8/14/2017 0 Comments One Small Step...Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Psalms 36:5 God is so faithful and kind. In every challenge he keeps proving Himself true. This transition of our family from living in Cambodia, to moving to the UK, having a baby and then moving to the States, all in less than 6 months - is the biggest transition I have experienced so far! It has meant much uncertainty in many different areas! At the beginning of this whole journey if I (Steve) was to try and look at the "big picture" of everything that had to fall into place it would feel a bit overwhelming! Every time that I would start to feel overwhelmed, Jesus would be so gentle and reassuring; reminding me of His promises and His faithfulness. From there I decided to just try and take things one small step at a time. In every single little step Jesus has proven Himself consistent, faithful and encouraging. An example of this happened recently when we sent out a private email update requesting prayer for a few things including our impending visit to the US Embassy for our visa interview. They could have denied our visa request after asking to look at our proof of funding for the year (we needed to show that we had at least $20,000 to finance our 9 months there). So we needed to really trust God that he would get us through. We were interviewed by a man who actually had a cousin attend the exact school of ministry that we are enrolling at and understood about it all. What are the chances? Out of hundreds of possible interviewers!!?? In the end he didn't ask to look at our bank statements and our visas were granted! Each small step like that, before and after, God has been re-enforcing his faithfulness and kindness. Even in the really difficult step in leaving Cambodia and all that is dear to our hearts out there He has been so faithful. We have at times missed the precious people and team there so much! But He has given us the grace to get through as we have followed him in obedience. While we were first settling back into the UK, we felt the leading from the Lord (from Matthew 13:44) to sell a one-bedroom that flat we own in Grimsby; to help part fund our time in America. It needed a new kitchen and lots of other work. I had never done anything like this before in my life and had absolutely no clue about renovating a property. Yet small step by small step we were blessed with help, by the right people at the right time and after a couple of months of hard work (and what seems like lots of small steps) it was completely finished. Then when it was put up for sale it had three different buyers in a bidding war and we ended up receiving an offer significantly over the asking price and much more than what I was hoping for (and more than the average value for the local area)! The sale is going through at the moment and we are praying for a swift completion! There were a few times whilst I was renovating the flat (while I was also working as a supply teacher in a secondary school) that the task just looked too huge! I felt clueless, but I was just looking in the wrong place. When I looked at Jesus I just kept getting reassurance and encouragement from Him and He helped to make it happen in lots of little ways, including providing people to help me out. He has proven himself in lots of other things in the last few months and there are may things which we are really thankful to Him for (included in the pictures and captions below): My favourite of all of the things to be thankful for from our time here has been the safe arrival of our little boy Benjamin Robert Brown. Many of you already know about him and some of you have already met him personally. In everything from the pregnancy in Cambodia, the moment he was born, the following few months as a newborn - God has been faithful and we are so grateful to Him for this precious little addition to our family. He is now 3 months old and just doesn't stop smiling. He is healthy and is such a joy to our whole family including his big sister Gracie who loves him so well (sometimes too well by giving him very big squeezes). He brings me so much joy every time I look at him. During our time here there have also been some very intense situations and some moments of deep testing of our faith; which have been hard and stressful at times. However whenever we took the time to come to Jesus, to hear from His perspective; He has then given us wisdom, love and the faith to keep going, keep hoping and keep trusting in Him We mentioned also in a recent prayer request that we were trying to find a house in America to rent. It is difficult finding somewhere in a city that you have never been, you have no clue which areas are good to be in, a place that's the other side of the world and you can only look at photos on the internet of and not actually be there! We think we have finally found somewhere though! So thank you so much for your prayers! It was a long process after 2+ months of looking at hundreds of different places online we were still clueless but we were blessed to be able to speak to someone in the Iris Global team based in Redding who really helped to point us in the right direction. Then after narrowing it down to a few options we decided to go for one that we thought was the right one so we applied for it! Then Mollie looked back at a random message that she received in June from a person from Bethel Church who she had never met before (see picture). This person said she felt "led to message" us about looking into a particular apartment complex. The ones she messaged about is exactly the same one we decided to apply for! After a long and gruelling process two months after we first received the message we ended up going with the very apartments which she felt led to tell us about two months previously (and that we had forgotten about). God is so good, even if we miss it and have to go through a process to get to the very place He intended us to be! We are hopefully finalising paying a deposit for this place soon and then looking to start getting furniture so it's not completely empty when we arrive there. We fly out to San Francisco on the 27th of August and will stay there a night before driving the long journey North to Redding. I feel like in these last few months (and even for many years before). The constant pattern has been this; me realising I am completely clueless, me coming to Him for help, then after being with Him I realise that he is completely faithful and able to fulfil His promises, then I just try to trust him in the next small step of His leading. Sometimes looking at the big picture of what Jesus calls us to do can be a bit overwhelming and scary! But if we just lean into Him, ask Him to show us things from His perspective, and then believe enough to follow Him in in the small steps of his leading, we can do "all things" through Him who is with us. Now, because of these constant testimonies of His goodness, we choose to continue to follow Him in all the small steps ahead. We are learning more and more that He is fully able to fulfil His promises. He is so worthy!
