The First Meeting

This past weekend marked our first official meeting of our pre-field ministries. We were privileged to be a part of a missions conference in a local Pensacola church just 15 minutes away from where we attend seminary.

To the right and below you will see pictures of our display. We were excited to finally be able to put all of our equipment to use. We acquired some of our table artifacts on our most recent Australia trip. The picture of the aboriginal artwork emu was a gift from the Maldoff's before we left.

The conference began Friday evening with an introduction to the missionaries and a presentation of gift package for each. Brother Carl Vonnoh, BIMI's CLAIM director, was the main speaker who preached at each service. Besides us, there was a missionary family to Nepal and a family that is doing construction work for churches in the States to help cut the costs of building and allow those churches to use that money more effectively for Christ through missions and outreach.

We really appreciated the gift and Amy thought the bag was very cute. In the bag was various food and practical items. In my opinion, the greatest gift was a set of audio cables and connectors. I meant to purchase a pack of those at BIMI, but I'm glad I did not. The Lord was able to provide them for us through this church. The cables allow me to route my volume from my laptop straight through any church's sound system using a microphone jack. Amy has taken a liking to the red pillow as her favorite gift. It has affectionately found a home on our couch and she uses it quite frequently.

Saturday began our presentations. There were two services scheduled for Saturday. The first service was at 5 PM, we had dinner on the grounds as intermission, and another service at 7 PM. The missionary builders gave their presentation at 5 PM and Amy and I gave ours at 7 PM. It was the first time our video had been played during a meeting and it was an exciting moment (for me anyway). Amy can't figure out why I was so happy to play it. She says I better enjoy it because after 2 years of watching it at every church I'll be sick of it (so she says! I don't think so).

I hope and pray that our burden for Australia was given to the hearts and minds of the people. If you have not seen our video, you can check it out here.

Sunday, we taught the children in Sunday School and the missionaries to Nepal presented during the morning service. That, too, was followed by a lunch on the grounds and their evening service actually during the afternoon at 1:30 PM. At the conclusion of the conference they had a prayer of dedication and protection for the missionaries as Bro. Vonnoh concluded with a message on how to effectively pray for missionaries.

We had a great time and met some new friends. We left around 3:30 PM and headed home to prepare for Mid-terms which we are currently studying for as I type. We have a big Hebrew Mid-term tomorrow and praying for God's strength as we've had little time to study this weekend.

Our next scheduled meeting is in December. We'll be doing some drop-in visits and focusing our ministry on Pine Forest Estates Baptist Church, our sending church, heading into the holiday season. We'll keep posting our email updates and prayer letters to the website here, but probably won't post another update like this until December.

We appreciate your prayers and would encourage you or your church to consider partnering with us to take the gospel to Australia.