Dear Friends,
One month out. We leave for Fiji on August 12th – but we have a long way to travel before then! We leave our home in New Jersey this Sunday to visit churches in Iowa and Hawaii. And then we fly.
Our house is full of boxes and our bookshelves are empty. But our hearts are full. This last month, we visited churches in California and were officially commissioned as missionaries of the United Methodist Church at the California-Pacific Annual Conference. It was a special night of blessing where we remembered God’s call for us as individuals and as a family.
Thank you for the part you are playing in this call! Your support in prayer makes such a difference to us. There are days when Wes and I look at each other and we wonder, “Why are we doing this again?” We know we have a lot of change in store! But then we remember God’s love for us and God’s love for the world. And we remember you. We know we do not enter this new chapter of our lives alone.
How to pray this next month:
1. Pray for a safe, uneventful trip as we drive a U-Haul trailer to Wes’s family in Iowa to store everything that did not fit into the shipping crate bound for Fiji.
2. Pray that God would be preparing good friends for our kids.
3. Pray for good cheer to face the many small and large challenges of moving overseas. (Work visas, seemingly endless paperwork, the unknown that lies ahead…) Pray for grace to live in the moment.
4. Pray for Fiji – for the elections that are coming up, for the pastors-in-training that will be in our classes in the fall and for the church as it celebrates 50 years of autonomy!
How to learn more about God’s mission in Fiji – and share with others:
1. We recently received this link to the first official newsletter of the Fijian Methodist Church. I think It’s pretty great – and I recognize a number of faces from my short trip in March:
http://www.methodistfiji.org/nai-tabe---the-official-newsletter-of-the-methodist-church-in-fiji.html
2. Mercy and Josiah were recently asked to make a VBS video for a church here in New Jersey. The VBS focused on God’s call to ordinary people – and Mercy and Si talked about their call to go to Fiji. I wanted to share it with you! Feel free to download it and share it in your worship service. Here’s the link:
http://youtu.be/_al6BmeWciI
How to support our ministry financially:
To give online, go to our missionary bios at www.umcmission.org/jneal and www.umcmission.org/wneal - or give to our Advance numbers through your local congregation: (Jerusha #3021963, Wes #3021964). You can also encourage your congregation to be a covenant partner in this ministry. $5 per church member, per year makes a big difference - and 100% supports our basic needs.
Thank you for helping us remember that, even if our house looks chaotic, God is in control – in New Jersey, in Fiji, and wherever you find yourself this month.
Much love to you all,
The Neal family
Wes, Jerusha, Mercy and Josiah