I would have told you a year ago that I would not be able to have the privilege to visit with people from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. When my family and I went to Wildwood and other Toledo area Metro Parks, I would pray and wonder how we could share the love of Jesus with these dear people from the Middle East. But I didn’t have a bridge and the opportunities seemed as distant as the people my heart went out to.
God provided that bridge last summer through being able to teach English at Water for Ishmael. And what was impossible a year ago naturally and supernaturally happened.
Within the course of a few days last week, God blessed us with the privilege to meet, talk with, eat with, go to the Imagination Station with, and have fellowship around our table with people from all over the Middle East.
They are precious people and dear friends – people who we call each other brothers – and some family. And as we open our home, we see how God doesn’t necessarily need a big home to do ministry, what He ask for are big hearts and obedient trust. And so we humbly open our lives, our homes, our family and our hearts to each precious family that God brings into our lives and we are blessed.
In all of this, God has also been teaching us not only to pray, but live a praying life. I love what Paul Miller says in his book A Praying Life, “Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart.”*
I think this is very true. Our life is anything but less busy, and yet our hearts are slowly growing to be less busy and more trusting and obedient.
And we couldn’t do this without the generous support from you who have helped support us. Thank you and thanks be to God.
—
*Miller, Paul E.. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (p. 11). The Navigators. Kindle Edition.
Turners at WFI 