We have a special prayer request today in regards to the building materials. See below & please pray with us!!
The Lord your God is in your midst, a Mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will exult over you with loud singing (Zephaniah 3:17). Who are we that the creator of the universe would care about the details of our lives? That You would love us with an everlasting love and that You, who are the Lord who does whatever pleases Him in the heavens and on earth, in the seas and all their depths (Psalm 135:6)... would sing over us... and loudly?! And You have numbered the hairs on our head and hold us in Your righteous right hand. "Amazing love! How can it be- that you my King would die for me?" Our hearts are so full of love, adoratioin and thanksgiving for You.
Father, we have a special prayer request today from Cindi that the building materials will be ready when we arrive. So much planning has gone into this mission trip, but we know that we live in a fallen world and promises are broken and deadlines are not always met. We so much desire to serve You as Your Word says to look after the orphans and widows in their distress. We know that when we trust You and acknowledge You in all our ways, You go ahead of us to make our paths straight. We thank You for everything You have done to guide and direct us. We are at Your mercy, Father. We are not discouraged or fearful because we simply trust and love You and anticipate how You will make all things work together for Your good. We know that You, Father, are most glorified when we get out of the way and trust You to accomplish the impossible. Thank you, Father, for hearing our prayers.
We believe with all our heart that the prayers of a righteous "Agagpe Team" are heard by and acted on by a Holy God. Amen.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Preparations
What do Walmart sneakers, bug spray with 40% deet, sunscreen, powdered creamer, and toothbrushes have in common? They are all items that I purchased for our trip today! And my dad, Tim, just got six vaccinations! (I think my preparations were more fun than his). These are some of the little things that our team members are busy doing to get ready for the big day. I definitely had no idea how much this trip would require from each one of us. And that's probably a good thing, because it may have scared me off. But now that we are getting down to some of the "finishing touches", I am bursting with excitement for this mission! What an honor and a privilege to be on mission with and for our Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, "who am I that you should touch me with Your grace? And who am I, Oh God, that You should know my name?" I am just humbled and blown away by how amazing You are, Lord! Amen!
Daily Prayer #2
For great is Your love, reaching to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies (Psalm 57:10) Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! (Psalm 107:15) We lift our hands in praise to You, our precious God. You are our refuge and underneath us are Your everlasting arms. There is none like You!!!!
Father, as Cindi shared with us, we pray that we will leave a legacy of Your love wherever we go on this mission trip. May the path that we forge be one that is pleasing to You and be one that others will eagerly follow in Your Name. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you no perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert (Isaiah 43:19) We thank You Lord for the new things You will be doing both through us for Your Kingdom and in us as we discover Your love and faithfulness on the mission field. Amen!
Father, as Cindi shared with us, we pray that we will leave a legacy of Your love wherever we go on this mission trip. May the path that we forge be one that is pleasing to You and be one that others will eagerly follow in Your Name. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you no perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert (Isaiah 43:19) We thank You Lord for the new things You will be doing both through us for Your Kingdom and in us as we discover Your love and faithfulness on the mission field. Amen!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Pray, Pray, Pray!
Every day, our prayer warrior, Pam Rogers (aka Mela), sends out an awesome prayer to our team that we lift up to the Lord together. So, we thought it would be nice to share them with you, so that you may join in our prayers. Here is today's prayer:
Today we complete our ACTS way of praying, with Supplication. When we spend our time discovering who God is, we are saddened by how much we have let him down. But when we remember how He still loves us and even went to the cross for us while we were still sinners...our mindset tends to align up to His - Amen? Instead of a spiritual shopping list of our wants, the Holy Spirit guides us to pray for the needs of others and lastly our needs. I have learned so much praying with you my precious brothers and sisters in Christ. God has shown me, with Pastor Greg's guidance, that we don't ask God for things he has already promised us - we thank Him for what He is doing and will do. I find God is fine tuning my prayers not to please man, but to please Him and to bring me into a sweeter and deeper relationship with Him. I pray also for you my friends.
Father, today we come before you with our petitions. You tell us in Your Word that you will supply every need according to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19) Lord, we thank You that as we draw close to You, your Holy Spirit guides us to distinguish between our wants and needs. Father, we thank You for Winston's testimony of how You supplied his and Taylor's needs once he asked You. "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions" (James 4:2b-3).
Father, as we discover what a wonderful, merciful Savior You are, our hearts hunger for You. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Our desire is to serve You effectively and efficiently in our mission trip to Uganda. But just as Glen shared with us, You may have other plans than we have. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). Help us to keep our eyes on You and not just on our goals and expectations. Lord, forgive us for having a worldly view of success. Help us to simply obey You in every aspect of the trip. We thank You that You will guide us throughout this trip. "And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." (Isaiah 30:21) Help us to be submissive to our leaders and ultimately to You. And just as Pastor Greg taught us in his sermon Sunday, just because we may have some bad experiences serving You, (as Jesus did) keep us from giving up (see Luke 4:31-37). Because we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). It is our belief, that each one of us has been called to serve You on this mission trip, so we claim this scripture with confidence. We may not always be certain of our next step, but we are certain of God. (Oswald Chambers calls this gracious uncertainty).
Father, just as You taught the disciples to pray, teach us. Keep us praying for our mission trip, for William and our precious Agape children without ceasing. Help our unbelief. Our greatest petition to You today is that this mission trip will be one that glorifies You every step of the way.
Amen!
