Happy New Year Friends and Family!
So much has happened in the last couple weeks. I wanted to start with a great thanks to all of you for your prayers this past year! God has blessed us, grown and stretched Leah and I over the last year. We have seen God taking us from calling us to Cameroon all the way to giving us the green light to depart for Cameroon. All the encouragement, all the blessings, and seeing God work in our lives week after week has been a truly amazing experience over the last year. We look forward to this next year as we depart for Cameroon and enter the mission field! We look forward to the ways in which God will blow our minds as we works in us and through us in Cameroon. Thanks for all your prayers and donations in this past year and into this year as together with Christ they encourage and make it possible for us to leave for Cameroon.
This newsletter is coming a few days late as Leah and I have both been struck with a strong flu the last few days. We feel blessed that we didn't have to go to the hospital, but we both wondered since we did not have health to take care of each other. We are very thankful we are feeling somewhat better. God gave us each strength at different times to take care of each other and had the kindness of a friend.
We wanted to quickly fill you in on the past couple weeks:
The week of Christmas Mark got his gift he was praying for. Plane tickets! Our fly out date is February 2nd from Detroit.
We filled out our visa application and mailed it in Monday after Christmas.
Figured out our housing with Wycliffe in Cameroon.
Set our move out date at the apartment, our last day in Jackson will be Jan 22nd.
Made plans to see family and friends.
Started packing up our apartment.
When we decided to take the plunge and set a date, buying tickets and sending in our visa had been a difficult, yet easy choice to make. We were not quite where we wanted to be with funding and it was scary not wanting to make the wrong choice. I kept reading all these crazy stories in the Bible, how God asked people to do these outrageous things so He could be glorified. I don't know if you ever read one of these sections and find yourself humored, but I kept shaking my head saying that's crazy who would do that. After deliberation, prayer, speaking with multiple people and looking at Scripture we jumped (set a date), I am happy to report our funding jumped to 85% a few days after we made our decision. We have nothing but peace and excitement (which can get out of control at times) plus a bit of stress of getting everything done.
We have added our story to our blog and will be adding our email newsletters to the blog so that as people get added on to our email listing they can stay in the loop. As always feel free to email mrjanowiak@gmail.com or gracebyfaith711@aim.com if you have questions or interested in more information.
We will be having a going away party during the weekend of January 15 or 16th. I will get more details nailed down here in the next few days for you and will send out a quick email about this. It will be held in Jackson or Ann Arbor.
Please continue to pray with us for 2011 and opportunities to share the Gospel.
--
Peace and Joy in Christ,
Mark and Leah Janowiak
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Christmas Gift
I am the type of person who gets overly excited when I get someone a gift or if someone tells me they got me a gift. I have gotten better, but too many times I guess what my husband got me and he is learning to be trickier. I also tend to want to give it early, whither its birthdays or a holiday. So Christmas has been painful for me because my husband loves to wait to Christmas day to exchange gifts. We went to his parents for Christmas and normally we do our own Christmas gift exchange beforehand. He asked me to wait and we could do all gifts together.
Now let me just stop and bunny trail here for a minute to explain myself. My family is split 3 ways plus being married and friends Christmas is more like a 2 week celebration for me or Hanukkah.
This year I knew I got him an amazing gift, I got him a board game that he has been talking about for like a year. Well I bought it, like a good wife. Every time he asked me what game I wanted to play I wanted to hand him his gift. Christmas day comes and Mark is thrilled. As soon as possible we start trying to put the game together and read the instructions. Now we are minor game geeks, but I did not realize Mark had never played this game. We sat for at least 2 hours (not lying) trying to read the instructions. Now we are both literate and it was written in English. We could not figure the game out. To the point of frustration and we gave up.
Currently there are 340 Million people who do not have Gods word in their own language (www.wycliffe.org) I think Mark and I had a small taste of what it is like to read something and not understand. I was so excited to share this Gift and Mark was so thrilled to receive it; only to realize the complexity and feeling like we couldn’t understand the language. Now I have some training in Spanish and Russian. If you were to hand me the Gospel in either my understanding of God would be horrible limited and frustrating. So give thanks to God for former missionaries who translated your bible into English, and praise for the translation work going on now to give people a gift of His Holy Word. Pray for the continued work that people can hear and read God written word in their own language.
Now let me just stop and bunny trail here for a minute to explain myself. My family is split 3 ways plus being married and friends Christmas is more like a 2 week celebration for me or Hanukkah.
This year I knew I got him an amazing gift, I got him a board game that he has been talking about for like a year. Well I bought it, like a good wife. Every time he asked me what game I wanted to play I wanted to hand him his gift. Christmas day comes and Mark is thrilled. As soon as possible we start trying to put the game together and read the instructions. Now we are minor game geeks, but I did not realize Mark had never played this game. We sat for at least 2 hours (not lying) trying to read the instructions. Now we are both literate and it was written in English. We could not figure the game out. To the point of frustration and we gave up.
