March Prayer Update

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Flowers are beginning to bloom in Birmingham, and spring is just around the corner! Although I didn’t take the picture on the left, this was taken by someone at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, a place I have visited on several occasions. I love to take a walk around the park and always find this time to be spiritually refreshing!

I am settled down with my studying habits at Beeson right now and have been enjoying all of my classes and a relatively mild winter weather common in the “the heart of Dixie”! While I do miss snow and cold winter weather, I have found this weather extremely beneficial for me to maintain my running and cycling hobbies. Not intending to draw any ire from my Northern friends, but I have not wore my winter coat once this winter in Alabama to this date and I am thrilled! :)

I want to take this moment to let you know that I’m very much alive and to thank you for your faithful prayers and words of encouragement through your e-mails and letters over the past month since I wrote my last prayer letter update in February. It is always wonderful to hear from my family and friends back home! So, I just wanted to update you on how God has been working in my life so far and how you can pray for me over the next month. I hope you realize at this point that your prayers and words of encouragement do make a huge difference in my life while I am here in seminary. I often think about you while I am here and lift you up in my regular prayers.

Praises

• For the lessons that God is teaching me here about my life, faith, and ministry in general. Although seminary has proved to be rigorous (as I have already discussed in my previous posts), I love my classes because God uses my professors to speak directly to my heart. It may be words of encouragement for me to remain faithful to the primary calling God has given me with my studies, words of comfort when I am struggling, and words of timeless wisdom for me to plant in my heart for my future ministry with Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.
• For a successful DTQ Super Bowl party at Alabama School for the Deaf. I was able to serve Deaf teenagers along with Liz Steele (a colleague and great friend of mine for a little over five years) and other volunteers from Deaf Teen Quest (DTQ) and Oxford Deaf Church on February 5th for an annual Super Bowl party. About 40 students (a rough estimate) came to this event and watched the game on the big screen. I am always blessed when I get a chance to see how God uses his faithful servants such as Liz to minister to Deaf and Hard of Hearing teenagers at ASD on a weekly basis through her small groups, and she is one of many people whom I have faithfully prayed for.
• For his continued provision, grace, and mercy in my life. Ever since I moved here, I have faced some difficult phases in my life where I struggled with loneliness and overwhelming demands of my academic studies. In those moments of weaknesses and trial, that is when God’s strength becomes even more apparent to me. God continues to faithfully provide for my needs through the people I know in this area, through my faith family at Beeson, and through your financial support and faithful prayers.
• For allowing me to serve a deaf widow and a family seeking to raise funds to adopt a child in Birmingham. Read about this here.

Prayers

In addition to prayer requests from last month’s prayer update letter…

• For guidance and wisdom regarding a possible mission trip to either Turkey or Uganda this summer. Beeson Divinity School’s Global Center will be bringing a group to Turkey on June 22 – July 6 to complete our CCMP requirement for our M.Div. degree, and I am intrigued by this unique opportunity to visit a different part of the world, learn from other missionaries how to minister to Muslims in Istanbul, and even visit the ancient city of Ephesus and Hagia Sophia! However, it will cost me approximately $2,000 for airfare alone plus a little more for other travel expenses, so it will not be a cheap trip by any means! I was also invited by someone from Brook Hills Church to attend a ten-day (?) mission trip to Uganda with a Christian organization to find Deaf Christians in the area and possibly establish a church there. I do not have the details about the trip to Uganda yet, but I should find out more about it early this week. To be honest, I am not sure what I should do this summer: stay in Birmingham and take summer classes (Hebrews?) or go on one of those two mission trips to complete my CCMP requirement this year. A decision must be made and paperwork completed by March 30th to be considered for a partial scholarship provided through Beeson.
• For a Deaf young adult small group to be established in Birmingham. Like I indicated in my last prayer update letter, there is a great need for Deaf ministry in the Birmingham area. It seems to me that the Lord has placed a desire in my heart for about a month to start a weekly small group for Deaf young adults that is based on Acts 2:42, but I do not believe that I have received a “green light” from God to implement this group yet.

To imitate the spirit of Apostle Paul’s conclusion found in the first letter to the Corinth church, may “the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen” (1 Cor. 16:23-24).