A week of something

It's Dree here...

I wanted to get you all in the loop. We have had many weeks over the last year of waiting. Waiting for something, anything, to happen. We have learned a lot about waiting. Sometimes I think we are waiting to learn how to wait. God is still exceedingly abundant in the waiting and that is significant.

Enough of my "waiting ramblings." Here are two things that are happening and are something...

1. Chris & I travel to Harrisburg tomorrow for him to take his accreditation exam with the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church. This is something because it will equip him with some credibility within a denomination. Although we fall in line with the CMA beliefs we are not closed to opportunities in other denominations.

Chris and I will both be in the interview/exam. I will be there to answer "lifestyle" questions. He will be drilled on doctrine having to support his answers with scripture and do it in the most paraphrased way possible.

I have great confidence in him. He is pretty darn smart. My hope is that he can relax and be himself. Himself is fabulous!!!

2. This weekend we will be traveling to Ohio for an interview at Bellevue Alliance Church. The whole family will be coming. They want to church to meet us, specifically the youth and the youth workers. They have a bon fire scheduled for Friday night as a meet and greet and then on Saturday Chris & I will be interviewed. They have childcare arranged for the girls.

Chris will also be interviewed about his knowledge and philosophy of small groups as this job would be a youth ministry position as well as the small group coordinator. Chris has been serving our church, PVCC in this capacity for a couple years so that is right up his ally.

It is not a job offer, but it is a significant step forward. Typically Alliance churches do this and then if they like you they invite you for a candidacy weekend which is followed by a job offer. A candidacy weekend in sort of like "in view of a call" in a Baptist church. Needless to say there are still several steps in the process, but this step is still a good one.

If you pray, you can pray for good health for all of us and that we would be infused with God's wisdom throughout all of this. I rejoice in this season of our life even though it has been perpetually challenging.
Hebrews 5 says:
" 3Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. "

I can't say I have suffered like many suffer. But I believe this still applies. We have developed character and through character, hope. And not just any hope, but a hope that does not disappoint. I think we have finally learned that our hope does not rest in the changing of our circumstance. Our hope rests on who God is and that no matter what our circumstance God is God and God is good. He is powerful and full of love. That is something to have hope in that will never change!!!

Thank you all for hanging in with us. We will update after the weekend.

Grace & Peace,
Dree