Praise God!

Today is THE DAY! We leave Iowa City at noon to make our way in the impala, all 6 of us (we like to be CLOSE! :) Continue to lift up the things listed below, but be PRAISIN' GOD for a couple things.

• He blew us away with funding! In four days we received COMPLETE funding! God was faithful and so were His people! Thank you all. You are taking part in something special!
• Andy started feeling much better, even Monday morning. (I caught a little cold now though :)
  

5 days to go!

Only five more days until we fly out to Pakistan! Thank you all for your financial and prayer support. Here is our updated prayer list!

Now until Friday

• Andy and I are now 1/2 way to our financial support. Pray that God would BLOW us away in 5 days and that people would desire to take part in something really special: To team up with us to gather information for others so they may someday reach the unreached!
• G'ma Meade- She has not been feeling well at all lately. Pray that she would stay with us while we are gone
• Andy has been feeling sick the last couple of days. Pray that God would heal him and make him well for our travels.
• We depart Chicago at 9 pm on Friday night. Pray for safe travels to Islamabad.
  

After arrival in Islamabad: Iowa Time 7pm Saturday, June 21.

• Pray for our team to be united in purpose (Glorifying God and serving others)
• We’ll be finding places to stay and ways of travel as we go, so pray we meet people who can help us.
• Pray for people who are willing to help us with the research aspect of our trip.
• Pray we would meet women on the streets to talk to as half of our team is women.
• Pray we use opportunities to proclaim the Kingdom of God with boldness
• Pray for the Suraiki people (that Workers will move to their area and they would be reached for the Kingdom).

Home bound- depart Islamabad Iowa Time: 9 pm on Tuesday, July 1

• Pray we would have a clear answer from God about our future in this area.
• Again, safe travels!
• Praise God for the chance to participate in this trip

We'll fill you in on ALL details when we get home!

Love you ALL!

Grace and Peace!

Entering an Open Door

Dear Family and Friends,

Hopefully you’re all doing well and enjoying springtime after a long winter!!! Since our trip to Jordan in March, we have been continuing our search for knowledge about the Kingdom of God, and more directly how it relates to Muslims through a year-long internship-type adventure. Our group in Iowa City consists of 16 people, married and single who are committed to moving overseas to tell those who haven’t heard about the Kingdom of God. We’ve been learning Jesus stories and trying to meet Muslims in Iowa City to bring up spiritual conversations while sharing our lives with them. It has been very challenging -a learning process to say the least- but rewarding too as God is doing mighty things here!

June 20 through July 2 there will be six of us, Lord willing, that are going to put this into practice overseas- in Pakistan! The first three days will be spent in northern Pakistan where we will meet with a team who has been there several years and has done a number of various development projects. The focus for the rest of the trip will be the Seraiki people group. There are approximately 30 million speakers of the Seraiki language throughout Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan with 18 million in Pakistan. There are currently no known believers and no foreigners focused on these people, which make them an unengaged people group with very little chance at this point to hear about Jesus.


We will have three goals while we are there: the first will be to survey the area and some teams who are already well established to see if this is a place God would have us go long-term; the second goal is to visit a few district capitals in Pakistan where millions of the Seraiki people live to see if there are any special trades, crafts, or other things that would help someone coming from the outside find a professional trade to work among them. For example, there is a people group in Pakistan that produces mango trees, so a foreigner could come in and start a dried-mango export business to bless the people. We would be doing bits of research to see if the Seraiki have any niches to aid a foreign worker in obtaining a visa so they could share truths about the Kingdom of God while working there. Our internship group has been learning and living together for the past year here in Iowa City, and now we get a chance to do it overseas and possibly form a team with each other- this is our third goal.

This past year, we have been learning a lot about God’s characteristics, the power of prayer and stories Jesus told. One story we have learned is the story about the persistent widow (Luke 18) who continued to ask a judge to give her justice, and although the judge did not care if the widow was given justice, he gave it to her because she kept asking until he couldn’t stand to listen to her any more. God is like the judge in that He has the power to give us justice and grant mercy, yet He loves His children and desires for there to be justice in the World. When we continue to ask Him we firmly believe He will grant our requests because He sees our persistence. Pakistan is an area of the World that needs justice desperately and we can hope for good and for someone to do something, but in the end God’s truth is the answer. We might not have many chances to share God’s truth on this trip because of the language barrier and the short time we’ll be there, but we are hoping to help other people get there so they can share His truth. Would you pray for our survey and our team persistently so that in the near future the Seraiki may be granted justice to hear the truth about the Kingdom of God?

Our team is collectively raising $15,000. Please prayerfully consider if this is something God would have you take part in. Please make checks out to: Parkview Church, and return to us at: 1802 Calvin Ct. #3 Iowa City, IA 52246. (Put Pakistan in the memo line, not our names).

