The school year winds down to a close, and students and teachers alike tremble with anticipation of the impending summer. Freedom! A break from the long walk through the academic calendar and a well-deserved change of pace. The church largely follows suit as the normal routines of the school calendar give way to possibility and openness. Everyone (hopefully) gets to breathe a little bit as the days grow longer and the scheduled obligations diminish (even if a little bit).
On May 19 we celebrated Pentecost. Pentecost recalls and recounts the Holy Spirit’s empowering the Church to witness to the Good News that a new season of God’s grace has emerged. The routine of being trapped in sin and death is amazingly interrupted by the sunlight of redemption brought in the awesome life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is making all things new and invites us to bask in the forgiveness and hope he has secured.
A team from the Advent is traveling down to Cochabamba, Bolivia, on May 24 to visit the Amistad Mission. I, along with 11 others, will get to share a week in Jesus’ name with children and their adult caretakers at Amistad so that “your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations” (Psalm 67:2). Please pray that Advent’s partnership with Amistad and other ministries, local and international, would continue to deepen and grow. Also pray that, as a community, the Advent would share God’s heart for bringing the reconciling message of the gospel to people near and far by the power of the Holy Spirit. In an important way, you and I share in the Pentecost mission not only by going on specific mission trips, but by living in proximity with sinners and sufferers in our own spheres – at home, work, school, and in the community. What a joy that you and I are in on the Divine Conspiracy to see our Father’s will done on earth as it is in heaven!
– Adam
Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! – Psalm 67:3