BNG - 2

It's our second morning in Tallinn. The girls woke up a little later than yesterday....about 45 minutes later, so it was still very early!

For us, the rest of yesterday was about sorting out our essentials - we had to pay some money into the bank, asking them for another card for the account so that Rachel could have one in her name, then we had to go and speak to a company called Starman who would be able to do the home Internet for us, before getting my Estonian Sim so that we had a local number.

What we found out with the first two things, confirming what we already knew really, was how useful Russian is for us. In each, my opening line was to ask if they spoke English - they both replied very little. Then I asked in Russian if that would be better - and they both said yes. So I was able to arrange the banking and the Internet in Estonia, not because they spoke English, but Russian! With no handle on the Estonian language yet it's so valuable having the Russian that we do - even if it is far from perfect!

Waking up on our first Saturday morning, it was great hearing birds singing and a fresh breeze coming through the door that leads onto the balcony in our bedroom. It's in these moments when you are reminded of the good things God has done and you praise him all the more.

Breaking New Ground - The First Month

Well we have arrived in Tallinn!

We'd asked people to pray for our journey and wow did it make a difference! It was probably the easiest journey we've ever done - everything was just so straightforward!

A couple of weeks ago I thought about the first few weeks in Tallinn - and that it would be great to write short entries detailing what happens, if anything, each day. Maybe some of what we go through will be helpful to others.

When a church is a couple of years old and growing, like it is in St Petersburg, it requires certain skill sets and those that join at that point tend to be able to specialise a little. But before that I feel there are two different stages, two different areas that are needed, and that calls for a more general skill set. The first is the pioneering stage, like we are now in again. It's digging out everything from the beginning. What follows that is the church planting stage, when others are now with you, a small crowd has grown and you launch the church and get it through the first few years.

Being at this pioneering stage is a little alarming (if we rely on self that is!). Carving out a life, finding work, making friends, building team. It's about putting all the things in place that years down the line still matter. And you do them all at the same time!

I'm writing this first draft from the kitchen in our new flat - which is so much bigger than our previous one! It's early. Our girls woke up and were playing in their room together (they now share and Anya is no longer in our room!). After playing a little, they came into our room - it was then only 5am! The two hour difference meaning they were wide awake! It's now 6am - we've all been up an hour already.

So, what of our first day? We were picked up from the airport by Brenda Mitchell, the agent and Pastor's wife we'd first met in August. She filmed us as we were walking through customs - our arrival, and into our new life.

We looked around the flat, which with three bedrooms and a lounge, plus kitchen, is a few rooms bigger than where we lived for the previous three and a half years! It was really surreal.

As was going to the Stockmann supermarket that is worryingly close to our flat - the choice and variety! It was overwhelming! Things that we just couldn't buy in Russia are now just there on the shelves! While there we met our first contacts - an Israeli couple who'd just moved here two weeks before to set up a cosmetic company using Dead Sea products. His name was Leo - he gave us his number and said Rachel could have some free stuff!

Having finished shopping, we walked home (it's still surreal saying that). I think we were suffering from culture shock. My body just shut down. I couldn't eat, I needed to lay down and I just felt all strange and jumpy. I still feel a little strange now the following morning. There's a lot we've had to adjust to - I guess it'll just take time.

We hope to sort out Internet access today (actually, hence the late posting, it was a few days later!) - the flat doesn't have it. I'll also get my Estonian Sim card when Barry (the Pastor referred to above) drops it off sometime this afternoon.

There is a lot we have to do. But this is just the start. What today and this next week will bring, who knows. But whatever does happen, we'll record it here.

The Time Between Two Leap Years

On the 29th February 2008, it was a special day for me. I had taken Rachel and Mia (then my only child) up to Green Park in London, close to where I used to work. It was Spring in England and the flowers were in their splended brilliance, as they are at that time of year. Years before I'd been standing in that same park, in that same spot, praying for my future wife and about Russia, of which God had first spoken to me about in 1999. It was great to take a photo of the answer to those prayers - Rachel and Mia next to the stunning daffadils. I blogged about that back then (on my old blog, which sadly is no longer available, but some photo's and video of that day are shown!) We were just about to head off to Russia (5 months away), so it was great to have taken them up to London on that sunny spring day and for me to be reminded first hand of the faithfulness of God.

