Business of life

Travis is such a dear to keep this blog up for our family, take on the role of a full time mom (all the time, with all the duties thereof) and being such a wonderful support to me. May God bless her a million times more than I could ever imagine to and a trillion times more than I actually can. Thanks to all of you for reading it and responding to her hard work and time. For those who haven't responded, please, feel free to do so, soon.

You have an idea of what happens with our family, but I haven't given you a great reflection of what I do. So, I am going to attempt to do so as succinctly as possible.

The day's start out at around 6:30, when a flight leaves, I get to work around 5:30-6:30, thank goodness that's only once a week. I get in, open up, see what needs to be done, what was left undone, and what I would like to see done for the day. Monday morning after all get settled in we have a staff meeting to recap our Friday afternoon meeting and go over any ideas we may have to tackle the day, the week and the months ahead. This is also a time of corporate prayer for us.

The day is different each day. We have the operations at the hangar, that require constant decision making (for the next three weeks the CEO is out, so it falls on me to spear this fish). "What do we do here? How should we do this? How many do we order? How do you want this done? Where are we going to find that? Should we do this?" You get the idea, but it's GREAT! This is exactly what God has been preparing me for the past 39 years. Just about half of those years my job has been making order out of chaos (I took that line from Pastor Brooks). Thinking about that comment, I look back and say to myself, that is exactly what police work was, making order out of chaos. One night in the middle of a neighborhood disturbance with gun play and 100 people, and you would know exactly what I am talking about-the scary thing is, many of you do know what I am saying. This is a little different, but I now sit on the administrative side of making sense out of the chaos that surrounds us here at Agape and that our missionaries live in every day. Spend one day in a Haitian airport, and you will know exactly what I am talking about. To cap this section, decisions, decisions, but it is fun, so no complaints here.

I often find myself talking to folks from all around the states, and the islands (Hispaniola and the Bahamas). This week we had a missionary from Washington (state) that was going to the DR for one year. He bought a one way ticket, but Continental was not going to let him on the plane without a return ticket. So, we sent him a ticket to fly with us if he needed to leave the country. This type of assistance and more life threatening instances are regular occurrences here.

Training is another aspect of my job. I need to be trained in areas that I have little formal training, so that I can pass that knowledge on to our staff at Agape and the missionaries. This includes further training in counseling, finances, airplanes and the operations of same, and many, many informal aspects to keeping this machine moving as well as growing.

Resumes come in regularly that need to be read and followed up on. It seems that many other folks are having the same itches that I had before I entered full time ministry, and many have greater resumes than me.

I had a gentleman ask me what we did here and specifically what I did. I had to go to what I knew when giving my explanation, so I will do the same for you. Liken Agape to a police department. We have the operations here in Venice and we exist to keep the officers (some 400 missionary families) on the street (the mission field), doing what they do best-making order out of chaos. But that is only part of it, their jobs are to take the gospel to the people of the Haiti, Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. We must keep them supplied in their jobs and do whatever it takes to keep them healthy, equipped and eager to continue. The following is a video from one of the families that Agape serves.

Please pause the music in the left column in order to hear the audio for this video.



Thank you all. We love you and desire for Christ to be the main focus in your life, and for the Kingdom to be advanced as far as God wants it to go.

"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." II Peter 3:9

In Christ,
Paul