What is a Servant of God

 

 

TRANSCRIPT 

I thought I'd start this morning. Just as Kev said, we're in the last week of our four series and the title of this message you'll understand why we're interviewing Tim and Michelle in a moment, but it was towels over titles, so it was looking at servanthood and our core scripture. Let me read it for you for.

For this morning, I've got it up on the screen. It is Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power, so he got up from the meal, took his outer clo, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple's feet.

Drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him. Now, this scripture in John shares about the ultimate act of servanthood. And as a Christian, we follow Jesus' example and the servanthood that Jesus displayed in this moment shocked the people in the room, but also set an example for. To be able to live our lives moving forward as well.

So it certainly is not just a story about Jesus' ministry, but also just a life of quiet and consistent servanthood. And Tim and Michelle, as Kev said he has known them both for probably 30 years. I was gonna 25. Yeah. I was gonna ask you how many and. I feel like I've known you maybe the same amount.

And it's such been such a blessing to watch their lives and the story of their lives unfold, especially in this idea and area of servanthood. So this morning I'm gonna ask them some questions. You'll get to know them, a little bit of their story, and we'll also unpack that scripture a little bit. But this morning, to start with, can you tell us a little bit about your family?

And then I was going to ask Michelle, and it's an aside to the topic, 'cause we always like a little rabbit trail, and I was going to ask Michelle to share, it's a great story about how Michelle came to faith first, but Tim wasn't yet. He didn't yet know Jesus. And I thought, Michelle, as I was preparing for today, I think that story would be an encouragement to some people in the room today who are maybe in the same position where they're believing and their partners not yet believing.

And I thought if he could briefly start maybe talk about your beautiful family and then share a little bit of that story. Also.

Hello everybody. My beautiful family are actually a little bit bigger than this now. There is a photo of them bigger, but yeah, baby is 21 now. There we are and we have a couple of additions in marriage as well.

So we have one son and then we lost the recipe of how to make boys and we had four girls. Our son has been a pleasure since day one. He just was one of those children that were just easy. And then we had four very strong girls. Nat is now a chaplain at Hillcrest. Rochelle in the middle is a teacher.

We have Jen who's training to be a teacher Bella, who's working as a correctional officer. And then Eloise is still figuring it out. She's done some teaching uni and taking a break we love our family very much. So the time that you're talking about, so Tim grew up in a Catholic church. I grew up without any going to church or any faith.

We moved to Ipswich and I met a lady at kindergarten where Nat was attending with her daughter and. And Tim and I said, it'd be cool to go to church and raise our kids with some morals. And that's where we felt like they came from because he obviously had the Catholic upbringing. And so we started to investigate finding a church.

And so we thought we'll start at a Catholic church. And then we went and we thought that didn't feel right. And so then we thought, okay, what's between that and those happy clappy? Raise your hands. Hallelujah. Churches And and Kirsten at kindy said, do you go to church? And I said, we're actually looking for one.

And she said we go to a church called Heritage City Community Church. And 'cause I said to her, we didn't want that way out kind of church and, and so she said, I think that will probably, that's probably what you're saying. It's probably a little bit in between. So we went to the seeker service on the Sunday nights and it was always around a theme, and Tim and I went and we both really enjoyed it.

It felt very practical. It felt this feels great. I started to feel like I wanted to go to the morning service and we went, and Tim started to pull back a little bit because it was a, it was that hands in the air and, he used to say to me, don't you raise your hands. Don't be weird. Yeah. So I was like, holding on like this and wanting to lift my hands and he was don't you?

And even for when I was getting ready to be baptized, actually I didn't tell him because I'd spoken about it to him and he had been christened as a baby and thought that was it done and dusted. And so I think. The week before baptisms, he was in church and. I fast forwarded a little bit and he said, you are gonna be baptized, aren't you?

And I said, yes. And he said, why didn't you tell me? And I said you don't agree with it. And he said, but you're my wife and I wanna support you. And so just to reverse a little bit, while he was pulling away, I feel and was explained to that the enemy was having a little bit of a field day with him and trying to put him under all these lies about the church and what the church stood for.

And he got, he was becoming quite angry. And it was just not him at all. I knew that he wasn't himself anyway. My friend who was discipling me suggested that I pray for him. And so I asked him this one night, can I pray for you? And he said, oh, I don't like it when people would say, I want to pray for you and put your hands on.

So he said no. So I did what all good wives do and I waited for him to go to sleep. And then I started praying for him and. Anyway, so as I'm praying, it was like the most amazing thing. So I'm a really new Christian and I understood about the enemy and I, good and evil, and anyway, so I just started saying, Lord, can you please just bring him back to being who he is himself?