And four years on, 29th February 2012 marks the end of our time in Russia - our last day here and moving out of our flat! We fly on 1st March to Tallinn to start what is the next chapter of things in this part of the world, while of course remaining firmly connected to all that we've seen happen in St Petersburg - we won't forget this city, and these people, very easily!

Four years is a long time and yet it feels also to have flown by, with the realisation that we are now moving on from St Petersburg.

And what will be by 29th February 2016 when the next leap year comes about - well, your guess is as good as mine!

God is good and He is so faithful! When He says something, He'll do it. And most of all, His plans for our lives are far better than our wildest dreams of what we might achieve in ourselves. Give Him some room and see what He does in your life too!

(Here's a clip of me rabbiting on about things that day....)

Three unrelated thoughts...

Perspective;

I recently updated my status (on Facebook) to something like this - when the temperature drops from -5 degrees Celsius to -15, you think "Oh, how cold it is!" When it then dropped to -25 and then starts to rise back up to -15, you then think "Oh, how warm it is!" My point was that the same temperature twice round seemed totally different. And the difference - it depended from what side of the issue you were coming. My conclusions? Well, maybe you are not as hard up as you thought? Maybe your situation is not as bad as you feared? If somebody was coming from the 'other direction' towards what you now see as a problem, would they be grateful for what you wish was different?

Think of the Alternative;

Some might look at church planting, and mission in general, and just think - help. How can we do this? It costs so much, it takes a lot of effort. People need to give money to support those going. Churches budget to give away money when planting out. It's costing costing costing!

Before I go on here, let me add this - no one becomes a church planter to get rich! You sacrifice so much, you need to throw money at each new move, it is costly, and while you couldn't do it without the help from supporters and investors from your home church or home country, you are going to work extremely hard and just cover expenses at the end of the year.

So, back to my original question - why do it if it costs people so much? Well, I tend to approach this by thinking of the alternative. What if no one went? Personally, we might be better off. We may have a salaried job with a more stable life in the UK. Other people would have more money, we'd actually have disposable income! And yet, the world would get left to itself? Spiritually they'd be no better off, and let me tell you straight, neither would us in the UK be either! In fact, I can't even really bring myself to think about this alternative. It horrifies me. So therefore we do go in team (some going physically, many going financially and prayerfully) to the nations and send people, knowing it's our responsibility as Bible believing Christians to take this gospel to all the nations of the world. To not go - the alternatives are simply unbearable, so we go, whatever the personal or financial cost. We go!

The ONE thing all church planters actually need to learn;

Many people I know, certainly many people in their 20s and 30s who have grown up in UK churches since they were young children, are far more theologically sound, than they realise! You see, some say that if you are going into 'full-time Christian work' (what does that mean? When is being a Christian never full-time?) you need to go to theological college, or get some proper training. And while maybe in some settings in the UK that is the best option (and especially for those that have come to faith in adult life and need a solid foundation), for the many out there that have learnt their theology growing up in church, a childlike theology, which sadly often get's replaced with a head knowledge theology so often, I would say there is something better they could learn to really be ready for church planting, and especially in the nations, or in the large UK cities. And that is languages!

Languages will open up nations to you. Languages will give you ways into a closed place. It will allow you to live and work somewhere. It will allow you to get to know people and to communicate well with them. If you've been around church for any length of time in the UK, as I had, you probably don't realise how sound you are in your understanding of the Bible. You probably take this for granted. In Russia, we found there was not this depth in people in the church - understandably so when for so many years God officially didn't exist!

So when we have people visit from the UK, they are often amazed at, what they think, are basic holes in peoples understanding of scripture. I'm not saying that learning theology is not important - no, far from it. But the keys that a local language open up will see Kingdom expansion happen at the kind of rate that it needs to, if we are really to reach the world at the rate it needs reaching. So when you think about applying for that course, maybe give some thought to whether it needs to be theology, or in fact a language, or ten!

St Petersburg Update

I've written a lot recently about our future but in our present we are in the exciting city of St Petersburg, where a new church called Hope Church has been making some rather big steps forward over these last few months. So time for an update from the home front...

July & August 2011 saw the passing of the second summer period for the church and as we passed our second birthday in early September, we could see that our Sunday venue was to be the most pressing thing to address, as numbers were high and space was now very limited.

Dave Henson & I had seen a wonderful venue back in April - at a hotel in the very centre of the city. The problem had been the cost - 20 times what we were currently paying (that's because our existing venue was greatly reduced compared to the normal rate, and this new venue was bigger and at the going rate).

