Parting

We are preparing to bring our three-month assignment to a close. As we walked through the crowded shuk yesterday, I couldn't help but be a little sad. I have enjoyed our time in Israel. We have grown to love the fellow believers we know and work with and will miss them so much.

We have spent over ten years of our lives traveling within the U.S., ministering in churches and I have grown accustomed to partings. When we first began evangelizing, it was difficult for me to say goodbye to people that we bonded with during meetings. When you worship, pray, and grow with people, a bond is formed. After a while, I realized that I would probably see all those people again, in maybe a year or two, since we developed a preaching circuit that usually took us back to the same places, so I learned to not be sad when we parted ways.

This is our second extended stay overseas and overseas ministry is different than U.S. ministry. For starters, it is a whole lot easier to get to Indiana than it is to get to Israel!

As in Jordan, I have grown to love these people. Will we ever come back here? Right now, we simply do not know. Even if we do return, some of the people that are here now may have returned to their own countries, since most everyone - like us - is here temporarily.

But God is in control. Our ministry schedule for the summer will take us from Arkansas to Massachusetts to Maine to Minnesota. We are looking forward to this next phase of ministry, even as we have been grateful to have been involved in the work here. We have grown and been immeasurably blessed by those whose lives have touched ours. Even if our paths do not cross again here on this earth, the good that has been done in the spiritual realm will last into eternity!