Jessica:
What a great experience. Everything from the people in the training to the people doing the training has been such an encouragement. I started getting sick on Wednesday before we left, but nothing could compare to the fuzziness I’m feeling right now. Nevertheless, I’m having a wonderful time.
Even before the plane took off, God was preparing my heart for this training. We got to the airport WAY too early and hunkered down to stay a while. All of a sudden the girl in front of us was talking and mentioned that she was planning on going to Northwestern College, St. Paul. Any of you who really know me, know that my ears perked up hearing that. I went up to her and asked about it, and here she’s a student I’ve been working with, but haven’t been able to meet – what a small world.

We arrived in Denver about 10:15pm (11:15 our time) and still needed to wait for the Shuttle to drive us to Littleton. When the driver started on the way all of a sudden out of the car speakers comes the song “Mighty to Save” – he was playing Christian music! I was able to spend that time in prayer – God was able to prepare my heart for this conference during that 45 minute drive.
This morning started with breakfast with the rest of the Midterm Missionaries. I have to be honest and say I was expecting your typical “missionary types” – middle age couples with 4 kids, using phrases like “young people these days…” and “when I was a kid...” Instead, out of the rooms come 3 right-out-of-college guys, an early 20’s Missionary Kid from Japan, a young couple with a 5 month old (ADORABLE) girl, and an older couple planning on doing missions in their retirement. What a fun group!

I’ll spare you the details (Steve is right next to me writing his post, so he probably told you about what we talked about), but one of the biggest things that tugged on my heart was the idea of my comfort zone. One of the activities we did today was to take things like “Cleanliness” and rate how much we value it, from strongly value to never value. We were able to list our top values (mine included rootedness, individuality, and a clean environment) and realize that these things might not be available in the country we’re ministering to.

Jerry (the leader of the training) talked about Peter, and how Peter’s comfort zone revolved around the Law, which included Sabbath, dietary restrictions, and who you associated with (meaning not talking to the Gentiles). He said that in Acts 10, where God shows him the vision of the cloth being lowered down with the food, Peter would have been VERY uncomfortable with what God was telling him to do, but when Peter allowed God to shape his comfort zone, instead of keeping it rigid, he was allowing God to make him an effective minister of the Gospel. Being able to keep his comfort zone flexible allowed God to use him as a light and witness to the Gentiles in ways that would never be possible if Peter was rigid in that area.

My prayer is that God will use this time of raising support to allow my comfort zone to be molded by Him. That my expectations for what my life will be like will not interfere with the ministry that He’s given me here in MN, or my future ministry in France…

Thanks for tracking with us – we’ll keep you updated!