Thursday, July 13, 2006

Six years of puzzle construction

Brian and I celebrated six years of marriage this past weekend. Whew! We spent six years of bouncing around from place to place, not really getting our footing in any one location. In part, we have been searching for the next step from the school of ministry we attended. Man, how our perspectives have changed since Brownsville! We've spent years praying and years not understanding how God answers prayer.
I've been faithfully (okay, somewhat faithfully) writing in my journals what I felt was the Lord's leading since our beginning in Argentina. With the completion of each journal I'd review the pages and get more frustrated that the pieces didn't seem to fit. We thought of "ministry" in a very limited light so we misunderstood most leadings from God until He brought all the floating puzzle pieces together this past spring. We stumbled upon the house church movement - the emerging church, or "emergents". Google it.
Brian and I knew about home groups, about cell groups, and the like but this networking house church thing was new to us. The strange thing, or the exciting part, is that my journal entries over the past few years were describing something that was already happening in a portion of the Church, but we were not aware of it. God painted a picture for us that seemed like such a stretch - too new, too different to ever really happen - and then He showed us that it IS happening and ultimately that we can be a part of it. Finally, vision. FINALLY!
More in the coming days...for now I have three children to usher outside.