Join the Journey

I am on a journey. I don’t know the route I’ll be taking. But there are two things that I DO know. One, I desperately need my Redeemer God who promises over and over through His Word to NEVER leave me. And two, by His design, I need all of you to journey with me through the next three years to pray for me, to encourage me to press on, to share with me what God is teaching you, and most importantly to worship our God together. Worship is the ultimate purpose of missions. It is celebrating who He is and what He has done by proclaiming him with our lives and our words to all nations.

Let me first give you a broad timeline; then I will tell you the most current step. God has blessed me with the privilege of studying at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) for the past 2 years. I am enrolled in a program nicknamed “2+2” implying that students will study on campus in Wake Forest, NC for two years, then serve with the International Mission Board (IMB) for two years. I eloquently stretched that two years on campus into three. My on campus studies will be completed in May 2013. Then I will train for two month with the IMB and deploy by October 2013. I will serve overseas as an IMB missionary for 20 months, then return home and graduate from SEBTS.

So I’m sure most of you are asking, “Where are you going?”

As you join me on this journey, you really aren’t behind at all. And as you ask that question you step LIVE into the life of Katie Kasey because that is the key question right now. In two weeks, September 21 & 22, I will be going to Richmond, VA to a Job Expo with the IMB to see available jobs, to hear from missionary representatives from every region in the world, and for further interviews. (I completed the initial application, initial interview in February this year, and was invited to this Expo.) At the end of the 2nd day, each applicant is required to give top the job preferences. This will be a great weekend, but the decision making can be very overwhelming. And you know me, I am characteristically indecisive. I way to often stress simply over ordering from a menu! Yet I have less than 48 hours to “decide” where I’m going to spend the next two years of my life! My prayer is that I will be clearly led by the Spirit, who is the peace and wisdom of God, and not by emotions.

So I ask you to join me here. In a way the journey is just beginning, but then it’s really been going on far longer than I even realized. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” In that same chapter, God told Jeremiah up front that it was going to be hard, but He promised to be with him and to deliver him. Every day, God is preparing me and chiseling away at my pride and selfishness. He is teaching me the basics again and again, patiently allowing those truths to sink deeply into my heart. My daddy (who is also my pastor) said this past Sunday at church that our walks with Christ are personal but they are not meant to be private. Won’t you join me in God’s great work of making His name great to all people in all nations? Let it start with me!

PRAY FOR CRISTINA

You may remember that Cristina is a substitute teacher at one of the schools which we teach at. She is only there some days but we had made plans to study the Bible and english with her at least one if not 2 days a week while we are here. Things have not gone very well...at least from the human perspective. We studied with her once the first day she asked. Then she either wasn´t there or couldn´t until this past sunday. Sunday morning when we went there she was exhausted and had a headache (to say the least) because her family had a big party the night before that went until 6am that morning. So we DID study with her...thankfully God lead us to teach the Bible before English this week because she abruptly had to leave just as we finished the Bible Study. Then today we went and she never came to the gate so we walked back to her house and her little sister said she was not there but had gone to meet up with some friends in another town (Ibarra). So we left, without a plan of when to study next. During our picnic lunch, just before we went to her house and found out we weren´t going to study, I was reading in Life as a Vapor how everything in life whether pleasure or pain is an act of God´s mercy. Everything in my life and in this mission "depends not on human will or exertion but on God, who has mercy." Romans 9:16
Please keep Cristina in your prayers. I do not know the plans which God has or what will come out of this but we will continue in obedience and keep praying for her.

Also, we had a really good study today at Carmen´s house. It was not just the little girl, Denise. Carmen and her son-in-law, Denise, and 2 other children from the school studied Luke 15- the prodical son with us today! We´ll be going back there next week. Pray that Carmen and the other adults in the family will come to and participate in the Bible Studies at their house.

Friday Praises & Request

Today on our way out to a daycare to work with the children (which went great...from telling the Bible story to washing dishes after their lunch!), I talked to a lady at the bus stop for about 20 or 30 minutes. I shared the gospel with her (the best I could with God´s provision) and she shared somethings about her life. Though I did not understand alot of what she was pouring out, I sensed her desperation and that she is going through a hard time with a relationship as well as with work. Her name is Laurdes. She is moving in a few weeks from Cayambe to another part of Ecuador because she is not getting paid properly for her work. I prayed with her. We walked through town together a bit to (while finding our transportation). Before we left, I gave her a couple of tracks to further explain what we had talked about. As we said goodbye, she hugged me and cried. She asked if there was anything else I could give her to remember me. I told her just keep reading the tracks and we would be praying for her. A lady who is lost spiritually, and seemingly lost in the world. She was hungry for truth! I will most likely never lay eyes on her again, yet I don´t think I will ever forget her face. Pray for Laurdes to find the loving relationship with our Savior who, as I told her, loves her more than any other type of love in this world. Pray that someone else will enter her life and take her one more step closer to knowing the Lord.

The children´s program with the Baptist church in Tabacundo went very well this afternoon. We had 45 kids attend. We did the evangelcube, taught them some songs, told a Bible story, played games with them in the park. Then we went to the church for a video. They showed a very old fashion, spanish-dubbed version of the story of Joseph. They were given a snack and they left. Then we prayed with the 5 church members there for the children and their families as the truth enters their homes tonight through the children. Continue to pray for the baptist church here to continue the work here.