Our Highlights - Fire & Fragrance DTS

It was only three months, but God crammed so much in there that it'll be hard to sum up all that happened.  But we thought we would share at least one story each to keep it short and simple...as usual, Jon's is actually short! And I actually learned in journalism how to keep things short and simple! Go figure...  

"For me (Tami), one of my highlights was discipling an 18-year old girl from the States. Just thinking about her makes my heart leap. For privacy sake, we'll call her Carrie. Students that come into a DTS (Discipleship Training School) have usually grown up in the church. Very rarely will you meet students who have just been saved or haven't made a commitment to Christ at all.

Carrie had just been saved for about a year before DTS but rough life circumstances made it hard for her to really discover the God she'd given her life to. Since she can remember, her father's always been an alcoholic and in her teenage years became very dependent on her because everyone else in her family turned their backs on him. So supporting her dad in every way was a way of life. Thankfully she has a loving mother and loving sisters, but the pain from her broken relationship with her father led her down a path of heavy partying, drinking and using drugs. Not only that, but physically, she's suffered from severe back problems since around 14yrs old.

After a recommendation from someone, she decided to spend her "gap year" doing a DTS. Fresh out of a heavy partying lifestyle, she had the courage to step onto a plane and head to Hawaii for the unknown that awaited her. So in starting to disciple her, I really had no idea of where to start. Surprisingly, despite her past and current situation, she was really tender-hearted and open to learning about this God, so I was relieved!  I'd see her everyday but each week we'd spend intentional time together, and I was always excited for what God did in those times.

In the beginning of the school, she took small steps like learning how to believe in herself and learning simple values like not stealing. As she got set free from things like self-hatred and depression, she learned how to listen to God's voice instead of the enemy's and the most important thing, she was getting a true heart revelation of how much God intimately loves her and has been beside her all along!!  Her heart was becoming softened and her mind was being so renewed on the truth that she was quickly being transformed ("the truth sets us free").

In the safe community around her, she had awesome times of prayer, deliverance, healing and anointed teaching. God's grace was so tangible in her life.  Like I've rarely met anyone with such hunger for healing, freedom and desire to grow in God - and I saw the real fruit that came from it. If there was a before and after picture of this girl, they would look like two very different people!! Like a black girl and a white girl, it's that serious!!!

By the end of DTS, she was praying for other girls in her room and seeing them get freed from things, she was praying for friends back home and even dreaming with God for her future.  She's now on outreach in a muslim nation, sharing the love of God through discipling muslims, loving on gypsy children and training native Christians there on leadership!!!

I love seeing miraculous signs and wonders, but there's no greater miracle than watching someone come into an authentic, intimate relationship with their Creator, God...everytime it happens, I'm just so thankful and humbled to be a part of His story. And it's to this end that we're so devoted and committed to seeing Jesus receive the reward of His suffering - tami

"Just in praying about what to share I felt like the Lord wanted me to share an area that I grew in.  And if you really know me, this is an area which I really need some growth!  ADMINISTRATION.  I haven't always been the most administratively savvy person but in working with YWAM, I've had the opportunity of planning outreaches (3 month missions trips), taking care of finances and planning events. Isn't it funny that we could go our whole lives thinking we are terrible at something, then God pushes us into it and it turns out it wasn't actually as bad as we thought. So it turns out I can be very administrative and I've found I love organizing and strategizing and now as we are now leading a school ourselves, I'm so thankful for how God's prepared me for it." - Jon

Tidbits of Truth

I took lotsa notes from our school and the following are snippets from these notes that I chose from our speakers that encouraged me, shook me to the core and continue to challenge me. Oh, and if you wanna hear their full message, the teachings from our school are available for FREE in itunes, just look up 'Fire and Fragrance" and the podcasts will pop up. Bon appetite!

"To the degree we are aware of God's extravagant love is the degree to

which we can extravagantly love Him back."

"Rest means truly being able to trust in our Father, where we're

 free from inhibition, fears, insecurities, rejection...true intimacy leads to rest."

"God is equivalent to a 3-grade school girl! Study Zephaniah 3:17 and see how He runs,

dances, shouts, sings and overwhelms us with His love - this is our Father!!"

- Andy Byrd, Week 1 - God's Love

"Where you're meant to be the greatest in life is where the Enemy tries to hit you the hardest."

"We are defined by the voice we listen to...so who's voice are you listening to?"

