Fellows Fold International

So it's June.

(I know, I know – how did that happen? No clue.)

But it's June and that means a few things.

First – it means our year as Fellows is coming to an end. There's been a lot of lasts lately – last morning prayer, last family dinner, last day of classes, last day of work. This past weekend was our final retreat. I sat on a porch with my favorite people, listening to rain fall and thinking – how did it go so fast? It feels like just yesterday we were sitting on that same porch, sharing our favorite books and movies and talking about what the next ten months would bring, and now here we are, retelling stories from the past ten months.

It's been an incredible year, to say the least. I don't know how to accurately describe what the Fellows program does for you, but I can honestly tell you it's been life-changing. It's a community that will last through eternity. It's challenging your theology and learning how to worship the Lord with your mind. It's living out your faith in the workplace. It's getting up before the sun to pray together. It's a perspective on life that keeps Christ in the center.

We're all different people – better people, I believe – because of our time as Fellows. And as we say – once a Fellow, always a Fellow. The program is ending, but our friendship isn't. It's just going to look a little different next year.

But, sappy emotional endings aside – June means something else. June means we're all getting on a place and flying to Rwanda.

We'll be spending two weeks in Rwanda, visiting our sister parish in Karangazi, learning from a Hope International savings group, visiting Compassion School Projects and seeing the work of ICM. Redeemer has a long-standing relationship with the Karangazi Parish, and many of the people going on our trip have visited Karangazi before. That's what makes this trip feel so special – we're stepping into an established relationship with our brothers and sisters. Andrea, a member of the Fellows Class of 2012-2013, is returning with us this year and can't wait to see her friends from her last trip. Many Redeemer families sponsor children through Compassion – in fact, Sarah Moubray and Stacey are co-sponsoring a sweet girl named Phionah and will get to meet her for the first time.

We're all so excited to see what God is doing in Rwanda, to get a wider perspective on the church, and to grow closer as we travel together. But – we need your help.

First: pray for us. We absolutely believe in the power of prayer. So many of you have been praying for the Fellows this year and we would really appreciate if you could just cover us in prayer a little bit longer. Pray for safe travels, pray for eyes to see and ears to hear what God is doing, pray for protection for those who aren't taking malaria medication (no really, pray for that.)

Second: turns out international airfare isn't cheap. Would you prayerfully consider partnering with us financially? As a group, we're trying to raise $3,000 to help cover our trip costs. We've already raised a portion of that (shout-out to anyone who bought a t-shirt!) but there's still a ways to go. If you'd like to support us financially, there are a few ways to do that!

We're running an online auction through Better World Collective to raise money. There are some great things up there for sale – you get an awesome deal and we get funding for our trip! It's a win-win. Check it out and see if anything catches your interest! https://gfp.betterworldcollective.com/

If you'd prefer to just donate directly, you can do that too! Our Donate page has all the information you'll need. You can donate by credit card or check...we like to make your life easy, so do whatever is best for you!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who has supported us this year, in everything from praying to opening your home to writing a check to feeding us. This is possible because of you, and we're all incredibly humbled by the knowledge that so many of you believe in the Fellows and believe in God's work through the Fellows enough to invest in us. We have been so blessed through you – thank you for showing us God's love.

Finally, if you want to follow our journey to Rwanda, all our adventures will be documented here on the Redeemer to Rwanda blog. We'll be sharing pictures, stories, and prayer requests from our trip. Follow along as we take the Fellows Fold international!

With much love and thankful hearts,

the Greensboro Fellows Class of 2015

Who I Am & Who God Is

written by Graham Monroe

This semester, during our Monday morning discipleship hour, each Fellow is taking turns leading. This past Monday, Graham invited the Fellows into an exercise that he has been using recently in his quiet times - writing out who God says you are, and who God is. Identity, purpose and guidance can then flow more freely out of that knowledge and encouragement. Here are some of his writings:

Who God Is:
God is a good and trustworthy Father. My guide and protector. A lamp to my feet. God is always near, and never changing. God is the ultimate source of satisfaction. God is kind and victorious, holy, greater and mysterious.

