Marathon post #5- Completion

I could not believe I crossed the finish line. Maybe that was why I was crying. Yeah. I was crying. That was not the first time that day either. It was the last though, at least for that day. I first cried after mile marker 20 or something like that. My legs were not the most comfortable they had ever been. I am not sure if I did not train enough (cause I thought I had done pretty well) or if my knees are just not marathon knees. Around mile 23 I called my wife who greatly encouraged me, and then I asked to talk to my four year old Evelyn. She said “you can do it daddy, you can do it.” Then I felt the estrogen kick in again and started crying. Now these were not big cries, I think the water in my body was being used elsewhere, but I felt pretty emotional. I asked them for prayer and went on (slowly).

Marathons are just too much about life to not point out some comparisons. There are too many times in life that quitting is an option. Quitting your marriage, your faith, school or vocation may seem like the best option. But it is not. Obstacles are momentary (though those moments seem more like eternity). In the last two days I have talked to a man whose wife had breast cancer, a guy who just went through drug and alcohol rehab and a married man who got a girl pregnant. Each of those situations could result in quitting; easily. Life is not for the faint of heart. 

We must live for so much more than comfort during difficult times. God allows difficulties in our life to mold us into the image of Christ; if we deny that molding process, we deny God’s hand in our lives. 

Saturday I was all set up with my flights to be at my brother’s in the morning and be able to have a nice relaxing day, but fog in Charlotte meant I had to reschedule and wait some. Through that I met a couple people that I know God meant for me to meet. During the marathon it was my plan to run with the Ethiopians up front, but God had me slow down and meet Dave, Dan, Gary, and Peter. God is providentially working in our lives and we can either reject that and get frustrated or accept it and marvel at His goodness. 

At the end of the race I received a medal. But you know, the medal is just a symbol of the completion of the race. I did not run the marathon so I could be honored with a medal. One day we will go before the Bema seat for an account of our life and we will receive a prize. But life is not about the prize; it is about giving God glory; it is about honoring Him. We walk and run, laugh and weep, live and die for His glory. What does God want you to do for His glory and how are you doing? Don’t quit. “Press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God that is in Christ Jesus!”

Encouragement and Man in the Arena

Encouragement is a huge part of running races. Spectators and runners alike are encouraging during the races. Many of you have been very encouraging to me, especially my wife. Last night I was talking to my friend Joe about my nerves going into the marathon. He showed me this quote by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

As I eat my pasta and baked potato and drink my gatorade doing my best to be ready for tomorrow, Joe and others have helped me realize that the biggest accomplishment in all this is stepping into the arena. That applies to many areas in life, not just sports. What is daring to you that is out of the ordinary? What preparations/training do you need to make in your journey towards reaching that goal? 

12 more hours!

Bits Beyond Brazil October

We just unpacked from our last scheduled meeting in which we have a decent distance to travel. On November 17th we are at Calvary Baptist in Red Bank Tennessee all day, but that is really close to home. 

October has been our busiest month for meetings as we started out in North Carolina, went to Alabama and then just arrived from Indiana. We have been so blessed by the sacrificial giving of these churches. I entered 13 new emails from Calvary Baptist and we were overwhelmed by their love and friendliness. 

We are waiting to hear from a couple churches about support, but it looks like we are needing around 700 dollars a month. We are looking for some supporters to raise their support as well as new churches to start supporting (hopefully we will hear about two new ones). We also are looking for new supporters. You know, God has infinite resources and although common sense tells us to worry, I am confident that God will provide for our needs. We have been humbled by gifts from a little girl that had saved money for a doll, a Gideon in a Chik-fil-a, new friends and old that have money or don’t, a seminary couple who does not even buy all the groceries they want, and so many more of you that are faithful. We do not take you all for granted! Click here to give!

Our goal to leave for Brazil is January and we would love to buy tickets this month. Our Outfit and Passage account has been going up, but is still lacking quite a bit, so if you do not think you can do monthly support, pray about a one time gift!

In a couple days I will be running a marathon! Pray for me! And send me your prayer requests as well as I will have about four hours to pray! I have been praying for God to receive glory through this crazy thing I am doing, mainly because it is on my bucket list. (Also look at previous posts for thoughts on the marathon).

This last month in Northeast Brazil, the church from Recife (the capital city) took a group to Arcoverde, the gateway to the Outback, and did an event for children’s day. Partnerships are forming and outreach is happening! We are praying about going to this city for a year or two. 

This month I read the Circle Maker, a great book on prayer that has given me much confidence in the power of prayer. God loves to answer bold prayers. My bold prayers have been for the missions blog, missions real estate idea, our financial support and our family. 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, a happy four year old with many new toys who is learning to share, and a crawling seven month old who loves anything that goes in her mouth and darts for whatever shouldn’t go in her mouth.

Ideas or dreams play out like marathons

Ideas seem to turn out to be marathons. If you are close to me you know that I have a lot of ideas turning circles in my head. Sometimes they pan out to be reality, sometimes not. I seem to dream big though. Going to the mission field started as a big dream when I was in eighth grade and has been playing out into reality in my life. The Christian culture of mediocrity and a big lack of mature disciples always bothered me and so I thought of writing a book. Before we left for Brazil I wrote that book (though few people read it). Fortunately Francis Chan, David Kinnaman, David Platt and others saw the same issues happening and wrote books that have been turning the Christian culture. (To my knowledge, none of them read my book).