"Reading the bible without the lens of the Holy Spirit is like watching a
3D movie without the special glasses."

"Worship is giving back to God what He first gave us...love and adoration."


"I never understood why we raised our hands in worship until one day
my son ran to me with his hands raised saying, 'up daddy!'"

"The greatest sin is the suspicion that God is not good."

- Jonathan David Helser, Week 2 - Holy Spirit

"Ministry is meant to be fun because He is fun! Leadership

centred on the presence of God releases His nature, where we drip with the character of God...

when ministry is done in Him, it's effortless!!"

- Melissa Helser, in our staff meeting

"We should be confident in our friendship with God, not confident in our giftings."

"Failing isn't optional, but necessary for growth when your practicing hearing God's voice."

"No amount of anointing can outlive what bad character can destroy."

- Amy Sollars, Week 2 - Holy Spirit

"Don't put your faith in the acts of God,
put your faith in the God that acts."

"When you give up your right for marriage, you are laying down your right to choose

and allowing God to make the best choice for you."

"Everything is gone in an instant at the doorstep of death,
except for being in Christ."

- Loren Cunningham, Week 3

"We don't have much time on this earth! How much are we investing in 
others, how much are we valuing what God's given us

and entrusted to us to make disciples...

not just converts, but true disciples of Jesus?"

"Discipleship is a method of multiplication, not addition...be fruitful and multiply!"

Christie Brennt, Women's Group

 "Truth is the description of reality as God has declared it."

"People get so puffed up on being focused on truth, fighting for their doctrines instead of being focused on God Himself!"


Tom Osterhuse, Week 5 - Biblical Worldview

"Reptentance isn't just people turning from sin, but it's going
 towards God's original intentions for you."

"Restoration isn't about making bad people good, it's about God taking

the fallenness of man and exalting them back to Him."

"God didn't give you a hint of Heaven, He put Heaven in you and you in Heaven!"

"God's perfect, but He's not a perfectionist."

"If two of us are identical, one of us is unnecssary, just be you!"

"Sin doesn't change God, it changes you!"

"The church thinks cramming information into people is transformation."

Steve Thompson, Week 6 - Identity & Kingdom Life

"We shouldn't study the bible, the bible and Spirit should be studying us...
we read the bible not to learn but that our world is
radically altered and transformed because of it!"

"Unless you're transformed by the bible yourself, you'll just be passing on information

to other people."

Mark Harringshaw, How To Study the Bible session

"Our own will will mess us up, that's why Holy Spirit has to guide us."

"If Satan reminds you of your past, you remind him of his past!"

Emmanuel Ziga - Week 7, Supernatural Living

"Learning another language is building a relationship
(with those in the culture your working in)."

"If church planting wasn't messy, most of the New Testament
wouldn't have been written!"

"Pray, because when you pray, God gives you strategy on what to do. Or

else you'll be spending a lot of time, energy and resources
on things that aren't even from God!"

"Human beings are experts at building traditions around the Word and then fighting

for their traditions."

"Take a risk and meet people who are hard and unkind, have mercy

on them to know they don't have the power of the Holy Spirit to be kind like us."

Erik Fish & Dr. Pam - Week 8, Church Planting

 "We're meant to live out of fascination, not obligation."

Sean Feucht, Week 9 - Intercession

"The enemy has done all he can to make prayer and intercession the most

boring part of Christianity, producing lethargy and complacency...
and he succeeded!"

"What if we actually believed that when we hear the Father's heart

for others and pray it out, that Heaven moves and Hell shakes!?!"

"God is looking for a people who, in the midst of fog, will believe His word no matter what."

"Truth is for us to discover, not to try and change to our preferences!"

"The bible isn't a piece of art to be subjective to our perspective, it's a pillar

to our lives meant to be interpreted by Holy Spirit!"

Andy Byrd, Week 9 - Intercession

"Life is discovering how good God is!"

"Be free from needing to be used by God and be abandoned to our lover Jesus!"

"We're not people who struggle with sin and love God, but we're lovers

of God who sometimes struggle with sin."

"In times of injustice, can we look away and look to God to

understand His heart for the situation?"

Dan Bauman, Final Week

"You are the gospel! If you don't carry the good news, you don't

have the good news to share!"

"The next age belongs to innovators, not imitators!"

"Be deeply practical and deeply prayerful."

"Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not. He's waiting for

our engagement and our mobilization!"

"Without prayer, we're just marketing Jesus."

"Too many people think prayer is God saying amen to our desires,

but it's us saying amen to His desires!"

"Be honest with your frustrations to unanswered prayers. 50% of David's

psalms were laments."

"There's people who don't see breakthrough cause they stop

one prayer too soon!"

"Prayer isn't about techniques or formulas, it's about Him!"

Pete Greig of 24/7 Prayer, Final Week 

Miracles of Life (baby blog)

     So since finding out we were pregnant, I never realized what was going on inside of me until our recent ultrasound. The last time I had seen our lil' bambino, they were just a blob.  But recently seeing how much our child has grown, looking more like a human being...it was surreal...it was more surreal knowing I had nothing to do with its growth or development. That God had been busy working away, knitting our child together (Psalms 139:13, 15-16) and all I had to do was sit back and watch His workmanship on a screen! 

So from the ultrasound, I came home and watched a video called, "How Great Is Our God," by Louie Giglio, which I'm sure you can catch on YouTube, or at least parts of it! 

"You're body's busy making a baby!," people would say to me, or "what your body is going through right now is the equivalent to you climbing Mount Everest!" And there are definitely times where I get so tired that I feel this actually happening...but I never really knew the little miracles happening inside of me until I watched this video.

In it, Louie takes an in-depth look at how God created each of us and the little miracles it takes for us to be formed.  Taken from the video, he explains that one cell from your mom and one cell from your dad both found each other (carrying DNA from both parents) and formed one cell. And so began your own DNA strand, adding up to a roughly 3 billion character description of who you are!!! Scientists say if you took your DNA and stretched it out, it would be 6 feet long and that if you were to read your own DNA, reading one character per second every day - night and day- that it would take 96 years just to read the description of yourself!! And by the way, your the only one of your kind.

Onto another miracle, at about the 7th week of your prenatal development, a million optic nerve endings left the optic nerve centre of your brain and headed for a million optic nerve endings of your eye.  They had to meet and match their EXACT partner; one million looking for one million!! And when they found each other, they matched up together and in that very instant, you had sight.  

Then in about the 27th week of your prenatal development, "miraculously and mysteriously" as Louie describes it, a little cutting device appears and cuts perfectly your piece of skin to create your eyelids.

It gets crazier...in the bible, in Colossians 1:16b-17, Apostle Paul says, "All things were created by God and for God. He is before all things, and IN HIM ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER." So that's what the bible says...but in case we don't take the bible seriously, let's look through the lenses of a microscope at our own bodies....specifically, at laminin.

Laminin is a protein adhesion molecule, which in simple terms, is like the steel that holds buildings together. Funny enough, Wikipedia describes laminin as, "an integral part of the structural scaffolding in almost every tissue of an organism...laminin is vital for the maintenance and survival of tissues." It's basically the glue that HOLDS US TOGETHER.

What blew me away though, was seeing what laminin looked like....jaw dropping...

I picture the Father, Son and Holy Spirit collaborating, "just in case they need to know who really created them, let's design the cell that holds them together to look like the cross!! Maybe that'll convince them that their life is really in and through Jesus Christ!" I don't know what better evidence to assure myself, and this world, that God is real and is seriously our Creator.

It was then that I realized that above the beauty of this vast earth, God's greatest achievement is what He delights in the most - His children...us! To think that you were once a thought of His, then at the precise moment in history, He spoke and you came to be.  "He spoke, and it came to be: He commanded and it stood firm" (Psalms 33).

I don't know who I'm writing this for; maybe for myself, to know how uniquely special I truly am, that when God says I'm special and beautiful in His sight that I can finally believe that it's true.  Maybe I'm writing this for our child, who will hopefully grow up and read this, along with the journal entries of dreams God's given me about them...just to know they're not here by mere chance or mistake, left to fumble around to find their purpose in life.  

But to know that they are being created in my womb in this specific moment in history, with their own specific and beautifully unique identity, to fulfill the purposes that God created them for.  And if someone other than me is still reading this, I pray you'll be rocked in your very core to know the truth of why you were created and that you truly are a miracle. We don't choose God...He clearly chooses us first!! And He chose you...to celebrate the miracle of your life and to find your life in Him.