He's not himself, I'm not worried about coming to church. I just want him to be back. Anyway, I just felt this real. It was like there was something behind me that was evil and it was awful, and I knew that. I felt like if I turned around, it was gonna consume me. I just felt so scared. But what happened then was this beautiful, what felt like a big balloon.

Bubble was just me and God. And we were talking and I was just saying, please bring my husband back. And the next morning we woke up and he was back. Wow. Praise God. And so thank God. Yes. Amen. And then so fast forward to when he said you're gonna be baptized. I had women's groups praying for him. I had, we, he was, he had no chance.

He had no chance. There was no chance. Yeah. And so at my baptism was the time that he came to me in tears afterwards and he said, how did all those people know those things that about you, who didn't know me? They was speaking life into me and speaking about you will, and you have. And he was like, how do these people know that?

And he was blown away. And from that moment on, we stayed in that church. 'cause I said to him, give me a couple of weeks and if you don't wanna be there, we'll move on. Yeah. Find somewhere else. But he was sold. So good. I love that. Thank you for sharing so beautifully. There's some great things that I love about Michelle's story and that the power of a praying person, whether you're a husband or a wife or a mom, praying for your kids, there's power in prayer because God sees our heart and we actually is sometimes just waiting for us to align our prayers with his will for our lives.

So I would encourage you today that if you grab onto that, if there's something you are believing for to just. Be praying and asking God for that 'cause. Yeah, that's life. That intercession, that's been a really powerful lesson for me. You think I can't pray for that person because they don't know God, but it's actually, you are actually opening up a space with God to allow God to work when you pray, and we forget that.

Yeah, so good. Thank you so much for sharing. So that I hope that encouraged you today. First of all, there's gonna be lots of little gems but the first question probably on our topic I wanted to ask, and maybe Tim you might wanna answer this on, you've served in so many ways across the, from that moment when you got saved to 25 years down the track.

I wonder for you, where did servanthood begin? Yeah, it's great. Thanks Nate. Hi everyone. Yeah, it's just to add onto what Michelle and flow outta that as well is that, is when Holy Spirit reveals himself to you, as he did to me from my brokenness and 'cause I was sitting in that space of brokenness for so long and I was living for self, that was it.

I was trying to satisfy myself. In that world and I tried everything. I literally, I tried everything and so when God first grabbed my heart and convicted me of that I had to respond. That was my response is to do something about it. And then later on as we got married and then.

This prompting of to go to church and then all these things I had to do something about it. I couldn't just sit in that space any longer, so I had to do something and that reminds me of just one of the gems of if we actually applied everything that we'd learn, we wouldn't have to probably learn too much more in life.

If we actually applied or did something about the revelation that God gives us that his Holy Spirit gives us every single day or moments throughout life, we probably wouldn't have to learn too much more 'cause we'd be putting these things into action. And so I had to respond to that. So part of this service was I had to respond.

So once, once I realized that God was real in, in Michelle and our story and I realized that wow, there's something or someone bigger than me in this world. I've gotta do something about this. So I had to find out who he was. And so that's when we joined into a connect group, a family group, and we got into the word, I started journaling.

Like I got books and books of journals and journals of where we just daily devotions and spent time with God. And so I learned about who this person was. That he's an actual person and so I had to do something about it. 'cause in his word he says that, it's one thing to believe, but it's another thing to actually follow and do something about it.

So me being a young a DD kid that, I was all about action. Like I was never about just theory of things. I had to do something about it. So fast forward into the doing of life is once I learned this nature of who this. This amazing God was, and that he said that he came to serve others not to be served.

Then I naturally had to jump into that space as well. Our kids went into, the different kids ministries and so we joined in as well and we started serving in kids ministries. And so wherever we could pick up a towel or do whatever we could, we just did it. Because that was my response in who this Jesus was and what he meant to me.

Once I, once he'd revealed himself to me, I had to do something about it. I love that. Michelle. We were it. This has been really great. We've just been chatting about different things and I guess having revelation and even on the way here, Tim's family was very servant hearted growing up. They, they had, definitely his dad had the gift of hospitality. Like you come into his house and it was like, what do you want? Here it is. Yeah. Sit down, be served. So that was demonstrated to him as a young person. And then I was even thinking my mom was an acts of service person. I wanted words of affirmation and physical touch, but she knew how to do things.

Yeah. 'cause that's how she grew up. Just that revelation that we had on the way here this morning. That the thing that we as children, because as a parent you do serve your children, but as your children grow, they have to then start to learn what serving is. And it's the same as, Jesus models to us that.

