What's news?

It's been a while since we have posted here so I thought I'd catch you all up a bit!

What a month it's been!  We started off May in Phoenix, AZ at a workshop called "Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills".  Now you say...what's that all about?  Well let me tell ya, it's all about finding out how God wired you, how you respond to others and then how you SHOULD respond to others. 

I think we all know that how we do respond and how we should respond are two different things!  The bible tells us this in Col. 3:12-14  "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." This is what I found out...that the key to all of this is "Bear with each other".  Not everyone has my opinion of things and not everyone should have my opinion of things.  Hmmm...novel concept huh?  How about this...Treat others the way THEY want to be treated instead of the old axiom of "treat others the way YOU want to be treated". You'd think it never occurred to me that maybe not everyone was wired the same as me! And the way I figure out how they want to be treated is by listening to them.  What I found out is it's as "simple" as listening!  It's hard to listen when I am always talking so being quiet and listening is key to me.  


This also translates into my spiritual life.  If I am always busy talking to God or "doing things for God" how am I going to listen to what He has to say?  "Be still and know that I am God" is in the bible for a reason.  "Do not be anxious about anything" is also in there for a reason which brings me to the other part that God taught me during the workshop.  Creating and keeping "margin" in my life in order to have the time to listen to God and to others is the key to the peace and joy that God wants all of us to have.  I made a list of all the things that I thought brought stress into my life.  My list filled a whole page!  Then we were asked to cross of the things on the list that were other people's things and the things that I was stressing over that weren't really stressors and my list went down to 4 things!  Seriously, 4 things!  That was the most freeing thing about the entire workshop for me.  


Now I have learned to Bear With Each Other, to create and maintain margin and the way to do that is to eliminate the stress that I bring upon myself.  With that said, I still need LOTS of work in these areas but with God's help and your prayers this will become my way of life vs the way others live their lives.


What else is going on?  Well......WE'VE BEEN ACCEPTED!  We are officially commissioned Missionaries with ReachGlobal the missions agency of the EFCA.  We go to orientation next Friday and then leave on a 7 week trip around the country building our Ministry Partnership Team.  I have taken a leave of absence from my job from June 8 through August 6.  That alone relieved  a lot of my stress.  If you would like us to visit you or would like to join our Ministry Partnership Team, please contact us at jackie.passer@efca.org or rob.passer@efca.org and we can sit down with you and tell you about God's call on our lives and how that all came to be.


Pray for us over the next two months.  We will be updating the blog from the road and may have to change the name of our blog to the "Wandering Vagabonds"!  


Be blessed and be a blessing,

Jackie