I will be working with Tim and Meredith Brokopp in Libreville, Gabon who are in charge of a short-terms mission office there. They are currently working with primary and preventative care ministries in villages, a bilingual Christian school, several local churches for outreach, and partnering with a local bible school.
I will be interacting with short-term missions teams that come to Libreville and the ministries that they are involved with.
The trip will give me the opportunity to be involved with missions, while at the same time giving me very practical training. In Gabon I will also receive discipleship, leadership, and language training so I will be learning—in a very practical way—what it is, and how to be, a missionary. I will then be able to go out and immediately use what I am learning on the field.
I also shared the following verses at church yesterday, and I'd ask you to use them to pray for me. I think Paul sums up most of my desires and needs in his prayer for the Colossians:
"Because of this, since the day we heard about you, we have continued praying for you, asking God that you will know fully what he wants. We pray that you will also have great wisdom and understanding in spiritual things so that you will live the kind of life that honors and pleases the Lord in every way. You will produce fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God. God will strengthen you with his own great power so that you will not give up when troubles come, but you will be patient. And you will joyfully give thanks to the Father who has made you able to have a share in all that he has prepared for his people in the kingdom of light." - Colossians 1:9-12
- To quickly learn French - I have a three month subscription to Rosetta stone now, but Tim Brokopp told me that how well I know the language will impact how much I can do in Gabon. I would hate for language to become a significant barrier, so I'm trying to learn French as well and as quickly as I can, please pray and ask God to bless me with the ability to understand and learn this language quickly and easily.
- Health - I just has surgery to remove my gall bladder on Friday morning after having severe abdominal pain from my gall bladder on Monday. I'm doing pretty well but I would appreciate your prayers for healing as I've been feeling a bit under the weather from the surgery.
