God is in the details!

The last couple of days have been a real blessing as God has been revealing more of how we would be serving in Ireland when we arrive. We have had some very good conversations with a few of the team members here about how our vision for ministry fits in with the goals of the organization. We also realized a few nights back that whatever our best-laid plans are, we need to yield to how God would best use us. This lead to a discovery of a need that the team here has for someone who can help recruit, interview, and mobilize Irish people to serve in missions. My experience as a manager in the business world fits very well with this need - and having just gone through the process myself, I'm aware of the particular needs of how this process should look from a missions perspective.

We feel so blessed because as I sat down to put some concrete ideas on paper about sports ministry, I realized that it will most likely take more time than I thought to build the relationships and trust that it takes to get something like that moved forward in this country. It certainly would not be enough to keep me busy full-time at first. So we are extremely grateful that God presented this need and that we will be able to help fill it. We also learned a little about how Sarah can use some of her background with bookkeeping and office work to contribute to the work here. It has just been a fantastic revelation to us and we are so excited.

Furthermore, we were able to nail down some more specific numbers for our financial needs - which are separated in to ongoing monthly support and one-time "start-up costs", which are things like airfare, training, getting a car, etc. It is a great feeling to be equipped with this information as we look to start raising support shortly after our arrival back in the States.

And finally, we learned more about when our arrival time might be - or rather, the flexibility that is allowed. With our organization, they typically send new missionaries at 2 times during the year so as to coincide with international training conferences. In our case, the field here would be willing to accept us before those traditional dates so that we could begin working here and then travel to the conference when it was going.

It has truly been great to move along and get some firm answers to questions we have had and to see how God continues to provide for our needs and light our path. Looking forward to sharing more details with everyone when we return.