Only 8 more days...
Hi everyone,
We have learned so much in our short time here in Helene, Honduras. More importantly we have experienced God in a new way and He has been transforming us. We want to recognize that this transformation affects many people and not just us though. The goal in coming here was to complete the 3 month D.E. program with M.E.I. and to hear God's assignment for our family. We have learned that God's assignments are God-sized and when the Lord invites us to become involved with Him in His work this will bring us to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
What does this mean? It means that what God is asking us to do will be costly to many people and not simply just us. Anytime God gave an assignment, the people in the Bible had to respond in faith (see Hebrews 11 for an account of many of these God-sized tasks). Following God and obeying His commands in their life, affected numerous people and was often very costly. Not obeying God's commands or following through with an assignment was even more costly though (just reference the book of Jonah). Our family has learned that our response to God's call says more about what we believe about God than just the things we say we believe.
If you were able to hear one of our dinner presentations before we came to Helene, Levi talked about Paul in the Bible and how his missionary ministry did not begin with simply him. He was backed by Macedonia and many people partnered with him in spreading the gospel. It wasn't a one-man mission, but rather a community reaching communities. We want to thank all of you for partnering with us in this adventure. For your prayers, your encouragement. For loving us through the process. For your patience as we have been figuring out what communication from a remote island is going to be like and for honoring God's call on your life to be a part of our team. Your obedience to Christ in your relationship with Him, has enabled us to reach this goal and finish well. But the race is not done and that is why we wanted you all to be the first to know the next step.
The Lord is asking our family to commit to be a part of the M.E.I. Team here in Helene, Honduras for a 3 year term. Larry Benson and the M.E.I. Board have asked us to join their missionary team in Helene and be a part of what God is doing in this island community.
For some of you this may come as a shock and bring you to your own crisis of belief that will require faith and action. For others you may feel the elation and joy for what will come next. We realize how very many people this impacts. Our family, our extended family, our friends, our neighbors, our church, and our community. We realize that this is not something that is unique though. Many families have taken their kids overseas to minister to other communities in the world in communion with Christ. Through much prayer and time with God, each of our family (this includes our children) know without doubt that we have to obey and accept this call.
What does this mean? It means that when we return to the U.S. in 8 days, we do not know how long we will be in the U.S. because we will be preparing for the next step of returning to Helene as long-term missionaries with M.E.I. If the Lord placed it on someone's heart to give $30,000 then we would be doing a quick turn-around. Levi will have to complete a 13 week travel nurse contract to maintain his nursing license and so we know for certain we will have that time in the States irregardless.
Please keep in mind though, relationships are very valuable to us and so our time with you is important. We will definitely be making time for friends and family and the relationships that God has blessed us with so please do not think that we are just task-focused or goal driven. Our time with each of you will be intentional and treasured. We cannot wait to testify to what the Lord has done and how He has transformed us. We cannot wait to share with you how good the Lord is and how we have come to know Him in our relationship with Him.
Revolution Church will remain forever our home church and we will be active missionaries within our church community. We love Revolution and we value our role as members of the body and still know we are very much a part of the body of our church, but that our function in the body is just shifting and being redefined by God.
We will be visiting churches and other states and visiting with individuals and raising more support for the next step. Please begin praying with us about the challenges we will be facing. Pray that the Lord will prepare in the hearts of people and congregations to join our team and that we can raise at least $2500/mo in support. It is a God-sized assignment that we cannot do alone. Only faith and obedience will see us through these next months. We are experiencing a myriad of emotions about what the Lord is asking, but in the end we know we must obey. There is great need here in Helene and God is doing much work here that He is asking us to join Him in.
Please pray that God will speak through us to increase new short-term teams of people to see for themselves what God is doing in Helene, and that the Lord will press on people's hearts to even complete the D.E. and become a part of the long-term work here. Please pray about joining us yourself and seeing what you are a part of. There is just so much, I could go on and on, but it was really important to us to share with you first. That you would be the first to hear and have a little time to adjust to what this may look like and mean. We are so thankful for you and praise the Lord that we have had such a wonderful support system. This is brand new for us and we are learning as we go.
Thank you for being with us through this. We do not know exactly how God is going to get us back to Helene or what that will look like, but all we know is that we have to step out and faith and obey.
Love in Christ,
The Riley Family (Levi, Cassie, Alex, Brody, Zoe, and Zac)
P.S. - If you have not wandered onto our blog as of yet, this seems to be the best way for us to communicate the many experiences we have had thus far. We are able to write blogs when connections are down and then post them in the small windows of internet connection that we have. www.rileyfamilymissions.
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