Urbana, GRN & Serving in Missions

Emil, Stacy, Malia, Jonathan, Nate, Ellie, Alex, Chase, Becca, Dale (Kevin not pictured)

 

Urbana is a mission conference like none I've ever attended.  With 250 mission exhibitors, 16,000 college aged participants, and big named speakers like Francis Chan and David Platt it is an experience we won't soon forget.  GRN took a team of 11 (4 staff and 7 young adults) to present and promote our 5fish.mobi website/app, our newest SoCalSERVE internship program and participate in a mission Hackathon challenge. 

 

5fish.mobi is our mobile website/ free app that gives the user access, from their phone or computer, to Bible stories and the gospel message in almost 6,000 languages and dialects.  It is a resource every believer should have on their phone, ready to share with anyone with a native language other than English.  5fish.mobi was a huge hit.  It was the perfect resource for those working in ministry and it was a way for many of the international students to share the gospel with family back home. 

SoCalSERVE, GRN's new internship program, drew many students with the desire to get out of the cold (many were from Canada and northern USA) and come serve in sunny SoCal.  We were able to share the needs we have at the GRN office for people in social media, graphic design, our IT department, sound/audio and language tracking.  It was fun to watch these young adults begin to discern the direction the Lord was moving them.

 

Kevin Horan, our IT Director, presented and facilitated one of 12 hackathon challenges at the conference.  Students signed up to be on teams that were trying to solve specific problems or challenges for different mission organizations.  This was a great opportunity for computer minded students to get a taste of ministry with GRN.

 

Our young adults not only promoted GRN, but had the opportunity to learn more about other mission opportunities and organizations.  We were grateful to see the Lord at work throughout the week and thank all who were praying.  Please continue to pray for the fruit that will come next.

 

We Can't do it all, and do it Well

Becca (16), Emil, Stacy, Tatum (13)

I don't think I have ever had a time, during my adult life, when I have not been "busy".  Life is busy.  Ministry is busy.  This is our "normal".  But busyness can often be the tactic Satan uses to distract us from focusing on the Lord and His plans.  Anyone who knows us or is a part of our ministry team knows that we work hard, and that we are almost always working.  At GRN the laborers are few and the tasks enormous.  We are involved in numerous ministry projects both inside and outside the office.  We also have the ministry of our family; our girls (13 and 16 now), and our marriage.  With so much on the calendar we know that we cannot do it all, well, at least not well.  And attempting to do so has not been good for the growth of our marriage, our relationship with our girls or our personal relationship with the Lord.  I am not sharing anything new with those of you working in ministry.  This is a challenge you face when serving the Lord; the balance of life. 

As we begin 2016 we plead for your prayers.  Like you, we want to be effective and successful in ministry, in our family, but most of all in our obedience to the Lord.  Please pray for us as we seek the Lord's direction in our work at GRN, in raising our girls and in our marriage.  We only want to do what it is He is calling us to.  And we will be praying the same for you.
Happy New Year!  We look forward to this year, in God's will.