First Week Recap

First Missions Service

Our first full week back in NJ is behind us and it’s been a great one! We visited our first church and had the privilege of sharing about our work in Finland, tell some funny stories about our experiences there and share the word of God. It was great to hear people say “I never knew that about Finland” or “We will be praying for you”. Sonia and I are grateful to pastor Jack and Ginny Cairns for receiving us so well and for the wonderful people at Capital Assembly of God in Hamilton, NJ. We are posting some pictures from our visit in this article which also includes images of our missions stand.

Finally… I got my Italian Passport

Also this week, we celebrated the special occasion of Stephen finally receiving his Italian passport. After 17 years of documents, lost papers, and delays, he was able to visit the Italian consulate in Philadelphia and get his passport processed. Besides being a long-time dream, having an EU passport will enables us to live and be in Europe and Finland much easier. We are thanking God that such a long process is now behind us. Below are some photos we took outside the consulate. We also were able to briefly visit Independence Hall and see the room where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.

Stephen’s birthday!

The day after celebrating my Italian citizenship, the celebration continued with my birthday. So we rolled two celebrations into one by going to an Italian restaurant! Of course! Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes, notes and gifts! :)

As we continue to get settled into our apartment here in West Deptford, NJ, we visited the local IKEA store to pick up furniture and items for our apartment. It’s challenging to furnish an empty apartment, even with just the essentials. During our last visit, we picked up several items and God worked it out that much of what we needed was just brought down to the clearance area with huge discounts and with pretty much no issues! We saved a lot of money and could witness God’s provision in our lives, even in these small details.

It’s moments like this week… people hearing about missions and responding… open doors with my citizenship for future ministry opportunities… divine appointments for even the mundane things of life and the gift of another year. It’s been a busy week, to say the least! But it has proven to, once again, reveal how God is at work in our lives for our good and for his glory. What will this next week bring? Who knows, but I know it’s all in God’s hands and that is a very good place to be in.

Thanks for praying with us and for joining us on our journey…

Love,

Stephen & Sonia

Renew, Refocus and Recommit... for the sake of missions.

Sonia and I just returned from attending two powerful conferences where we were able to connect with so many wonderful ministry leaders and friends. We started our 11-day trip by attending our General Council meetings. The highlights of these days was Stephen serving on the General Presbytery representing the European missionary family, working together in the Europe missions booth greeting and welcoming others to explore missions with us in Europe and participating in memorable services with our greater Assemblies of God family. We couldn’t walk the halls of the Orlando Convention Center without meeting pastors who have faithfully supported our ministry and bumping into fellow missionaries colleagues serving around the world. It was a great week which culminated in a dinner with our New Jersey Ministry Network leaders and fellow NJ world missionaries with some great Italian food!

General Council is always a time of being renewed and refreshed, but to take part in our second conference made our trip all the more meaningful. After three years of planning, a holy convocation was made to ALL world missionaries to join together for a once-in-a-lifetime event called Together 19, or T19. For the firs time in AG history, about 1700 missionaries from around the world gathered in one place at the same time to experience a time of refreshing, refocusing and recommitment together... all for the sake of missions. Any time you get this many friends and global workers together, a greater sense of excitement and emotion naturally permeates our gatherings as we collectively share experiences and friendships built upon years of service together. But when such a gathering goes beyond these valuable goals and leads us to something greater, it truly is a Jordan river crossing moment.

Our purpose for gathering was to be refreshed in our heats, minds and bodies. Many experienced this as we worshiped together, prayed together and received a touch from heaven, many in their physical bodies.

We also gathered to be refocused in our mission. How easy it is to get side-tracked and lose our focus! We constantly need to be reminded of and challenged to maintain a focus on our mission, which is it reach all peoples, everywhere with the gospel. Through words spoken by our leaders and personal stories from fellow ministers, our mission to go to the ends of the earth once again became defined, focused and approachable.

Finally, we gathered to be recommitted. The Christian life, not just the missionary life, is one in which we renew our commitment to Christ daily. Paul underscores this all the more when he says, “I die daily”. It seems that when given the opportunity, most missionaries sense God constantly inviting us to respond “Yes” one more time to his call, to once again go and seek the lost, and again commit our hearts and lives to his mission. On our final day together we were given the privilege to once again say, “Yes, Lord, we will go”. 1700 of us did just that and it was our joy to be counted among them. [See our recommitment card in the photo below.]

These conferences were filled with many memorable moments and experiences but the greatest testimony is that they lead us to a place where we could be renewed, refocused and recommitted to Him and all for the sake of his mission to the lost.

Thank you for joining us on this journey and for standing with us to go to the ends of the earth!

So all can hear,

Stephen and Sonia

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Summer 2019 Newsletter is now available.

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With just one week before our return to the US for itineration, we’re happy to provide an update via our Summer 2019 newsletter. In this update, read about how in order to go forward you really sometimes need to go backwards. We share info about our new website and our current financial goal of $1500 in new monthly commitments.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Stephen & Sonia