Ideas are constantly generated and sometimes I have followed through with them. But they are generally a marathon. They take training or brainstorming, much work, much help and lots of diligence. A marathon is obviously not a quick sprint that our fast-food culture really enjoys. Some of these ideas are not too enjoyable as well.

In July I started a blog called Trends in Biblical Missions as a means of organizing ideas to implement in churches that will improve our mission’s system in our churches. To go along with the missions theme, for the past six years I have had an idea for a fund for these missionaries using real estate that will generate money to offset missions’ costs. These are some of the major marathon ideas I have had that are still in the beginning stages. Running a marathon helps me to realize that the process cannot just happen with the wink of an eye; it takes much time and work, but it can be done.

Marathon and Accountability

I am not running this marathon with anyone I know. I wish I were, but that just did not happen. But accountability has played an important role in training. My sister and dad are running a half marathon in December and some other people I know ran a marathon a couple weeks ago and then some others are running one the week after me. Knowing that has helped me in my training. Just being able to send them a message or text has kept me accountable to my training. My wife also told me; “if you do this, you can’t just do the big runs, you need to get out and run during the week as well.” Without those challenges, it would be very difficult to finish the race.

Sports are not the only places where we need accountability. We also need it in our workplaces, churches and for our spiritual lives. Without people around us, we will not as easily accomplish our goals. I am not saying things cannot get done without it, but it sure makes the process much harder. 

In which area do you need accountability? In the offense of growing spiritually like someone to check on your Bible reading or to pray with you? Or maybe the defense of making sure you stay away from places that cause you to sin or actions that are not pleasing to God? In both ways, accountability can greatly help. 

6 more days until I am a cripple for a few days.

Marathon! Post #1

Legend tells that the marathon was born out of the run of a warrior named Pheidippides, a Greek messenger reporting the result of the Battle of Marathon.  He arrived at the assembly and said “we won” before collapsing and dying. 

When the Olympics were developing in 1896 they wanted a race that would have history with the ancient Greeks (probably in addition to one of the first sports known to man, wrestling). So they developed the idea of the marathon with a length of somewhere around 25 miles. It became pretty popular.

I have always had a marathon on my bucket list, but have only done the River Bank Run in Michigan which is 15.6 miles. I have never put the training on my priority list before. With the River Bank Run I trained a little and did a 10 mile run once before the actual race. After the race I could barely walk for a few days. With the training this time I have done six runs over the 10 mile mark, the highest being 18 miles. Hopefully the race day adrenaline, rested legs and a bit of food and gatorade will get me to the 26.2 mile finish line. 

On the 18 miler I did not eat anything. Pheidippides probably did not eat anything and he fought in the battle before he ran! Sometimes I think I need to man up and go for it! Then I realize that he dropped dead after he ran his. My new life insurance policy has not kicked in yet, so I think that I will eat and drink a little during the race. 

While training I have had plenty of time to think and pray. More on this in the next marathon blog! Countdown to marathon. 8 days. 

Bits September

Traveling has been the name of the game this month. We started off going to the beach with Sarah’s family. Every year for the past four years Sarah has been depressed when she hears about her family’s beach trips, but this year we were able to take a weekend and go down with them. We had a good time and the girls loved the time with their cousins. 

We followed that week with a couple weeks of illness. That was fun. On the 15th Sarah made Brazilian food to take to a Spanish church in Chattanooga as they celebrated some latin American countries’ independence days. It was different being in a service in a foreign language again! I was thinking about Brazil the whole time as my brain strained to understand everything. The food and fellowship was good!

On the 18th-22nd I went to Prattville, Alabama for Fountain City Baptist Church’s missions conference. The girls were still sick and recovering and so the church received the lower end of the deal but were very gracious about it. It was neat meeting other missionaries, sharing at the church, eating and talking missions. At the end they decided to double our support! What a blessing.

This past weekend we drove to North Carolina to be with Calvary Baptist Church in Raleigh. On Saturday night we had a cookout where I took a pineapple with cinnamon to grill and give them a little taste of something we learned in Brazil. We then shared about ministry and gave tips for their different short term trip opportunities. On Sunday Sarah taught the kid’s SS class while I taught the youth. We both had a great time teaching and throughout the day ministering and being ministered to! We are currently in waiting for next weekend’s meetings and Pastor Frye found us a missions apartment on the coast of NC which we had never been before.

We are still targeting a January departure date even though our support has not gone up too much. If you would like to commit to partner with us, click here. If you would like to just start giving either a one time gift (we need a lot of those) or monthly (I guess we need a bit of this as well!), follow this link. 

The Trends in Biblical Missions blog has been going well as I have heard of several Pastors who are reading and thinking about these ideas!

We have been chatting to and hearing about interest in partners for the field this month! Keep praying! 

Thanks and God bless.

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, our big FOUR year old!!!! and our little crawler (barely) that seems to have more personality every day.