With the summer months passing and the hall full already, we knew our current situation would limit any further growth - for two reasons. First, people might think there was not 'room' for them in Hope Church. Secondly, there was not much room for any more people in the hall!

In the middle of September we took people away for a church weekend - about 40 adults were there. We had invited Andre from Ukraine to come and speak to us, and he took the weekend to speak on faith. It was very encouraging! (It was that weekend that we first shared with the church about our plans for Tallinn, saying at the time how we thought that would mean moving in the summer of 2012, little did we know then!)

What Andre did was to ignite something in us all that was to have real results - and quickly! That very next week, we were to go see the hotel again, offer a reduced rate and see what they said - and they accepted it! We were to meet there from the beginning of October! So I think after the weekend away, we had about two Sunday's in the old hall before the move!

Making the move was to be a real step of faith - but we'd heard God clearly now and so made the step. Financially October onwards would be a testing time - had the church not stepped up so generously, that we saw a 50% - 100% rise in offerings from October to December. It was wonderful to see the whole church united with us in this big (and some might say risky) step.

We now had a venue that could fit up to about 300 people in, maybe a few more, but would also work well from our 60 to about 150 growth, such was the layout of the hall. It would have been hard for a group of 60 not to have felt lost in a much bigger hall. So the venue serves us well.

Little did we know what God had in store for us over the next few months!

About a month into our new hall with all this extra space, another local Pastor came to Dave and shared something he'd been praying about for a year - they were to move back to the US, and instead of their organisation flying in a replacement, he felt he was to shut the church and suggest they join Hope Church. This took some discussion and we are still working through this all, but as a church, they did close down at the end of November, and as Hope Church, we opened our doors to any of those that felt like they could be a part of us in time.

We'd long arranged a conference in December to which David Devenish was coming to, as well as Andre back again from Ukraine, so it was really timely as many people from the closing church were able to come and just get to know folk at Hope. We also had a group from two other small churches outside the city - we'd been asked to help them a little, their pastor a good friend of ours, and this is something we are also starting to working through now as well.

So as we met in December, Sunday attendance was now over 100 adults, plus at times something like 20 children! In our old venue, there would have been no way to have accommodated any more people - but only after we took the step, did we understand why it was so important.

It's now the beginning of February as I write this - in just under three weeks my family move to Tallinn to start the church plant there - this is another big step for Hope Church, to be planting another church less than three years itself having been planted. But praise God we leave behind us a healthy and growing church with a great team leadership - we also leave many friends, people that at most we've known for three and a half years, but relationships forged in pioneering and working hard together, the friendships deep therefore in such a short time.

In October we successfully multiplied the international home group that was meeting in our flat - having gathered about 10 regularly, the first week of the two groups at two new venues on different nights gathered between them 20! And they've continued to be that size. What was exciting, and especially with all these new people coming to Hope Church in December, was last Saturday gathering together 18 of our leaders, and from a discussion that came out of that meeting, multipying our three current home groups into 8!

One challenge we've had since moving into the hotel (which saw lots of new people joining us) is that the sense of Spiritual gifts and contributions in the Sunday meeting has greatly reduced. This could be down to a number of reasons - there has been a lot of change, new people from different church backgrounds are with us, the hall is much bigger, the crowd there bigger too! It just feels harder, or more intimidating to bring something. But its an area we want real break through in. What is clear though is that we are not to under-estimate the work of God.

Someone commented about last Sunday's meeting as being really hard, and worship feeling dry (compared to the near outbreak we'd just seen together on the Saturday with our 18 leaders). I encouraged them with what happened on Sunday - 6 or 7 people had put their hands up in response to the gospel, there were a number of first time visitors, the word was preached - and there was a good offering (January had been the lowest for months and we'd said how the church funds were now really low - so the offering was a sign that people were with us in faith). It's hardly as if God wasn't doing something - people got saved - it's just not the way it used to be.

Of course we do want a stronger sense of the presence and involvement of the Holy Spirit - with the free use of the gifts He so readily gives out. So we won't settle for what we have, but neither can we say God isn't working in us all either!

In time, after we have moved to Tallinn, we will visit Hope Church again (& again) and it'll be great to see this beautiful church continue to flourish and walk into all the promises there are for the church, one of which was that it would plant into Tallinn!

