Email to staff and students

Here is a recent email sent to our staff and students:


Good Morning from Long Beach. It is less than a week that we'll all be together here at the Beach Plaza Hotel. I'm sitting looking out over the morning haze over the ocean and praising God for His goodness, greatness and faithfulness.

The staff team arrived last night and we spent some time praying for you, Long Beach and just plainly asking God to have mercy on us. We all have come from different places and different situations in our walks with God and we all want to be like the Blind Beggar in Luke 18:

He called out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!?
Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me!

We have nothing to bring to the project. We are all broken dealing with our issues. We are hurt by others. We are scared out of our minds. We don't know what to expect. We don't have all our support yet. I know how you feel. I have been there too. We could put on a facade and not let anyone know how we feel. We could fake our way through but in reality we should all be shouting, "Jesus, Have Mercy On Me!"

That's where we want to start and that is where we want to live this summer. Our common place will be broken at the foot of the cross. Not in strength. Not in charisma. Not in talents. But in humility seeking Christ. Pray this week that Jesus will have mercy on us.

In the next week we need you to email Ethan.rietema@uscm.org your travel plans and a quick status update on support and where you're at. Please do that immediately. With some of you we don't know how you're arriving or when. We're looking forward to seeing you and don't want to lose you in this big city.

Also, start reading the Gospel of Luke. We're going to be reading the whole 24 chapters each week and we ask of you to seek the Lord this week by asking Him to reveal truth to you in the Gospel. Please have the whole book read by Saturday.

Most importantly again, please be praying, "Jesus, Have mercy on us." God is good. He is answering prayers. He is responding, "What do you want me to do for you? Then the beggar said, "Lord, I want to see."
Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

Praying with you,

Steve, Joanna and Ethan
Categories: LongBeach