Currently there are 340 Million people who do not have Gods word in their own language (www.wycliffe.org) I think Mark and I had a small taste of what it is like to read something and not understand. I was so excited to share this Gift and Mark was so thrilled to receive it; only to realize the complexity and feeling like we couldn’t understand the language. Now I have some training in Spanish and Russian. If you were to hand me the Gospel in either my understanding of God would be horrible limited and frustrating. So give thanks to God for former missionaries who translated your bible into English, and praise for the translation work going on now to give people a gift of His Holy Word. Pray for the continued work that people can hear and read God written word in their own language.
Monday, December 13, 2010
It's here...
I never got to finish the last post, too much was going on and happening for me to conclude my thoughts from my previous post.
Do you ever have times where every scripture you read all you can think is Lord that’s nuts, who does that? I know I have read some of these stories countless times, but lately when I heard them I tell God ‘In the world’s eyes (and even the Church) this stuff is not rational, flat out dumb, foolish and crazy.’ We have all been hearing about the Christmas story and I can’t imagine what was thought about or said to Mary and Joseph following Gods plan. Then going backwards to Hosa, what would the Church think/say and act towards you if you told them “I am going to marry a prostitute?” I mean if a modern day believer told me that I would have some serious questions for them. Going further back- to the book of Judges 7:1-7 God tells Gideon straight up “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this- they’ll take all the credit, saying ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me.” WHAT? WHAT? These examples are first and foremost request of trust and faith. It’s not even handing God a situation and saying “ok I trust you and I won’t worry about it.” Its “do this crazy outrageous thing and I am going to use it”. I struggle and believe many others do with requests from God like these. I know I am jumping around a lot, but these scriptures keep circling in my head that God uses the foolish things to shame the wise. How often do I REALLY believe God is going to use the foolish things/ people to do his will? I think about all the crazy things God has asked me to do, little and big. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I think I missed out to see God do something only He could do and I could not take credit for.
With that all said here is the news I know so many of you have been praying, encouraging us and taking steps of your own faith to see happen. We were cleared to go by Wycliffe! Yes we have the go ahead. It feels awesome, it feels crazy, it feels nuts, it feels weird, and it feels sad and joyful. We have not set a date officially however; we are waiting to the end of December report to come in before we buy official plane tickets and turn in our visa application.
Some of you might be confused right about now on how we got here. Considering my earlier post I wrote last week (added today) and we spoke to some of you about feeling discouraged over the last 2 weeks. This is our first longer term trip we have taken, and it has been a huge learning process for us. We had a misunderstanding of the qualifications needed to be released onto the field, we understood 90% to be the ultimate goal of our funding and have communicated that repeatedly with you. However, Thursday Mark received a phone call from Joy our WA main contact. She explained that with over $8,000 that has already been raised ($10,000 by the time we leave) and 3 consecutive months of exceeding (104%) our monthly support goal has WA ready to release us onto the field. So we are asking that you pray for guidance and wisdom as we move forward. Lord willing we will be flying out by the end of January. We still need $360 in monthly pledges/donations for our income in Cameroon and $110 monthly pledges/ donations for exiting money (plane tickets home). We have several people that have verbal committed to pledging monthly along with money we will be supplying from surplus from leaving (vacation time, ect) that have also not been factored into these amounts.
Do you ever have times where every scripture you read all you can think is Lord that’s nuts, who does that? I know I have read some of these stories countless times, but lately when I heard them I tell God ‘In the world’s eyes (and even the Church) this stuff is not rational, flat out dumb, foolish and crazy.’ We have all been hearing about the Christmas story and I can’t imagine what was thought about or said to Mary and Joseph following Gods plan. Then going backwards to Hosa, what would the Church think/say and act towards you if you told them “I am going to marry a prostitute?” I mean if a modern day believer told me that I would have some serious questions for them. Going further back- to the book of Judges 7:1-7 God tells Gideon straight up “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this- they’ll take all the credit, saying ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me.” WHAT? WHAT? These examples are first and foremost request of trust and faith. It’s not even handing God a situation and saying “ok I trust you and I won’t worry about it.” Its “do this crazy outrageous thing and I am going to use it”. I struggle and believe many others do with requests from God like these. I know I am jumping around a lot, but these scriptures keep circling in my head that God uses the foolish things to shame the wise. How often do I REALLY believe God is going to use the foolish things/ people to do his will? I think about all the crazy things God has asked me to do, little and big. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I think I missed out to see God do something only He could do and I could not take credit for.
