Homeward Bound

It's a beautiful day as we bound down I-71 south towards HOME!!!  This year's travel schedule has kept us on the road longer than years before, but we woudn' t trade the opportunities God gave us for anything!  From SC to OH, we have benefited from fellowship with dear friends, have enjoyed making new friends, have experienced spiritual growth in our own lives and seen it taking shape in the lives of believers around the country.  God is at work!

This morning, we left First Baptist Church of Milford, OH, home of Bearing Precious Seed and Master's Club ministries.  We are beyond grateful for our friendship with Pastor and Mrs. Bill Duttry and the growing friendships we've made with the people there.  We arrived to the church's gorgeous property on Tuesday evening and enjoyed a trip to the Creation Museum, getting some much needed work accomplished, and our boys took advantage of the spacious play area and fishing in the church's well-stocked pond.  It was a little boy's paradise!  Our 3-year-old Samuel even learned to ride his bicycle (no training wheels) this week.  Churches around the country hold many special memories for us regarding our boy's growth and development, because we park our RV home on the property for the week of meetings.  FBC Milford will now be remembered, among other things, as the place where Samuel learned to ride his bike! :)

We had a fantastic Sunday with Pastor Duttry and his people!  Tim preached to the youth group for Sunday School regarding the importance of their deciding NOW to live by faith from Colossians 2:6-10 and to the congregation from Psalm 46 in the evening service.  Praise the Lord for HIS working in hearts and meeting needs during the preaching. Our time together ended with the observance of the Lord's Supper.  What a blessed time it was!

In the next few weeks, we would greatly appreciate your prayers as we prepare to make a new family recording, settle back into our house, and begin music prep for summer camp.  Tim and I are squeezing in a 3-day getaway to St. Simon's Island, GA, for our 15th wedding anniversary as well.  It's exciting times, for sure!

May the Lord richly bless you and use you in your Jerusalem today!

Perspective

“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.  It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness.”  (Lamentations 3:21-23)

Perspective is paramount!  It is the filter on the camera lens of life thru which we sieve every circumstance that comes our way.  Often, we meet dear people in churches who, with sincerity and concern, say something along the lines of, “I appreciate so much the sacrifice your family makes for the Lord.  I can’t imagine moving from place to place on a weekly basis and living in…a RV!  How do your children cope with the traveling and being in church almost every night???”  {insert smile and sigh}  While I appreciate the thoughtfulness, this is the truth of which I must remind our new-found friends and myself on a regular basis:  God has called my husband to be an evangelist, a preacher of the gospel.  We are so grateful that the Lord has provided so that we can travel together as a family.  Our family loves what we do!  How many children have been to Niagra Falls, the Grand Canyon, from Canada to the Bahamas and many other exciting destinations in between, by age 5??!!  How many wonderful people around the country have invested their time and expertise into our children, adding to the “fabric” of our boys’ lives?   Of course, these things are fringe benefits to the greater fact that we get to be a part of God’s great work of drawing people to Himself!  Now, that’s something worth living for!  

…I’ve just shared with you my “sieve”…

But, here’s the question:  do I always consider my day-to-day situations through this filter?  Do I regularly “call to mind, and therefore..have hope”?  Looking back over the last two weeks, we’ve had tremendous services at both Cleveland Baptist Church with Pastor Kevin Folger and Bethel Baptist Church of West Carrollton, OH, with Pastor Jim Shihady.  What a privilege to meet the folks at Cleveland for the first time and to minister to them in music and in preaching!  We definitely left this super-friendly church family with new friendships and the satisfaction that the Lord had worked in hearts.   At Bethel, families were first challenged through the weekend’s Bill Rice Ranch Conference on Marriage and the Home and then our family continued at Bethel with a 4-day revival meeting.  We participated in preaching in the elementary and high school chapels, in providing special music in services, and in my conducting children’s meetings during the nightly services while Tim preached to the church folks.  Our time at Bethel was truly a blessed time!  

During these last couple of weeks though, we’ve also had some…shall we say…”inconveniences”.   We’ve experienced some equipment issues, some sickness, some lack of sleep due to a teething baby and a 3-yr. old’s nightmares…yes, our travels have been mingled with some adversities.  BUT, the Lord has been at work, and He has allowed us to be a small part of the work!  In the thick of the inconvenient times, God HAS been faithful, providing grace, strength, wisdom, people with knowledge and expertise, and the list could go on.  Praise God that He has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing in churches around the country, and praise Him just the same that His mercies are constant and new.  Truly, as Jeremiah reminds himself, great is our God and His faithfulness! -BT