And with that I sign off on my (probably last for a long time!) update on St Petersburg - do keep praying for this great city and it's beautiful church.

Towards Tallinn - Part 4 - Are You Up For A Challenge?

Last Sunday was a big one both for my family, and Hope Church - the local church we are part of in St Petersburg, having moved here three and a half years ago to form the original team that planted the church.

It was big in lots of ways - we were sharing how we were moving sooner than thought to Tallinn. The church was going to be planting it's first church. The church would be stepping into it's calling (more on this in a later post I think). Our family would be making another big move, the second in less than 4 years. It was a big Sunday, with another one or two to come before we leave (my last preach, 19th Feb, our last Sunday, 26th Feb)....

And while so far on this journey through these entries entitled 'Towards Tallinn' I've talked about the journey side of things, and what has got us this far, in this entry I want to share partly what I said to the church on Sunday, and probably the biggest challenge we've faced in our journey this far.

Some time ago, but after we had heard God calling us to Tallinn, we came across two interesting statistics about Estonia.

There were two recent surveys done, the first across Europe and the second much wider, looking at peoples views to God and religion. The first was done within the 25 EU nations (as was at the time), of which Estonia is one of them. They asked the people of these nations if they 'believed in God'. In Estonia, just 16% of the people answered 'yes'. This was the lowest score, the lowest percentage in all 25 EU nations - looking at this list, we saw Estonia at the very bottom!

Now in the UK, I know there would have been more people who would have said yes (I think many out of the feeling that they should say yes), and of course that doesn't mean they actually believe in the same God that we see in the Bible. But they still say yes to the general idea of there being something bigger than the world they live in. To have 84% of Estonians happy and comfortable to not say yes to this question when asked is a different challenge altogether!

The second survey was done in 143 nations around the world. It asked the question 'does religion play an important part in your everyday life'. And to this Estonians said 'yes' only 14% of the time. And on that list of 143 nations that answered this question, there again was Estonia at the very bottom of the list in 143rd place!

In the flesh you hear these things (especially if you've already announced that God has called you to there and you are moving!!) and you think - oh boy! But actually there is something about these numbers that gets me excited - as I said in a previous entry - only God can change this nation now! And that IS exciting!

Of course the church will be the hands and feet, working out what God wants to do in Tallinn and the nation. But it will be God himself who will have to change the very hearts of the vast majority that up to now have no belief in Him, nor do they see any relevance in religion, in faith, in their daily life.

So are you up for a challenge? Are you the kind of person, called to the nations, that reads these statistics and say's "Yeah, I'm up for some of that!" You see we do need a great team of faithful men and women around us - so that together, we can move Tallinn, and therefore Estonia, up those tables!

And I'll finish with a word a friend of ours had over us last summer. I was at the Manchester regional leaders meeting and Paul Basson, who leads South Manchester Family Church, had a word over me - it went something like this.

"I see Tallinn like a Euro Vision song contest - at first people do not know about the place, but there is something catchy about the song and soon people start to hear it and join - and Tallinn moves up the leader board until it is number 1"

I don't want to over play this word, but after hearing these stats it started to make even more sense than it had done before, encouraging as it had been at the time.

Estonia needs to know about the God who saves - Estonia needs hundreds of grace filled, spirit led churches and this will mean many men and women coming to serve to help start this up. Tallinn is an exciting place - do you want to be part of a team that will change a nation, a song that will come out from His church that will ring out across Europe as a number 1?

Links to articles with the stats;

Demographics of Estonia - Religion section - here

Top 11 Less Religious Countries (scroll down a little) - here

Towards Tallinn Posts;

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Towards Tallinn - Part 3 - A Storm Is Coming...

In my previous entry in this series, I shared how God had spoken to us and how He'd opened up doors for us to push towards Tallinn.

In August, on our 10 day trip there, it was like the skies were blue (they actually were, Tallinn is a beautiful city all year round, and especially in the summer!). Little did we know what would be facing us in the following months (four months on, as I write this, we are still in the storm, but maybe the end is just starting to be in sight).

In August we visited the school, and the development (as described in the last post) and we opened a bank account with Swed Bank, the thinking being it would be best to do ahead of time in order to make a future home loan, for the balance on the flat, that much smoother. For the account, and for the deposit on the flat, I'd have to come back in 30 days to sign some paperwork.

