JANUARY 2015 Letter LIVING WELL

Happy New Year!

As we begin the new year, we can reflect on the year past and look to the coming year.

It’s a great time to really see how we have grown in our faith and its practice. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)

For all of YOU who have prayed and supported us in 2014, we see YOUR faith in the Lord and YOUR love for us and for the families we touch with God’s love, both here and in Zambia.

How have YOU demonstrated faith through LOVE 
with those that YOU are the closest?

God created man and woman to have an intimate relationship with Him first, then with each other. The family unit was intended to be the means by which faith was passed from one generation to another. The family is the delivery system of His Heart to those who come after us. The family was created before the church. The family is be a domestic church. “The Church” is a gathering of domestic churches. The strength of the family defines the strength of the church. The family is where God’s love is best nurtured and lived.

Yet, most families today leave the spiritual development of their family to the church. They want the church to do their job. Only 5% of families today have a plan for the spiritual teaching, training, and development of faith in their home with their children. Unfortunately, most parents don’t know how to begin or what to do. When our children were young, we faced the same dilemma.

A church that is truly devoted to sharing the gospel and spiritual transformation must be intentional in strengthening marriages and equipping parents for leading and developing faith in their children or others in their sphere of influence.

Impress them on your children.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

First the commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength must be on YOUR heart. Then YOU impress them on YOUR children. Consider:

• How have YOU seen the Lord work in YOUR heart during the last year? 
• Do YOU have a testimony of faith beyond YOUR salvation? 
• Do YOU recognize God’s love and grace in YOUR life every day? 
• Do YOU communicate and demonstrate God’s love and grace to each other and to YOUR children wholeheartedly?

Our church is beginning a year devoted to the family. Will YOU join us in focusing on how to pass YOUR faith to the next generation? See our next post!

Please pray for us as we lead this endeavor. Thank YOU for YOUR prayers and support so that we may continue to lead our community and those in Zambia in sharing the gospel through God’s primary institution, the family.

We will lead another team to minister to the children in an Africa slum in Zambia.

Will you go with us? 
Apply by January 15th.

Click for more info.

Click here for an application.

Our love in Christ,
Donna and Ed Edwards

P.S. Please join us in praying for the team God is raising up for Mission Zambia 2015 and for His provision for 2015!

The water that I will give him will become in him

a well of water springing up to eternal life.

John 4:14b

Living Well is a life source, not a life style.

Believing without Seeing

"Seeing is different than being told." African Proverb

We try to prepare our teams going to Africa as well as we can. Words and pictures cannot convey some parts of the journey.

Words do not adequately describe what it is like to sit down with kids who have never had new clothes, who have never wondered if they will have enough to eat, who have never sat on a toilet that flushed or ridden in a car or used a computer or watched a TV.

Words fall short when you try to explain the life of pastors who have never been to a Bible college or seminary or to a bookstore to buy a commentary. How do you describe the life of a pastor who shepherds a congregation who barely has enough food or water for themselves, much less something to pay the salary of a pastor or the upkeep of the church?

We can't adequately express the grace and gratitude of people who have no formal training in etiquette or diplomacy. Breaking down the barriers of preconceived ideas is impossible when those ideas have never risen to the level of consciousness. Most of us assume a lack of education means a lack of intelligence or desire to learn. Just a few minutes of teaching and interacting with our African brothers and sisters exposes and defeats those assumptions. More unknown assumptions lie in the minds of the average Christian in the U.S.

Those who sign-up for this journey go by faith - faith that God has called them, faith that He has given something to share, faith that He will provide the funds, the health, and the strength to complete the journey.

For us, one of the most exciting parts of this mission trip will be these eight people experience God in a new way, see the Kingdom from a larger perspective, and grow in their knowledge of Him.

 When we go, we expect the unexpected. We believe that God has gone before us; the unexpected for us is not new information for Him. We pray and plan but are assured that His ways are higher than our ways. We want to make a difference in the life of one less fortunate but we know that our lives will be the ones that are changed the most.

"Put simply, faith is believing in something you haven't seen."
                                     John MacArthur