Faithful

The New Testament was written in Ancient Greek. In order to understand the original autographs and the subtleties of meaning by the original authors of the New Testament, an understanding of the language used at that time is tremendously helpful. Before Nathan came to Christ, he studied 7 years of Linguistics (M.Sc.) and language assessment. We now know he was given this training by God in preparation for what would be used for God’s purposes later in life! One of Nathan’s greatest passions is analyzing communication. Analyzing the very word of God is extremely humbling. As Paul told Timothy, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). Nathan is grateful for the excellent teaching in his Greek grammar course, by professor Paul Twiss and instructor Nathan LeMaster, is looking forward to further courses with Dr. Biedebach, and was greatly encouraged by Dr. Jeremy Smith in Greek Exegesis (2018). Nathan is also grateful for the chance to meet Dr. Shryock, a Linguistics expert, as he is an amazing encouragement in Nathan’s seminary goals. Nathan is extremely excited to continue learning from these gifted and godly men when we arrive at the LA campus in August, if the Lord’s gracious provision will allow it. All these people the Lord has used to lead us to where we are now. There is not a single electron in the universe that is moving apart from God’s saying so!

Nathan’s first attempt at writing a love letter in Ancient Greek. Anyone want to translate for me?

An Update…

The Lord’s peace and lovingkindness has been revealed to us more deeply these past few weeks, with the passing of Nathan’s dad, David. Through the grief of loss we have leaned on the Lord in prayer, seen God’s grace in the love of our family, and most of all rejoiced that, since mom died a year ago, David put his trust in Jesus Christ for salvation and was made a new creation in Christ at the age of 73! What a mercy. The grace of God is sovereign.

It has been a quiet week for fundraising and preparing for the move. We have posted more items for sale, and are working on applications for apartments. We continue to collect bottles and cans for refund and garage sale items and are extremely thankful for any support. Please continue to keep us in prayer.

Our Gofundme page can be found here.

Fear

Moving to another Country. Leaving a rewarding career. Being far away from family and friends . . . our children. Financial insecurity. Facing critics and judgement.

There are a lot of uncertainties ahead of us, a lot of ‘what-if’s, a lot of fears. We discuss these fears almost every day. 

Of course, what we want is to be boldly confident in how the next months and years will unfold. We would like to think we have it all figured out-that we know what God’s plan is… but the truth is, we don’t. 

All we do know, is the undeniable call that God has placed on Nathan’s heart to preach and teach God’s word. The call that has steadily grown over time, with opportunities God has placed along the way, for him to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through the mentorship of dear friends and pastors; Harv, BK, and Joe, and the coursework he has already worked hard to complete through The Master’s Seminary online. 

And then what about me? What has God called me to do? What gifts has he given me? Since I became a Christian, I have spent a lot of time thinking and praying about this. No special gifts have jumped out at me . . . no particular talent or passion has tugged at my heart. And while I do find great joy in leading a women’s bible study in our church, the greatest joy I experience is in loving my family: loving our kids and supporting and helping Nathan as he serves the Lord and studies. It occurs to me that perhaps that is my call . . . meeting my family’s needs and serving alongside my husband in ministry. When I think about it, and as I type this, I actually get excited! In an age where women are encouraged to be independent and ‘successful’ in a career, I am finding the most joy and comfort in the love and partnership of marriage to my husband and my family. So, I willingly and joyfully submit to the Lord in putting on hold, or even giving up my career in support of Nathan’s studies and future ministry together. 

We know that this ‘call’ is probably tricky for some of our friends and family to understand, and that might cause some people to think that this plan is irresponsible, and we don’t expect everyone will accept it. But consider this; there are absolutely a lot of fears but none so gripping to us than the thought of not stepping in faith through the doors God has continually opened for us. There is nothing more fearful to us, than not trusting that God is sovereign and totally in control.

So while we fear a lot of things, the one thing we can’t fear is the uncertainty of not knowing… We don’t know how things will turn out but we do know this…

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  Romans 8:28 NASB

I would like to invite you to listen to one of Nathan’s sermons. He has very graciously been given the opportunity to preach at our church, Beacon Church, several times now and was recently invited to Squamish Baptist Church. He continues to learn and grow in his preaching skills, and I pray that those who hear his sermons will be blessed and that God will be glorified.

Below are a couple of his more recent sermons. Click on the links to listen.

The Gift of Suffering for Christ (Phil 2:1-11)

The Rules of Engagement (2 Cor 10:1-6)

Fundraising Update

We have tallied up our first bottle collection and can report we have collected approximately $200! A number of people brought over a bag or two of cans and in a wink it added up! We are so grateful!! We continue to collect. Contact us anytime and we can arrange to come pick off or drop off. 

We can also report that the pile of items for our garage sale is piling up! Since garage sales tend to do better in nice weather we are holding out until March, and will continue collecting until then. Thank you to everyone who has brought over donations for us to sell in the garage sale.