You serve people, that's what you do when you love them. So as we mature in faith, that's what we do out of that as well. So that was a pretty cool revelation we had. Yeah, that's so good. And this was not a question on our list, but did, how did you find you just modeled by doing. With serving with what was in your hand to your children?

'cause all of your children serve in some context in their current stage in life as well. How do you, what do you think you did? Was it intentional or just they just saw what you were doing? I think so. I would like to ask them all that question actually. But I can remember even the first time a person made me a meal when I had our middle child.

And I was so blown away that somebody would go out of their way to make me a meal to help our family. It just ignited the seed inside of me. 'cause I love cooking and so it's I wanna do that for everyone. That's because it helps, it was just something very practical, but it just blew my mind.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'd add to that, like coming outta that, feeding the 5,000 and, like when his, Jesus, he's sharing life to all these people and and he says to, disciples, send him off, get him some date, blah, blah, blah.

And they're like where are we gonna get all this? And so we know the story, 'cause their lack of faith or whatever it is, and Jesus knows what's going on, obviously. And and so they say, you know what? We can't do this. And what do you want us to do?

Jesus? And he says you feed him. And so there's another gem that God gave me years ago. When I got into ministry, he said, you feed him. And I was like what can I feed him? Just like the disciples said what can I feed him? And he said, what do you have in your hand? What are the gifts that I've given you?

What's the things that I've given you in life? What do you have available to you would do something with that? What do you have in your hand? And so I've always just operated outta that. So whatever I can do. Whatever's in front of me with a person in front of me, the needs that's in front of me, if I can do something about that well, and if the Holy Spirit's prompting me, do something about it.

Yeah. That's so good. It actually ties in with, last week I interviewed Erin about God speaking to her about. Starting a mom's group and she's in that phase of life. And we talked about what's in your hand. And Kev briefly mentioned it earlier about the lunchbox idea, but we, I had two people come last week and share just ideas that God has been speaking to them about.

And we will over time when we get a bit more clarity on those thoughts, share it. The community here, because there might be some of you sitting there thinking, I'd like to be a part of that. And it's their seed idea of a group they wanna start or a ministry they wanna have. And it's that it's what's in my hand and God's been sharing with me about this.

And what do you think? Think that's exciting. 'cause that's where we say we shouldn't just come to church on a Sunday. We should go and be the church every day of the week. And the only way we can do that is if each person makes an active choice to go and do that. We don't come here on Sunday to do ministry.

We're actually doing ministry every day in our workplace with what's in our hand. We're loving on people, we're being kind, showing kindness and how we operate in our business. Shows that servant hearted leadership as well. Yeah, that's right. It's a huge topic, but yeah, because they're not two separate things, are they?

No. Yeah. If we're truly made in the image of God and he's truly given us gifts and talents that are unique to us then what I've always said to myself is who am I to get in the road of that? Who am I to get in the road of what God wants to do in me and through me? And so that's why we've just gotta be an open vessel.

And it's gotta be that in all areas of life. It can't just be in the, oh, I'm gonna be that good Christian serving person and make a cup of tea for someone on a Sunday morning. It's no, we can't just be that. It's gotta be a whole of life transformation. Not that we're perfect, as Kev pointed out, none of us are perfect, but God wants us to be whole and holy.

We are made in his image to be whole and holy. So he wants us to be, to restoring us on a daily basis. So we need to just be turning that, that position of just turning from the old and turning to the new and saying, Jesus, what do you wanna do with me now in this moment? What do you wanna do with me now in this day?

I commit myself to you. I give you my mind, my heart, my soul, and my strength. Work in me, work through me. Yeah. It's so good. And you guys have done this in terms of overseas mission as well. So we talk a lot about local mission, and Tim and Michelle have done loads of that, but particularly Thailand has a piece of your heart.

Can you tell us how did Thailand become part of your journey and what sort of serving did you do there? Or have you done? Yeah. Great. And a real quick setup too there, Nate, is that, once, once I realized God was real and wanting to serve him in all areas of life, it's literally all areas of life and with what gifts and passions that he's given you.

And so part of that, action, adventure-based person that I was growing up and still am now, that was an easy outwork for me, to do with people, in, in all areas of life. And I love the example that Jesus said, go into all the world, so here first locally and whatever's around you, whoever's in front of you, and then nationally as well, in all Jerusalem or Judea and to Samaria, the ends of the earth.

So what is it nationally that we're doing that we can be part of as well? And then internationally as well. And so serving everywhere has always been a big part of it. In the early days, Michelle and I were helping friends over in we're talking 20 plus years ago in, in China, where we're literally taking Bibles across the water and helping out in orphanages and things like that, and so that's where we got a real taste in our heart for that overseas mission as well.