• gracious, loving
• judge
• sustainer
• fountain of blessing
• omnipresent
• healer
• everlasting
• gracious
• merciful
• beautiful
• Abba/daddy
• king of kings
• shelter
• jealous
• infinite
• persister
• consistent

Who God says I am:

I am a child. A son of a royal priest. A son to the King. I am expensive, bought with the highest price of heaven. I am a saint. I am one with Christ Jesus and made new. I have favor with the royal family of heaven for I am a citizen of heaven. I am adopted, redeemed, forgiven, justified and being sanctified. I am loved. I am cared for. I am a friend to Jesus. I am pure, holy and blameless. I am a temple to where Christ's spirit that overcame the grave dwells. I am a branch.

• co-laborer
• ambassador
• reflector of glory
• his bride
• disciple
• sheep
• fearfully and wonderfully made
• adopted
• beloved
• servant
• leader
• teacher
• chosen people

A Pretty Good Place

Written by Stacey Greene

The month of January seemed to fly by and with it came new dreams, two birthdays and an overwhelming sense of His goodness and love. 

Stacey at her birthday celebration this month. 

Yesterday I had the incredible blessing to just sit and be still. A few of the other fellows and I went and had a picnic and it would seem it was just what each of us needed. My heart needed the opportunity to just be still underneath the sunshine, reflect, and be with people whom I have come to love so dearly. 

A few weeks ago the Fellows took a trip to the Wolfe’s cabin and each of us shared our testimonies. If you asked me at the beginning of our time together I would have said it was my least favorite time of the year. I come from a very small family and sharing my feelings and life experiences has never come easy to me. However, as I listened to my brothers and sisters share how God has intricately placed His hand in their lives, I wept not only of joy, but this new idea of family.

Months ago, Kyle asked me what I believed God has been preparing me for. I said to him then, I believe God is preparing my heart and mind to understand family outside of my family in Florida. We are, together, brothers and sisters in a family of the greatest kingdom on Earth. As I listened to the continuous suffering of the other fellows, I realized my heart was breaking for loved ones, for family. I hated the idea they underwent grief and misery and I wasn’t there to offer words of encouragement or even a gentle embrace of love. In my time of reflection yesterday I began to grasp the idea of how much love I have and how little I give. 

Every time a trial comes to me or my family, I think of the words from the Bible in Psalms 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God,” and I am often comforted. Sometimes, though, I wonder just what it means to be still and what exactly I need to do to make that happen. I’m sure more days like yesterday would be ideal, but how do you find stillness in the day-to-day, chaotic, messy adventure of life? Unfortunately, I am nowhere near to having a semblance of an answer, but one thing I am sure of, family is all around me. You can go wherever you want. See whatever you want to but a place is only as good as the people you know in it. I think this is a pretty good place.

Trees of Faith

written by Kyle Gassaway

Before I explain what I’m thinking I want to give full credit to my buddy Graham Monroe for this image he received in his mind.  Graham and I are both very visual people, so we see life and all its complexities through visuals and symbols.  I compare it to the movie, “Inception”, where people’s minds are given thoughts by others that change how they would act.  It’s a fascinating concept and I believe that God does this when He speaks through His Holy Spirit to His people.  I can’t explain fully how it works, but when God gave me His spirit I remember this visual inception becoming a new experience in my life.  I could tell more about my experiences, but now I want to tell about the Tree of Faith.  

So there is this tree growing in the middle of a room.  Water is falling from the ceiling onto the leaves, then the branches and down to the ground.  The tree should be growing with all this water and nutrients it is receiving from above yet it's not.  The reason for this is apparent when one sees the ground it is growing from.  There are these large holes in the dirt all around the base of the tree that are capturing the water that was meant for the roots of the tree.  The tree is beginning to wither, because its nutrients are being drawn away by these pits in the mud.  

