Today is a bittersweet day.\u00a0 Our friend (and our missionary) Beka is on an airplane bound for the Philippines and she does not plan to return for at least 20 months.I first met\u00a0Beka in October of 2010 during my own\u00a0introduction to Haiti.\u00a0 At the time, Beka was a One Mission Society missionary working at headquarters in Communications –\u00a0writing for the official OMS website and the agency’s various newsletters and magazines.\u00a0 She joined our church’s mission team just before we headed to Cap Haitien, going\u00a0with the purpose of researching the work occurring in Haiti in general and the “Homes for Haiti” program specifically.Well, she\u00a0quickly proved to be a real joy and a valuable addition to our team and when we all returned to Indiana at the end of the week,\u00a0Beka told\u00a0me about a weekend retreat she was helping with at OMS headquarters: an event for those considering missionary service.\u00a0 Melissa and I were just hitting the point where we were ready to say Yes to the Lord regarding serving Him in Haiti full-time.In the course of that great and valuable weekend, Melissa and Beka got to know each other and before long, they were the best of friends.\u00a0 It’s been two full years now and we consider Beka a part of the family … and more.\u00a0Melissa and I\u00a0had financially supported missionaries in the past from time to time, so the idea wasn’t a new one when Melissa told me a year ago that she thought we should officially\u00a0join Beka’s support team.\u00a0 (I mentioned in\u00a0a post a few weeks ago that we are convinced that every believer is called to SEND workers into the harvest field … and so we do.\u00a0\u00a0The really cool part is that\u00a0even though we have dropped down to one income, God continues to provide the funds that we have committed to our missionaries on a monthly basis.)\u00a0 So\u00a0currently Beka is a friend AND one of our missionaries.\u00a0 (I will tell you about our other missionary in a separate post!)Recently, Beka has heard the call to serve the Lord overseas.\u00a0 She and her friend Lauren will be working in the Philippines among women and children in impoverished neighborhoods around Manila.\u00a0 The discipling work they will do is aimed in part at stemming the tide of human trafficking and the sex trade which is so prominent there.\u00a0 And we consider it a privilege to play a part through financial support and prayer.So today is bittersweet.\u00a0 Bitter: saying goodbye to Beka, not knowing when we will meet again.\u00a0 Sweet: rejoicing that she is fully funded and ready to embark on a new chapter in her walk with Jesus.\u00a0 By the way, apparently the name “Manila” evolved from an Arabic phrase meaning “God’s protection” – and that is what we pray over Beka and Lauren as\u00a0they leave Indiana\u00a0today and carry the Gospel to the poor of Manila.P.S. I so greatly desired to include a picture or two of Beka but there’s some blogspot glitch preventing it for now.\u00a0 Rats!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is a bittersweet day.\u00a0 Our friend (and our missionary) Beka is on an airplane bound for the Philippines and she does not plan to return for at least 20 months.I first met\u00a0Beka in October of 2010 during my own\u00a0introduction to Haiti.\u00a0 At the time, Beka was a One Mission Society missionary working at headquarters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5409,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions\/5409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}