With that all said here is the news I know so many of you have been praying, encouraging us and taking steps of your own faith to see happen. We were cleared to go by Wycliffe! Yes we have the go ahead. It feels awesome, it feels crazy, it feels nuts, it feels weird, and it feels sad and joyful. We have not set a date officially however; we are waiting to the end of December report to come in before we buy official plane tickets and turn in our visa application.
Some of you might be confused right about now on how we got here. Considering my earlier post I wrote last week (added today) and we spoke to some of you about feeling discouraged over the last 2 weeks. This is our first longer term trip we have taken, and it has been a huge learning process for us. We had a misunderstanding of the qualifications needed to be released onto the field, we understood 90% to be the ultimate goal of our funding and have communicated that repeatedly with you. However, Thursday Mark received a phone call from Joy our WA main contact. She explained that with over $8,000 that has already been raised ($10,000 by the time we leave) and 3 consecutive months of exceeding (104%) our monthly support goal has WA ready to release us onto the field. So we are asking that you pray for guidance and wisdom as we move forward. Lord willing we will be flying out by the end of January. We still need $360 in monthly pledges/donations for our income in Cameroon and $110 monthly pledges/ donations for exiting money (plane tickets home). We have several people that have verbal committed to pledging monthly along with money we will be supplying from surplus from leaving (vacation time, ect) that have also not been factored into these amounts.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Roller Coaster Week (older post)
Hello again! Merry CHRISTMAS.
The last few weeks have had amazing highs and lows. We were able to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and a vacation for Mark. He hasn’t had one this year with the exception our anniversary trip. So to have 5 days off together was nice. We were able to go to Walloon Community Church while we visited. The summer I lived in Boyne I attended there, my mother does now. Going this weekend was a definite reminder of why I went there. That Sunday we were feeling focused, joy and motivated for some real changed. Have any of you had times like these? We have shared with you how the Lord has been stretching us by creating more margin in our life. His sermon was on HOW to practice listening to God in all things. We came back from our trip- you know when it says "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8. Let me tell you friends, satan does not want you to create space, start listing and having intimacy with God. The last week and a half, feels so long and so much has gone on during that time. The last week we have hurt each other’s feelings, been hurt by others, have been discouraged, upset, angry, sad and disappointed. Let me tell you from experience all that starts to make it hard to listen to God over your hurt heart. We have been forgiving to each other, to other, we have been extremely encouraged, joyful, happy, and surprised too this week. Devotionals and praying together with Mark has really given us peace. So I guess it just a mixed bag. Some of this as you may wonder is due to fundraising; I think technology has been playing tricks on me. Anyways starting last week I found errors on our support program- listing people as monthly donors rather than just one time. So I was so thrilled to tell everyone the progress and all the wonderful donations we received this last month. But instead somehow we are basically at the same place as before. So where does this leave us- 560 a month to raise. I know, haven’t we been here, haven’t we gotten new donations? Yes and Yes. We have, sadly we add in a monthly donation that ended up falling through. We have received lots in one time donations this last month that we are so thankful for. Along with several monthly that will start this month. All in all we still have a chance to make it in January depending on how this month goes. It has been madding circles of some reason being stuck around 500.
The last few weeks have had amazing highs and lows. We were able to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and a vacation for Mark. He hasn’t had one this year with the exception our anniversary trip. So to have 5 days off together was nice. We were able to go to Walloon Community Church while we visited. The summer I lived in Boyne I attended there, my mother does now. Going this weekend was a definite reminder of why I went there. That Sunday we were feeling focused, joy and motivated for some real changed. Have any of you had times like these? We have shared with you how the Lord has been stretching us by creating more margin in our life. His sermon was on HOW to practice listening to God in all things. We came back from our trip- you know when it says "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8. Let me tell you friends, satan does not want you to create space, start listing and having intimacy with God. The last week and a half, feels so long and so much has gone on during that time. The last week we have hurt each other’s feelings, been hurt by others, have been discouraged, upset, angry, sad and disappointed. Let me tell you from experience all that starts to make it hard to listen to God over your hurt heart. We have been forgiving to each other, to other, we have been extremely encouraged, joyful, happy, and surprised too this week. Devotionals and praying together with Mark has really given us peace. So I guess it just a mixed bag. Some of this as you may wonder is due to fundraising; I think technology has been playing tricks on me. Anyways starting last week I found errors on our support program- listing people as monthly donors rather than just one time. So I was so thrilled to tell everyone the progress and all the wonderful donations we received this last month. But instead somehow we are basically at the same place as before. So where does this leave us- 560 a month to raise. I know, haven’t we been here, haven’t we gotten new donations? Yes and Yes. We have, sadly we add in a monthly donation that ended up falling through. We have received lots in one time donations this last month that we are so thankful for. Along with several monthly that will start this month. All in all we still have a chance to make it in January depending on how this month goes. It has been madding circles of some reason being stuck around 500.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Advent Devotional
wednesday, december 1
On the Way
“...Behold I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Luke 1:26-38
God appears at the most unexpected times, in the most surprising ways. The young, humble Mary encountered God in an astonishing way as she was "on her way" in life. Many of Jesus' miracles occurred while He was "on the way" somewhere. He called the first disciples while He was "on the way." And many of us first discovered Jesus as we were "on the way" in our lives. We weren't expecting Him, and before we met Him I doubt many of us had ever imagined that there could be such a God, and that He would intervene in our lives by becoming human, of all things.
