Field Council

One of the things we do each year, required by both our home organization as well as our statutes on file with Mozambique, is to have an annual meeting of all the missionaries in the field to lay out the plans for the next year and beyond, elect new 'officers' for the coming year and jiggle around assignments as appropriate.  The main deliverable from this meeiting is our annual field plan, which is delivered to OMS each year.  I'll be putting that plan together this year based on input I get from my colleages as discussed in the meeting.  It's a tool that helps guide our work here in Mozambique.

(photo left to right, Larry, Phillip, Susan, Diane, Abigail, Gary, Sharon, Melvin, Ann, Joshua, David, Kyla, Aimee)

It also provides a good forum to problem solve.  A big part of this year's meetings were to give reports of what happened over the last 12 months.  That was very useful for us to hear and there has been an amazing amount of work happening here.   Our missionary children's school successfully moved and started classes at the new location, where we are living now, and the renovations needed to make a school here are finished for the most part.  We have some payments to make on this property in the coming months and years but we are confident that will all work out also.

The photograph is of our team as it exists now.  It's great to have such a tremendous group of dedicated people here.

Tomorrow we will turn in our immigration paperwork and hopefully the doctor's report and recommendation on my eye.  We will also be trying to get the requisite paperwork for an emergency exit from the country w/o a passport (which is included in our immigration paperwork), should we have to do that over this eye thing.  It seems to be settling down, so we're not too worried.

It's a privilege to be here.  As a team, we had our own church service together as a part of our team meetings and it was a special time.  We listened to one of the CDs we brought with us from the OMS 110th anniversary celebration we attended in Indiana a few short months ago.  I know it was my second time, but it was as if God had a different message this time around - I love how that can happen.  Very challenging - it was a message from Beth Coppedge (http://www.tituswomensministry.org) who is a very challenging speaker and one of those folks that is, well, for lack of other words - the real deal.

A number of things really spoke to me here from this message:  the importance of prayer, that our calling is first to love Jesus - He wants relationship with us - He is not impressed by what we do, but rather wants relationship with us so we can be transformed from the inside out.

We need to carry the presence of Jesus into a lost and dying world.  We need to divest of ourselves, spend time in His presence, so we can take that presence out.  Put another way, it isn't what we do, or who we are, our desire should be that when people see us, they see Jesus.  What a challenge - like the donkey who carried the eternal God-man Jesus into Jerusalem with triumph all those years ago.  The people came and worshipped because they were in His presence - it wasn't the donkey, it was Jesus.  I just love that analogy - perhaps because I've been accused of being so mule-headed?

Blessings this day.

Dave and Ann

"Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find."  State of Wonder by Ann Patchett