**Please note because of our move we can no longer receive our financial support through stewardship.org.uk. If you support us through stewardship you will need to cancel any regular payments by the end of August.
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2/21/2017 8 Comments New things ahead...We have some big news about some huge changes ahead for us as a family!! Firstly though, I have put some pictures below with short captions that mention some of our highlights from the last few months (as we have not posted on this blog for a while). New things ahead...Over 4 years ago we were in a worship service in the Phnom Penh House of Prayer. It was a powerful evening and during worship Mollie got a picture of us at Bethel Church, Redding, USA with a little girl (Grace) and a baby boy. This was before we had plans for any children and right at the beginning of our time in Cambodia but we remembered about this back in June when we became pregnant again and we started to really pray into it. We also asked our fellow base leaders in the other Cambodia base to join in with praying with us for confirmations and spoke to our International Directors and asked them to be praying with us. Since then we have had numerous prophetic confirmations from different people emailing us with pictures that they have had and other people prophesying over me in meetings -about a time of transition ahead and an open door into something new.
We plan to return to the UK in March for the birth of our boy and then after a season at home to leave for Bethel in the US in late August to attend the Ministry School starting in September. We are still in the application process so please pray for us! Our hearts are still 100 percent for the nations and for missions and to follow Jesus but He has made it clear that this is our next step in following Him and our hearts priority is to do that! It also makes huge sense to us that we have a season of training. We followed him out to the nations after only a short Missions School in Africa. By God’s grace we have been able to do what He has called us to in this 5 years since that but we feel like this season ahead will be a time of Him increasing our capacity, so we will be even better equipped to serve Him in the times ahead. What about Cambodia?Iris Cambodia is in an exciting time. In Phnom Penh this year we plan to raise up local leaders and across our two bases have a flood of new longtermers joining us from the nations. We will have at least five new people in Phnom Penh and at least four people (two couples) joining the team in Sihanoukville. We believe this season ahead for the team is going to be full of expansion and increase! It has been a huge honour to serve along side this beautiful team and learn from them but when God tells us to go we have to go and we trust that He will continue to propel the team into the amazing destiny He has ahead for them. We have some incredibly gifted leaders and servants on the ground here and more new people coming in who will be better equipped to move Iris Cambodia forward than we ever could. Despite us leaving Cambodia the team here are like family to us and we will continue to be a part of their journey and praying for them. We will miss living alongside such incredible heroes but we are thankful that geography doesn’t separate the special bonds we have with these people. We know we will come back to Cambodia as it has a very special place in our hearts. We have had words about it being our Jerusalem and the place from which that we go to other nations. But we do feel to not make any commitments about returning just yet so we can be fully open to whatever God has ahead for us in the future. This last month we got to have a full Iris Cambodia Team get together in Sihanoukville and got to say goodbye as a family to the Sauder family (who are also leaving for a time) and also we ourselves received a good send off from the Sihanoukville team. This next few weeks ahead we will be also saying goodbyes to our Phnom Penh team and other friends and finalising preparations for the team for the months ahead. This time is full of mixed emotions. The thought of leaving this beautiful nation makes us feel sad; we have never met a people who are so loving, sweet, generous, caring and thoughtful. The Cambodian bride is truly magnificent and we feel so blessed to have spent the last few years learning how to love from them. But we believe that all those lives we hold so dear and who we have seen impacted by Gods love are so safe in the hands of our faithful Father. We look forward to coming back one day and seeing the fruit of all the seeds sown and how God moves and breathes on the people and places our hearts burn for. Letting go is never easy but we trust that God has the best intentions for us and all those we love here and so we fully trust Him and know that there is no better place than the centre of His will. We rejoice in God that we got the incredible privilege in serving in this nation and with this team. God has done some incredibly powerful things (mainly in us) and we are so thankful as we look back but we are also thankful as we look ahead with anticipation and excitement.