The incarnation really is a strange and curious thing. What is even stranger to me is that Jesus told us we must be born again to see salvation. Nicodemus didn't understand this, and at times I struggle with this concept as well. What I do understand, though, is that not only is this born-again-ness critical to your and my personal salvation, but it is precisely in this process that God continues sending His salvation message into the world. He does so through us.
I wonder how many people I encounter each day as I am "on the way," who have never met Jesus? How many people I pass by in haste who desperately need me to reach out to them in His name, and invite them to come, adore, and worship Him? Jesus was born to be a light to the nations. It is a sobering thought that so many people remain in spiritual darkness in part because of my failure to completely surrender my life to Him.
There is a new life at work in me, the life of Christ. And He is clamoring to invite others to see God born into the world to save them. When I meditate on the miracle of the incarnation, I am always astonished that God has chosen to continue living on earth through us. What a privilege and a responsibility. This Advent season, let’s celebrate the incarnation by echoing Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; Let it be with me according to your word.” As we allow Jesus to be continually reborn in our hearts, I wonder what miracles will await us as we go “on our way.”
-----
by Kristi Vrooman. Kristi is a PSC Mid-Term Missionary and classical musician who is currently serving in Germany. {email Kristi}
On the Way
“...Behold I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Luke 1:26-38
God appears at the most unexpected times, in the most surprising ways. The young, humble Mary encountered God in an astonishing way as she was "on her way" in life. Many of Jesus' miracles occurred while He was "on the way" somewhere. He called the first disciples while He was "on the way." And many of us first discovered Jesus as we were "on the way" in our lives. We weren't expecting Him, and before we met Him I doubt many of us had ever imagined that there could be such a God, and that He would intervene in our lives by becoming human, of all things.
The incarnation really is a strange and curious thing. What is even stranger to me is that Jesus told us we must be born again to see salvation. Nicodemus didn't understand this, and at times I struggle with this concept as well. What I do understand, though, is that not only is this born-again-ness critical to your and my personal salvation, but it is precisely in this process that God continues sending His salvation message into the world. He does so through us.
I wonder how many people I encounter each day as I am "on the way," who have never met Jesus? How many people I pass by in haste who desperately need me to reach out to them in His name, and invite them to come, adore, and worship Him? Jesus was born to be a light to the nations. It is a sobering thought that so many people remain in spiritual darkness in part because of my failure to completely surrender my life to Him.
There is a new life at work in me, the life of Christ. And He is clamoring to invite others to see God born into the world to save them. When I meditate on the miracle of the incarnation, I am always astonished that God has chosen to continue living on earth through us. What a privilege and a responsibility. This Advent season, let’s celebrate the incarnation by echoing Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; Let it be with me according to your word.” As we allow Jesus to be continually reborn in our hearts, I wonder what miracles will await us as we go “on our way.”
-----
by Kristi Vrooman. Kristi is a PSC Mid-Term Missionary and classical musician who is currently serving in Germany. {email Kristi}
Monday, November 22, 2010
Where are we at?
We still need around 550 a month in pledges to purchase plan tickets and buy visas.
We have several of verbal commitments for monthly pledges, and they are behind of processing our donations. So we haven't had a lot of clarity on donations lately thus the gap in information. We have all the money we need to buy tickets and starter money but we still need to fill the gap in monthly pledges.
with love
from us
We have several of verbal commitments for monthly pledges, and they are behind of processing our donations. So we haven't had a lot of clarity on donations lately thus the gap in information. We have all the money we need to buy tickets and starter money but we still need to fill the gap in monthly pledges.
with love
from us
Monday, November 15, 2010
Creative giving
So as the time approaches we are looking for items to be donated if you have any of these items sitting around.
battery alarm clock
cement screws
batteries
clothes pins
camera or camcorder
travel size umbrellas
please email us if you have any of these things laying around
gracebyfaith711@aim.com
battery alarm clock
cement screws
batteries
clothes pins
camera or camcorder
travel size umbrellas
please email us if you have any of these things laying around
gracebyfaith711@aim.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)