African outfits

African outfits
Our crazy family

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Top 10 Fears

The scriptures tell us over and over to "Fear Not", but the reality is we all have fears if we are honest.  Recently our Pastor Doug asked if our family would be willing to share our fears during his series on "Living Courageously".  Our first reaction was that we don't feel courageous and we  don't have very many fears.  Our trip to Africa just seems like a big adventure.  Trusting that Pastor Doug must have a reason for wanting us to share our story we decided to have a brainstorming session on what we might fear.  It was so good for us to do this because it made us realize we do have fears.  I don't believe God wants us to shove our fears down and pretend like they don't exist but to acknowledge fear and give it to Jesus.  I Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

Pastor Doug's series on "Living Courageously" can be found in full by following the link below to Evergreen Community Church New Hope and check out their media section.  The day we shared he was talking about doing something CRAZY for God.  We definitely fit the "crazy" category.

 Here is a list of our families top 10 fears and who shared that fear.

10.  Levi is fearful of having an injury while in Cameroon and having to visit an emergency room.  With his track record of injuries this is a very real fear.  Please pray for protection for him and our whole team.

9.  Levi also has a fear that our plane will crash.  The kids have never been on an airplane so they feel a little anxious about this.  However, Levi did say that he would prefer the plane crash to going to an emergency room.  His reasoning is that if he dies he'll be ushered into the presence of Jesus and if he's in an emergency room it could be scary.

8.  Ellie is worried about being away from her friends for so long.

7.  Ellie is afraid of the unknown - not knowing what it will be like to be in another country, what kind of toilets we might have to use... and all the other stuff she doesn't know.

6.  Kyle has no fear but will miss playing piano every day  because this is how he worships.

5.  I (Marie) have practical fears:  Once the team leaves we will no longer be taken care of  with meals and laundry.  I believe I will have to prepare all of our meals and the food will be different then what we have here.  The laundry will need to be line dried, which wouldn't be that big of a deal.  Unfortunately, Tracey Hagman told me that in Africa there are moths or something that lay their eggs on laundry.  Body heat warms the eggs and the larvae burrow under your skin.  When we went to Kenya it was only 2 weeks so I made sure to have enough underwear for the whole time.  I think it is unrealistic to bring each of us 73 pairs of underwear... so I guess I will have undies hanging all over our bathroom.

4.  I do fear that I will get all caught up in doing this for the sake of the "purpose" rather than going on this trip because God is leading us.  I don't want to miss anything that He is trying to show me because I have my eyes on the wrong things.

3.  I fear that God might call us to go somewhere more permanently... and we would have to go because what I really fear is NOT obeying God.

2.  Drew fears that he will be asked to do something way beyond his skills or knowledge and that he will not meet their expectations.

1.  Our main fear for both Drew and I is that when we return from this amazing trip our old life will no longer make sense.  That we will be completely discontent with the way things are.  Really we want to be changed, but what does that look like?
  
We are just an ordinary family that is following an extraordinary and amazing God.... to the ends of the Earth if He asks us.  Our story is really about Him and how he can use anyone if we open our eyes to what He is doing.

This prayer is from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12a:  "We keep on praying that our God will make us worthy of the life to which He called us.  We pray that God, by His power, will fulfill all our good intentions and faithful deeds.  Then everyone will give honor to the name of our Lord Jesus because of us"

http://www.evergreennewhope.com/media/audio_messages

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