Well world. I'm back.
Lets have some updates, shall we? I'm living in Dallas for the majority of this summer again, but for those of you who followed last year, it will be vastly different from before. I'll be making several trips, one to Arkansas, one to Tennessee, and last and certainly NOT least, AFRICA. I'm pretty pumped, don't know if you could tell. Also, again, for those of you who don't know, my family has moved from our old Plano house to a house out in C
elina. Form those who might be unfamiliar with the Dallas metro-plex, these two city names probably don't mean much to you. Basically we moved from a city into the country. Its a whole new world out here. Hope, my sister, Roxy, our friend from college, and I are sharing our guest house and it is super wonderful thus far. All three of us are RA's and so we have never gotten the chance to just live in a house with a few close friends, so this summer may just spoil us a bit. So, unlike last summer, I will not spend more than 3 weeks in any one place, and I will be constantly surrounded by people. Two changes I welcome with open arms.
Roxy being an honorary Petersen for the summer
Enough of the small-talk catching up mumbo jumbo. Time to get down to business. Why exactly, you might ask, am I getting off of Facebook in order to blog? Won't I waste just as much time? Well, hopefully not, but even if I do there is a bigger reason for why I'm doing it. Like I mentioned before I will be taking a trip to Africa for several weeks this summer. A trip like this costs money, and a decent-sized chunk of it, for that matter. Because of this I'm going to be raising support to go on the team. I have more reasons than just "I don't want to pay for this, I'll make someone else do it" for why I want to raise support, trust me, having me and my parents pay for it would be a lot easier and require a lot less trust. Which happens to be the number 1 reason why I'm raising support, because sitting right at halfway of my money being raised with less than a month to get it all in causes me to fall on my knees a lot more often than if I knew where the was going to come from. Right now I've got to rely on blind faith. I don't know where it will come from but I do know that God can provide, he will provide, and even if he doesn't he is still God.
Another reason I want to raise support is because I believe it is an extremely biblical concept. Jesus had rich women who supported him as he traveled and taught in cities (Luke 8:1-3). Acts talks about how the early church sold everything so that they may share and have stuff in common. When Peter and Barnabas and Paul would take their missionary journeys the church would support them through prayer and supplies. You see this example of giving and support raising constantly in the bible, and so it is clear to me that it is something we should still practice today.
Finally, I want to give people the opportunity to be a part of my ministry. I know there are many of you who just don't have the opportunity to take off several weeks of your school, job, life, ect. to hop on a plane and go to Africa. BUT each of you do have $10 to send with me and in turn, you have to chance to have a hand in missions. Paul, Peter, and Barnabas never would have been able to take any of their journeys without the support of the church. So really the church had just as active of a role in changing the world as those men did. That's what I'm asking people to do; to have an active role in missions with me.
Now, which brings me to my final point about blogging. Everywhere you send your money is an investment, and so for someone to send money to me would be for them to be investing in me. I want people to be able to see, from week to week, what kind of ministry they are supporting. For those of y'all who I haven't seen since high school, for all you know I could have gone of the deep end in college. How would you know that sending money to me to go to Africa would be a good way to invest? You don't. So I want to show you my life is like outside of the two-week trip I'm going to take. Since it is my hope that I will be taking many more trips like this I want you to trust later on as well that my ministry is still worth being invested in.
So this summer I'll be using this blog to show you my trip to Africa and tell tales about it and I'll be using it to just tell you about my daily life and the things God has been teaching me. Unlike last year, I do not have an extensive laundry list of things to complete, simply this: read 4 books, memorize a verse a week about thanksgiving/praise, and write down daily 6 the things that I'm thankful for. They will mostly be small things, as I'm working on my heart rejoicing in everything.
Well. This has been an extensive post, and probably not the most organized one I've ever written, seen how I wrote it over the course of almost a week! This blogging stuff is hard work. But before I go I'd like to ask for one major thing, please be praying, hard, for the support to come in and for the safety and productiveness of our trip. Though money is tangible, prayer is the real backbone of missions and their effectiveness. So please all, be praying hard for the work that God is going to do. I love all of you!!!
-Kelly
"But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation." -Psalm 13:5
