Why Vancouver? Our Call / Ezekiel's call
A call from God's Word
Diana & I had the opportunity to help start a great church in Wichita called River Community and that became one of the most significant experiences of our lives. During that time, we experienced God doing incredible things in us and around us and began to sense through scripture (see Jn 15:16), prayer and counsel, that perhaps God wanted to use us to reproduce our experience in other places. Other people needed to experience what we had encountered, so for several years we prayed and waited on God and His timing for our lives.
After several years, through some incredible events, God moved our family to Fort Worth, Texas where I attended seminary (see the Johnson stories). Part way through our time there, we began to pray about what our next steps were to be.
We new that God wanted to use our experiences in Wichita to impact other people in similar ways. We had begun to explore options overseas, thinking that perhaps He might want us in a different culture. However, through our eiscussions we realized our window of opportunity was not as open as we had thought, primarily because of the ages of our children. The kids were on the threshold of teenage years and the International Mission Board has a policy regarding appointing families with teenagers. We could still make that happen, but we had no time to waste. I told Diana we just needed to pray and see if God wants us overseas.
After a couple of weeks of praying, God spoke to me through some scripture. I was studying in Ezekiel and sensed the Lord say “Go to the beginning of this book, I have something for you there.” I started reading in 1:1 and by the time I made it through the third chapter I knew that God had been speaking to me.
see:
Ezek. 2:3-8 Ezek. 3:4-9
God seemed to speak these words into my heart, words that seemed to indicate we were to stay among people of our own language, but what laid ahead would not be easy. We thought we were to stay in the States, it seemed to fit to us.
To follow this story read "Why Vancouver ~ Prayer, counsel & circumstances
Diana & I had the opportunity to help start a great church in Wichita called River Community and that became one of the most significant experiences of our lives. During that time, we experienced God doing incredible things in us and around us and began to sense through scripture (see Jn 15:16), prayer and counsel, that perhaps God wanted to use us to reproduce our experience in other places. Other people needed to experience what we had encountered, so for several years we prayed and waited on God and His timing for our lives.
After several years, through some incredible events, God moved our family to Fort Worth, Texas where I attended seminary (see the Johnson stories). Part way through our time there, we began to pray about what our next steps were to be.
We new that God wanted to use our experiences in Wichita to impact other people in similar ways. We had begun to explore options overseas, thinking that perhaps He might want us in a different culture. However, through our eiscussions we realized our window of opportunity was not as open as we had thought, primarily because of the ages of our children. The kids were on the threshold of teenage years and the International Mission Board has a policy regarding appointing families with teenagers. We could still make that happen, but we had no time to waste. I told Diana we just needed to pray and see if God wants us overseas.
After a couple of weeks of praying, God spoke to me through some scripture. I was studying in Ezekiel and sensed the Lord say “Go to the beginning of this book, I have something for you there.” I started reading in 1:1 and by the time I made it through the third chapter I knew that God had been speaking to me.
see:
Ezek. 2:3-8 Ezek. 3:4-9
God seemed to speak these words into my heart, words that seemed to indicate we were to stay among people of our own language, but what laid ahead would not be easy. We thought we were to stay in the States, it seemed to fit to us.
To follow this story read "Why Vancouver ~ Prayer, counsel & circumstances
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