Providence Provision and Promise

It is so good to finally have some clear direction. I met with the missions staff at The Village Church a couple of weeks ago and walked through what it will look like for that body to send me to New Guinea (NG) with New Tribes Mission (NTM).

My heart was set on going to go to PNG, and I was supposed to leave in January. I had to pause for a minimum of six months due to the melanoma. It was hard to put everything on hold and trust that God knew best and had it under control. I had postponed raising support until my doctor was comfortable with letting me leave the country as she needed to find out more information on the cancer. The second set of tests have come back clear!

Over two years had passed since I started support raising and preparing to head to PNG. It seemed as though a life-time had passed. In that time of waiting my frustration gave way to prayer. I begged God to be so real in this situation that it would be impossible to miss his hand and his guidance.

I started working with a non-profit that helps with refugee assimilation and evangelism. It allows me to work cross culturally here in Dallas and reach un-reached people in the neighborhood where I live.

Being in Dallas an additional 6 months also allowed me to go to East Africa on a vision trip with my church. It was tough to see so much need and angst and Islamic hostility to Christianity. The darkness of the Muslim world is overwhelming. It was a real encouragement to see the believers there stand for their faith in spite of it possibly meaning their death. One man who had been beaten and left for dead over 7 times was still getting up again to tell of our God. It really pressed on me the value of the gospel and that I need to look at each moment with value and spend it well.

This time has stretched me in so many ways. My travels and my working with refugees has only confirmed in me the desire and conviction to be in those places were the gospel has yet to be preached. No matter if it is here in Dallas with refugees or in NG with tribal peoples who have never heard, I will preach the gospel as loud as I can.

I also started dating an amazing woman named Amy Smith a few months ago. She has been a real blessing in my life and it is really encouraging to watch her selflessly serve the refugee families here. I recently asked her to marry me and she said yes! I thank God every day for bringing her into my life. She has spent time overseas and was pursuing going with Africa Inland Mission as a nurse when we met. We are now traveling this road together, going wherever God would open the door.

We will be going to PNG in January for Interface so Amy can get to know NTM a bit and PNG culture. From there, we will travel to NTM headquarters in Lapilo. Amy can work in the clinic and get a feel for medicine there. Then we’ll head to Hoskins, where  I will work on construction projects and Amy will work in the clinic at the base. We’ll be able to get to know the people we could be partnering with in ministry. In addition, it will allow us the opportunity to see what vocational training we should pursue to better enable us in ministry.

As much as I would like to be in PNG now, a lot of prayer and the counsel of church leadership and mentors has changed that.  Amy and I have decided to go through two years of training before going to New Guinea long-term. Our hope is that this route will best prepare us for life and long-term ministry, not to mention, learning how to live together and love each other well! This also gives my doctor the additional six months of tests that she would like. Our church leadership is excited to pursue this with us.

With full-time training and a trip ahead of us, there is definitely a financial need. I have been returning to people who had committed to supporting me before and asking for their support again. Funds will now be going through Free City, the training organization of The Village Church. Please email me for specifics immediately, or feel free to call me 469-644-6157.

We hope to find 200 people to partner with us financially at $300 a year or $25 a month. We ask that you all consider being a part of this. We can’t do it without you being involved. We will be sending out more info on how you can do this in the next couple of weeks.  Right now, please pray for us in this season of transition, and feel free to pass this along to anyone you may know who might be interested in joining us in this time as well.

Thank you,
Ryan Carpenter
ryan.amy.carpenter@gmail.com
469-644-6157

Prayer Update

Prayer update!

Hey, I just wanted to drop you a quick line to ask for your prayers. I am really excited to finally be able to have the full backing of my church, The Village Church, and a clear health report from my doctor to pursue heading to Papua New Guinea (PNG) with New Tribes Mission (NTM). I had to put it on pause for a few months and it is good to be able to head that direction again. I will have one final check in August that will be the final determiner of when I will leave.

I am still working through the details of time frame and what that will all look like. I have been talking through it all with the missionaries in PNG that I would be serving with and they are excited to have me coming down. Amy and I are trying to work through what this will look like for our relationship. I am serving with a Non profit here in Dallas that works with refugees and want to walk well here as I look to the future.

