Hello!
It has been quite a while since we sent out an update but I wanted to catch everyone up on what life has looked like since returning to the States. It has been an incredible first year of marriage traversing multiple continents and learning how to love and serve one another.
The last update we sent was about our last bit of time in New Zealand. After that we travelled through Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Australia before heading back to America. In these past 7 months, we have gotten to see completely new cultures, visit some missionary friends in Bangkok and see/experience their ministry in the sex trafficking industry, ride around scooters and explore the culture in Chang Mai, visit an elephant sanctuary, hug tigers, visit some Singapore icons, pray over and in cities in the 10/40 window, share the Gospel with a muslim man at 3 am in Minneapolis, visit 2 seminaries, study the Gospel of John with my mom and dad for 22 weeks (we just finished last week and it has been such a blast studying the Word of God and the Spirit of God with them), build all of our living room furniture (some pics are below), grow in wisdom and the knowledge of God, and dive deep into our dependency of the Father as hard trials have hit.
It surely has been a grand adventure with God as we learn to seek His purposes and freely and joyfully submit our will to His will and follow where He leads. He has been teaching me (Sage) a lot about His Glory recently and that the very fabric of reality is God's Glory. Out of the overflow of of the joy and delight in the Trinity came all of creation as a great display of the Glory of the Godhead. "The heavens declare His Glory and the sky declares His handiwork"! I am learning that I often ask the wrong questions. I seek God in the wrong ways. But His way, his path to ultimate joy is to seek first His glory; to step into the very fabric of creation by aligning my will and purpose with His (His Glory!). My new question has become: God what is most glorifying to you...how can I align my life right now with what you are doing in magnifying your infinite worth and beauty? It has been changing everything.
As we go forth we are asking for your prayers! We need wisdom from God. We have so many big life decisions that we are making that we know will change the course and direction of the rest of our earthly sojourn. We have 3 more seminaries to visit and then will make a decision mid November of which one we will be attending. It is a huge step and we need your prayers!
Prayer Requests:
- Wisdom in making a decision regarding Seminaries
- That the Spirit would lead us into all truth as we wrestle through different Doctrine to seek what we see aligns most with Truth
- For more of the Holy Spirit (the great gift from the Father- he does not give a snake when we ask for bread!)
- Divine rest over us as it has been a hectic few months with lots of physical and emotional tiredness
Thank you so much for being a part of our lives! We love each of you dearly!! If you want to hear any more stories from us of anything listed above or anything else from the past 7 months, please ask! It is a joy and delight to get to share what the Father has been up to in our lives :)
Much Love,
The Byrd's
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Elephant Sanctuary
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We got to spend a day just outside of Chang Mai playing with Elephants: feeding them , walking them, bathing them, and feeding them more :)
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A Free Show
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My friend Jen and I went to a local art gallery one morning and the director offered Stephen and I free tickets to the Art History Cirque du Soleil show that evening!
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Prayer Meetings
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We are getting the opportunity with Pray Through It to pray with people all over town; to not just pray for an issue but to pray through it and listen to God's response and be set free! Including in homes with dogs :-)
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