We have begun selling some of our household items on Facebook Marketplace which also adds to our fundraising total. 

To date we are close to $5000!

Here is a quick link to our Gofundme. Some have asked if they can donate directly through us instead of Gofundme. The answer is, “Yes! Of course.” 

Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the gifts you have given to us and how you provide for all our needs. To you be the Glory. Amen.

Nathan has been diligently studying for his Greek course these last couple weeks. He likes to remind me that as a 50 year old – he has been in cognitive decline for the last 25 years. But he is thankful for his linguistics training as it seems to have helped him overcome his cognitive deficit! Haha! I am hearing a lot about first and second declensions of nominative, accusative, genitive and dative case endings… It is, of course, all Greek to me… I am always happy to support Nathan’s studies in any way I can, and recently Nathan gave me a stack of vocabulary flashcards to go through with him. One side of the card was English so he suggested I read the English word and then he would tell me the Greek. It seemed simple enough… I read the first word in English and he responded with the Greek. I turned the card over to see if he was right and quickly discovered a problem. The Greek words were, of course, written with the Greek alphabet-which I can’t read! I had no way of knowing if he was correct! I guess I am not so helpful in this area. Maybe I should try to learn the Greek alphabet?

Fundraising Update

When God called Abraham to do something difficult He provided the means to do so. He called him out of Ur and He also told him to sacrifice his own son. God provided the ram. Abraham said [in faith] “God Himself will provide the lamb, my son” (Gen 22:7-8). He is Jehovah Jireh (The LORD will provide). Jesus is our Savior, because He is the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8), and takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). God provides a way to be reconciled with Him, by providing his Son’s perfect righteousness on our account, which we do not deserve, and gives us what we do not deserve — eternal life and does not give us what we do deserve — eternal punishment for the many sins we are guilty of before a holy God. This is amazing grace. We are saved by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone (Eph 2:8,9). We are learning how God is faithful and His word is trustworthy.

God continues to astound us with His provision. To date, through our Gofundme, and direct giving, we have raised nearly $4000! We are also very thankful to everyone who has dropped off cans and bottle for our bottle drive or donations for our garage sale. We plan to do our first bottle return this week and are tentatively planning for a garage sale in March. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has donated and pray God blesses their generosity.

Its a quiet and peaceful morning as we enjoy an unexpected day off due to heavy snowfall and poor road conditions. Snow, other than a light dusting, is fairly uncommon here on Vancouver Island – especially the 14 plus inches we have in our yard this morning. It is beautiful and it has afforded us some extra time to think ahead to California and work on planning and preparations. It has been almost 2 weeks since we made the decision to try and raise the funds to go to Los Angeles this summer and we have been blown away by the encouragement and support we have begun to receive.

Timelines

Our first priorities are getting our passports renewed and figuring out timelines for our Visa application. Tentatively, it looks like we will need to have the majority of our fundraising complete by the end of March in order to apply for our immigration Visas. While it may only take a couple weeks for the Visa process, it could potentially take 3 months. So the earlier the better!

We are also supporting 2 of our children as they apply for and prepare to go away to university. Their applications were due this month!

Fundraising Update

As promised, we want to keep everyone up to date on our fundraising efforts. We have received donations totalling nearly $3000 to date both via our Gofundme page and in person. We are extremely grateful to our supporters and thank God for His provision! We have been thinking of the Philippians who gave to Paul in prison, and he thanked God not for the gift to be used by him, but for God to bless their kindness and sacrificial love for Paul’s ministry.

¹⁵ And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. ¹⁶ Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. ¹⁷ Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.^[g] 18 I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.¹⁹ And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ²⁰ To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen (Phil 4:15-20).

We also hope to take a load of bottles and cans into the recycling depot in the next week or two. If would like to donate your refundables, please let us know here and we can come pick up! Any amount is appreciated-it adds up quickly!

Its been almost a week since we decided to make the move to Los Angeles this summer. Since then, the number one question has been, “Are the kids coming with you?” So, we thought we would take a minute to answer this important question more clearly.

We have 5 amazing kids ranging in age from 14 to 23. Three have already graduated high school. The two boys are working, and our older daughter is working and preparing to attend university this fall. The fourth graduates this year and he plans to go away to university this fall as well. We are extremely grateful knowing that these four are settled with solid plans for the next few years.

We are also thrilled that our youngest, Keely, is excited to join us in California. She likes to think “we are going on an adventure”.

We were grateful for the invitation for Nathan to preach this Sunday at Squamish Baptist. Nathan preached on 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 “Rules of Engagement”. My soldier engaging the enemy of error with the divine power of Gods word.

It was a wonderful time of fellowship with dear friends.

Step one is stating our intent for Nathan to begin on campus studies beginning this fall. The decision is made. Now its time to send the email to TMS and start letting people know. Family, friends, acquaintances, employers… Its simple to execute, but also so hard at the same time. Pray for us.