In all of this I am going to have to go back to raising support and sharing with people what I will be doing and how they could help it all happen. It is exciting to see how all of this will have to be the body working together and how I can in no way do it alone. I am praying that God would make Himself and His direction mightily evident.

Please pray with me for these things:
That God would give my girlfriend Amy and I peace in this all and a clear sense of Gods leading.
That as Amy and I travel to Michigan to meet family and talk through plans God would make it a sweet time and help us see His will for us.
That God would make the time to go very evident.
That the provision and open doors would such that He gets all the credit.
That my final checkup in August would come back clear allowing me to go.
That God would provide people to partner with me financially providing the needed funds to go and serve.
That I would be able to dive deeper in my relationships as I look at leaving in Gods timing.
That God would surround me with a multitude of people on their knees running to God on my behalf.
That I would finish my responsibilities well and not get lost in the transition.

Thank you very much, it is going to be an exciting journey, and I covet your prayers. I will be sending a more detailed letter very soon, I just wanted to let you all know where this is at. I will also update my website in the next couple of days.

A quick update

I just wanted to let you all know where things stand, as a lot is on hold right now and i don't seem to have many answers.

1. I had another MRI on Monday of last week for my Melanoma, please pray all comes back clear. I have left it up to my Doctor as to if I will go to New Guinea or not.

2. I have just started dating an amazing woman named Amy Smith who loves the Lord and is pursuing missions as hard as I am. Please pray we would grow together in this time and that God would make it very clear to us how to move forward.

3. I have been asked to go on a vision trip to East Africa with some good friends of mine to look at how the church could be involved there. Please pray for safety as we travel and that God would be very clear in all of this. He has provided over $13k in as many days for the trip. All we can say is thank you Lord.

4. Please pry for patience and wisdom for me, it has been very hard to put all of this on hold and seek God in it all. I want to be overseas serving now and the waiting has been hard. It has been good to as God is definitely pouring out his blessing. Please pray I would lean on him and see what He is doing in it all.

5. In the interim of waiting I have begun to work a nonprofit named Free City International. The main focus is evangelism and discipleship in the refugee community here in Dallas. It is exciting to see God opening doors of ministry here as I wait on Him. there are over 65k refugees here and most of them are either Muslim of Hindu. It has been a challenge to show them true Christianity and not the Hollywood version of it. Please pray for God to move in their hearts and that we would be able to live our lives in a way that shouts loudly to Him.

6. I have stopped raising support as I am now unsure of when I will be leaving, I will be taking the remaining support and using it for this trip to East Africa. I have been able to do enough freelance construction work to put food on the table and a roof over my head but not much else. please pray God would continue to provide the finances necessary to continue forward in this and still remain free to go when the door opens.

Thank you all for your prayer and support, you have been a real encouragement to me.

I am excited to see what God is going to do in all of this.

please keep me in your prayers,

Ryan carpenter

Ephesians 3:14-21  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Delayed for a reason

I found myself over the past few months wondering just what God was thinking. I had every hope of being in PNG this fall and getting used to the culture and routine of things by now. It was very difficult to keep waiting on God to move. The finances just hadn’t come in for me to go like they should have, I mean if I was being faithful in sharing the need then why wasn’t God bringing in the funds to enable me to go??
It is funny to me that I profess to believe in the sovereignty of our God and yet in those moments when I cant see I begin to doubt Him. Yet he works in spite of my doubt!
I went in to the dermatologist in Dec to have a couple of moles removed from my head based on a history of carcenoma thinking that it was best to do that now before I was in the bright New Guinea sun and only antagonizing them.
The doctor asked about another mole on my neck wondering if I had any more and after looking found a 3/4 inch one in between my shoulder blades that had her really concerned. I had both the one on my neck, the one on my back and two more on my head removed. The biopsies showed that two of them were stage three melanoma. The doctor wanted to do more tests, and the biopsy had shown that they had missed some of the one on my back.
They ended up removing a 3 by 2 by 1/2 inch section from between my shoulders and two lymph nodes for further testing. It turns out that the cancer had spread to one lymph but no farther and that the surgery had removed it all. I will have to do one more recheck in three months and another in 6 months and if all is clear then I can leave at that point.
I find it incredibly encouraging and humbling that God knew all along what He was doing. The doctor said that as advanced as it was that it was only a short matter of time before the cancer had spread to my entire lymph system and became much much more dangerous. To think that he caused things to go slow and gave the doctor the wisdom to see. I am so grateful for His hand in my life.
Please pray that my back will continue to heal and the soreness will go away.
Please pray that the tests will come back clear in March and August.
Please also pray that God would bring in the finances both for the doctors bill and for the support to head out in 6 months.
His timing is perfect and all is in His hands. If he can do this I can’t wait to see what else he is capable of in the future. God is so amazing!