And then fast forward from there, did. Several trips with teams to Papua New Guinea in the slums Port Mosby, another amazing eyeopener as well. And then being exposed down here on the Gold Coast to effective aid and what they've been doing for the last 20 plus years over on the border of Thailand and Myanmar with refugees.

Like it's still a war torn nation. It's been a war torn nation for 70 plus years. And literally no one's doing anything about it. It's just in this dark center of the earth, like it's almost the ends of the earth. And refugees are still flooding out of there.

And so once I got exposed to that nine years ago, once again, what was in my hand, I had to do something about it. And so every year I've been running teams back there. To Thailand on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Burma. And taking people into these places where it's a an orphanage or to into the refugee camp or into villages and things like that.

And having that firsthand exposure, because remember I said, I'm an action man. I gotta do something. And so when I did something and I tasted in it, I had to do more and more. And so now I sit alongside. Good friend of ours Chris McConnell on the Board of Effective Aid. And we are doing something about it, doing something.

It's just a, it's just a handful of us, and there's a bunch of people in the room that have been there before and we are just doing something about it, rather than just, 'cause the need is great, isn't it? In the world? The need is great, but what God highlights to you and puts in front of you, then he asks you or invites you to do something about it.

Yeah. That's so good. Can you think of a specific moment maybe from Thailand or also so I, we didn't. We said it earlier, but Tim's also worked as a chaplain in schools for many years. Is there a story or something you think you could share about how you feel like you were serving washing feet in a very real way?

Like maybe not a spotlight, like servings. A lot about getting behind the scenes. Something, yeah. Yeah. Michelle and I talked about this a lot and w we both love the behind the scenes stuff. E even though for a, some people, I do a lot of upfront stuff. The behind thete scenes stuff is where it counts.

I think I think it's to be said that your private life determines your public life. I'll say that again. Your private life determines your public life. So spending time with God, getting to know him, being with him, having that intimacy, that union with him allows you, then I believe, then, the Holy Spirit wants to just work with you out into that public space as well.

And so I think in behind the scenes. A lot of those times where I've met with countless students over the 21 years of doing youth ministry where you've had tho where you're having those one-on-one conversations, and we've all done this, we've all been part of this. When we have those one-on-one conversations and someone's perhaps in tears or in brokenness, and they're asking the question why, they're saying, why is life like this?

Why is bad things happen? Why is this happening in my life? And I'll just love that. Simple answer of, is that God created sin, broke it, but Jesus is restoring it. Where are you now and where do you want to be? And most people wanna be restored, and so I love those little serving moments behind the scene where it is the conversations in a courtyard with a student, or it is the walking down the hallway and chatting to someone and where it is encouraging someone, where it is loving on someone, where it is cooking a meal for someone, where it is just serving and just going out of your way to acknowledge and appreciate someone for who they are.

I love that. Michelle, what about you? I didn't specifically put this in the list either, but as a mom I know I have felt sometimes oh, I've got no time to do extra. But I believe serving our kids, as you said earlier, is core. It's a core ministry. It's part of what we do as a mom. But can you share a story where servings felt a bit messy or.

The behind the scenes, like what have you done as a mom raising kids across a lifetime? How have you still allowed God to use you with what's in your hand? I think from that seed that ignited with that meals as Tim was talking about, how we supported these missionaries in China. So there was three lots of missionaries over in China at one stage, and they just kept talking about how.

They couldn't get this food or they couldn't have that, and, they were missing a lot of home stuff. So we created a a care package. And they, we would just send the list, whatever it is, doesn't matter, heart content. And we would, and then we sent, put it out to the church and we had lists.

So people would take I'll take that one. I'll do this one. I'll do that one. Yeah. And then we would send these boxes over so that each of these families would. Get these amazing, oh, cherry rips, Tim Tams, yeah. All these special things. 'cause they had young kids over there as well. So that was a way that I could just in the background Yeah.

Do that, organize that, coordinate that youth on a Friday night, I would go in and do the cooking and we would have volunteers, but volunteers often. Life happened. Yeah. So it would be my kids alongside me, ordering them around, get the chips and get this and come on, do this.

Yeah. They were serving alongside us. Yeah. Which I think, the question you asked before, I think is a good Yeah. Reason why they know how to serve, because. Became part of who they were as they were growing up. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. I like that idea of taking our kids along with us on mission and ministry.

