Keeping Up with the Joneses

Many years ago I was preparing to do something very big, and very foolish.  I had convinced myself that God wanted me to do it but it took the wise words of Leon van Daele to prevent me from making a big mistake.

Alan, Meg and Daniel Jones

He asked me, “Do you know that you know that you know, that God has told you to do this?”

I had to admit that I didn’t. And I learned two important lessons that day. Firstly how to make a wise decision. How to think about consequences and plan and aim at what is practical and sensible.

I also learned, although I didn’t recognize it at the time, that sometimes God calls us to do some really crazy things; impossible things. Those things need to be done with the same diligence and fortitude as everything else He tells us to do.

The key question is this: What has God told you to do?… now do that thing!

It does not matter how boring you think it’s going to be, nor does it matter how impossible it looks. It only matters that God has said it.

So having a practical, logical, planning kind of mind is a good thing. But it can hold you back from taking good risks. And having a wild boldness is also good, but it can get you into a lot of unnecessary trouble. The secret is not to rely on your personality or your skills or the talents you’ve developed; the secret is to develop a relationship with God that allows you to distinguish His voice from all the noise in your life, and obey His command… in a word, the secret is Faith. Faith that convinces you daily not only of His existence but also of His desire to reward an earnest seeker.

This faith will fuel your hope regardless of any and every circumstance. A hope, so fueled, will give you all the courage you will need. And, if you are going to succeed in this life, you will need all kinds of courage. The white-knuckle, wide-eyed bursts of courage, as well as the long lasting fortitude that prevents you from giving up.

As some of you remember; Meg, Daniel and I left for Tacoma, USA in November of 2009. It has been over a year and a half, so far, of hard work and adjustment. It seems, on the outside, that we are no closer to starting Firebrand Church than when we first began.

There have been some major setbacks, business has been frighteningly slow. America is in the grips of a real recession and marketing budgets have been slashed. But God continues to provide for us. We lack for nothing… except perhaps the confidence to apply for our Green Card on the business as it is now. It needs to grow before we do that. Meg’s brother and sister-in-law (Graham and Sharon) have been exceedingly generous to us in letting us live with them the last 20 months.

We also went through a real turbulent visa roller-coaster ride between May and July with the 2012 immigrant diversity visa draw. I won’t bore you with the details, you can read about it in most online US papers (Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox, etc.) Suffice to say that that door seems to be closed.

On the positive side there are a lot of amazing things going on. We have had opportunity to minister in some of the churches here in Tacoma, and it looks like we will have more opportunity in the future.

Also what has looked very much like a delay for us has proved to be a wonderful opportunity to get under the skin of this amazingly complex and desperately needy culture. It has also forced us to go back again and again to what it is that God said to us, and we are very clear about it! God want’s us here building his Kingdom. So we are simply continuing with what we have been doing – establishing a business so that we can plant a church.

I launched the church website a month or two back: http://FirebrandChurch.com

Meg is doing well and looking forward to her parents visit at the end of July. Dan has had a great year. He’s in the middle of Summer vacation and enjoying the Washington outdoors.

So we’d like to ask you keep praying for us. This battle will be won with persistence. The war, however, is already won!

Lots of love

Al, Meg and Dan!