God is amazing!!

Good morning!!

It is such a great day!! I am so excited to be here today writing this letter to all of you. I want to say thank you first and foremost for being used by God. I have watched as you all, my family in Christ, have come around me and begun to be a part of shining Christ to the lost in the world. You have all touched my heart and in the end you have touched the hearts of those lost in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as well. Their place in eternity will be different because of these moments., and sacrifices.

Philippians 1:3-5, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

A lot has happened in the past two months as I have finalized a lot of the plans to go to New Guinea. I say the plans because they are definitely not mine but Gods. He has been so evident in all of this is and continually shows me that he knows so much more what my needs are than I even do. He has been bringing many along side of me to do this. Making it a thing of the body and that we will only be able to point to Him in the end. 

Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I have had the opportunity to share at over 40 small groups over the past 7 weeks, and it has been encouraging to watch the body yearn to see a change made. I have loved those chances and am hoping for more. I have made a short list of things I need and am selling the rest.  I have also finalized the plans for the yard sale of the century , thanks to a lot of donated items, for next weekend. It has been a stretching process to watch as the last of my personal belongings are sold. I am excited though, the only thing going to heaven with me is the souls of the lost God has used me to impact, making it easier to let go.  

Philippians 4:19 And my God shall supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus

It has been amazing to watch as God has made Himself evident. I have asked you all to be praying for a short list of things to take to PNG. Through a couple of gifts by people in my church He has provided a laptop capable of doing video editing that I will use to keep you all updated on just what God is doing in my part of PNG. He has also provided for a digital camera to be used for the same purpose. I have also been given a ticket to get to PNG with American Airlines by a friend in my church. All I need to do is cover the tax on that ticket. God is bringing it all together and I can’t help but thank Him and point to His  greatness. He is amazing. I also can’t help but thank you for being a part.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

For the involvement of the Village Church and the way God is providing there. I have been a lot of great conversation with the Jamie Hipp and Matt Elkins at the church, trying to plan all of this out. I am excited to say that I am officially being sent by the Village. It makes me so happy and proud to be a part of the team there reaching out into the world to shine Christ. We will be working to a point of sending short term trips much like the way the church does the teams in the Amazon. It is my hope that through this opportunity I will have the chance to see many of you there.  That you will have the opportunity to be a part first hand. Seeing exactly what is being done and playing a active role in that.

Matthew 6:33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you

Much is left to be done yet though. I still need $1600 a month in pledged support. Please pray with me for Gods provision and guidance, and that God puts it on the hearts of more people to join with me in this way. Please seek the Lord in this as well, and know in the end it will be worth the sacrifice. I also need around $2300 for moving expenses and to purchase that last few things I need before going.  It is down to the finances and people being moved by God to have be a part.. I am excited to see how God brings it in.  This is  His thing and he is doing it, I just need the patience to wait on Him.
 
James 5:16 “ The fervent prayer of  a righteous man is powerful and effective.” 

So many things are coming together in a way I could only have dreamed. I stand  amazed at the path all of this has taken. In spite of a few set backs God has really provided, and worked things out. He is so good. I love how I could have predicted none of this., from the timing on down to those of you who God has brought along side me. None of it is what I expected. All of it is what God provided. I guess what I am saying in all of this is the glory goes to God, and I am humbled by it all. It all points back to Him. I have prayed that God would work it out and He is doing just that. Moving in hearts and bringing exciting things about in my church body as well in myself. In all of this I can’t help but rejoice. Jehovah Jirah has definitely been the provider.

Psalms 138: 8 “The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.”

