Summer Insights
As clients come and then they go it is time for reflection. This is the end of the season for most winter visitors, like putting winter clothes away we often get ready for change. We just celebrated a wonderful birthday party at the country club where most of my clients reside. It was a gorgeous ending as the sunset faded our conversation lingered. The gentle breeze seemed to cause the new friends we made from far and near make us grateful for another year of design.
We are now turning our thoughts to summer and the adventure. We are not moving from our winter home to a summer one but we are still as concerned about the remaining days to get all secured and packed up. We will be welcoming new friends into our life circle. This has been such a leap of faith. I now know how my clients feel after they have purchased the items we have selected. Did we make the right decision? Will it really make our lives more comfortable or is it frivolous?
This summer we are setting our sights on things we cannot fully see. We are already understanding how learning to listen to each other as a couple must occur. I now, more than ever appreciate when clients equally share in the decision making in their interior selections. Tension is created when things are held too tightly. One side has to let go and cause a “give”. It takes much more than great communication, we must balance and weigh our opinions and wait. I am really leaning on my husband and resting on his wonderful arms of love. One thing for certain we are discovering how to hear our inner voice, and we know that it is the Holy Spirit at work.
Here is a taste of our sumer ahead!
RICH & MARY ANN HOPKINS
YWAM’ers in Europe
Being led by the Spirit often means you get to obey by faith and don’t get to see the results until later.
We are extending our 27-year relationship with Youth With a Mission by going to France, Germany, & London this summer, leaving June 4 and returning July 31. The main function will be to bring back contacts for the new YWAM “base” opening in Phoenix this Fall. However, the focus will be on the Holy Spirit. We heard from the Holy Spirit to “go where the bells stopped ringing & release the sound”. What will this sound look like and how will it sustain revival and change culture? For two months we will become part of the people & history of France, Germany, & London, listening to the Father’s Heart and identifying with those lands knowing that repentance opens a door for revival. God always uses people that go with a heart to pray for the restoration of His Covenant People. We believe this outreach to Europe will unlock from history keys that will accomplish His Will on the earth.
As veteran YWAM’ers, we will first discover Paris. Then we are off to a small town where five thousand Jews were hidden from the Nazi’s and certain death during World War II. We will then help relocate a YWAM base in the South of France for a week, followed by a days train ride north & east to a YWAM base in Hurlach, Germany, about 40 miles west of Munich, for the base’s 40th anniversary celebration. A young YWAM couple will then drive us north to another YWAM base (Herrnhut) on the north side of the German-Czech border, where we know greater insight will be unraveled regarding anti-Semitism. Herrnhut is known as the location of the Moravian prayer revival in 1727, which sowed the seed of early Zionism. We hope to gain insight into church history from Martin Luther’s time to the Holocaust and a greater identification with the Jews & repentance.
Finally, on July the Fourth, we fly to London from Frankfurt for the Summer Olympics. Our first London mission is with a YWAM ministry called “Megacities”, where we will spend at least two weeks evangelizing a borough of London. Finally, we will work behind the scenes in YWAM’s Summer Olympics effort.
It is hoped that this “outreach” will bring back to the new Phoenix YWAM base contacts for their school “outreaches”. The YWAM discipleship training school (DTS) consists of three months of teaching, followed by two months of an actual short-term mission ministering the Word of God in the neighborhoods of foreign lands. We hope to establish the connection for YWAM-Phoenix to minister in Europe. We also want to learn how “megacities” works so it can be implemented in Phoenix.
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But the trip is more than just a function – more than an itinerary. It is Holy Spirit-led evangelism. We carry God’s promise to us for this trip to “give us favor & abundance to give relief”. (2Cor 9:8-9) God has purposed in our hearts to be “attack lambs” as Mark Geppert describes in his book by the same name about prayer walking. It is illegal to evangelize in France, so we are asking God for creative opportunities to share our faith. We want to build up & support missionaries there who are pioneering this effort. For example, funds are needed for the French YWAM base move as they expand to a bigger facility. And, we just received word that another YWAMer’s car needs $1,300 in repairs.
The instruction God has given us for this journey is Ephesians 4:1-3 as quoted from the Message bible. Paul says “in the light of all this, here is what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk – better yet, run! – on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline. – not in fits & starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.”
This is a dream come true …an Acts 1:8 moment.
