My Mission:

Engaging, Equipping, and connecting children and their families to their most strategic role in completing the Great Commission.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

You're best $7

Prayer is an important  habit to build into the lives of children.
How great when we challenge a child to think about others they have never met.

Use these two fantastic resources from Pioneers to help lead your child in praying for unreached peoples using the acronym THUMB (Tribal, Hindu, Unreligious, Buddhist, Muslim)

It will be the best $7 you ever spent!

THUMB Coloring Book
.99 cent download

Click here to order

THUMB Prayer Cards
$6.00 + Shipping

Click here to order

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Prayer update

The words of Theodore Roosevelt hang above my computer screen. This morning, like many mornings, I spend a few moments reflecting on them as the resonnate with my heart:
 
"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
 
Lately, I feel like that man...the one in the arena, face marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, though errs and comes short again and again. My role as the new Director of Children and Family Mobilization is in full swing, and I feel the weight of it. As we sit at the drawing board, trying to brain storm a name for our ministry and work out ideas for our next project, I am stretched on every level. Like a child walking around in her daddy's shoes, I feel the growth I need to fulfill this position.
And so I stretch. I say with Paul, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them —yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." (1 Corin 15:10). I read. I ask questions. I fall on my knees in prayer. I give everything I have, leaving everything on the table. I never stop believing that God is able. That He confides in those He loves. That in the end we will see the lives of families transformed.
PRAY for me during this season of stretching and learning, asking our Father for greater grace, strength, and stamina.
PRAY for creativity, insight, and wisdom as we work out our next full-time project, wrap up the Perspectives family take home sheets...and that the Lord would give our ministry a name!
PRAY to the Lord of the Harvest for more laborers to complete our children's family team, as we seem to be losing the few people we do have.
PRAY for sweet intimacy with Him after a long and busy summer. I need to be filled so I can empty myself again. Next week, on August 22nd, I celebrate 10 years of walking with Jesus. I am taking the afternoon off to head to a nearby lake and celebrate with my Savior...PRAY that my time will fuel me for the season ahead as I reflect on all He has done.
 
Slowly, my support team is growing. I am back up to the $2800 in commitments I was out when I moved here almost a year ago (can you believe it...almost a year!). I am working to raise the remaining $800 a month needed to get to my new budget.
PRAY for a God's blessing and provision over my current financial partners, that God would continue to give them joy and provision as the partner with me
PRAY for God's continual provision of my daily bread and the remaining $800 a month needed to be fully funded. I am asking for 8 people at $100 a month.

May your heart be filled with great faith today in the one who is able to do more than we ask or imagine...so that even if you fail, you fail while daring greatly.
 
FOR our KING and HIS KINGDOM!
 
"Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God." -William Carey

Monday, August 13, 2012

How to be an Olympic Mother

I'm not mom. I just dream to be one. But when I find great material on motherhood, I can't help but pass it on. It is my job afterall..to inspire mom's to raise strong and purposeful arrows. :)

Check out this blog from InspiredtoAction. Great material. Be inspired. Be encouraged.


I’ve been equally inspired by and distracted by the Olympics the last few weeks.
I have been staying up way too late and not getting enough done. But at the same time, I am so inspired watching the focus, commitment and passion of each athlete.
I love how their dedication to excellence defies the modern idea that we can have it all.

I know it may look to the average watcher like they have it all – fame, fitness, achievement – but the only reason they have those big things is because they gave up so many small (and not so small) things along the way.
They have given up, over an over, the things they want in exchange for the things they dream.
They don’t watch HGTV marathons. They don’t eat ice cream or snacks at their leisure. They don’t sleep in or stay up late.
The pattern of their lives has been to surrender their wants for their dreams.
The trajectory of their entire lives led to this one moment. What they ate, how much they slept, how they spent their time, how much they pursued pain because they knew Gold was on the other side.

It’s All About The Start

One of my favorite things to watch is the way each athlete preps for their event.Some listen to music. Some talk to themselves. Others seem to stare into oblivion with a focus and intensity that could burn a hole through anything that gets between them and the Gold medal.
No one is checking their phone, leisurely chatting with others or nibbling on a bag of chips. That would be ridiculous.
They are at the Olympics. This is the moment of urgency. All the training they’ve been doing their entire lives comes down to right now and they’ll stop at never.
There is no sacrifice without urgency.
Hours upon hours upon hours they spent on meticulous and mundane things like the way they start, the line of their arms, the way they breathe, and how they finish. They work for years in anonymity, early mornings, financial sacrifice and physical pain.
Being an Olympian really isn’t that different from being a mother.
But perhaps it’s easier to sacrifice when you’re standing at the starting blocks of your Olympic dream, but when you’re a mom and there are 5 long hours until nap time and 18 years to get the job done, it’s hard to feel the same sense of urgency.
And yet, in mother time, 5 hours and 5 years seem to go by equally. It is no sooner nap time as it is graduation day.
So, now is the time to make all those choices we hope our future selves will make. Now is the time to stop saying we’ll do better tomorrow, because we said that yesterday.
Now is the time to embrace the timeless urgency of motherhood, trade in our wants for our dreams and trade in regrets for Gold.

{This is where I put my hands on your shoulders, look you in the eye and say, “You’ve got this! Now go be awesome!” Fist bump.}

Oh yeah, there’s gonna be some well loved kids today.

Cue “The Eye of the Tiger…”
By Kate Lee @  http://inspiredtoaction.com/