Indy NMI Blog

God has been speaking to me a lot lately about his greatness (as in size) as well as his smallness (as in caring for the tiny details of our human lives). In college, as I participated in mission trips abroad, God rocked my world with his grandeur. At this point, I had lived my entire life in Oklahoma and traveled a bit, but something about crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (and even swimming in the Indian Ocean) changed my worldview. There was something so beautiful about colliding with other people groups and experiencing a whole new world. Something God has since given me a love for. At one point, I remember being so overwhelmed by God, thinking about all the planets and galaxies and stars. I couldn’t help but be in awe of God’s majesty and creativity. And yet…as we read in Genesis chapter 1, on the 6thday of creation, God wanted someone to share His creation with. So, he created man and woman in His image. Did you catch that? I know we know this, but have you really thought about it before? God who created light, water and earth, trees and plants, day and night, fish and birds, and the animals walking on the ground…created human beings. Now, we all know that our story is a long one. It’s filled with failure and forgetfulness, but it is also filled with hope and promise and second chances. It is filled with love. “God so loved the world (you…
Source: How Great Is Our God from Fothergill – Africa

We’ve lived abroad now for over 5 years, and it is quite amazing how much one can learn in such a short period of time.  We are getting ready to attend a Resiliency Conference, designed to give us: space to process, an environment that will foster mutual sharing and learning, and to give us tools to work toward resiliency in our cross-cultural context.  We have experienced our fair share of struggles and conflict already in this short period of time of serving abroad, but I love the journey of growth God has us on.  I’ve seen how God continues to work in us not with the purpose of stopping with us, but in order to enable us to serve out of what is our healthiest place.  On this idea of resiliency, recently I was reflecting on a part of a final paper I turned in for my most recent Ordination class, which was, to have true empathy means moving from being a “taker” to being a “giver”.  I hope learning how to be resilient, helps me continue to learn how to move from being a taker to a giver, from surviving to thriving.   In the beginning, I was under culture stress as I learned to navigate the new system around me.  I recently saw “culture stress” defined this way: getting your needs met in new ways.  The hard part of culture stress is that we are creatures of habit.  We’ve learned to get our needs met in certain ways, in…
Source: Another's world from Scotts – Eurasia

Prayer Mobilization Line June 17, 2015 Jonathan Phillips is a missionary serving in Romania. Join him in praying for these requests: Pray for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders in the Church of the Nazarene in Romania as they balance ministry and theological studies with family and work responsibilities. This summer, a volunteer will be working to develop a carpentry shop as part of
Source: June Missionary Prayer Focus from Romania