You might remember Nick from our December prayer letter. At our Sukkot event, I stayed up past midnight sharing the Gospel with Nick because he had so many questions. After months of Bible study with me and attending church with us, Nick came to faith in Jesus! He continues to faithfully attend church and is sharing his faith with his unbelieving family.

That story is cool enough, but I need to share some back story: hours before we invited Nick to our Sukkot event, I was seriously struggling.

September 27th I broke down in tears. “God, what are you doing?” Carissa has several debilitating chronic illnesses, we are in debt with medical bills, and our grand plans for reaching Israeli backpackers in Brazil have been derailed. “This is not at all what I wanted.”

As I started praying through my tears and frustration, God brought to mind a passage we had just studied in church: Philippians 1:12 ”Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel”

Paul was in prison in Rome, but God used those terrible circumstances to further the gospel by giving Paul access to the praetorian guard and Roman authorities. 

God reminded me that the purpose of life is not to be healthy and wealthy. The purpose of my life is to glorify God and to make disciples of all nations. This is a hard lesson, but I yielded, “OK God, if Carissa has to be sick and we have to be in debt for ‘the greater progress of the Gospel’, then so be it. I submit to your plan for our lives.”

A few hours later, Nick, our pharmacy delivery driver, came to our door with Carissa’s medications. He saw the sukkah (tabernacle) in our front yard and asked about it. Carissa invited him to come to our Sukkot event, which was the next day. And the rest is history.

If Carissa was healthy and we weren’t paying for expensive medications, we never would have met Nick, and Nick would not know Jesus. The addition of another brother to our heavenly family is worth a lifetime of sickness and debt. Jesus is worth it all, and God’s plan is best.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support, we could not do this without you.

With love in Messiah,

BJ, Carissa, and Ari