Broadening our Horizons

So this past weekend we went to CIY's OnPurpose here in Tulsa. Our entire team was there, so we got to spend quite a bit of time together. That was good. One of the speakers was talking much about God's will. Angie and I were soaking it in. Since we have chosen to follow God's leading to Italy in May, we have expanded our time commitment. We were first asked to consider a one year commitment to this field. Then we found out that language school might be six months in another city! We then decided to expand our commitment to six months for language school and one year in the target city. Next we found out that language school could be eight to nine months, so we said our commitment was for a year and eight to nine months. That lasted about two weeks before we just said our commitment was two years even. We have been functioning under that statement for a little while now. However, this past weekends' discussion of God's will got us asking some questions. "Who is putting the time commitment on this plan, us or God?" We determined that it was us and so we are changing our commitment to the following: We are going to stay in Italy as long as God wants us to stay there. If He leads us to something else, it would need to be with the same direction to which he has led us now. Bottom line is that we want to be where God wants us to be and nowhere else. So I guess that means we will continually evaluate our stay here.

Stepping forward...

Well, our heads are spinning. We went over to Jason and Heather Casey's house to talk to them about Italy. And it looks like we are doing this. I got the application from him today that we have to fill out for the missions organization Team Expansion. They have to approve us before it is official but on our end we are ready to go.

Italy as a Mission

Jason Casey and I went to lunch yesterday. He and his family are leaving in a couple of weeks to go to Louisville, Kentucky. They are going there to build a partnership with a church before going to Italy as missionaries. They are supposed to be in Louisville for six months. After talking with Jason about my growing passion for church planting and youth ministry, he asked me why we didn't consider coming over to Italy with them for a year. I chuckled to myself, but then I thought why not. He and I talked about how my training in youth ministry and my graphics abilities could be used greatly in Italy. The target city? Ancona. Last night I met Angie in Tulsa, because she had gone to a wedding and I still had to work at Hastings. I shared with her the news and we started a roller coaster of emotions. We have been talking about it all day with each other and a few mentors that have impacted our lives. They have said there was no reason why we shouldn't go for it, so I will tell Jason tomorrow we are interested in talking more about it. In other words, what are the next steps.