May 2023 Prayer Letter

The Carpenter Family | Serving in Rwanda

Discipleship

The D for D team is following up with teams from five local churches in Rwanda, ten Burundian team leaders, and three Congolese team leaders. Each of these teams is working to finish the phase of whole-life discipleship called “Mobilization”. We are helping them to lead their communities to catch a vision for whole-life transformation, to recognize with joy the many resources that God has given them and the main barriers that are holding them back as a community, and to catch a passion to use what God has given them to pursue solutions towards wholeness related to each barrier. Please pray for each group to successfully finish this process so that they can enter into the “Empowerment” Phase.

Missions-sending

The Lord continues to stir the hearts and minds of Evangelical Friends church leaders in Rwanda and Burundi toward sending out their own missionaries. When you receive this message, we will have finished a gathering of key Friends leaders from Central and East Africa focusing on God’s heart for the redemption of the nations. We will seek to learn and share from each other and seek God’s direction for the next steps for each of our groups to obey God’s call.  Please pray for the Holy Spirit to remove barriers that might prevent us from reaching God’s plan for this time and pray that the Spirit will illuminate and empower each participant to hear and respond to God’s loving invitation to work with him.

Masters’ Studies

Brad has continued taking courses through Fuller Seminary. The courses have been challenging and enlightening in the areas of interacting with people from other cultural contexts. He has been especially struck by the vision of the Gospel fully taking root and being translated into each culture.  Brad is recognizing that it is very difficult to fully surrender our own cultural biases to be open and ready to learn from our African Friends and their perspectives and insights into the Gospel and Biblical teachings. These insights feel especially important as we look towards Central African Friends and EFM partnering together to start new mission work among other people groups.

Family

It has been a joy to have Brad’s parents here for several weeks; we love anytime family can visit!  We’ve had some wonderful family time, and also times of refreshment when they took care of the children and helped us in different ways. Chelsea is staying busy with home and family tasks, as well as some financial, communication, and administrative work.  Sarai (10), Gideon (7), and Ian (3) are entering their last month of school before summer break.  They like their school but are also looking forward to a fun and busy summer!

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. We are so thankful you are on our team and that we are all on God’s team!

Download full prayer letter here…

Praise God… That he has been helping Brad to work hard and learn a lot in his classes. He is so thankful for the relevance of all that he is learning. That Brad’s parents were able to come visit. That Chelsea was able to participate in a small women’s retreat with some dear friends in a beautiful place. Please Pray… For the D for D teams moving through the Mobilization phase into community-specific lessons that address their main concerns and for God to help them move forward. For God to raise up people from among our African churches to go as missionaries and others to send them. Pray for Sarai, Gideon, and Ian as they finish up the school year. Every day at school they navigate academics, relationships, spirituality, language, and culture.