From our dear friend Larissa who was married this summer and now lives in the US. Deb helped make this staged frame thing with Cheryl… my lovely Deb!
Preparing for incoming teams is always a lot of work. It’s also exciting because we know the Lord is at work, and many lives (both coming and already here) will be touched. I sometimes catch myself thinking, “Why in the world am I doing this?”
If you do nothing, pretty much nothing is going to happen. It sounds so basic, but for much of Christendom doing nothing has become a form of trusting God. There are times when God calls us to stand firm in faith and it might look passive to others, I get that. I wonder if those who stand in faith are in actuality standing in unbelief.
We often want God to move but I think He wonders why we aren’t moving ourselves. Faith looks more like Noah swinging a hammer than someone praying for a boat. We get bored with God, maybe He’s bored with us? We play things too safe. What motivates our fear of stepping out and trusting Him? I’m thinking out loud to our generation of believers. We are so incredibly risk averse, it’s as if everything depended on us. Lord help us change this focus.
Today I met Valeri, the leader of Steiger Ukraine – a youth movement that hosts concerts and has started 20 youth clubs in the last 2 yrs all over post-Soviet Union. These guys are leaping in faith, it’s inspiring. He explained how difficult touring for 5 months in Ukraine was. They had a ton of problems and over 1,500 hearts surrender to Christ (and over 20k hear the gospel).
Why should we host a team of Bible College students for a week of lessons in our little town? It’s going to cost quite a bit of money, time and energy. Why should we operate a Coffee shop in the middle of one of the worst economic situations on the planet? Why do you take on roles and opportunities given when you know inside you really aren’t qualified? Why do we do anything that is risky?
God calls us out. He challenges us to trust beyond our senses. He delights in our abandon.
I’m excited for next week! It will be stressful, and cool. The team arrives from Belarus on Saturday. We will be worshiping this Saturday evening with area believers. We have a couple guest worship leaders (one from Kiev who asked if they could come, sweet!).
The Kiev escalators to the metro system are some of the deepest in the world. This is seriously only half way!
During the week we will be intermixing young passionate believers in Bible School with the precious lives we are loving through the week. We will be trusting Him to do ‘above and beyond’ what we ask or think. Pray with us for hearts to be awakened to the Spirit of God this coming week.
Do you have a vision or itching desire to see something ‘not yet’ come into pass? Step out in faith. Begin speaking it (start with those who know your heart!), praying it, believing it. Share it with others, ask folks to lift these burdens up in prayer with you. Prayer, in faith, accomplishes stuff. It re-routes history, it brings the risen Jesus into focus and dares the world to take notice.
As Tucker and I ran around Kiev today getting products and preparing to host 14 folks for the week I was smiling. Some folks on the subway probably thought I was weird. I enjoy the calm before the storm, because I know the storm is what the Kingdom of God is all about. Sometimes we need to create the storm, commit to stuff, take risks.. He relishes, I think, the opportunity to move in situations when those situations are created in faith, even as a prayer.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rom 15:13
Let’s go trust Him!
Bruce & Deb
So inspiring Bruce, I pray to have the zeal that you have to reach out beyond myself for His kingdom. Keeping you all in prayer, love you!