I am so excited to see all of this coming to be,
God is so amazing ,
Thank you for being a part,

Thank God for:
 
The gift of a Mac Book and digital camera, which will help me keep all of you updated in a timely manner.

The gift of my plane tickets.  Thanks to a donation all I have to do is pay for taxes on the tickets.

For the way God has provided so far, and for the way people are getting involved.

For the opportunities I have had to share with people about the value their lives can have and how they can impact eternity for others.

“Strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf”  Colossians 4:12

Please Pray for:
 
That my final work permit would come through soon. 

That God would lay it on peoples hearts to be part of reaching Papua New Guinea.

That God would continue to provide the last things needed for my trip, like a video camera for sharing with supporters.

For the remaining finances to come in and for Gods provision. I still need $1600 a month in pledged support.

For more opportunities to share. I have had many chances to share Gods work and hope for more.

For Gods continued protection and safety. That Gods angels would be watching over me . 

For the $600 to cover some medical expenses associated with my visa, and moving. 

That the last of my belongings would sell quickly and help bring in the funds to go. 

“ The fervent prayer of  a righteous man is powerful and effective,” James 5:16

A life lived in a circle

Ps. 34:8 "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take  refuge in HIM!" 

I still remember vividly my childhood in Nimo, Papua New Guinea  (PNG) where my parents served as missionaries with New Tribes Mission (NTM). The memory of the people around me, my friends, living and dying with absolutely no knowledge of the cross is forever burnt into my mind. I also remember they way their lives were changed forever by the gospel. It has been fifteen years since then and these memories have affected every aspect of my life to this  day. 

I have been given the opportunity to be a part of what God is  doing in PNG. For the next four years I will serve the islands region missionaries  as a mechanic and construction worker.  Doing the tasks for those planting churches that would take their focus from the most important task. The task of telling of our savior, and walking with, and discipling the people there. 

This whole thing is so much bigger than me, and I can in no way do it alone. I need people burdened by God to join me supporting the work God is  doing. Together we can bring the knowledge of Christ to the darkest parts of the world.  It is my hope that God through all of you will provide the $3000 dollars month in support that is needed to do this. I am over half way there with a combined $2007 in pledged support.. 

My departure date is set for Jan 12th, only a few short weeks away. This is however dependant on support coming in by that time.  Many are joining in making this a reality but I am need others to be a part of this  and be a part of reaching the last tribes with the message of Christ.  Finances aren't the only way however, I need people praying on my behalf as well.. If you are unable to help financially please consider being a part in this way. I will be sending out periodic prayer letters and notes on exactly what God is doing. 

 

I am really excited as I have seen God move, the story is so much bigger than me or my life. I would love to have the chance to share the story of my childhood and of the need in places like Papua New Guinea. If there is a time where I can do that with you, your small group, or anyone you may know please let me know. Much needs to be done. I am willing to give my life to that purpose. I just need people willing to send me.  

I look forward to hearing from you, and answering  any questions you may have. I will keep my NTM website updated with prayer requests and news as well. God is moving in hearts, I hope He moves in yours and together we can reach out till the last tribe and tongue have heard the gospel.. Please 

email me or call me, I would love to share with you.

Thank you for your time, and prayers.     

Sincerely,

Please pray for:

For God to be seen in me and for many to share with.

That those who hear  would be burdened to effect change in the world. 

That God would provide the prayer support and financial support needed to allow me to fill the gap and meet the need. 

For a new laptop capable of video and photo editing for support updates and such.

For strength to continue as I leave my family, friends, and the church I love.

Ryan Carpenter

521 Dove Creek Circle

Progress and Prayer

I wanted to update you all on where I am. I have set my date of departure as January 28th 2009. Much needs to be done in that time. I am currently at 50% support and God is providing more. I also still need the funds for my plane tickets and for the tools another things I need to take with me.

Please pray that as I finalize plans to leave for New Guinea that God would bring in the rest of the funds necessary. That he would burden people to be a part of it all. Also pray that things would go smoothly as I pack and prepare to leave.

Being a part and doing what we can is more important than the amount. I have always said that I hope to find 300 people to help with $10 a month. A thing which I know is entirely possible. Thank you for keeping track of me and keeping me in your prayers. I can’t wait to see God be a part of all of this.