Today we complete our ACTS way of praying, with Supplication. When we spend our time discovering who God is, we are saddened by how much we have let him down. But when we remember how He still loves us and even went to the cross for us while we were still sinners...our mindset tends to align up to His - Amen? Instead of a spiritual shopping list of our wants, the Holy Spirit guides us to pray for the needs of others and lastly our needs. I have learned so much praying with you my precious brothers and sisters in Christ. God has shown me, with Pastor Greg's guidance, that we don't ask God for things he has already promised us - we thank Him for what He is doing and will do. I find God is fine tuning my prayers not to please man, but to please Him and to bring me into a sweeter and deeper relationship with Him. I pray also for you my friends.
Father, today we come before you with our petitions. You tell us in Your Word that you will supply every need according to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19) Lord, we thank You that as we draw close to You, your Holy Spirit guides us to distinguish between our wants and needs. Father, we thank You for Winston's testimony of how You supplied his and Taylor's needs once he asked You. "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions" (James 4:2b-3).
Father, as we discover what a wonderful, merciful Savior You are, our hearts hunger for You. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Our desire is to serve You effectively and efficiently in our mission trip to Uganda. But just as Glen shared with us, You may have other plans than we have. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). Help us to keep our eyes on You and not just on our goals and expectations. Lord, forgive us for having a worldly view of success. Help us to simply obey You in every aspect of the trip. We thank You that You will guide us throughout this trip. "And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." (Isaiah 30:21) Help us to be submissive to our leaders and ultimately to You. And just as Pastor Greg taught us in his sermon Sunday, just because we may have some bad experiences serving You, (as Jesus did) keep us from giving up (see Luke 4:31-37). Because we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). It is our belief, that each one of us has been called to serve You on this mission trip, so we claim this scripture with confidence. We may not always be certain of our next step, but we are certain of God. (Oswald Chambers calls this gracious uncertainty).
Father, just as You taught the disciples to pray, teach us. Keep us praying for our mission trip, for William and our precious Agape children without ceasing. Help our unbelief. Our greatest petition to You today is that this mission trip will be one that glorifies You every step of the way.
Amen!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
First Blog
Hello, my name is Nicole Kunczewski and I am one of 18 team members who are traveling on mission to Uganda in 19 days. Let me start with a big disclaimer: I have never blogged before and I don't even read a whole lot of blogs, so this should be interesting. I am a big journaler (is that a word?), and a huge advocate of capturing life's moments in writing, which is why I signed up to be the blogger for our trip.
I would like to give a big shout-out to my team members: Dan Autry, Cindi Bearden, Jessica Bearden, Susanna Cipolla, Katie Firth, Tim Fraumann (my dad), Glen Jackson, Barry Mann, Robyn Mann, Lisa Morgan, Nick Nehring, Kevin Payne, Pam Rogers (aka Mela), Darryl Taunton, Kylie Taunton, Taylor Whitlow, and Winston Whitlow. Y'all: I apologize in advance because I do not even begin to know how to represent the feelings and experiences of an entire group of people, let alone my own. All of your input is needed & appreciated.
To the rest of you peeps reading right now, please allow me to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our trip: On July 15th at 3:15AM (that's right, AM!) we start our extremely long & no doubt exhausting journey to Uganda to work at Agape Total Child Care, a private orphanage started by William Nsubuga that hosts 39 children who have lost both parents to AIDS (see http://www.agape4kids.org/). The Uganda mission team is based at Western Heights Baptist Church, but includes members of other churches and denominations. The team's primary project will be to participate in building a new orphanage facility, but we will also have the pleasure of loving on some precious children! SIFAT (Servants in Faith & Technology - see http://www.sifat.org/) is the missionary organization that trained William. SIFAT also sends short term mission teams to aid the missionaries who have graduated from their program. We are the very first team being sent to Uganda.
I will leave you with our team's mission statement: "For GOD to be glorified through our humble obedience and trust in HIM. To show HIS transforming love and be transformed by it." I hope and pray that this blog will be one of the ways that this mission is accomplished.
I would like to give a big shout-out to my team members: Dan Autry, Cindi Bearden, Jessica Bearden, Susanna Cipolla, Katie Firth, Tim Fraumann (my dad), Glen Jackson, Barry Mann, Robyn Mann, Lisa Morgan, Nick Nehring, Kevin Payne, Pam Rogers (aka Mela), Darryl Taunton, Kylie Taunton, Taylor Whitlow, and Winston Whitlow. Y'all: I apologize in advance because I do not even begin to know how to represent the feelings and experiences of an entire group of people, let alone my own. All of your input is needed & appreciated.
To the rest of you peeps reading right now, please allow me to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our trip: On July 15th at 3:15AM (that's right, AM!) we start our extremely long & no doubt exhausting journey to Uganda to work at Agape Total Child Care, a private orphanage started by William Nsubuga that hosts 39 children who have lost both parents to AIDS (see http://www.agape4kids.org/). The Uganda mission team is based at Western Heights Baptist Church, but includes members of other churches and denominations. The team's primary project will be to participate in building a new orphanage facility, but we will also have the pleasure of loving on some precious children! SIFAT (Servants in Faith & Technology - see http://www.sifat.org/) is the missionary organization that trained William. SIFAT also sends short term mission teams to aid the missionaries who have graduated from their program. We are the very first team being sent to Uganda.
I will leave you with our team's mission statement: "For GOD to be glorified through our humble obedience and trust in HIM. To show HIS transforming love and be transformed by it." I hope and pray that this blog will be one of the ways that this mission is accomplished.
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