The Fight, The Course, The Faith
Hello friends and family!
I would love to wish you a happy fall, but the leaves haven’t fallen and my laptop just informed me that there is a heat warning in effect. So, happy off-season! It’s been a crazy couple of months and jam-packed with news to share.
Camp News
Our fall(ish) season starts with orientation for our Ministry Crew. There are 15 students in the Defined program and 4 interns in the Ministry Bound program. After several years of lower Ministry Crew numbers, we are especially thankful for the extra help and the extra opportunities to invest in lives over the next nine months. We also have several new resident staff families and individuals, as well as one CORE staff family and one Ministry Connect family. All in all, there are a lot of new friends in new homes and new jobs. Please pray that God would provide for our staff and allow us to be unified under the pressure of a very busy ministry.
Speaking of God’s provision, the MAG shop got a fun new toy last month. Ironwood was able to purchase a CNC plasma table for a little more than a quarter of its market value. What is a CNC plasma table? Great question! Picture a giant printer, but instead of putting ink on paper, it cuts programmed patterns out of metal sheets. This tool has a ton of potential applications including metal signs, targets for the rifle range, and western themed décor.
Palkki News
First of all, Rosie would like to announce that she is graduating from only child to big sister! Lord willing, Baby Boy will join us in April, and we are so excited to meet him. It will be fun to see how God continues to build our family in His own unique design. There are a few prayer requests that come with this announcemen:
Pray for a healthy baby and safe delivery.
Pray for our financial support levels to keep up with a growing toddler and new baby.
Pray for wisdom as we try to figure out how to add another person to our small house.
In other news, Gabe has been busy rearranging the shop to fit a giant plasma table in one bay of our metal shop. He and his assistant are in the middle of cleaning and reorganizing the auto and metal portions of the MAG shop anyway, so the timing was excellent. We are thrilled that Ayden is working in the shop again this year. Having an assistant with prior experience means Gabe will be able to accomplish more projects and spend more time in personal investment.
I have been mostly hiding from the heat and trying to convince myself that food is necessary, even when I don’t feel like eating. Rosie turned one last month and she has recently discovered that walking is a convenient mode of transportation. This has turned every day into an adventure which we are both enjoying immensely. Of course, between her energy and the tribulations of the first trimester, it’s also been an exhausting adventure. Hence the late prayer letter. I also started long-distance tutoring two kids from my church back in Alaska. Sharing my love for writing and how it relates to God’s good plan for communication has been such a joy!
Being a home-missions missionary is honestly a weird experience. On one hand, you know for a fact that you are serving God’s eternal kingdom by evangelism or discipleship or by enabling local churches to do those things. One the other hand, you’re just like everyone else in your state: working a normal job, living in a remodeled double-wide trailer, wondering why vegetables from Walmart cost so much when they don’t actually taste good. It’s really easy to get stuck in a rut of just doing things because those are the things you are supposed to do.
Our pastor has been preaching through Paul’s second letter to Timothy, and a few weeks ago we looked at 2 Timothy 4:7 as a church.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”
Pastor pointed out that, in Greek, the emphasis is on the object of those statements: the fight, the course, the faith.
None of those are passive activities. Wrestling requires a perfectly conditioned body and complete focus on the opponent. Each leg of a relay race is unique to the runner and demands that he commit every ounce of his energy to the path in front of him. A strong set of convictions means relentless vigilance against error and faithful belief-to-action application. These can’t be achieved accidentally, or with an in-the-rut mindset.
When I’m tempted to slip into apathy, I’ve found myself repeating, “The fight, the course, the faith.” It’s a good reminder that God gave me a mission and every minute of my life counts toward that mission. I have a reason to get up and do my best.
Gabe and I hope that you will pray for us to be diligent in our fight, our course, and our faith. And whatever your life looks like right now, please remember that God gave you this fight, this course, and this faith. Keep going for His glory!
Love in Christ,
Gabriel, Cheyenne, and Rosemary Palkki
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