Grace and Peace,
The Bishops :)

Home from Jordan

We had a wonderful trip to Jordan that went too fast! We left Tuesday, March 11 and arrived in Amman, Jordan on Wednesday, March 12. We had an amazing time with our friends (the family we went to visit, pictured here) They are such a neat family with 3 great kids! They own a wood shop business in Amman which carves products out of olive wood, and also makes knitted fabric products. Through this business they provide economical support and stability for families in Jordan. Check out their website if your interested. http://holylanddesigns.com/

Our trip was always on the go, but a great balance of getting immersed in the Jordanian culture where God is alive and working, and even seeing some tourist sites!

Day 1: We had a great breakfast at the shop that the woman workers made. We were able to develop meaningful relationships with many of the native workers at the wood shop right from the start, thanks to some help with translating english with arabic. Then I (Lisa) got to see what a dentist office in Jordan was like. (I had a terrible toothache the entire journey to Jordan). Thankfully, the pain subsided the next day (answered prayer!!). Then we got to go to the high point in the city of Amman, which was amazing. It was where the ancient city, Philadelphia (city of brotherly love) was. There is still ancient ruins there.

The view was amazing and to think about all the homes on each of the 7 hills that the city is built on was unique and overwhelmingly wonderful.


Then we checked out downtown where there was an ancient Roman amphitheatre





We ended the night with one of the highlights from the trip. Friends of the family came over to make Jordan's traditional dish- Manssif. We had it served with lamb. Tasty! They were such a neat
family! We got in some great conversations with them about the kingdom and it was such a blessing to talk with them. We are not so sure about sitting on the floor though. That would take some getting used to. That ended a packed fun-filled day!

Day 2:
We headed out of the city of Amman and started our journey to Mt. Nebo, the place where God showed Moses the promise land. Pretty Sweet huh!
It was another amazing view from a high point. Then we traveled through the country side towards the Jordan River valley, where their were flocks of sheep, goats, and camels all around being shepherded by the bedouin (a nomadic Arab people of the desert) This got us pumped to hopefully ride a camel.

Then we drove to the Jordan river and saw the site of Jesus' baptism. Over History, the course of the Jordan river has changed so it didn't look the same as it did back in Jesus' day. It was kinda hard to imagine, but still we touched the Jordan river, and were walking on the HOLY LAND! Cool stuff!
Then we headed DOWN to the Dead Sea. Something like 1300 m. below sea level. Important fact: most ocean water may have about 3-7 % salt- well, the Dead Sea has 30%. It was CRAZY. We just floated. We didn't need any of those neat floaty devices, we could have read a magizine if we wanted to. So Cool! Although, it was hard to lay on your stomach. You felt like you were going to tip over. As you can see I'm struggling in this picture. Then we added the famous Dead Sea mud that is supposed to be revitalizing to the skin. I don't know about that, but it was fun!


Towards the end of the day, we headed to the home of one of the workers from the business for a traditional meal and friendly conversation. Again, sitting on the floor was not one of our favorites, but was also a neat cultural experience. They were a very traditional Muslim family that loved having visitors, hosting them, and serving them. Andy and I fit in quite well, because the more you eat the more honored they feel! We truly felt at home with them, and were again amazed at how God works cross-culturally. Can you believe we have only spent 2 full days in Jordan!




















Day 3:
We didn't take many pictures on this day because this was a day where we tried to help out the business with some different things. While the men were at the shop putting up lots of shelves and organizing, the women were having their own fun. We invited some friends over for a mom's study, while me (Lisa) and another girl on our team (Melissa) provided childcare for the mom's who were in the study. I also did jewelry/crafts with both the kids and the mom's. It was fun! Then we joined the men at the shop and did some packaging of some of their products all afternoon. They were SO appreciative of our help around the business. Andy was even able to provide Physical Therapy services to a couple of the workers at the shop who had been having some problems!

Day 4:
We started off early in the morning and made our way to Petra (one of the 7 wonders of the world) Check out the history at http://www.atlastours.net/jordan/petra.html
























We also made the climb up to The High Point in Petra which was where the ancient people sacrificed animals and humans (like in the old testament) to have their sins forgiven. Wow, thank you Jesus!





Finally, a Camel Ride! SO FUN! What facinating animals!

Press play to view this video and HOLD ON! The 3 hour trip to and from Petra was a great time to talk to our friends about their lives in Jordan, and how God is working there. We can see ourselves living our lives like this someday. Insha'Allah (God Willing)

Day 5:
We spent the last day at the shop again trying to be a blessing by helping them with odds and ends and buying some of their olive wood designs. We ended the night with one of the only foods we didn't like on the trip. I don't even remember the name of it but it tasted like sour yogurt. There's not much we don't eat, but that was tough to swallow. Our night's rest was short as we had to get up at 3 am to catch our flight the next morning. We arrived back home at about 11 pm on March 18 (the same day). What a blessing to get the chance to go on this trip to Jordan.

God is so good!


The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. - Matthew 13:38

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. - John 3:16