Back to Basics

Our new Praying Pelican Missions missionaries arrived three weeks ago:  Marlo will be here for one year, and Bethany will be here for four months.  Both of these young women have a passion for God and for children that inspires me! 


Some of the questions I was asked upon their arrival was "What are our goals?", "What exactly do we do?", and "What will our typical week look like?".  I have thought about this long and hard and decided that I should share my ideas and answers to these questions with you, my prayer warriors, supporters, and friends.


So...


What are our goals?
As Praying Pelican Missionaries, our main goal is to develop relationships with pastors, churches, communities, orphanage directors, children, and any one else who is placed in our path to learn about their history, vision, heart for ministry and encourage them in whatever way we can to achieve the vision that God has laid on their heart.  This means that we visit and pray for our different contacts, find new contacts, learn a lot about different areas, find where we can place teams, and figure out how we can best serve our pastors, leaders, and orphanage directors.  All of this we do for the glory of God.  


Sometimes we have more tangible goals we can reach on a daily basis, but, overall, this is what we do.


What exactly do we do?
We have been given the amazing opportunity to meet with and encourage pastors and leaders in Haiti.  When we are meeting with a pastor, we ask him about his history and about what God has laid on his heart.  We learn a lot before we do anything else.  We are beginning to write down the history for each pastor like a biography and also write down where he sees his ministry going.  This is an exciting part of the "job".  I have loved learning about these pastors.  We ask him how we could encourage him and explain to him who we, as Praying Pelican Missions, are. After building a relationship with the pastor, if the pastor desires, and it's a good fit, we offer to bring a mission team to partner with him in ministry. We work with the pastor to determine ways that the team can encourage him and his congregation as well as serve his community


Basically, we make sure our relationships with our partners are healthy, we develop new partnerships, and we work to encourage them in their ministry as much as possible.


What does a typical week look like?
Each of our weeks will look a little different.  Some weeks, we have teams, so we are leading them on their mission.  Some weeks, we are doing set up for the big mission season coming up--which includes finding lodging, transportation, cooks, and effective ministry for our teams.  Some weeks, we are visiting our current partners to see how ministry is going, asking them follow up questions, and learning more about them.  


We have different weeks, but we are typically pretty busy with everything that is going on.


I think it is so exciting to know so many different men and women of God doing so many wonderful things and being able to just learn from them, be inspired, and pray for them.  Maybe God will even allow me to be  in some way involved in their ministry from time to time.  What an exciting life and ministry.  I am again humbled and blessed to be where I am doing what I am doing.  


I am so glad Marlo and Bethany stopped and asked me these questions so I could reflect on how God has chosen to use me.  I am so glad He has chosen me.  I am so blessed.  


And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.--Hebrews 10:25