Broken Vessels: October 2014

We were blessed to be able to spend a little over three weeks in the States in September. It was a time of rest, rejuvenation, and reflection. We not only were able to meet and spend time with family and friends, but also seek counsel on our family's future as long-term missionaries. We felt so loved, supported and encouraged by our immediate family, our Family at AAC, our Missions' Team and the C&MA that we knew God was pouring into us through His people. Our cup overflows! We are strengthened to keep running the race marked out before us...allowing God to use this past year to shape our next steps and define more clearly the race He has marked specifically for us. We cannot boast enough about YOU...thank you for the outpouring of love, prayers and support felt by our family both while we were home and throughout this past year. We are motivated by that love to persevere and keep fighting the good fight with our eyes fixed on what lies ahead...to let nothing hinder us from running that race in which the enemy wants to thwart.

What do we do with our overflowing cup? Equally important, what do we do when our cup runs dry?The more we allow God's love to infiltrate every part of us, the more we are able to fulfill the will of God and be an imitator of that love to those he places in our path...it is our call...a call to love. God is teaching me a lot about love lately. To love without condition, to love without excuse, to love without expectation.. to love open handedly hanging merely to the fact that we've been loved first with an indescribable, undeserving, unfailing, transforming love...nothing we do matters if we have not loved! The power of love changes lives! Wherever I am and whatever I do, I want to finish well! To finish well means to love well! So, I must let love guide me. Love can empower me to feel hurt without being a person consumed by that hurt...I can feel offended but I don't have to be offended...I can feel insecure, but I don't have to act insecure...I can feel angry, but I don't have to respond in anger. That's the choice love makes. Not so easy right? Fighting for love can only be won at the foot of the cross...humbly surrendered to the One who is Love and to the One who loved us first! You know where I am spending a lot of my time lately :) Oh God, help us to choose love for the sake of the cross! Let us allow love to take us by the hand and empower us in each and every situation especially where we don't know what to do. Do the next small thing, the right way, right away... all for the sake of love.

Enjoy the pics from our recent trip home! Please continue to pray for our family as we seek to obey that which He calls us to do...a call to love...and where He calls us to go!

At the foot of the cross,
The Schuenke's

"For loves sake, He became poor..." 2 Corinthians 8:9