Thank You!

Well I know it has been a while since our last update to you all! So much has happened since our last post!

I spent the last couple of weeks in South East Asia! God's blessing in sending me to spend a few days alongside our field workers reaching our UPG's (Unreached People Groups) was amazing! just getting to walk a day in their shoes was so incredible and humbling! These are people on the front lines. They know first hand what it is to suffer for the cause cause of Christ. Yet I never heard one of them complain, they took it all in stride. Many of them had experienced first hand spiritual attack on their families and yet they just kept on going as if that were an every day norm. I remember wondering how many of us so called "christians" here in the US would just keep going on if we faced trails and tribulation like our field workers over there. IF the preacher didn't preach that God wanted "our best" and to "bless" us all the time? IF the "prosperity gosple" that is so prevalent in our society didn't exist how many "christians" would stop coming to the church?

Lord help us to check our devotion and motivations for wanting a relationship with you! Teach us that You are worth having a relationship with because of Who You are, not because of what You can do for us!

The latter part of my time there was spent on another island where we brought all of our field workers that work with the UPG's Grace has adopted, and put on a retreat for them. What an amazing time! Giving them a chance to gather with other believers and worship, pray and hear God's word preached! Being that they work with people groups that are 100% Muslim most of them have no church to go too. Many of them haven't worshipped corporately in over a year! We served communion the last day of the retreat and some hadn't taken communion in over two years! We had activities for the kids during the mornings, sort of like a mini vbs while Wayne led worship and I preached for the adults. This still brings tears to my eyes as I remember watching these faithful worship and be filled and refreshed by the Spirit. You could visibly see it happening as the prayed and worshiped corporately unhindered for the first time in over a year for many of them.

In the afternoons we gave them free time to just be families and we divided our team up into teams of two and scheduled 2 hour intensive prayer times with the field workers and their families individually so our prayers could be specific and targeted to each of their needs.

I heard so many miraculous stories of hod God is moving and manifesting to and through their work that I could spend the next year writing them here. If you would like to hear some we will be sharing at Grace this Sunday during both services in room M203!

Once back in the US our family took some much needed R&R and went to New Mexico with Kim's family! Kim's dad took us all for a whole week to Angle Fire and I got to spend uninterrupted  time with the boys exploring, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, 4x4 trailing! We saw more elk and deer than we could count. Caught trout and salmon, and had a blast!

Thank you for all your prayers for me while I was abroad and for Kim and the boys back home. Kim faced some spiritual attack while I was abroad and being able to email some of you knowing that you would drop everything and pray was so comforting to me and so effective in ceasing the attack of the enemy here in Katy at our home. You all mean more than you will ever know!

Below is a link to some photos from my time abroad. I couldn't post photos with the field workers online but these can give you some of an idea where we were and what we were doing!

Photos from trip

Jeff, Kim, Max, Joshua and Tate