Hello all!!
God is good. He never leaves us alone in His work. In this process of support raising, I have learned more about prayer, faith, humility, and mission than I have about finances or support. God uses all things to glorify Himself if we are open and aware. I have been on a journey with my wife, Cassie, about what it looks to actively trust in our God. This task is not primarily ours, but it is God's that we have been invited into. For the beginning months of support we have done a lot of work on our own. We were confident entering our meetings becasue they were with people that were close to us in relationship. Now it is getting harder where the people that we reach out to are now people that we have been in-and-out of contact with. All we have is to trust in their relationship with God and their conviction to obey by joining in His mission work through us. It seems like this latter situation should be better and would bring about more confidence, but it has not felt that way. That is becasue my heart was solely focused on the task and the work that can be accomplished by my works, rather than leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about people into His mission through us.
We have learned to pray more and pray always. It truly does bring rest to your heart and spirit, but also your physical body. Prayer is not a fabricated, superficial outlet to make yourself just feel better about situations... but prayer ACTUALLY works. Prayer is our lifeline to the Holy Spirit to come and transform everything! We finally have come to a place where we found the absolte necessity to be in prayer to the God that knows all and provides all.
God has been faithful in teaching us what we had to learn before the field... that we are to: "not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." -Paul