Happy New Year! and hello from Birmingham, England. We trust this message finds you doing well and feeling hopeful at the start of this new year. As the calendar has turned to 2024, we are turning our attention back to Macau. We fly out of Birmingham on 8 January, arriving in Macau on the 9th. We are full of deep gratitude, peace and joy as we come to the end of our sabbatical. We believe it has been a helpful time of preparation for the next season God has planned for us.
Since we last wrote, back in November, we have had a number of discussions with some local Baptist church leaders about the possibility of work in Birmingham. This has included discussions about their ability to sponsor work visas. One local pastor has become our advocate and is working to find a way that we can return to Birmingham to work. So, we continue to walk in faith, trusting the Lord to work out the where and when of our next ministry context.
We are very thankful for all the prayers offered up on our behalf throughout 2023. We did not come to Birmingham to find a job. We came here for sabbatical, a time of restoration and reset. Primarily, we took this time to quiet our hearts to listen to the Lord. This has been a wonderful time to process, learn, grow and prepare for what is ahead. Thanks to our work with a spiritual director we believe we are ready and better prepared to hear and understand how to follow the Lord in the next season of service.
Please pray regarding:
Travel to Macau. May we have safety, good health, and alertness to all we need to see along the way.
Good-bye. We have been deeply blessed by new friendships here in B’ham. We have been profoundly blessed by this time of living with Alice & Nathanael. They have become even more dear to us.
Hello. Returning to Macau still feels like going home and yet we know we can’t stay. The Lord is still calling us away. We need wisdom for the precious time we do have in Macau before we make our move to the next season of life and ministry.
This poem captures so much of our present:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'
And he replied:
'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.*
In faith we go forward hand-in-hand with the Lord.
Thank you again for going with us in prayer and support.
* The Gate of the Year, written in 1908 and privately published in 1912 by Minnie Louise Haskins.
Christingles at New Life Baptist Church’s Christmas Eve Service.