Only Six more months...

We got an email the other day from AIM saying that they have flight reservations for us on July 14th, 2011! Wow, what an email! That was very encouraging! As the new year begins, we are excited with anticipation to see God's mighty hand at work! Everyday is a step closer until we leave our world as we know it and venture to new ones.  We are continually reminded and encouraged that God is good and that He is in charge! We are encouraged by you as you pray for us and as you so generously give as God leads! We are humbled by your gracious giving and give thanks to God for you and that He would continue to bless and be glorified by you! We are very, very close to reaching our outgoing funds goal and our monthly support also continues to grow!

This month, we have also started an online course that we have been working on diligently. This is part of the required spiritual development before we go, but have been extremely blessed by the discussions and articles.
Also, big news, our house is finally on the market and we know God will work out the details! We are working with an agent who goes to our church and we are thankful to be partnered with a sister in Christ!

I must say, God is at work, the Harvest is ripe but the workers are few, and we pray that God will continue to send out workers!

We pray for you and appreciate your prayers as well.

Love the Wells Family!

PS, We have been asked by Browncroft to write some devotional for their Route 365 Bible Reading Plan, you can reads Kevin's article's this week and Amy's come up later. All the devotionals are thought provoking and provide a nice spiritual snack.
http://www.browncroft.org/Resources/Route365.aspx

Task Master

"Stay on task, stay on task!" This is often heard in educational circles. We want the kids to stay on task. At home, I often have a "To Do List" and I like to plow through each task so I can check it off. It feels good to get stuff done! In order to get stuff done though, I feel like I need a good pair of blinders and good momentum.
Even as a follower of Christ, when God has laid something out before me, I start creating a list of how I am going to accomplish it. I start doing this and that, I at times I feel like I am spinning my wheels and it is easy to get frustrated. And then the Holy Spirit whispers to me, "Don't stay on task, stay on Jesus!"

O Lord,
This day I submit to you my time, my thoughts, my strength, and all that is me to you!

Amen

Walking On Water

Have you ever tried to walk on water? I don't mean when its 20 degrees outside, I mean real water. it doesn't work. You put your foot on the water and it goes right through. Depending on your balance, your foot gets a little wet. It is impossible to humanly walk on water (in liquid form). Yet in Matthew 14:29, we read about Peter walking on the water! So it was only a couple of seconds, but he still walked on water when he had his eyes on Jesus! It wasn't only until he looked at the rolling waves and heard the whistling wind that he began to sink!
As our family continues to move forward in our Journey, we are going to have to walk on some water! We just recently moved into the Browncroft Community Church's missions house so that we can prep our other house for sale. There are a lot of winds and waves rising before us! The real estate market isn't great! This time of year isn't really the hot time for buying a house. We only have so much saved money to pay rent and a mortgage. But we are not going to look at the waves nor fear the winds, but look directly at Jesus so that when our house does sell and when all our support is raised, then all glory be to God our Father! Many will question and doubt, but we fix our eyes on Jesus who is our author and finisher of our faith!
Has not God already provided in so many ways before? Did not God help David kill a bear and a lion before he killed Goliath? Great is our God! Holy is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world!

Oh Deer, oh Deer!

So Saturday was a very interesting day. First of all, we had a baby shower for my sister. While the ladies had fun with the baby shower, the boys, Kevin and Josh (Bro-in-law) had their own shower while they watched Gabe's football game as he played Alfred University in the pouring rain. It finally dried up around half time and in the end, St. John Fisher got rolled over like fresh sod. Later that evening, Gabe, Josh, and Kevin enjoyed some wings. Around 7:30pm Kevin got a call from his bro Joe. Joe, his wife Karen, and their son Devon were stranded due to their car breaking down. They were 1 hour from Rochester and 2 hours from home. Kevin drove down "deer" alley to go pick up his bro and his family to drive them home. The roads were pretty quiet and Kevin was nursing a "Rockstar" energy drink he got earlier from the football game. Any way all of a sudden, a big buck runs across the highway! Kevin swerved quickly and carefully, and thankfully missed the deer! Phew! Many prayers of thanks went up to God! Let me tell you, energy drinks  has nothing on a shot of adrenaline after narrowly missing a disaster! So thankfully the rest of the trip went with out incident.
After getting home on Sunday, I talked to my sister in law, and was telling her about my trip. She told me that she was so afraid that I would hit a deer and that she was praying for me all night! Wow, I was amazed!
If the Spirit would compel a sister in Christ to pray over a deer and that we avoided hitting a deer, what more should we be praying for! Was that deer a dart from the devil? We should keep our families and friends in continual prayer for, Satan is a prowling lion looking to devour. Thankfully, our God has conquered death! Thankfully, we have nothing to fear! "Do not let your hearts be troubled, for I have overcome the world!"

Queens for a day.

