- Health - Just this week we received a provisional French social security number and we requested reimbursement for 7 months worth of out-of-pocket meds and doctor visits. If this works as anticipated, we can cancel our expensive private insurance that effectively only covers hospitalization...a welcome boost to cash flow! (We find it ironic that we are happily entering into socialized medicine while our American friends are trying to ward it off!) We are both lacking in energy, which drags us down like a wet blanket, and would like to get to the root of it. Access to more specialized treatment may help. Of course there are attacks in the spiritual realm that can affect our body, but as we age (and we feel like we're doing it MUCH too quickly), we've a desire to understand and correct things that can be dealt with. We heard a wonderful message on faith this morning at church and we understand that we need a "vision" for our health. We need to "see" our health to walk in it. Personally, I believe that there are a number of physical and spiritual factors that are affecting our health at the moment and we would like you to join your prayers with ours to catch a vision for our health and that our youth would be renewed! (Isaiah 40:28-31)
- Regroupement Familiale - No, that's not a mis-spelling...at least not if you're in France. That's the normal process for an immigrant, working in France, who sends for his wife and kids to join him and enjoy France's array of family benefits. We now technically have the right to these benefits. Of course we've rarely fit any normal process that anyone else goes through! We've actually tried this process once before, but were refused. But, it's a process we must go through again to have full access to these family benefits. So, we'd appreciate your prayers that this process would succeed and go smoothly this time and that we'd have the grace for yet another French administrative hurdle!
- Finances - God is SO FAITHFUL! We see that even in the economic crisis, He's been able to increase our support giving this year to offset worsening exchange rates and higher prices. Additionally, we see that slowly some wells of provision are opening up on this side of the Atlantic. This is important given the exchange rate. We feel this is also important with respect to being connected to this land to which we've been called. With some of the shifts in our financial situation, the accounting has become more complex/confusing. Angela and I have recently been blessed by some teaching about "The Prosperous Soul" from Bethel Church in Redding that's helping us to re-focus together on our finances. So, while cash-flow has recently been challenging, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and a new season. Please pray that we negotiate well the shifts to this new season and at the same time renew our thinking and vision about the tool of finances in our life.
- Weekly Worship - We're still moving towards a 24/7 model. Corporately, we desire that prayer and worship be central and feed the fire of all the things that the Lord is calling us into. We also desire that this stir creativity among us beyond what we can even conceive. Personally, I desire that my musical contributions to this attain new levels and explore new avenues. I also have had a desire that some of the visual arts that I've dabbled in from time to time can be stirred up. Last week, I was able to spend some time with one of the artists of our community and he helped free me to pursue this more. So, I'm excited about what this will mean. Angela and I want to help facilitate the logistics of this effort to engage more people in more worship more of the time. So, starting this week, I've consecrated 2 hours every Monday afternoon to "lead" a time of creative worship. I've no idea what will come of it but I desire that it pick up a baton of worship that's been carried the last three summers (now taking it into the school year) and that it will open the way for many others to take on blocks of time every week to "keep the fire on the altar" and raise up new creativity/new creation in the region that God has called us to steward. Please consider praying on Sundays for the 2 hours of worship on Monday afternoons and that it would be multiplied and established.
- Team Building - Right now 3 teams that we're a part of need to be built or re-built: The inner healing team that Angela's a part of needs continued prayer to move forward in the establishment of the ministry at our church. The technical team at our church (sound, projection, recording) needs to GROW! The worship teams at our church need to GROW (and in the case of the youth, GAIN EXPERIENCE). So, please pray for God to raise up those who are called to go deeper in these ministries and for those of us in positions to train, to have an increased anointing and heart to do so.
- Relationship Bridge - Our church continues to reach out to walk with the Body of Christ in Germany. Our pastor just returned from Hamburg where he spoke at a Christian Education conference. This week several people from our church are going to a conference in Germany with a network of churches with which relationship is growing and some from this network are coming back the following week to speak at our church. Angela and I are still praying as to whether I should go to Germany with this group at the end of the week. I recently had an opportunity to have a 1-on-1 German "refresher" lesson for a couple of hours with the German teacher at Olivia's school, and may soon participate in an adult class that she will be starting along with some others from our church. Please pray for the growing relationship that we have with Germany that the synergy and reconciliation that the Lord wants from this union would come forth, and specifically whether I should go to this conference at the end of the week in Germany.
 Covering Our Backside - In the last couple of months, we've been able to move forward on several projects in the interior of our house. That will allow Angela to get through the cold, dark winters easier. For me, however, the rear of our house remains a huge burden. It's unfinished and looks like an open wound for our neighbors to gaze on. I've spoken about it several times in our newsletters and blogs, and while the crucial roof work was done, nothing else has been. My hopes have been raised and dashed several times as I've had numerous people look at it and give me advice on how to proceed, and have had vague promises to help, etc. It remains problematic and last spring the neighbors specifically asked me to do something about it as they believe it's unsafe. As something we don't see at all (no access to the courtyard that the rear of our house faces), it's easy to ignore it on a daily basis. As a project whose total cost is completely out of our price range, it's easy to just wait until our finances "permit it"...no end in sight. Personally, I'm just frustrated by it and see no solution. Please pray for a breakthrough on the impasse of getting this work done and done right, and pray that the resolution of this would also be a key to further connection with our neighbors.
Danke sehr!
David |
