June 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
We are excited to be writing to you again and hope that you have received and enjoyed our previous letter. As we stated in that letter we are now beginning the "Serving as Senders" Series, the series will include six ways in which you can serve. As you read, please be praying for guidance from God for He may have you play a role in which you have not imagined.
The Scripture says, "We have different gifts, according to the grace given to us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully". Romans 12:6-9
As a family, we are doing well! Elijah is a beautiful healthy baby, she sleeps through the night and gives her mom plenty of time for studying!!! Amy is doing well in her school and is in the home stretch with only a few more to complete this fall. She is very excited about the many ways in which her study of counseling will help her to minister to the women in pain, suffering as prostitutes in Thailand. We also as a family really see God preparing us for ministry as we get to actively participate in several ministries in a growing church here in the U.S. As we look forward to our time in Thailand we ask that you pray for us that God continue to equip us for life ministering to the people of the Klong Toey Slum; this will include HIV, drug addiction, poverty, children's ministries, youth ministries, and outreaches to prostitution.
There a few technical issues that we need to make you, our supports aware of. Our date for departure has changed due to a few family weddings in the spring of 2008. Our date for leaving will change from January 2008 to July of 2008. Also after this letter, future letters will be sent out directly from the Word Made Flesh office, the envelope will be a white business envelope with the Word Made Flesh logo in the return address, this is our personal letter though sent through the office. Additionally if you are interested in learning more about the Word Made Flesh ministries and reading our previous letters you can look at the website under our staff profile, at www.wordmadeflesh.com
Thanks,
Tim Hupe
PRAYER
The lifeblood of our ministry and any ministry is Prayer. We believe that God has called us to pray and that prayer should be a part of our everyday lives. However, we also believe that prayer is a gift and a passion. Samuel Chadwick said, "The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray!" We want our ministry to be a prayerful ministry that will make him tremble. As we all prepare for this journey we need to be praying for spiritual growth. Some sets of statistics report that for all their preparation, for all their "hearing God's voice" and for all their support, up to 50% of cross-cultural workers do not complete their first term of commitment. Too many of them do not make it because of spiritual drought. There are many things that we will need prayer for: finances, adjusting to a new language, our health, homesickness, interpersonal relationships, wisdom, compassion, to be filled with the spirit of God.
We personally experienced the remarkable way in which doors open when we commit to prayer. We spent the month before we arrived in Thailand with the Word Made Flesh community in India. While in India we were aware that our time in Thailand was approaching and we knew no one, we feared getting off the plane in a strange country where we did not speak the language and only had ourselves, we kept saying "what if we end up with nothing to do sitting in the hostel all day." Knowing what was ahead of us, we committed to pray that God would open doors and those of you at home at the time prayed with us. Because God hears our prayers and does not set us up for failure, Amy and I were able to join a team of workers in the largest slum in Bangkok (Klong Toey) within two days of getting off the plane. We were able to rent out a small flat in the Klong Toey slum after only one week of being there. Our days started at 7:00-8:00am and finished between 11:00-12:00am. We stayed busy whether it was working as teachers, passing out food, prayer walks, bringing crippled to the hospital, participating in a weekly worship service, networking with other exiting organizations, seeing the sex industry face to face or just playing with the children who lived on the street. God provided us with an internship that we only could have dreamed of and was far more than we ever could have envisioned. After just one month of being in Thailand, we made many contacts that we still communicate with and have a true sense of Thailand being our future home.
Our purpose for this letter on prayer is so that we can be asking God for constant direction, wisdom, protection, and provision. We are looking for a team of senders, so please be praying if God will choose you to collaborate with us. This is a leap of Faith. We chose "Prayer" to lead the series that we will be writing in the course of the next few months so that you can begin to hear His voice for direction. In our previous letter we included many of our prayer needs please continue praying for them so that we may truly see God move in our life! Again, the roles besides prayer support will be; moral support, logistic support, financial support, communication support, and re-entry support. Thanks for taking the time to read this. We love you all and are excited to see how God will work through all of us.
Please communicate to us with any questions or needs.