"My bags are packed. I'm ready to go. The taxi's waitin', and he's blowin' his horn ... cuz I'm leaving on a jet plane."
These John Denver words come to mind as Thursday moves closer to its breaking dawn.
Eight of us from North Georgia will be flying to Portugal to offer the License to Preach School experience along with the Lay Servant Ministry training. We are excited about sharing the gifts God has blessed North Georgia with and has now given us opportunity to share those blessings.
This is the first non-touring visit but a true mission trip where we hope to build bridges into the lives and hearts of our Portuguese sisters and brothers. We are desiring to help them have the tools to grow the Methodist Church in Portugal. We carry with us two checks, one to offer assistance in the feeding of the homeless and one to offer support for the creation of a new congregation in Vila de Gia.
I covet your prayers for safe travel and for success as we seek to share. I ask that in your prayers you ask for all hearts to be open and receptive, and this means our hearts as well. We want to help without harming and insulting. We want to share blessings and offer support. At that same moment we hope to receive an outpouring of the strong spirit which flows in Portugal of never giving up and never complaining about the difficulties of ministries.
Pray for our team which is made up of pastors and laity. The team will be Robin Lindsey, David Naglee, Joseph McBrayer, John Pinson, Scott Parrish, Dale Smith, Janet Sligar and me. We leave Thursday the 19th and will return a week later. We are packing a lot into the week, so prayers are truly needed.
We now dream of the day we won't have to say there is work to do but instead when the Kingdom comes we will say, come to the party. We will celebrate the love of Christ shared with every man, woman, and child the whole world round.
We will pray for you and hope you will have a grand week of serving Jesus and each other.
"I hate to say goodbye," but will see you soon with exciting stories of God's work!
Dana
While I am gone, Rev. Sharma Lewis will be in charge of the Atlanta Emory District. Her office number is 770-879-9016. Contact our district office first though as Teresa may be able to help you.