After Kiev we headed to London, then by bus to Coventry. Next Level International has their head office there, and we were set up to meet with some of the staff. As many of you know, we have been walking in the direction of working with NLI for the past few years.
In Kiev I had a song in my head, "Everything I am, everything I long to be, I lay it down at your feet"...over and over and over. I wrote in my journal that , "I feel like some sort of change is coming. Like a right-hand turn on our path, something unexpected." I began to sense that I needed to lay down my expectations, my plans, hopes, dreams, and let God lead our next few days. This was pretty scary, because we have some pretty big plans! (I am, afterall, QUITE a planner!) There is fear of the unknown. But you know what the Lord told me? That He is in my unknown, He HAS no unknown. This brought tremendous peace.
Our meetings went very well. Lots of good discussion, ideas, questions and answers. NLI is primarily an organization that facilitates church plants. They connect with local leaders all over Europe, set them up with a supporting church, give pastoral training, and help those leaders in any way they can to get their churches up and running. SUCH a great ministry! So for us coming into Europe as foreigners, we have a few options where NLI is concerned. We could work with the team in the office, supporting church plants, etc. We could work under PAOC as missionaries, partnered with an NLI church project. We talked a lot about our goals, passions, what we feel God is calling us to do. We've had a mandate that's driven us the past few years, to raise up the next generation church. This has taken a few forms in the past 10 years, but the idea remains the same. Our passion is for youth and young adults, for music and worship. The more we talked and narrowed things down, the more we realized, God is setting us up to do these exact things AT HOME. WOW. Did i tell you I felt change coming?? :) We have such great opportunities in our home church to work with the youth this year! This also involves music and worship! and so....
We still have such a heart for Ukraine. We still would love to serve with NLI. We have some ideas of what that might look like in the future. But for now, we are excited to see what this year brings! Our church will be sending 2 more teams over to Crimea, which we will probably be involved in in some way over the next 2 years. We are looking forward to the plans the Lord has for us as a family. Did we make a mistake? I don't think so. We have learned and grown. We have gained truth and clarity which is what we've been praying for. Was this a necessary process? I think so.
Your path is laid out
Holy Spirit guides you
Through every twist, turn, up or down
No worry or fear
No hesitation
No regrets
Looking ahead to the goal,
the prize,
the end of the race.
Made into His image,
One day at a time.
Darcie.
