In case you're interested to know what we said in the letter, here it is (with a few small changes for the blog post.)
Dear Friend,
We’ve signed up to go to Zambia in August 2013! Yes, all six of us!
Wow. Why? Well...
Perspective. Have you ever noticed in yourself a ready tendency to feel like a victim? Do you find yourself feeling like you deserve better? Are your thoughts focused more regularly on having what you want then wanting what you have? If you answered yes to any of these questions, we can relate. We realize that our perspective, too often, doesn’t agree with God’s perspective. So we’ve decided to change our...
Position. What are your chances of winning the lottery? Other than a miracle, we have no chance because we don’t play. If we spent all our money on lottery tickets, we may not win but we’d have a better chance than we do now. Unfortunately, too often we treat God the same way. We want to see Him work powerfully in and through us, and change our lives, but we don’t put ourselves in positions where it’s likely to happen. Perhaps we’ll be in a better position for God to rock our world through...
Partnership. There are some people in the world who God is definitely using as instruments of grace in the lives of the needy. We believe that Benedict and Kathlene Schwartz (check out www.akcli-voh.org) and others in the Villages of Hope are some of those people. How might God change the perspective of one who is in a position of partnership with these people? We don’t know the specifics of the answer to that question, but we believe it will generally be life changing. So we’ve started saving our...
Pennies. Literally. It’ll cost approximately 2,100,000 pennies ($21,000 or 105,000,000 Zambian Kwacha). We can’t afford to go on our own, but we are trying to save what we can. It’s a family effort too. We’ve set up a “Zambia” jar and we add money to it regularly. From cutting the “fat” from our budget (even though it doesn’t feel fat, there’s that “perspective” thing again) to a child who convicts the rest of us by saying, “I guess I won’t buy that with my money. Instead I’ll put it in the ‘Zambia’ jar.” We are trying to pay our way. We’ll never be able to do it on our own. That’s why we need...
Prayer. We’ll be the first to confess that we don’t know how exactly God decides to do what He does. However, we are certain that God is able to make the impossible possible. We know if He wants, He can and will pay the bill. We also know from the Bible that He wants us to ask Him for help to accomplish those things that are important to Him. We believe the spiritual growth of our family and others that we interact with is important to Him. WILL YOU COMMIT TO PRAYING WITH US THAT GOD WILL DO SOMETHING BIG IN AND THROUGH US THROUGH THIS ADVENTURE? And maybe God has put it on your heart to spare some of your own...
Pennies so you too can join the
Partnership, and move yourself to a new
Position. Then perhaps God will mightily impact your
Perspective, even as we hope He mightily impacts ours.
May God richly bless you even as He blesses us through you,
The Ribbles
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