Whew! Time for a break! Fall has fallen (along with the temperatures). It seems as if yesterday I was speaking of …a beautiful, bright, brisk spring day. The greening of the grasses, the singing of the birds and the beginnings of the crocus blooms were announcing with a shout the emerging renewal…
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24 – KJV (March ‘03)
Our summer of labor has born much fruit both in the physical and spiritual. In the physical we’ve constructed about 175 sqm of wall and begun facing it with native hard limestone bursting with gold, red and green colors with veins of deep browns and greys and the slight shimmer of quartz. Our grasses have come full circle growing thick (okay, so there’s some crab grass – but it’s thick!).
We’ve given shape to some of the lilacs, spireas and maples, redone some paths, installed a pool and basketball court inching to our next set of goals; road construction, roadway lighting and fall fruit tree trimming and planting. Our designs, our desires are coming to fruition reinforcing the scripture…“Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
As I was driving to Szekesfehervar (say-kesh-fay-hayr- var) last week the weather had turned to that fall coolness; leaves dropping and blowing in the sharp morning breeze, alight from a lower yet clearer sun. This week the first morning chill of 3 degrees Celsius (35f) set in and it’s been so very vibrant ever since. It was on that drive that I thought about the seasons – only the spiritual ones.
This summer we had churches from Kosovo, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia come together as an assembly, just as the church did in Jerusalem in the first chapter of Acts, in one accord for the first time since war had torn that part of the world apart. A hard, winter season of bitterness and mistrust had turned, slowly awakening, risking possibilities, birthing into summer fruit from seemingly hopeless beginnings. God had called back and called out more unto Him.
They came to one place for prayer, worship and to break bread together just as in Jerusalem realizing, yea professing that their long hard winter was now over. Pray for these churches and the men who lead them, Lubjan, Damier, Tibor, and Zoli. Pray for their wives, helpers, congregations and to the Lord of the harvest.
We had people from all over the US and Europe come for the summer for ‘Vision for Life’ – a summer of learning, listening and longing. Some came away with a direction for their walk while others heard in a deeper sense, growing, gaining vision. Some stayed on with others coming back this week to study the word, to gain clearer vision…
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part,
but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12 – NASB
We went to Austria in the middle of August to meet and come together with missionaries from all over the world, to put faces to the letters and prayer requests we read week after week. Phil Twente and his wife were there; the ones who receive and send out those letters, who diligently pray over those hearts. Brian and Don spoke to us from the 2nd letter to the Corinthians exhorting and encouraging us. Pancho came from CC Montebello to speak into our lives, to remind us and fill us.