A little slice of heaven. That is what it felt like. The stress of selling our things, finishing home improvement projects, selling our house and settling into the AFM training center—finally yielding to peace. The previous 23 months had been an arduous journey filled with miracles and struggles. But we achieved one of our goals thanks to God’s blessings and your generosity: to be fully funded before training began.

As we awaited training to commence, we rested in God’s works with our fellow missionaries, each with miraculous stories like ours. Our children played together, and every night, we got together to socialize and eat. It was like the good ol’ days of college. But apprehension gripped us all. Training was scheduled to start on Monday. What would it be like? we wondered. Would the stress of training change the dynamic between us? And what was this upcoming “Crucible” the staff spoke about in hushed tones? Queue more apprehension.

We soon discovered that training is both amazing and overwhelming: filled with incredible information taught by staff with rich experiences. We cannot help but share what we are learning.

The main strategy for church planting is to start a Disciple-Making Movement (DMM)—a proven approach worldwide but an entirely new concept to us and foreign to the way most people experience church in North America and most parts of the West. The goal is to find a person of peace (Luke 10:6) and introduce them to Jesus. As that person grows spiritually, he or she is trained to be a disciple who shares Jesus with their oikos (family and social group) and trains their own person of peace to disciple others.

Will you please pray that each missionary in training will absorb the information presented and that the Lord will open our eyes to the person of peace He brings to us? We would appreciate your prayers for the “Crucible,” too.

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