Its July 4th . Our last teleconference was June 27th and I forgot to blog. Now my notes don't make sense. See - this is a lesson for all you bloggers - get your notes posted right away while thoughts are fresh in your mind. Yes, you heard it right!! Our daughter Holly and her husband Will are the team leaders for our August group. We parents will be taking direction from our children. How quickly the tables turn. Will opened our conference with a prayer and devotional on James 1 :19-27 about listening to the Lord God and doing. Living out our faith, to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. To listen what the Word says and then do it, live it out. Will referred to a book , Missionary Methods which sounds like a book I will want to find and read.
Since we are the last group into the camp for the year they have run out of a few things for the children so THIS IS AN URGENT REQUEST - blankets at $5 each for 150, bibles for 150. We have 26 days to get all of this. We found a website that ships NIV bibles in bulk at $2.67 each - 24 in a case. We also have an area in Zambia where we can purchase the blankets for the children at $5 each. So, if your heart leads you to help make a check out asap to Every Orphans Hope and designate for August team and what it is for. You can also put our short term missionary names also in the memo but be sure to say what the money is for. Les and I have already purchased a case of bibles (24) and it ends up to be $65. We must carry them in our suitcases as we cannot ship to this third world country. We are told we would never see our shipment but do not have that confirmed. We have all made this huge commitment and now we are praying that God would open a few doors to get us these very important items to make it worth our commitment to go. .
We have been busy memorizing scripture - 8 verses to be exact. It get harder to memorize the older one gets but it is coming slowly but surely. We have received our lesson plans for the week and have been busy studying them. We were told to make another copy for our translator which we have done and have been busy getting gifts ready to give to our translator, our sponsored child and his mama, our leaders. Shann has also been busy making 150 book marks for the children and some for the translators.
We received our packing list and then another revised one from Will and Holly with very helpful ideas.
It is interesting to note that we need compression bags to pack clothes and we need to spray them down with permethrin to element getting malaria before we pack them in our suitcase.. We need to take the cardboard rolls out of toilet paper , compress them and put them all around our suitcase because we will need it in areas we go to. We were told to pack pens, tooth brushes, granola bars, etc. to use to trade at the market place and also snacks for the 13 days in mission as the food they will give us is good but we will need extra during the day to keep our strength up. We were also asked to prepare two 5 minute devotionals to present to our team to help out with our morning and evening devotionals for the team.
During our teleconference we were given websites to view. One was about leading children to Christ. It was about "Can a young child understand the meaning of salvation?" It said we are misled into thinking that a child must "understand" rather than "believe" the message of salvation. Where does it say in the bible that we must "understand" in order to be saved? It does say, however, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." Salvation is Gods gift to us and children accept gifts much quicker than adults do. Children never wonder what it is they need to do to earn it. This information was very encouraging to us who will only have a week to present this to our group of children.
Our amazing Cheryl Greif shared a story about a child named Grace whom she refers to as Amazing Grace and every time she sings that song she thinks of her. Her message to us was we plant the seed, Jesus is the harvest. We are to pray for the child's heart to be open. That circumstances will come again that triggers memory of the seed we planted. We are just to be the Lords instrument. This was helpful to us especially if some of our children choose not to receive Christ during our week.
We were told to start a prayer journal for ourselves and others and to reread them later and thank God for those that are answered and recommit to prayers that are ongoing. We are to record words of encouragement, a vision or prophecy from someone else and to reread them to see how God is moving in my life and those around me. Reflect on bible verses.
We are to pray for our interns that have gone ahead of us to prepare - Christina Cates, Elise Rowsell, Kate Colwill, Shelbie Ney, and Michelle and Jake Jackson. Michelle is our director of sponsorships.
Our next teleconference is July 17th. Please keep us in your prayers. Blessings Shann and Les
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