We'd prayed a 'fleece' prayer in August - clearly the 15% deposit, with our current financial situation meaning we didn't have enough for this year, let alone the future, we knew that God would have to do something with us in order for the deposit to even be possible. Our thinking would be that we'd remortgage our UK house, thereby providing the extra amount, without it costing us any more (we were overpaying our mortgage repayment amount twice because what we received on rent goes straight onto the mortgage. If we could therefore get a remortgage with the repayment amount as the rent we received, we wouldn't see it effect our monthly balance - we just wouldn't be paying it off early!)

It seemed a very sensible approach. And having 'booked' the flat in Tallinn, we had two weeks (and a little extra grace!) to pay this deposit.

I called our bank the day we arrived back in St Petersburg - they said we couldn't just increase the amount, we'd need a totally new mortgage, and this would be limited (we were on a very good deal!) So we looked for a mortgage broker who could put it to the whole market - we thought this would be the best thing to do. He advised us that 6 weeks would be possible for the whole process, so we felt confident and entered the process stating that time was an issue - the development people were OK with us for 6 weeks, beyond that we'd lose the booking and it could be on general sale again. This would mean we'd lose the flat as they were all selling well, this was the last 3 bed-roomed flat available (and the cheapest!).

By the end of September, with the Swed Bank account ready to be signed for (our 30 days were nearly up!) we also needed to pay the deposit, which meant I would then have to go to the Notary in Tallinn to sign the document.

But our remortgage was going too slowly - we were assured by the broker that everything would be done, but it would take longer than we needed - we'd therefore most likely lose the flat, and then get a remortgage for something we couldn't buy!

It was just a cash-flow issue - we had the money in our house, but needed to use it before it could come through. On that day, we'd emailed family just in case between them they could help (it was blind faith, we were not talking about a small amount and we do not have rich families!) I walked to pick up Mia, which takes 15 minutes. Five minutes in I was talking to God, and saying how we'd shaken every tree and looked under every stone, and there just seemed no way that we'd be able to pay this deposit. Then I said that all I had left was prayer. Hold on, all I had left WAS prayer! What a thing to be left with! So I prayed.

I was now at Mia's kindergarten - five minutes into this Rachel called me - her sister-in-law had replied to the email and said they could loan us the WHOLE amount, no problem! Amazing! Twenty four hours later when I took the same walk, now praising God, the whole amount had already hit our account. How God answers prayer! Of course, we'd get to pay them back in a few weeks just as soon as the remortgage came through, or so we thought!

That meant I was able to book a trip to Tallinn with a few days to spare - I was getting the night bus late on Sunday 25th September and after arriving early on Monday morning, would leave 36 hours later on Tuesday 27th, the return ticket element costing just £3.

I should say, and a pattern of things to come, receiving this amount in 24 hours didn't mean it was that easy for us to send the amount out in the same period! Oh the hassle I had! Five days later, and five long phone calls later, the CHAPS payment finally left our UK account, via a Post Office account we'd set up for this transaction (free international bank transfers!) and was then sent onto the Estonian account awaiting payment. Hassle, frustration, delay. Again, the pattern of things to come.

And so I found myself arriving early in Tallinn on the morning of Monday 26th September. In the next 36 hours I was to meet with the people designing our kitchen (we have to put the kitchen in on the flat), sign off on the plans, sign for our account, have a mortgage discussion with the bank, go to the notary to sign the contract, as well as meet with Barry, the American pastor we met in August.

Having arrived at 5am, I hit the hotel I was staying in at 7pm having been on the move all day - I was asleep by 8:30pm (partly due to not having slept on the night bus!). The Tuesday morning I was at the notary to sign the purchasing contract (this is the system in Estonia, but it actually protects both parties and now means that only we can purchase this flat - we would have to sign another contract to allow them to sell it to someone else!) We hope that isn't the case, of course! After that, I went for an appointment with a mortgage consultant at Swed Bank. That meeting had seemed very positive - yes, we could get a home loan, and it would be cheaper than what we were currently paying for rent in St Petersburg (our reason for wanting to buy in the first place!). I went away very encouraged!

