Lift Up Your Eyes
February 2019 Newsletter
Dear Friend,
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About 9 years ago I was on board OM’s ship Doulos in Singapore for 1 month. The ship was in drydock and was to emerge and sail to Thailand and then across to Oman. All told I was to be on board for 3 months. The ship failed to ever leave drydock, and I never made it to Thailand. Instead I left Singapore early and made it to the US to spend Christmas with my girlfriend, Chrysti. I think I got a good deal out of the situation.
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Doulos in Singapore, February 2010
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Chrysti & Leon in the Lake District, February 2010
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Return to the present with me. Chrysti and I are married, have 3 children at home and we're travelling to Bangkok, Thailand together on Sunday 24th February returning on 9th March.
OM has a yearly leader’s conference where 400 leaders from across OM converge on one place to pray together, listen to gifted Bible teachers, attend seminars, be involved in big picture missional discussions and much more. Last year it was just me attending these meetings. This year we have the opportunity for the both of us to go together. My parents are taking care of the grandkids for 2 weeks while Chrysti and I attend these meetings.
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Chrysti & Leon on a date. Yes, we do get out occasionally.
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I have been busy with server operating system upgrades now that we have our new server hardware, but I am setting that aside to be at these meetings. Last year we heard from Francis Chan—this year David Platt will share from God’s word.
Over the last year our team in Carlisle and thousands of others within OM have been praying for the least reached peoples of the world. Some of the people groups we have had to pray in faith about as we did not know their name or location in the world due to security concerns. We prayed for China and India with billions of people not knowing God. We also prayed for smaller people groups that only number a few thousand. The passion for OM is to see churches planted into all these communities, but are most focused on those that at least reached.
At these meetings we will hear how God is working in the least reached parts of the work. One way to think of these meetings is as a large mission convention where at lunch you will sit next to the leader of OM’s work in Ghana and across the table is the leader from Belgium. They both will share the struggles they are seeing, but also the good news of what God has done in the previous year.
The time will be crammed from early morning to late evening with conversations, meetings, workshops teaching people how to use ministry tools, prayer, scripture, worship and stories of God working in the countries of the world.
A few seminars will be explaining how to use various IT based ministry tools. I find it rewarding to know that I support many of these ministry tools.
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Ellis supervises all our hard work at the allotment.
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Sliding down at top speed!
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The theme this year at the conference is “Lift Up Your Eyes” and our Bible readings will be from John 4:34-38. Please pray for God’s wisdom, leading and blessing. That we would listen to the Holy Spirit, be challenged by God’s word and hear God’s heart for the world. If you gather 400 leaders in one place you are bound to have 450 opinions. Pray for unity and direction.
Pray for Leon's parents who will be looking after our kids in the UK while we are away. We will be gone 13 nights and 14 days. It will be the longest time both Chrysti and I have been away from the kids. Pray for us as we're away from our children also.
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Planting apple trees at our allotment
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Back in Carlisle we are thinking of our allotment. We have many seeds to plant right after we return to the UK and over the coming weeks we will move those seedlings outside. Our passion is that in the same way God would plant seeds of the gospel in the hearts of Carlisle and that we would see a harvest at the appointed time. We get to do this with our neighbours and those at our allotment.
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Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. John 4:35
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God Bless,
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