10/17/2016 1 Comment SatisfactionSince we moved to Phnom Penh lots has happened and even though we miss our close friends and (what feels like) family in Sihanoukville we are enjoying doing life in the capital. We have already sent a few mini updates out so I’m not going to talk in detail about all of the things that have happened, but some highlights can be seen in the photo’s directly below with a short description. (Press play and/or the arrow buttons below if you want to see it). Since moving to Phnom Penh we have hit the ground running. We seemed to join with the team just as they entered a season of increase and blessing and they have done an incredible job administering and enabling all that has been going on. In the midst of all this we have also had two trafficking cases in which we have had some involvement in and there have been some changes in our team personnel. There has been lots happening, many encouraging things and lots to process. With so much going on and so many breakthroughs its easy to get lost in it all. In the midst of things going really well and some great testimonies happening (see photo's above) it is easy for it to become about just that. It is easy to make the slight adjustment in priority in thinking in your heart that these things are the ultimate goal. A few weeks ago I was having some time with God on the roof of our apartments and I found that somehow I had almost made that mistake. Like it was becoming only about what was being achieved for Him, what testimonies were coming out or what great things were getting done for Him. These things are important and needed but only one thing is fulfilling or truly satisfying to me. Only one thing satisfies my heart and soul, I would trade all the great achievements in the world for that thing; That peace that gives you wholeness and that deep satisfaction. That only comes by having Him who is Peace close to me. Him who is Fulfilment nearby, Jesus himself. I would trade anything just for that feeling of being close to him, truly whole, truly complete truly fulfilled, and that only comes from relationship, close relationship, not from any significant works that can be achieved. Somehow I had found I had lost that a bit. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Someone can be doing the most amazing world changing things and yet be truly unfulfilled in their heart. People can also be doing nothing and be completely unfulfilled. The majority of the satisfaction doesn’t come from the doing or the not doing but knowing Him closely in the midst of it all whether doing anything or nothing at all. True and full satisfaction is in Him. In the last few months I have learnt that it is not wrong to want to do great things for Him and see lives changed and impacted and achieve wonderful things in His Kingdom but it is wrong to not continually seek close and meaningful relationship with Him in the midst of it all. So the main focus is not on the doing itself but in knowing Him more and more closely, being ever closer to him in the midst of the doing. If anything takes higher priority in our life than our relationship with Jesus Christ it has become an idol. Jesus is so wonderful in every dimension of His being that there is nothing out there that is ever worthy of even coming close to that. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Family news;One of the happiest bits of news to report out of them all is that we are expecting a second child, and little Gracie is going to be a big sister! We went for a scan a few weeks ago mummy and baby are doing very well and we found out that the baby is due in May 2017! We are so excited! While this has been some joyful news for our wider family we have in the last few weeks had my Grandma fall seriously ill to the point where she has nearly died numerous times. Last week I got a call saying she had a few days left so I went back for a week to be with family and hopefully see my Grandma again. Thankfully I got to see her and so did my brother who flew in from Australia. It was a precious time to be with her and family but also a very emotional time. Please pray for our family and my Grandma that everything would be in God's timing and in God's way!
Thank you so much! Much love from Steve, Mollie, Gracie and baby Bump!
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