I wanted to take a second and talk about how we have been seeing God come along side us in this process of becoming long term missionaries to Somerset.
Some of the things we have done we have tried to keep quiet. We don't want to hurt the church in England by jumping ahead, we also wanted to make sure we approached it appropriately by going to our pastor before we started telling everyone.
I just want to share two quick stories that encouraged my faith that this is where God wants us to go.
In the process of figuring out if God was calling us to England and what our roles would look like Megan and I sat down and made a list.
We made a list about what we would want to do, what our vision for that area would be, what we want to do with the young adults, how we'd hope to accomplish that, and how to tie young adults into the local churches. The cool part of this story is we got to host pastor Kelton at our house, he comes to the states once a year to go to mission conferences and talk about his church. We got to tell him in person that we have been praying and want to come serve in his church. He wasn't surprised he has been praying for missionaries for young adults in his area for a while and as we have visited before, he was happy. He explained what he would want from us and what he would like our responsibilities to be if we came over. It was very cool because it lined up perfectly to what Megan and I had written earlier. We probably could have just had him write it for us, but that wasn't the point.
The other cool story is I've felt called to missions my while life but I wasn't sure why England. I always felt Africa or China or a place that would really need me, England just never seemed like that type of place. As my wife and I studied England we realized that is not the case at all. Before I knew this God and I had this conversation where he revealed to me that England has all the resources to send missionaries. There are so many young adults who would have the funds and support to go, if they only knew God. I felt like God was telling me I wasn't going into a mission field but a missionary field. That by listening to God and going where I felt he was calling me it could affect the whole world for missions.
As part of the process of becoming GEM missionaries you have to talk with the head of the branch in England. When I shared this with him he thought it was cool because as they have been praying they felt like they were supposed to start sending people from England in this next season.
These are just reassuring stories that help me to remember that my heart is in the right place and I can't wait to see what God is going to do in England.
Eric.
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