Waiting On the Lord

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails. Prov 19:21

I first got my missions feet wet 22 years ago. Over the past two decades, my passion and labor for foreign ministry has not changed but literally multiplied as the Lord provided me a wonderful missions minded wife in Claudia and the chance to teach Jeremy and Nico about being “strangers in a strange land” no matter where we are (Heb. 11:13-16). We anticipate always being focused on fulfilling the great commission and foreign missions in particular, yet for over a year now we’ve sensed the Lord stirring our hearts toward a new path. We believe strongly that the Church, and specifically “local churches”, are the means by which the Lord has given us to “Make disciples of all nations” (Mat. 28). For that reason we have made a point of being intimately involved in a local church wherever God has planted us (California, Chile, Florida and Cuba by extension), and sought to use our gifts and abilities in these churches while receiving the benefit of being under the direct spiritual authority and guidance of pastoral leadership.

Lately we have found ourselves hungering to be more intimately involved in missions work from the ground floor, or “grass roots” level of the local church as they partner with other local churches in various parts of our own countries (U.S. & Chile) and around the world. This may sound strange from someone who has been involved with the parachurch ministry of Latin America Mission for many years now, so I want to carefully emphasize that we have the utmost admiration and love for LAM as a whole. We actually joined LAM because we saw in them a respect for Latin leadership, and a desire to work alongside of churches in Latin America, so please understand that as we consider what steps the Lord would have us take next, it is not due to any difficulties with LAM. Instead, any future changes will be as a result of a God given burden for the local church on both the sending and receiving ends of mission and a continued desire to see the fulfillment of the great commission.
We recognize that this is big news, and as one dear friend told me when we first started considering a change: “It seems like the death of your dream of foreign ministry”. I explained to him that at this point we don't know what the change will be, but it is in reality the exact opposite from a "dream death". The very heart of what we are doing now, and wherever we will be working & serving in the future, doesn’t vary in any way from what we’ve been doing throughout our years of missionary work: following our Lord wherever He leads us. If our hope and desire is to Glorify God and make Him known, instead of seeking our own temporal “dreams”, we have nothing to lose, since the very one we want to Glorify is the one guiding our steps! “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Prov. 16:9).

So where do we go from here? Frankly…I’m not sure at this point. So until the Lord opens the next door, we will continue where He has us now, including the various Cuba and other projects at LAM, Kevin working one day a week in home repair, Claudia as a Lia Sophia jewelry advisor and serving in our local church. We are hoping that by the end of summer we will be able to see God’s leading and provision clearly, but as always, we wait on His timing. My purpose in writing this is to ask you to pray for wisdom and guidance for our immediate ministerial work as well as these future decisions. Thank you for your continuing the wonderful encouragement and financial support we have been so blessed to receive over the years. When the time to step into a new job/ministry comes, we will let you, our faithful prayer supporters, our financial partners and our dear friends know with anticipation.

Thank you for your amazing faithfulness which has allowed us to do the things the Lord has called us to over these years.

If you are interested in following my thoughts in a more extensive format, please log on to: http://missionunderstandings.blogspot.com or simply send us an e-mail or give us a call.

In His Hands;
Kevin, for the family.