Grow and Go

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The church I grew up in has a new phrase that I like that basically says ‘Grow and Go’.  I love that.  Grow and go, so catchy and remarkably accurate when it comes to evangelism and personal faith.

It seems like our lives have been very centered around our plans to move to Nicaragua lately, and I don’t think that’s going to change.  But sometimes I wonder, “What about now, Lord?”  I don’t want to forsake this day for an unknown future.  That said, I do feel like we are being obedient in planning to go so I don’t want to get super involved in long term commitments (ministry wise) and end up leaving someone short handed.  To that end I’ve been praying a lot lately about being involved here but I specifically asked that nothing would come my way to tempt me ministry wise because I really don’t say no well, and I don’t want to lose focus.

Imagine my surprise when I was approached last Sunday about leading a table at our upcoming Bible study!  While the time commitment is perfect and I was already planning on attending, there was just one small hitch…I was asked to lead in Spanish.  I have no problem casually conversing in Spanish but leading a table of my peers is an entirely different situation.  I feel completely ill equipped to lead a table in Spanish.

So I said no.

But the woman asking me, bless her heart, wouldn’t take no for an answer.  I sat at her table for the last Bible study (in Spanish) and she felt certain that this was a step I was supposed to take.  So with a whispered prayer for guidance and a plan to back out via email once I got home, I agreed to lead.

Funny thing though, once I got out to the car and had a chance to process it with Mark, I suddenly felt good about saying yes.  The more I prayed about this, the more peace invaded my previously insecurities about the language issue.  I started growing confident in this calling, so I never even wrote the email to back out.

And yesterday was our first meeting.  I made some grammatical mistakes  but I did it, God did it through me.  It was so humbling and beautiful.  And as it turns out, I didn’t have to wait until to “Go”.  I got to take a huge step here and it’s going to make the next steps that much easier.  They’ll still be scary, but perhaps just a bit easier.

 

 

About mjstearns

We are Mark, Jenni, Tate and Theo Stearns. We currently live in Beaverton, Oregon, but are planning to move to Nicaragua within the next six months. We'll be serving as missionaries to Verbo Church, a non denominational church with several Nicaraguan locations. Specifically we'll be working at Casa Bernabe, an orphanage run by the church, assisting in vocational training and transition programs for the older boys.
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