What a great day this past Sunday was! If you were absent you missed a very exciting time. So much of the Sunday morning service was devoted to describing new roles and relationships that will characterize our work together for the next year.
I hope everyone was as thrilled as I was to hear Josh’s presentation of the work he and Troy will be doing in Paraguay! I especially liked the way he made us realize that his plans were not about his work. The truth is that his plans are about our work. Paul described the life of Christians when he said, “We are laborers together with God” (1 Cor. 3:9 KJV), and this so aptly describes the work which lies before us. We are workers together with Josh and Troy while we are laboring with God!
Josh and Troy (with their families) will begin their work in Asuncion next year and a monumental task lies before them. Hundreds of congregations must be contacted and thousands of dollars must be raised before the work can become a reality. At some point, Josh needed to turn his attention from our teens to this great work.
Josh suggested to the elders that the Spring Banquet at the end of May would be an excellent time for this to happen. This would mean that he would be able to complete the work he started with our seniors when he arrived here four years ago. So after that banquet Josh will still be part of PBL, but most of his time will be spent in telling others of the work our missionaries are planning.
The vital question was how we could insure that our young people would continue their spiritual growth without interruption. How blessed we are that David willingly offered to again work with our youth! He will bring his ten years experience of working with our teens and be in charge of this program for the next year. The process of finding a new person to work with our teens beginning next summer is well under way.
These are exciting times! They are encouraging times! Chris Fry, who has been in Asuncion for almost five years, grew up at PBL. Who knows but what there will be others, whose lives have been touched by Josh and will be touched by David, who will arise from our youth to become our future missionaries? Such thoughts thrill my soul. There are exciting things happening in this place!