They are home!

Homecoming

Hello Friends!

All being well, the PWA team should be landing in Atlanta around 1:30 pm today (central time) and in Nashville around 4:30 pm.

Please continue to pray for safe travels and peace.

Sweetest Sound

Scripture:Great is the Lord and greatly to be praise in the city of our God.
Psalm 8:1

Words of Inspiration:The sweetest of all sounds is praise.
--Xenophon

Prayer:Great are you, oh God, and you greatly to be praised. Thank you for the calling Austin, Cary, and Ciona into this marvelous movement of prayer and continue to be the One who guides.
Amen.

From the Beginning... Love

Scripture:For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
1 John 3:11

Words of Inspiration:God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. Lewis

Prayer:God, your unconditional love for creation is ever flowing. May Austin, Cary, and Ciona daily taste the wellspring of your love and share it with those they meet every step of the way.
Amen.

A Text Note from Ciona!

"Hey love!! We are in a Liberian village. In the forest! So cool! Just got service in the nearest city. Doing so well! Tell mom Bishop Innis is the greatest! Love."

Thank you all for your prayers. They will be home soon.

Peace
lanecia

Truth and Action

Scripture:We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
1 John 3:16-18

Words of Inspiration:Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We cannot be fully human alone. We are made for interdependence, we are made for family. When you have ubuntu, you embrace others. You are generous, compassionate. If the world had more ubuntu, we would not have war. We would not have this huge gap between the rich and the poor. You are rich so that you can make up what is lacking for others. You are powerful so that you can help the weak, just as a mother or father helps their children. This is God's dream.
Desmond Tutu

Prayer:Beautiful Lord, may Austin, Cary, and Ciona be a reflection of your love in truth and action as they journey with our neighbors in Liberia.
Amen.

Longing

Scripture:I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:18-23

Words of Inspiration:There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.- Elie Wiesel

Prayer:Lord, your servants have entered into the many groans of your creation in Mali, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, and now Liberia. As they walk with you in Liberia, may they feel your presence with them every step of the way... hoping, crying, groaning, protesting, and praying on their behalf the sighs that are too deep for words. In your mercy, hear our prayer.
Amen.