New Year Covenant

What a winter it has been - we've been snowed-in in South Carolina for the past two days - how can that be? This is South Carolina for heaven's sake! The ice age has returned - wooly mammoths are around the corner chased by sabertooth tigers. I'd better get my spear sharpened and my traps set.

Our hosts have told us that we have to leave - we bring bad weather with us where-ever we go!

This past Sunday evening we attended a special covenant renewal service. We've had the fortune to attend this special service two different years. The teaching by Sinclair Ferguson came from Lamentations 3:22-27 with the following points:

1. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

2. God's mercies are unending and they are new every morning

3. His faithfulness is so very great.

This was after contextualizing this book, which was written after Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and the world as they knew it had completely ended. The unthinkable had happened; the judgement of God had come.

The message focus was on God's faithfulness, and with that we renewed the following covenant that I would like to challenge our readers with as well:

THE COVENANT

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will,

Place me with whom you will.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering;

Let me be employed for your or laid aside for you,

Exalted for you or brought low for you.

Let me be full, let me be empty;

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

To your pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit:

You are mine and I am yours. May it be so!

And may the covenant which I have made

here on earth

Be confirmed in heaven.

Amen.

May this be your covenant and prayer for this new year.

Dave & Ann

"Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see:

All I have needed thy hand has provided

Great is they faithfulness, Lord, unto me."

from the hymn we all know.....

Meanwhile Back at the Cabin

We checked with our neighbors at the cabin in North Carolina. We have things there we need to get within the next two weeks. Our neighbors on the mountain have basically been snowed in since Christmas and there are no plans to plow out until next Tuesday or Wednesday. The drifts are over waist high and the temperature is below zero.

I had insulated the water pipes under the cabin and we left the heat up a little but I worry about the water filter freezing under the house which isn't insulated. My plan was to put heat tape around it but the weather has not been cooperating!

If they plow Tuesday, we might be able to make a quick run before next weekend, when we will be speaking at a church in Sanford, North Carolina. The following weekend is Nashville, and the next weekend we have a week-long conference in Florida and somewhere in there we need to pass through Huntsville Alabama to arrange the shipment of a old player piano (has great sentimental value within the family) from Dave's mother's house to family in Idaho as she is moving to an assisted living center and liquidating the house. We also want to pass through Knoxville, TN.

Sounds like it would be a several day process to dig out the path to the cabin once we get there! Wow!

What a blessing it has been to have somewhere in South Carolina we could 'winter' for a few weeks!

This morning I was reading in Romans (my favorite book in the Bible) and was particularly touched by Paul's words in Chapter 15 and thinking much about the lost world. As we drive through this great and blessed country of ours (America), there are churches on every other corner - people for the most part have many chances to hear and respond to the Gospel and have made their choice (of course, the great commission (Matt 28) is clear that we are to reach and to disciple those close to us and in our communities, as well as in the world). There are many opportunities to be discipled through conferences, Sunday Schools, Christian Radio, Bible studies, church services, youth groups, youth conferences and we praise God for these important and wonderful ministries. But in so many parts of the world, like where we serve, so many have not even had the chance to hear the Good News of the Gospel of Christ. May our ambition be like Paul's (see the verse below).

Much love on this Sunday. We're off to church, thanking God for his wondrous provision.

Dave & Ann

"It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written: 'Those who were not told about him will see and those who have not heard will understand.'" Romans 15:20-21

A New Year

We are one week into the new year, rejoicing in what God has done in this past year. We are currently in South Carolina, traveling and sharing what God is doing in Mozambique. This past week we had the privilege to share in a church outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The pastor of this church and his family are dear friends to us, dating back to when we lived in Charleston with our young family all those years ago. We are very thankful for this spontaneous opportunity and it is the first time ever we ran out of prayer cards! More will go in the mail today! This was a very special time for us and a wonderful encouragement to us.

We continue to travel much, making the most of every opportunity to share what God is doing in our lives and in Mozambique. We just issued our year-end report for the church planting / multiplication program we work in and to encourage you, I’ll provide some basic statistics from that report for Calendar year 2010:

15 new churches planted

3379 decisions for Christ

At the current time there are over 890 people in structured discipleship training and 260 leaders being groomed in the Village Church Planting Program. These are statistics in the rural areas of Mozambique and do not include the seminary and larger established churches in the Maputo (capital city) area. We praise God for each of these decisions, for each of these new churches, and pray he will grow the leadership and the congregations as they learn to walk with Christ. What a privilege it is to have a small part in this work.

It is our prayer that the existing church base will grow in spiritual maturity and understanding and that there will be a renewed passion for evangelism and church planting with a concurrent emphasis to disciple those who are new in their faith.

As we think about this next year, we see that we have much that must be done before we return to Mozambique. Some specific prayer requests:

1. We have an intense travel schedule over the coming months and need travel mercies and His presence as we go from place to place.
2. We are a bit overwhelmed thinking about the logistics of returning to Mozambique. We need to move out of the cabin, prepare a small shipment to send back to Mozambique, decide what city it is best to fly out of (driven by the shipment), and what to do with this car we bought when we returned to the States. We are scattered between four states and would like to centralize our things back in Pittsburgh, where we have a few things in storage. We need to get this all clear in our minds so we can purchase our return tickets.
3. We are beginning to sense a different direction when we return as we have prayed about this next term. We still would be doing church planting / multiplication, but we are sensing a bit different personal focus this next term. This may involve moving into a more rural environment but we are waiting on Him.
4. The thought of leaving our children again weighs heavily on us. This has been a higher cost than we ever anticipated and grips us deep in our souls.
5. We simply want to be obedient to the Call on our lives and walk confidently in that Call. It is such a privilege to be a part of the church planting movement in Mozambique.
6. We pray that we would be used of God to make a difference. We have learned that this comes by being obedient day-by-day, where-ever God has us at the moment.
7. Our National church leadership is key to the continued spread of the Gospel in Mozambique. Pray that they would remain faithful and obedient to God's call on their lives.

Blessings in this New Year!

The photo is Dave with precious grandson Caleb.

Dave & Ann

Christmas Greetings

We just submitted the church registry, or listing of all the churches, their leadership, the numbers associated with each church (attendence, members, baptisms, etc.) and as always these reports are quite exciting. Even in the relative slow hot months in Mozambique, we saw additional churches planted, for which we praise God.

This photograph is outside our Mocuba Training Center, where Juka, our country church-multiplication coordinator conducted a week-long training seminar with our trainers and church planters. The women also got together for their own time of study, prayer and training, as hosted by Juka's dear wife. The reports we have received about the training have been very good although the Trainers are a bit discourage as attendence has been down laterly because of the demands on the subsistence farms - there has been quite a bit of rain and the crops have needed tending. It is an important part of community life in rural Mozambique. We are so thankful for this commited team of people reaching their country for Christ.

We will be receiving our year end reports in the coming few weeks and I look forward to summarizing them for you.

We enjoyed our time with family for the holiday and pray you did as well. This photo was taken on Christmas Day at Allison's and Byron's house.

Blessings to you.

Dave & Ann

"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground." Ps 142:10

Christmas Newsletter

By now, all of those on our mailing list should have received our Christmas letter. Just in case, we have also posted it in our 'newsletter' folder on goggle documents. You can access the newsletter by clicking the "newsletters" link to the left. It is in Adobe Acrobat format so you will need the free Adobe Acrobat reader to read it. To reduce the file size, we did some compression of format, so the clarity may not be as sharp as the copy you received in the mail.

If you are not on our mailing list and want to be, just drop us an email.

Blessings,

Dave & Ann