Jul. 9, 2007
His Timing is PERFECT!!!!
I feel so blessed to have a wonderful, mighty, BIG God and to see how He connects His people together -- and how He patiently waits for it all to come together. Also how humbling, honoring, and amazing it is to be in the midst of His plan and His work.
We hosted missionary friends last month who have a minstry called Love-N-Care in India. We've known them the last 8 years, through DH's cousins who have gone to serve with their ministry for 9 months or so between high school and college. I've wanted to go to India since meeting this amazing couple for the first time.
My goal was to go to India when the last cousin (J) went there after she graduated, and we could make the trip together. I was pregnant when we first met the Padams, so that would give us about 3 years when we considered our DD "old" enough to travel there. DH would stay here and work, and DD & I would be able to go for a month or so, and J could help me with DD while we traveled there. Well, I got pregnant with our sweet DS the year J graduated, so that delayed "my plan."
We continued to see the Padams for a few hours each time they did their yearly trip to the US to see friends, meet new contacts, and raise support. One year, they graciously spoke at our small youth group (where a couple of the teens were forever changed with a passion for missions). We received their newsletters and held them up in prayer, and many times tried to figure out how we could do more for the work God was doing there, and how we could go and see the work for ourselves.
Then we moved to a new state and started going to a new church that started a few months after we arrived. God blessed me by allowing a wonderful friendship to blossom and strengthen between the pastor's wife (Ms. T.), and she is now one of my dearest friends. One day about a year ago, she was sharing what their vision was for the church, and mentioned that they really wanted to come alongside a missionary and support them not just financially and with prayers, but with actually partnering with them and sending teams over to help with the work. She said they were praying God would show them who that ministry was.
Well, our family had just gotten back from a quick day visit with the Padams who were staying in a city several hours away. They had given us extra books of the ministry's story someone had written, along with a DVD another person had made for them that year. As my sweet friend, Ms. T., shared in her living room what our church's heart was, I prayed, "Oh, Lord -- could it be that Love-N-Care is who our church is praying for?"
I then told my friend, "I don't know if you are interested or not, but let me tell you about a ministry we know about." I gave her the book the next time we met, and she read it, and she also watched the video. Last summer, she did a Missionary Month in our children's ministry and one Sunday, we "went to India" and shared the DVD with the kids.
This year, when the Padams put out their newsletter to let us know when they were coming to the states, eight years of prayer came together in a most AMAZING way. We asked our pastor if Yesupadem could speak at our church, and then we scheduled the Padams to come and stay with us for a few days. Our pastor read the book I had shared with his wife. He called Yesupadem and they had a great talk and God showed us the answer to so many prayers. We had our church's ministry team over for dinner to meet the Padams and it was a wonderful night.
The next day, Sunday, as our pastor introduced the Padams before they shared with our church their video and testimonies, he said that as he read their book, he knew that this was the ministry that God wanted our church to partner with. As the Padam's shared that morning, people were touched by what God was doing there, and people responded. There is even talk about going to India for a missions trip as soon as the end of the year.
During lunch after the service, we reflected on the past eight years, and how all this came about. As Yesupadam brought up (which we hadn't thought about), "You wanted to come to India for so long. And God moved you here, and is now partnering your church and our ministry together, so now even more people can help and go to India. "
Aren't you glad we serve a God with a much bigger and better picture than we do? 
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