that God is extraordinary and doing extraordinary things all over the world.  In fact, we have been experiencing him meeting our financial needs through some extraordinary ways, displaying his supremacy over everything– including the health care industry – now that’s a story!  So, I’m learning to embrace being ordinary and to be amazed by my extraordinary savior – Jesus.  (1 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 4 and 12)