Our last week in Chatt-town....

What an incredible week this has already been!! Last Saturday we had an incredible time with my family at G.G.'s house. The evening started out with a fabulous home-cooked "grandma-typical" meal and was followed by lots of fellowship. However, my favorite part of the evening was at the end....Rachel, myself, and the kids were encircled by my entire family as they prayed over us. I felt so privileged and blessed to have such a supportive family and to know that they were lifting us up and will continue to lift us up in prayer. I have said for years that I have always felt much like Timothy in that I have always had a "Lois and Eunice" praying for me. God's Holy Spirit filled the room as my mom, grandma, and others prayed over us. As we embark on this journey many feelings arise. I know that our family will be greatly missed in a physical sense, but we serve a God of grace and comfort, something He will give all of us during our time away.

I was reading in Luke 5 the other day and something really spoke to me. Jesus is speaking to the people from the boat while Peter is cleaning the nets from a long night of fishing. He looks at Peter and tells him to "go into deeper water and let down the nets". Now at first, Peter's response is much like ours would be....He whines and tells Jesus that they have been fishing all night and caught nothing, but then this is where many of us are different from Peter...He says, "but for you Master, I will let down the nets." So for us, we are simply being obedient and going into deeper water and letting down the nets. Now I can just imagine some of Peter's friends and family being those naysayers...wondering what he was doing, why he was listening to this "Jesus"...however, the Massengale's have been so blessed to have our family and our friends be so supportive of this and completely understand why we are doing it.

This brings me to our last evening at church. Our commissioning service was such a blessing. Rachel's brother, Andy, came in town to help preach the service. This was not only special for Rachel, but special for me as well. He preached on keeping our focus on Jesus through all that we are soon to encounter. Rachel's father then preached to the church and what their responsibility is as they have the authority to "send" us out. We had a reception afterwards and it was bittersweet to say goodbye to our friends and church family. We were greatly encouraged by all the kind words. It was truly an amazing evening.