Love, love, love,

tami

What Does It Mean to Love Jesus? - "Follow" by Floyd McClung

I'm reading a book called, "Follow" by Floyd McClung who is a missionary with YWAM. We're reading it as part of a leadership class on the base and I was so hit by its first chapter that I had to share a bit of it. I just relate with the author; my life went from a lot of hurt and shame, and a fake relationship with God that was built on religion and lies that was obviously useless to me...and now, I'm thankful to have found Jesus for real...He's not just a far off idea or part-time friend anymore, He is my life and I will follow Him to the end. I share this part of the first chapter as a testimony of what God did in my life.  Seriously take it in - eat it, allow it to digest into your heart and mind, and allow Holy Spirit to minister to you through it, bringing hope and life and freedom.

"Our theme in this first part of this book is loving Jesus. I know, and I hope you know as well, that loving Jesus is a heart response to His love for us, involving a commitment to obey Jesus each day of our lives. But we must allow God to love us to the point where He captures our complete devotion.

To be captured by Jesus is to be captivated by Him, fascinated and intrigued with who He is and what He has in store for us.  Loving Jesus means opening our hearts to Him, holding back nothing, confessing everything - our weaknesses and fears, dreams and longings.

Loving Jesus has to be lived out in the face of constant temptation to conform and compromise. This pressure can come from myriad sources: from the influence of our culture and its more depraved and dehumanizing demands, to the more naive, but sometimes painful, interactions with friends and family.  It can come from people we work with or go to school with, and from movies, TV, and certain types of music.  Jesus wants to give us the strength to withstand the pressures contrary to His way so that we can live out our lives for Him and His purposes.

We're all slaves to something or someone - either willing love slaves or unwilling slaves to private prisons we make. We were created to be fully devoted to God, and if we're not fully devoted to God, we'll give that devotion to someone or something else.

Paul the apostle speaks to the Roman believers of this capacity for devotion: "You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits" Rom 6:16 The Message version. We cannot serve two masters.

We serve the one we love, and we love the one we serve. When we allow Him to love us, we unshackle our hearts to love Him back. This is good news to religious people who want to be free of religion!

(further on in this section of the chapter)..."Though we were once slaves to our passions, desires, fears, and hurts, we are set free to love God with our whole hearts. No longer do we have to be prisoners. This is the good news of the gospel!

God's love invades our minds, changing our core values and transforming our behaviour.  We don't behave differently in order to be loved by God, but because we are loved by God. We realize that God is not trying to punish us for our past sins but (He wants to) deliver us from them. He is not out to heap shame on us for past failures but to take our shame away and give us the great gift of finally, fully belonging."

Love,

tami

I Will Waste My Life

I love how certain songs really move us in certain times of our lives...like "This I Promise You" by N'Sync when I was a teeny bopper...haha, thankfully the times and songs have changed. So the theme song for my life recently has been, "I Will Waste My Life" by Misty Edwards, it's on her album Relentless.  I can't recommend this album more.

The lyrics to the song go a little something like this:

"I say goodbye to my father, my mother,

I turn my back on every other lover, and I

Press on, yes I press on ...

For I am in love with you,

And there is no cost.

I am in love with you,

And there is no loss..."

The song ends with "I wanna cling to you." This song "struck a chord" in me cause I realize that's been our journey since we've been with YWAM. Jon and I have left everyone and everything we love behind (including the comforts of free healthcare!!) to pursue God's calling on our lives here in the middle of nowhere.  

I'm discipling a young woman right now who recently left the army (National Guard) to pursue God in a deeper way and she said missions work is exactly like the army.  The world's army is similar to God's in that as soon as you give your life to Him, you're automatically enrolled in His army, you give up all your rights (your wants, your finances, etc.) to fight not only for your freedom in Him, but for the freedom of others.  In the world's army, you get your "orders" and get deployed...right now, Jon and I are waiting for our "orders." There's a few differences though, like in the world's army, most are fighting for their own glory, but in God's army, we're fighting for His glory.  

And funny enough, Loren Cunningham has been speaking this week about what it means to really follow God; what it means to lay down our lives for our King, to live a life of devotion and daily obedience. You can find similar teachings of Loren's on the free podcast, "Fire and Fragrance..."

