April 2004

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Dear Friends and Family,

In an effort to speak to you what is on my heart, we have decided to wait until another letter to continue telling you about our Vision Trip and the Agape Europe ministry. Thank you for your continued prayers. In many respects, this month, the end of March and beginning of April, has been a tough few weeks. We have made quite a few calls, talked with some wonderful people, but we did not meet our goals for last month. Our monthly support increased from 16% to 17%. That left Jana and I wondering what we were doing wrong, instead of looking for what the Lord was doing for us that we simply could not see. The end result was that Jana and I began praying more and seeking what the Lord would have us learn. While we are not going to reduce our support raising load, in fact, we will step that up considerably, we will focus more on the Lord’s strength in our efforts.

In seeking the Lord’s plan for us, Jana and I began talking about “hints” that He was giving us through our everyday lives, church, and things that are a bit out of the ordinary. This discussion led to some very good conversation and ultimately some insights that we had not individually seen.

It is our belief that the Lord is continually raising up leaders within His Church. This has been the cornerstone of our discussions recently. While this concept seems simple and obvious, it is also my belief that many things the Lord tries to teach us that we miss are very simple and obvious. This point is not an exception, especially in my life. I have not actively avoided developing my leadership skills, but I have not sought to develop them either. I have avoided situations where I would be tested and possibly fail, thereby grow in my faith and learn from the situation. Perhaps a beginning step in this revelation could be stepping out of our comfort zone to join the staff of Campus Crusade. In February, I signed up to take a discipleship class. This was strange for me since at the time, I desired for someone to disciple me, not the other way around! I spoke with the leader of the class about that and his response challenged my thinking. Apparently, many people have the same thought that I did, and therefore never learn how to disciple someone else, which creates a shortage of disciple makers. Stay with me here! At the end of the class, I had many changes in my thinking. In addition to my desire to be discipled, I would now like to come along side a new believer as well, challenging me to know further what the Lord wants all of us to be as Christians. That thought, for a potential disciple, and as well for me, led to a greater desire to learn God’s word and develop my own skills as a leader.

The discipleship was the first “hint.” The next flag was simply observations made of our pastor, Dr. Ted Kitchens. His leadership of the church is a wonderful example of servant leadership. The act that struck me the most was not the fact that he humbly shares the pulpit with his staff or that he can admit when he is wrong. It was much more profound and spoke much louder to me. On Sundays, between services, the curtains are opened to let in more light and then closed again for the next service. One Sunday, just before the service was to begin, I noticed Dr. Kitchens was shutting the curtains. Why was that a big deal to me? He was willing to do a small task. That task needed to be done and at some point, Dr. Kitchens said “I will do that.”

The last quietly spoken hint came doing something that I am not good at and something that I have preferred not doing in the past. Jana and I signed up for dance lessons. Besides not knowing what rhythm is, not knowing the steps and not knowing whether rhythm and beat are one in the same, I am simply not good at dancing. With those shortcomings, you can imagine what dancing is like for me. Complete and utter fear of looking like a fool does not convey my feelings properly. Every lesson, our dance instructor tells me the same thing. “Thad, you need to LEAD Jana.” On top of the steps and the beat, now I have to lead to? Even when I mess up, I need to continue to lead, get back on track, and onto the beat.

Add the dance lessons to everything else, in essence what the Lord is teaching me is how to lead. That opportunity may be in discipleship, leading a Bible study, or heading up IT for Campus Crusade in Western Europe. However, most of the time, it means leading my family and making sure that we are sticking to the rhythm that the Lord has set.

Sincerely,
Thad and Jana