Friday, June 7, 2013

Email Update 6-7-13

Posted by  On 
Hello Everyone!
I hope that this email finds you all doing well and serving our wonderful Lord. He is so amazing! Attached you will find our latest prayer letter. We will be returning to the monthly format from this point forward (since our schooling has finished), and I'm so glad that I did. I could barely fit everything for one month, and I had to take out the pictures. I hope that you will take the time to read it as it is different from our emails.
This month we reached 100 contacts on our update list. I wanted to say thank you for your help in reaching that mini-milestone. You're a special group of people. You've got a direct line of communication with us. You have shown a personal interest in our ministry. You receive updates and prayer requests that others don't get and you get instant access to our prayer letters before the printed copies arrive in churches. Additionally, we are encouraged because we know that you specifically are praying for us. We greatly appreciate that and we don't take it for granted. Thank you.
This past month, we packed up all our things and officially became "homeless" as we mentioned in the letter. We are renting a storage unit in Pensacola to store all of our stuff rather than carting it back to Pennsylvania (which my mom would not like!) and carting it back to Pensacola again before we leave for the field. We will need to ship all of our luggage, furniture, and appliances to Australia via shipping container. We decided it would be more time/cost efficient to leave everything in Pensacola.

As I sit here typing, we just finished Week 2 of BIMI Candidate School and hold our certificates of completion in hand. We have had to constantly remind ourselves this week that we got a head start, and that we're just beginning. All of our friends are reporting they are at 60% support or 80% support.

We are at 10% support, but we should be at 0%. We should have just finished Week 1. We should have 0 meetings ahead of us and a bare schedule, but we started early so that when we graduated from Seminary we'd hit the ground running. Praise God we have a busy schedule through December of this year. I hope that you will pray and partner with us that we might raise our support quickly.
I don't want to say too much more about Candidate School because that's for next month's letter!

Ahead of us we have three meetings in North Carolina and a Vacation Bible School. Please pray for God's power. We will be door-knocking Monday afternoon and I will be teaching the mission story all week. I'm not sure what God has in store, but I pray that He will give us opportunities to serve Him so that He may be magnified. He is the reason why we serve and He deserves all the glory. I hope you will praise Him for His goodness and grace to you today.
If there is anything we can do for you, please send us an email. We are here for you. Thank you for praying.
In Christ Alone,
Traver and Amy Freeman

Friday, May 10, 2013

Email Update 5-10-13

Posted by  On 
Greetings Everyone!
Attached you will find our latest prayer letter. I usually get these out at the beginning of the month, but I wanted to make sure a special event made the cut. On Wednesday, May 8th, Amy graduated with her master's degree in Bible Exposition. We give God all the glory for this amazing accomplishment!
I still have one more class to go in July. Last summer, we had the privilege of going to Australia to help the Maldoff's for three weeks. Because of this, I missed two classes I was required to take. I made one of them up at the beginning of last semester. However, the last one is only offered in the summer. Being able to serve the Lord in Australia that summer was far more than worth it and I gladly pushed off graduation for that opportunity.
We are gearing up for an action packed summer. We will be helping two churches with their Vacation Bible Schools. This past week, I practiced one of my Australian lessons with our children at our sending church. Dressing up in full safari gear, I took the children into the outback looking for kangaroos and learning about what God can teach us through them. We're excited for what God has in store for this summer.
As I mention in the prayer letter, June 2nd marks our first meeting on full-time deputation. We are in a church almost every Sunday from that point until December. Please be in prayer that God would work in lives, that we'd be able to be a blessing and help to churches, and that we would raise our support in an efficient and timely manner. We know that with God, all things are possible.
Your prayers and support mean the world to us. Thank you so much for the encouraging emails, kind letters, and wonderful gifts that you have given to us. You are a vital part of our ministry.
In Christ,
Traver Freeman

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

One Missionary at a Time

Posted by  On 
"Ye are the light of the world...Let your light so shine before men..." (Matthew 5:14, 16). We were blessed to be able to be a part the missions conference at our sending church, Pine Forest Estates Baptist Church. This year's theme was "Sending light into the world one missionary at a time." I was able to help out by putting my design abilities to use in creating our name badges for the conference.