Then comes the realization that the tree is the faith and life of the Christian, and the holes that surround it are the lies we believe about ourselves and the parts of ourselves that doubt God.   You see, God has continued to rain down on us blessing after blessing every day, yet these holes are not allowing us to receive in thankfulness and faith what God wants us to receive.  Our souls begin to whither the longer we can’t see the doubts and lies that often times are so subtle and so built into ourselves that they are even subconscious.  So what is a tree like you and I to do, which is being starved of faith and love?  

The solid ground that must be used to cover these holes is the very promises of the Lord, our God.  His truth and His Word is the only weapons we have against the lies that have stolen from us for all our lives.  The lies that have remained under the surface in hidden places that only God can see.  The doubts that persist in deep parts of us can only be healed by faith and truth.  In Mark 9:24, a man whose son needs to be healed by Jesus of an evil Spirit, is told by Jesus that all he needs to do is believe and his son will be healed.  The man in a desperate appeal that resonates in the corridors of my soul exclaims,  “I believe, help my unbelief!”   I feel my soul crying out these very words when I see the holes in my life.  I try to fill them myself, but they always seem to open wide again and drain me.  I have come to the point like many others in the family of faith that can no longer live in futility by covering them by our own means.  

God is the great Healer and Savior of us trees and He has set forth His spirit and His Word to be the applier of the healing.  Let us, as people of faith, cling to the promises that God has made to us in Christ and pray for the unbelief to become like a living spring in our hearts.  This is the final part of the image, that these holes that once stole the water from our roots become springs of water that feed us when the promises of God sink down deep enough to purge our unbelief and fill us from the inside-out.

Half Way

written by Hannah Boning

It's almost impossible to believe how quickly the time has gone, how fast this adventure has flown by. It still feels like October in my head, somehow, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that no, it's halfway over. Halfway over? How can it be halfway over? We just started.

But here we are, it's January, and people are starting to ask what we're doing next year, we're starting to talk about jobs and school and plans. It's easy sometimes, to get so caught up in tomorrow and the next day and the next month and the next year, the what-comes-next – especially in a program like this one, this short time – that I forget to sit back and look at what's around me.

Because what's around me? It's so beautiful. It's so good. I miss it, sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out how to answer the so what's next and so what do you want to do questions, and also trying to do my church history reading, and memorize all those Bible verses, and make sure I have clean clothes to wear to work tomorrow and feed myself and be on time to morning prayer. I miss how good this is, what a gift this year is. That's really the only way I can describe it: it's a gift.

I'm surrounded by the best people. They love me so well, even when I'm not loving them well. They want the best for me, and they want me to be the best I can, and they love me toward Jesus. They're teaching me and serving me and blessing me. Sarah and Stacey and Graham and Kyle and Sean, this family that we've built - sometimes it's messy, but family always is - but we're trying our best to love well. And Tripp, and Sarah, and my mentor and my host home and my coworkers, and the people that make us dinner and open their homes and let us sleep on their floors, they love us well. So many people give to make this program a possibility – give of their time, and money, and their homes and hearts and love. I look around and I see them, this cloud of witnesses, loving us in a million little ways.

In them all, I see Jesus. I see God providing and protecting and blessing abundantly. I'm reminded that God will always provide and protect and bless. I'm surrounded by a living testament to His love in this church and this community that has completely and totally opened their arms and welcomed the Fellows in. They love us and I see Jesus moving in their midst, saying see, daughter, see? I will never forsake you.

So here we are. Second semester, halfway through. I'm trying to figure it all out, trying to come up with the next steps, but every day I am reminded that I don't need to fear. Every day I feel the tug to slow down, to look around. To see how good it all is, how beautiful.

Tripp asked us recently about the remaining half of this program. What do we feel God calling us to? What do we see Him doing? What do we want to press into, to learn, to experience during second semester? There's so much, so much I want to do and see and experience. I want it all, I want – as is typical of my usual overachieving self – to get everything I possibly can out of this program. I want to be the best Fellow you've ever seen. I want to learn and grow and develop as much as one person can do in nine months. But what I want to hold on to during second semester is just how good it is, how good God is. I want to be still and watch Him work. I want to live in gratitude. I want to delight.

It's halfway over, but that means we still have half left. And I think it's going to be good.