The other night, coming home late and exhausted from a long day, I went to bed knowing it was worth it all.  I had spent the evening at a women's shelter, talking with women who had escaped abusive situations - while giving massages to them (working in a spa taught me a few tricks). A few women on the base get together once a month to put on a spa night for women who've experienced domestic violence, and I got to join them...and will hopefully get to continue to, it's great to get more into the community. To be able to speak hope into one mother's situation and for her to hear testimonies of how God's redeemed my life, by the end of it, I could tell seeds of hope and life were planted in her heart.  

There are just so many other stories of seeing God break into people's lives with healing and restoration that I walk away knowing why I've left everything and everyone behind.  For others to know the Jesus who has loved them before the beginning of time and who will always radically love them.  I don't care what it costs us, wherever God takes us in the future, I want to be so in awe of God, so thankful for Him and in love with Him that I won't care what it costs me.  

Cause at the end of it all, all I can do is cling to the One I love, the One I've chosen to trust, the One who's proven Himself faithful and good over and over.  And with this, I press on.  Sometimes painfully press on.

Hopefully this song, or our stories, are of some encouragement to you wherever you're at in life.  I don't wanna assume I have it all together, cause I certainly don't...I'm still learning how to give up certain areas of life (like Jon) for Him.  But I know Jesus is so worthy of not just my life, but my love and deepest affections.  And every person in this world and in my life, no matter what they've done, are worthy of my love because He's found me worthy of His.  

So I joyfully waste my life on learning how to live for God with selfless love.  I've always loved this quote, "It's better to live for something than to die for nothing." 

For His glory, let's live for Him together,

- tami

Ways to Give ~ Mahalo! Danke! Merci! Gracias!

ONLINE - QUICK & PAINLESS (one-time or monthly)

- Go to www.canadahelps.org

- Type "YWAM BC" in the 'I want to give' box. It should say Youth With A Mission BC Society, click this option. 

- Click the pink button, "Donate Now" OR "Donate Monthly"

- Follow the instructions

- In the Fund/Designation, your giving to the 'General Funds to Individual - Missionary Ministry' which should already be the option. In the box below this, the message/instruction box, write that the donation is for Jonathan & Tami Masson (MJ22). It is important to give them this instruction so that the donation actually goes to us!

- Almost done! Complete the necessary steps after this and you're done!! Thank you so much for investing into our lives, may you see and know the fruit of your blessings!

MAILING A CHEQUE

- Make cheque/check (depending on where you're from, haha) payable to "YWAM" and write Jon and Tami in the note area of chq.

- Send to:

YWAM Project Funding

Box 57100

Vancouver, BC

V5K 1Z0

ACCOUNT PRE-AUTHORIZED DONATIONS

Due to recent changes to the way their bank receives donations, please contact the YWAM BC Society's office directly as to how to go about setting up pre-authorized donations. Sorry for this inconvenience, but this is the best way until they figure out a new system...they've been great at handling our donations and are really kind! So email: donorservices@shaw.ca

QUESTIONS? NEED ANY INFO? HAVING ANY PROBLEMS?

Email us with any questions: jonandtami@gmail.com

                                  OR

Contact our friendly helpers at the YWAM BC Society: donorservices@shaw.ca

Seeds, Watering and Increase

It is kind of weird to think, but Tami and I have now been missionaries for the last six years.  Though I have learned much through mistakes and victories, there is so much we still need to learn.  And we thank all of you from a very deep place in our hearts for all of your support whether through prayer, encouraging us in our calling to financially sowing into God's vision over our lives.  We truly appreciate it all.  

I wanted to share something God taught me this past Tuesday night during our community outreach - every week we go out as a Discipleship Training School into the community of Kona and share the love of Jesus with people through prayer or whatever the Lord leads us to do.  So this past Tuesday, my friend Jasen and I were walking in one of the darkest places in town when we walked by some other people from our school.  They were worshipping the Lord and we stood there and watched as this young man walked over, attracted by the worship, and sat down on the ocean wall.  Jasen and I walked over and began to talk with him.  We had small talk for a few minutes and then Jasen explained that we are Christians, love Jesus and asked if we could pray for him.  He was like, "Sure, I can sense you guys have a great energy!" So we knew he was into weird spiritual stuff.  Jason began to pray and the Lord revealed to him stuff about this young man's life and, surprised, he confirmed it was all true.  Right then, my head started to hurt, almost like my brain was being squished and I knew God was showing me something about the young man. I asked him if he ever experiences stuff like that and he said, "Actually, I am right now."  So with his permission, I prayed for him and he instantly felt better.  Thank you Jesus!! Jasen began to share the gospel with him and for a split second, we could sense that his heart was receiving it.  Then all of a sudden, he closed up and said he didn't know if he was ready because he believes everyone and everything is God (his mind and logical reasoning began to override his heart).  I could have walked away disappointed, but the Lord taught and encouraged me with this:

"After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.  It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow." 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 NLT

God gave us the incredible opportunity in that moment in time to talk with that young man, to plant seeds into his heart because I believe that deep inside of him, he is searching for the real truth. And I totally believe that within the next few months, he will meet people who will water those seeds! I may never know what happens to that young man, but I'm believing and praying we'll meet up with him in Heaven with the others who poured into his life to hear about the rest of his journey to Jesus...and the adventures he had after that!

Peace,
  Jon

Pregnant...and Learning How to Trust God

So since finding out we're pregnant, it's been an exciting journey of learning how to trust God in a new and deeper way. I can go into great detail of what it's been like, but wanted to give just one example of what we've learned in fighting to trust God and ultimately being able to remain in His peace.

Shortly before leaving for training in hawaii, we got an ultrasound done and was told by our doctor that they weren't able to call it a pregnancy yet because there was only an embryo sac with nothing in there. He suggested that we didn't go to hawaii just in case we had a miscarriage, the bad news went on and on. Now our doctor is actually really amazingly compassionate, is a follwer of Christ and most of his patients are missionaries and he's usually really positive so it was really unusual to hear such negativity coming from him but as a doctor, he's got an obligation to give us the worst possible scenario.

We were floored with discouragement thinking that we weren't actually pregnant, we were just thrown into confusion. With our emotions all over the place, we quickly went to prayer and sought God for the truth in the midst of this craziness. How God came through was astounding. On my way home from the doctor's, I was praying and asking God to give us something, just say something!! And as I stopped at a stoplight, the car in front of me had a license plate that read, "GR8KIDS" .... how amazing is that!?!

Jon and I quickly called some of our friends to pray and seek God as to what's going on and we ourselves took a drive to process it all and pray. Thankfully, over and over, God comforted us and encouraged us to be at rest, that our child is ok, is growing normally and not to worry. Ultimately, not to accept what the doctor said as truth. We needed to allow Truth Himself to lead us into the truth, and it really did set us free!! John 8:31-32. At that point, we chose to allow God to have the final say in our lives and not the doctor - whom we have so much respect for!!

So our child was ok, but our next obstacle was do we go to training or not? Do we follow the doctor's orders or seek God for what He thought? I wanted to stay back and wanted Jon to go to training cause I was scared about this miscarriage stuff that the doctor was talking about!! The day before we were scheduled to leave, my mom called and had such a deep conviction that we both needed to go...and for my mom to say this, and to call so dang early in the morning to tell me, I had a feeling it was God. I got off the phone and asked God if He was somehow speaking through her and if it was true. So I decided to go and I was instantly filled with incredible peace that I can't even put words to. But it's like the cloud of confusion lifted and I could see clearly. That's when I knew it was God, the presence of His peace was so strong. I realized how much I had allowed fear to dictate what I should do.

While we were at training, throughout the week, we kept seeing how we were right where we were supposed to be. We kept thanking Him over and over for His serious faithfulness to us, for standing by us.  This was just one scenario of what it's been like to trust God on a deeper level than we've known. Certainly, we're not bashing doctors or their wisdom and skill, but it's clear that we can't lean on everything they say. We need to truly lean on God, discern truth and not lean on our own understanding of what we think is right (Proverbs 3:5-6). He knows the way that'll lead us to true life, so why have it any other way!?!?

We still face many unanswered questions as to what our near future looks like, but we're looking forward to trusting on God more than ever before... there's such a peace that comes from truly surrendering everything and leaning on Him. So a child-like heart and wisdom from God is what I'm praying for through all of this...dig into James 3:13-18, it's an amazing explanation of the difference between earthly wisdom vs. wisdom from God.

And this is just the beginning of our crazy journey into parenthood!! Come join us for the ride!! Now we're learning what it means to be missionaries with a bigger family than just us two! And thank God for amazing families around us who are modelling what it's like to be young missionaries with kids!! Thank you God for amazingly faithful family and friends around the world, especially in the TDot!!

Love you all and appreciate you so much, more than you'll ever know...

 

- tami