We began our week on Wednesday with a brief skit. Our focus this year was emphasizing the importance of our responsibility in world-wide missions. Almost all of the missionaries featured are, or were at one time, members of PFEBC. The skit featured each of the missionaries who are currently members, including Amy and I, as well as a representative for the church with respect to our missions trip to Canada this summer.

The need of the countries of Peru, Australia, and Canada were presented. Then certain church members, representing those countries, stood up and cried out "Will someone bring us the the bread of life!" Then, each of us stood and professed God's calling on our lives to take the bread to those countries. We had a physical loaf of bread which we broke and gave out. It was a powerful presentation and a great way to kick off the conference.

Each night we had a series of messages from a variety of individuals. Our keynote speaker was BIMI's Caribbean director, Gary Sprunger (pictured right). Brother Sprunger is a member of PFEBC and is sent out of our church. The messages were focused on the Biblical basis for missions, the importance of the sending church, and the responsibility missionary. Messages were concluded on Sunday with an emphasis on Faith Promise giving.

Sunday morning, I challenged the young adult Sunday school classes to be open to God's leading. God does not call everyone into full-time missionary work, but I believe, with all my heart, that He wants each and every one of us to be willing if He calls us. That evening, we had an international dinner before the service.

Then in the evening service, each missionary showed a brief presentation and shared God's burden on their hearts for their country of service. At the very end, God's power was evident as the lights were turned off. In the darkness, our pastor broke a glow stick. He asked us to consider the darkness of the world. Then gave each missionary a glow stick. The light began to grow.

A call was given for anyone in our church to come forward and take a light if God had called to be missionary. One young man answered the call! I wanted to shout out loud in praise to God! Then additionally, pastor asked anyone who would be faithful in praying and giving to come forward and take a light. Family after family left their seats and began to turn on their lights. Lights filled the auditorium. What was once darkness was flooded with light. The picture here does not accurately show the amount of light in the room due to the abilities of the camera, but you can see just a portion of those standing.

We had a great time this week. It is now my prayer, that the commitment of our church to be faithful in doing our part for worldwide missions will be a lasting commitment. I pray that it is not a commitment easily forgotten, that God's work will be accomplished, and that many souls will come to place their faith in Christ. May our light, through Christ, bring hope and light into the darkness.


Monday, March 4, 2013

Email Update 03-04-13

Posted by  On 
Hello Everyone,

Attached is our latest prayer letter. I do apologize for not sending many email updates over the past few weeks. With the rush of excitement of Christmas now past us, we've settled into work and class once again. As I mention in the prayer letter, the next big event for us is our church's mission's conference in April. Up until then life is pretty usual. We have class and work every, and I make phone calls when my schedule allows it (which is Tuesday's from 8AM-9AM). Also as I mention in the letter, God has been extremely good to us concerning those phone calls.

Once we finish in May, we will have no shortage of excitement. Our contracts end on May 24th and we have a meeting scheduled the 26th. We've had multiple requests and opportunities for meetings and mission's conferences during the school year, however we've had to turn them down because it'd be quite difficult to commute from Wisconsin or Indiana or whoever the church might be when we've got work and school each day. Unless someone would be kind enough to hire us our own private jet, we wouldn't make it.

Last semester we did quite a bit of visits to churches in the community during Sunday nights. We do plan to do some more visiting this semester. Last semester 3 of the 5 churches we visited allowed us to schedule meetings with them. I hope that you will pray with us that this semester will be as profitable.

As each day goes by and graduation grows closer and closer we are even more excited about what God has in store. But we also appreciate where we are now and thank God that we are able to continue studying for His glory and honor.

As always, know that we appreciate everyone of your prayers and that we couldn't do it without you. Your care and support are a continual encouragement to us.

Thank you!
Traver and Amy Freeman
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)