The Team

When we were brand new here we heard that there was deep spiritual need on the south coast of our island. We have never been to that area but we started praying and asked the four students at our theological college from that area to come to our house and chat. We wanted to learn, so we asked them about their backgrounds, the tribes they represent, and what they wanted to do in the future. We prayed for them and told them that we had heard about the needs of the south coast and were glad they were going back home to serve someday. One of those students we featured in our newsletter, we will call him Nathan.

A year and a half later, a wonderful student (we'll call her Sarah) came to help Kacie in the home a few days a week. As we got to know Sarah she told us that Nathan was working to form a team to return with him to the South coast to minister. He was compelled by our meeting to recruit others to return with him, and the first to commit to joining him were his neighbors in married student housing, Sarah and her husband. We got all excited hearing this, because between them these students have very different personalities, gifting, training, and ethnic backgrounds. They will be teaching kids, training leaders for the church, pastoring, building and fixing things. Now another of Isaac’s students is weighing joining this team and will be doing a survey on the south coast soon as a part of his internship and decision making process. This student is gifted academically and with a keen mind, and we’re excited that he might also join the team.

For us, it’s super amazing to see students coming from a variety of places and people groups, including some in remote areas, be trained, and then leave with a vision and plan to serve a community that really needs both spiritual and other kinds of service. It’s amazing to see God answering prayer. It is humbling to see that the words of a new professor to students can help to mobilize and vision-cast in this way. So, will you pray for this team with us? They are all entering their final semester in January and are making plans for next steps.

Please pray for us to know how we should and should not support and guide this team. If this were happening in the USA, we would put people into a system and have all sorts of planning and training and programs to make sure they are equipped, accountable, communicating, supported, trained, etc. Things are a lot different here, and they are forging much of this path on their own.

Please pray for Sarah, the student that watches the kids while we work. She has a major health issue going on. It's pretty scary for her right now and medical care here is really limited, which makes other remedies that we find really suspicious more appealing.

Please pray for the student that is investigating and determining where to serve, and whether or not he should join this team. Please pray for guidance. Also, he is single and before he moves into work in remote areas he is strongly encouraged by others to marry. Of course although this is not the West, a guy raised in the city doesn’t simply just find a wife because he wants to, so please pray that God would guide him in this too.

Please pray for Nathan, the leader of this team and a man we have asked you to pray for before. He has come from a very remote area and has such a heart to serve and is a quiet mobilizer. Pray for him, and for his family. He has a son away at a school in another town. His 12 year old daughter has been regularly helping us with our kids and has not been in school. This year, however, with investment from a couple of local ladies, she’s been tutored and has learned to read. Next month she will join her brother at school in another town and away from her family. This is common here but is a hard transition nonetheless. Please pray for God’s hand on her life.