Being the person who has their phone and internet turned off for not paying the bill, is not a part of my normal self image.  In fact, I typically see myself as a good credit rating, bills-paid-on-time sort of person.  So Friday when our phone suddenly stopped making outbound calls (but continued to recieve calls) I figured that our prodigal Telkom was striking again.  That may require a bit of clarification.  Suffice to say that we’ve had all sorts of problems with Telkom, from failed/sub-standard hardware, to service outages, to inexplicable billing.  Friday morning, when the phone stopped, I thought we’d give it a bit of time and see if things resolved themselves.  This was an easy decision since I don’t really like talking on the phone much.  Saturday morning when the internet went out, I got a little more uncomfortable.  But I figured that was just confirmation the line was messed up some where and I assumed they were working on it.  However, by Sunday, when none of our neighbors were having problems and we were still without service, I picked up the phone — the cell phone — to call Telkom.

I’m not a fan of making phone calls.  I don’t know why, but I have an almost irrational fear of it.  Making them in German is even more scary.  Often, when conversing in German, my fears are realized, and I can’t understand a word the person on the other end of the phone is saying.  However, this phone conversation went fairly smoothly, and after a few attempts the Telkom representative made it clear to me that they had not received our last payment.

Virtually everything here in German is handled via electronic funds transfer.  When you recieve a bill, it comes with a little yellow slip you fill out to have the funds transfered, or you can go online and transfer the funds directly from the bank.  These transfers are not instant, however.  They usually take 24 hours.  You probably see where this is going.  We’d payed the bill, but because it’s been a very challenging season for us financially, we’d paid it at the last minute.  Some hiccup in the process meant that Telkom didn’t process it before the weekend, and so they shut off our service.  It took until Tuesday to get our service restored.

This came at an interesting time for me, though.  I don’t know if it’s a stage of culture shock, or just a lot of stress, but I’ve been finding it more difficult to really make a connection with God.  I often feel like He’s terminated my service, and I don’t know why.  It seems arbitrary and unfair.  But when I’m really honest, I realize that my sense of disconnection isn’t coming from God, but rather it’s the result of my own actions.  I rush through my devotional and prayer time to get on to “more important” things.  I get angry when He leads me to some struggle or trial that’s meant to shape me into a better man, instead of leading me to the prosperity and ease I desire.  The communications disconnect isn’t really God’s doing at all.  It’s my own, just like our service getting interrupted because we paid the bill too late.  Unlike Telkom, though, God doesn’t punatively disconnect my service, He’s always tuned in.  I just can’t hear Him when I drown out his voice with my own noise.

EVERYTHING

What if God gave us freewill solely so that we can freely decide to give it back?

One of the harder moments in our long run up to the field involved a change in ministry. For a long time, I believed I was going to train European believers in video production. This was a really exciting idea to me, because I believe media is such a crucial battlefield. That’s no longer a part of the our ministry vision and that loss was very difficult for me. I fought against the change, because in my heart I firmly believed that was a critical part of God’s plan for me. It’s been several years, and God has done a lot to teach me about trusting Him, serving where He places me, and accepting the authorities He places over me. All hard, but important lessons for the work ahead.

Recently, I had an incredible opportunity. Many of you may be familiar with Erwin McManus and the Mosiac Church in Los Angeles. In a nutshell, Mosiac has decided to throw off their traditional structures and ideas, while holding fast to scripture, and truly focus on the salvation of the lost. At the invitation of our German church, a team from Mosaic came out to share what they’re learning from this process. The result was a conference called Origins.

I found the conference to be tremendously challenging. They challenged my assumptions about all sorts of issues from discipleship to what church should look like. I was particularly struck by one story: One of the speakers, Eric Bryant, was talking about his conversation with a lesbian woman who attends their church. She asked him, “[if I accept Jesus,] do I need to give up my lifestyle?” At this point I was riveted. There are few questions more bitterly defining the struggle of the church in the 21st Century.

Read the rest.

AGENT COX HAS A MISSION

During Spring break March 28- April 4, 2009, small groups of scheming and calculating BFA (Black Forest Academy) students will be dispersed to various and strategic places all over the world- each group has a top priority mission to carry to completion. Each mission is tailored to that particular group’s highly unique and most valuable capabilities. Brittany Cox is an agent assigned to one of these posses, the one destined for Suceava, Romania. The Mission: to spread word that her Employer, the Boss, the one with the power, power big enough to knock people dead with his pinky finger, is now at large. Yeah, that guy, his name is rumored to be “Jesus,” but he’s got other ones. It’ll be this group’s mission to warn the kids at Filadelphia Christian School (FCS), this guy is presently on the lose and… loving people? Wait, what?

Read the rest.

UPDATE: I have to apologize.  Someone just let me know the “Read the rest” links on both articles was broken.  It should be fixed now.

During our deputation time, I had a chance to share with many people the tremendous impact Devere and Lee Curtiss have had on our lives.  Not only did they recruit us to missions and to Greater Europe Mission, but Devere has been a personal mentor.

Each year, all the missionaries in Greater Europe Mission’s family come together.  It’s a tremendous time where we catch a vision of the impact our organization is having not just in our particular field, but all across the continent.  We swap ideas, plan partnerships, encourage and energize each other for the coming year’s ministry.

In that context, it’s such a delight to get to share my first conference with Devere and Lee.  Devere shared with me that this may be their last conference.  I’m so glad to be here with them.

click here for the entire thing

The two most common comments we receive on our newsletters are “I love the pictures” and “I always mean to read them, but never get around to it.” That said, this month there are a lot less words and a whole lot more pictures. I hope you’ll let us know what you think.

Flowers for teachers $10.00

Space bags $30

Shipping boxes to Germany $340

Less than 24 hours until we leave for Germany… Priceless

I have to believe that God had this move to Connecticut planned all along. Each of us has learned some extremely important lessons and some fun ones along the way. We were told over and over today that Britt was a very specific answer to prayer. The teen leaders had been praying for a “spark plug” to come and light a fire in the teen club. For all of you that know Britt and know her well, that describes her to a T. I was brave enough to take up playing the djembe. It’s great fun! Faith has learned how to make new friends and learned that “when you’re stuck and can’t really get out, God tries to help you.” Isaac has found a love for soccer and his exceptional trumpet talent while here. He also learned that he loves small communities, which is a huge benefit because our community in Kandern will definitely be small. We’ve all learned very exciting things, but what I can’t wait to find out is what was all this in preparation for? Each time in scripture the 40 days/weeks/years were in preparation for something. So what awesome ministry opportunities does God have in store for us? I can’t wait to find out and share with each of you.

But the first exciting thing we would like to share with you after our 40 weeks is this morning Pastor Paul challenged the congregation of Calvary Chapel to meet our last $95/mo need. We were hugely blessed by not only the $95/mo but $135/mo in new pledges! Our God is good. We are currently at 102%! It’s still 102% of our reduced budget which is very tight, but regardless it’s another amazing blessing from the Lord. We want to thank each of you for your prayers and support of us during these last couple of years while we worked on support-raising. God was preparing us for His work. We can’t wait.

We packed yesterday (and Brandy unpacked again this morning).  We’re trying to work out exactly how much we can take on the plane with us.  I keep thinking space will be at a premium, but the problem is really weight.  Each checked bag can be 50lbs.  That sounds like a lot, but it really doesn’t take much to make a bag that heavy.

Today we’re making calls and canceling things.. internet services, supplemental medical plans, all those things we needed here in Connecticut that won’t do us an ounce of good in Germany.  It’s amazing how many tiny pieces there are to a move like this.  Thanks so much for your prayers.  We need them.