Pilgrimage Prayers

I'm not wishing my life away but I can't wait for March 2011 when, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I will make my third visit to the Holy Land! This eight-day adventure is a once in a lifetime journey through the land of God's chosen people, and it's a trip that is bathed in prayer and very carefully planned. Israel is a very safe place to be, regardless of the images we see on American television, and walking where our Lord lived and ministered is an experience that is second to none!

There are a LOT of Holy Land tours out there, many of them hosted by internationally known Bible scholars and teachers.  Kay Arthur regularly travels to Israel and Joel Rosenberg has planned a 12-day tour in May 2011.  In fact, we bumped into Chuck Swindoll's tour this past March and were bumped from our hotel in Jerusalem because the Insight For Living tour needed more rooms! This turned out to be a blessing in disguise when we got a hotel upgrade because of them - thank you, Chuck! When we toured Masada we constantly passed Insight groups, so we decided to count them. This task was easy because each was led by a person holding up a sign that identified their color-coded group, and so we counted... and counted... and counted... and stopped at 14! Do the math on that - 14 buses with 30-40 people on each bus... unloading at each site... with bags and cameras and jackets and hats... checking in and out of hotels... with all that luggage to move and identify... Don't get me wrong, I love Chuck and Insight For Living is a wonderful ministry, but it's just plain hard to travel with a group that size!

And that's what makes our tour unique. We purposely take smaller groups because we want to create an atmosphere of community. When you tour with larger groups you HAVE to keep to a fixed schedule for logistical reasons and to accommodate the various sites, but with such large numbers moving at a set pace, it looks more like a cattle drive than a pilgrimage. We intentionally and prayerfully work toward creating community in our group.

Worship in the Shepherd's Caves
in Bethlehem

We plan times of worship, both corporate and private, and we try to keep our schedule flexible enough to allow us to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit. This past trip we had a time of prayer at the pools of Bethesda for one of our pilgrims who had been battling cancer. What a precious time it was to lay hands on him and lift him up in prayer, and to do it at the place where Jesus ministered!

This morning the Holy Spirit impressed on me to compile my list of petitions for the 2011 trip. I thought this was a little bit early to be doing that since we typically start praying about specifics a few months closer to our departure, but I went ahead and wrote them out. These are just a few of the things I am already praying for this trip:

Team: for focus; for us to guard our time in the Word; to be sensitive to the Spirit's leading before, during and after the trip; for our witness to our guide, driver, and hotel staff...

Logistics: for flights and connections and luggage, for a godly tour guide, for good weather and safe travel, for accommodations for worship at particular sites, for a God-ordained moment everyday...

Pilgrims: for the Lord to lead people to this trip, for their hearts to be prepared, that their relationship with the Lord would be deepened and forever changed, for us to bear much fruit with those around us, and to build meaningful relationships and feel a part of the family of God...

Jordan River baptisms

These are just a few of the things our team is praying as we anticipate our 2011 journey. There are lots more pictures - click HERE to see Galilee and click HERE to see Jerusalem and Judea. There is a downloadable brochure at our host's website - www.medskeens.com  If you are interested in joining us, we would love to talk with you! Please pray about it and contact me for details.

I am already praying for YOU!

She Speaks, She Writes!

So... here I sit in one of my favorite places (Starbucks) with one of my favorite people (Sandi) doing one of my favorite things (working on our electronic devices).  We are getting connected and interconnected with people and ministries, which translates to cyber-stalking people on Facebook and Twitter!  BUT... we've learned how important social networking can be in ministry, so it's not ALL trivial!

And 'trivial' is one thing that was discussed this weekend.  Trivial may not be sinful, but we've decided that we don't want ANYTHING to take us away from our first love, and that is sitting at the feet of our Lord.

What an amazing conference!!  This was Sandi's first, which is unfortunate because this will be the standard by which all other writer's conferences are measured.  It's not my first, and while the others were informative and encouraging, sometimes they can focus more on the mechanics of speaking and writing than they do the ministry of it.

If there was just one thing I was allowed to say about this Proverbs 31 Ministries conference (and I would beg not to be limited to only one thing, because I have a LOT of words and a LOT of praise to offer this one), I would say that this one is the most Jesus-centered conference I've ever attended.  We listened to seasoned veterans, and in particular Cecil Murphy, who encouraged us to keep after our love of writing and sharing our experiences and our testimonies REGARDLESS of how we feel.  The odds of us becoming published writers or nationally recognized speakers is slim to none, but you never know how your words will be like a pebble in a pond... the initial impact may not seem significant, but the ripple effect could be eternally life-changing.  You never know where the seeds of your testimony will land, but when entrusted in the hands of our all-knowing and all-powerful God, they could take root and grow into majestic oaks of faith in the life of another.

And so I will drive back to Roanoke and she will fly back to Phoenix, but we will never be the same.  Our friendship has deepened, our faith has been strengthened, and our focus has been fixed.  We will take some time to decompress and prayerfully consider the wealth of information we've been saturated with, and we'll try to figure out what He would have us to do first.

And we will do it. Even if it never gets published, or acknowledged, or even mentioned. We will do it simply because we feel a call to make HIM known for Who He is and What He's done in our lives.