I am so honored to write this post. The Wells family was honored by the opportunity to visit and share at the Chinese Envangel Mission Church in Queens, NY. We were welcomed with open arms and a bunch of flowers! They were very patient and gracious with our children who had a blast and didn't want to go! If you are in the NYC area and need a Church to check out, check out the CEMC Q church! Highly recommended! It is an honor to share with fellow believers God word. It is easy to try and think, "was the sermon good enough? Was I entertaining? Was I useful?" But the truth is, it is not about me, but about God speaking to his people! God always has something He wants us to know and it is through his people that his messages flow. God takes  care of his own. Yesterday, a very distant relative mentioned 2 Timothy 2:13 When we are faithless, he remains faithful. It is encouraging to know.

Breakfast part Deux

So I spent some time thinking about fasting a little bit after I had an interesting conversation with a colleague today. I asked her, "If you could do whatever, what would you be doing?" The cliff note version is that she would travel all over the world and eat at all the best restaurants in the world, not the "touristy" ones, but the real good ones, the treasures hidden away, maybe pay over $100 a plate. It got me thinking why we don't talk about fasting much. Here in America, most of us have access to food, lots and lots of food. Cheap food, healthy food, unhealthy food, food food food. We get hungry, we eat, we are full, we still eat because we can. For some its a hobby. For other's its a crutch. For some it means family for others it means the Devil. We often don't go with out, and once we feel a little rumble in the tummy, we go running around the kitchen or stop at a drive through. So the idea of fasting can be very scary, especially if you are afraid to be a little hungry. I think its interesting how influenced and manipulated we are by food.
Obviously we have to eat and God provides for his people. I am not saying food is bad or evil or that we should all be anorexic. What I want to say is that as Christ followers, we should strive to live more by the Spirit, the food Jesus talks about when the Disciples offer him food when he talks with the woman at the well, than by our natural hungers and cravings. Can I with hold my own satisfaction for the sake of another? Can I live a life where I trust more on living by God's spirit than by hugging my self with a twinkie?
I look around and see people's lives consumed with consumption and honestly its killing them.  On the other hand, I have students that go a whole day with out eating much. They don't eat breakfast and lunch is meager at best. Everyday they deal with hunger and have lived to deal with it. It affects their ability to learn and pay attention. So starving isn't the answer either. But can we learn to deny or delay self satisfaction in order to empty ourselves, so that Christ can flow out of us?
Fasting is mentioned quite a bit in the old testament and some in the new testament. When Christ talks about casting out demons, to pray and fast. I think we should talk about it more and practice it more as Christians, even though it is counter culture.
Christ is our model, who demonstrated complete submission to God, even through beatings and ultimately death. Can we not submit our bodies, hungers, and cravings to our Lord and Savior?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

Not so Fast!

Sorry it has been almost a month since I last updated. Boy/(Girl) have we been busy with family, traveling, and transitioning with 3 children! I hope you at least got a chuckle out of the "Vlog"...I was trying my best not to look or sound half dead, but some were meant to be in front of the camera and some were not...I don't think I was meant to be in front of the camera, but let me stop trying to get unneeded sympathy...

I want to write about fasting. It has been on my mind and in my heart, and I feel like its time to write about it. I really first started thinking about it after I had a discussion with a family friend on our visit to Chicagoland. He mentioned that during one of the hardest times during his missionary experience, he had fasted and prayed, and that the Lord gave him a clear vision for the direction his family should go. I asked him how often he fasted and he said about once a week to pray for his students and during Ramadan, which I thought was interesting as well. 

It got me thinking, should I fast? And so I have been praying on how I should start implementing fasting in my life. The more closer to Jesus I get, the more filled I get, the more of a spiritual life I live, and the further away I get from living according to my fleshly desires. But my body, my physical body has so many appetites, for example, chocolate, pizza, chocolate, me time, me time, me time, to be thinner, to be stronger,  to be right, to be entertained, etc, etc. Did I mention chocolate? My point being is I am constantly dealing with different things I desire, some things not so bad but at times can lead to selfishness and unhealthiness. Can I do with out? Are there things I really could give up? Can I rely on spiritual food a little more than food food? When Jesus was talking to the woman at the well, and the disciples went to get food, they returned and asked if he was hungry. Jesus replied, I have food that you don't know about. 

I guess what I am seeing is that fasting is a away to distance our selves from our selves and focus on Christ, where by we empty ourselves, God can fill us up. 

But I think we have to be careful not to fast as the Pharisees, because when I am hungry, I tend to get cranky, very cranky. "I want some pieeeee!" Or we might have a tendency to want to talk about it. "Yeah, I am fasting, I am so spiritual..." I see fasting as a way to worship God, to offer ourselves as a sacrifice. I also believe fasting helps us to recognize areas of need and growth. We can fast from more than just food. We can fast from anything that gets in the way of our relationship with God. 

I would encourage you to seek and pray about how God may want you to fast. 

In Christ, 

Kdubbs56