Getting home, the information from the bank now seemed to totally change - having looked into things, as a foreigner they could only lend us 75% of the value (we'd paid 15% but were looking for the 85% so as not to find extra money up front). But worse was that while they'd accept our cash flow through a bank statement, it needed to be through THEIR bank, and not our UK one. That would prove a problem! We did look at other options - though none have currently been any more help, nor offered a clearer solution. I later gave them a scenario that we thought might work - to which they replied, yes, that would be OK - but to get a home loan in Estonia, you first need residency! This was the first time we'd heard that - and just before writing this update, they confirmed, and said sorry for not mentioning it before, but that it is absolutely essential to have Estonian residency before a home loan can be obtained. We are still processing the full implications, but it is clear even now, that we are going to have to move there earlier and get this residency, which also solves the cash flow issue as the money can now come through our local account. I guess more on this in the future.

The remortgage started to then hit issues - the first process (yes, there were two!) hit an issue because the provider was owned by our bank, so they couldn't accept our bank statement as proof of ID because of a conflict of interest! Seeing we were getting nowhere, we started the whole process again, delaying things but there seemed little we could do - we were going round in circles with this broker. A full 16 weeks into the process (remember he assured us 6 weeks at the beginning) we hit a fatal issue in the second process - no UK bank would accept our financial situation as we were neither salaried nor self employed. We were therefore deemed unacceptable as we fell outside the normal scope of things (and we assume post-crisis, banks are being a little over cautious!) We were stunned! We'd already been lent the money and had already paid the deposit (and signed the contract) on the flat. Wanting to check this information (which has actually been the case for many months, so our broker should have been clear from the first call and before we'd committed to anything!) I called Barclay's, our current provider, and in 20 minutes received the same answer, having asked the right questions. I then called two further providers, who both work especially for Christians, and they confirmed the same. There was nothing they could do - apart from suggest we find someone who'd lend us the money.

We have no option but to sell our house in the UK - it won't get us much, but will pay back the money loaned to us, as well as give us the 10% shortfall on the flat in Tallinn - we are in the process of getting the house on the market, though have been told little is selling at the moment in England. Our tenants, who did originally want to buy the house, now are not wanting to. So please pray for favour in this latest process - we clearly want a quick sale.

In all this, we've come to the following understanding. All that has totally needed to happen, has indeed happened in time, so as to assure us that God is with us in the process, and the problems we are facing are more in the region of frustration and resistance, than God Himself closing the door. We are only doing this because God opened this for us. It was His initiative, not ours, that got us to thinking about Tallinn. So at no point do we feel that this is God delaying things or even closing the door. Had the things not happened that ultimately had needed to have happened, we of course would have a different take on things.

So it has seemed like a storm has blown in - in fact a tornado. I'll finish on this - This last Saturday night I had a dream. What is interesting about this is I sleep really well usually (and though we all dream, you only remember your dreams if you wake up a little, which is why I don't remember any dreams!) I have been asking people to pray for me as this is one area I want to grow in. And last Saturday I had a dream! I was at a window and saw a tornado in the distance going to the right and into a harbour. Then I went back to the window and saw a tornado heading my way, as if to just pass in front, before suddenly I was engulfed in it and the room I was in was just being messed up - I was screaming out but no one could hear me. I was hurting too. After 2 minutes (why this amount I don't know, but it represents a small amount of time with a clear end) it passed and things became calm. I could then get the help I needed.

What this dream totally means I do not know - but these last four months have easily been the hardest in our time here in Russia. On the ground, so much has happened here - it's been probably the biggest 4 months in the life of Hope Church, which of course we have been very involved in. But with all these outside issues happening, it was been one giant challenge after another. Today we still have these two challenges - to sell our house in the UK in order to pay back a large loan and give us the shortfall on the new loan, and to find a way to get this loan in Estonia, which now might mean moving there early.

We were also waiting to hear back from the school - since the last update we did hear back - and the job that was available now isn't going to be until the following year (August 2013). A set back and disappointment at the time, I then had a proposal to put to the school where our girls could still get to go there next year, and the reply last night was very encouraging - they liked our 'out the box' thinking and will come back to us in January. Of course with today's news, we might be moving there sooner than we thought. But more on this as we hear as well!

What ever happens, we know God isn't caught by surprise - His plan for us is great. And if it is that the storm is now about to pass, we say praise God, let it be. The enemy has thrown EVERYTHING he has at us these last 4 months in order to wreck this church plant before we've even got there, and even that isn't enough as our foundation, God, is strong enough to help us remain firmly rooted in His plan for our lives.

What the future holds, we do not know. But together, as a family, we'll go there, together with God.

Related Posts;

Part 1

Part 2