We often, sometimes we can think, oh, it's too inconvenient. There's that word. It's inconvenient to have my kids there because they're, they need my attention. They've got questions. But I'm trying to focus on this ministry that I'm doing, but I would. Say to reframe that is this inconvenience of our kids asking questions and being there is actually the ministry?

Absolutely. Are we missing it? If we think that doing the thing is the ministry taking them on the journey and modeling to them and including them. Even though it's inconvenient and maybe stressful is I think really important. So yeah. For parents that are in the room and you think, oh, my child's being annoying to others, please don't feel like that.

We love the kids in the room. We love the energy and the crying sometimes, and. Means because they're here. That's right. Like it's exciting that they're here, they're in the room. And for the teenagers that choose to be here on a Sunday when they could be at the beach or surfing or whatever, how awesome that they choose to be with spiritual family.

So yeah. I was just gonna mention one time that messiness, it was one of those days where you are serving from morning to night and we were in pack up mode and one of the kids went missing. And I was just beside myself. And you go into that place of, I've been concentrating on everything that's happening.

She was in the kitchen helping somebody do something. Oh. Yeah. We looked everywhere for her. So that was a, it was a big property too. So to give context, it wasn't like here it was a bit more contained the church and which was spread out with bushland around either side. Yeah. That would've been scary.

Yeah. And on that too, need, I think the big thing, this is for us parents as well. Is that, we get involved in the task, whether it be business or work or whatever the task is in front of us. It could be even serving or whatever it is, and we forget about the person of, and as you said, our first responsibility is our children.

If God's gifted us children, then it's our responsibility first and foremost to disciple them in the way they should go by demonstrating and getting alongside. And so we should never let the task of something be more important than the person of, 'cause that's the most important thing, is Jesus came to save us as a person, not as the task of the doing, but as the person first and foremost.

And we weren't always perfect at that either. Yeah. We, made lots of mistakes in that space. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. What would you say to someone here today who's thinking, I don't have anything to offer. I'm too young or I'm too old. I, I don't have anything. I'll leave that to the others.

What's an encouragement you would have for them? I'll take this one because Okay. I've often felt that way. Okay. Whereas Tim has, I believe, a lot of gifts. He came to faith with a lot of stuff in his hand. He had a lot of stuff in his toolbox where I was like, I've got nothing. Aw. That's what I felt like anyway.

Yes. And it's okay because God has been the one who has. Put the tools in there's nothing there. God says, look again. Oh, there is something there. Yeah. So I would encourage anybody that feels that way to actually ask God, what have I got? What have I got in my toolbox? Because it, it's not even a matter of what we've got that we are good at.

It's just what does God want you to do today? What does he want you to do in this instance? Yeah. Yeah. So ask God. That's good. Can you give us a example of something that you felt like you couldn't do and then you did and God blessed it when He asked me to get onto stage and talk. Yes. Or to sing today.

Or to sing. Yeah. You sang on the team for many years. Yeah, and it was because Tim wanted to too. He said, I think you should. I think you should. And then 'cause I want to, but then I felt God doing that. And I was like no, I don't know. And so I did for a small season. That was enough. I felt very, anyway, out of your comfort, that's the.

Job. I think the big thing in, in this, that Michelle and I talk about a lot is where it comes from is also tied back to your identity of who you are. 'Cause we are made in the image of God and he's given us gifts and talents and things to do and so our identity. Is so pinpoint to it.

And so we would say to you, to every single person, to anyone is if, I dunno what I'm, I dunno what I can do and I dunno what to do. And so many young people after working 21 years with young people, the biggest question is, I don't know what to do with my life. I dunno what I'm gonna, and when I get older and when I blah, blah, blah.

It's just, ask God. Who do you say I am? Yeah. So if you ask Jesus, if you ask Holy Spirit, who am I? Who do you say I am?

And listen, and obviously you're not gonna do it while your kids tug it at you and say, oh mom dad. But when you're in that quiet space and just say, Jesus, who do you say I am? And then listen. 'cause he'll give you your identity. Yeah. He'll show you who you are. Yeah. And then from that place, it's yeah I am a warrior, I am a shepherd.

I am the, I am I can and I can. And once you tie everything back to that bigger picture, there's nothing's gonna stop you when you're connected to Jesus. 'cause you and Jesus, you can do anything. You can do Absolutely. Anything. That's so good. Thank you for that encouragement. After all these years.

Of serving and doing something with what's in your hand? What does it mean now for you to pick up a towel and serve Jesus? I know you're moving into a different season. Tim, you've recently retired from chaplaincy, although you never retire from the Kingdom, right? So what does it look like for you in the next season?

Or are you in that season of just listening? Exactly. Yeah. We're definitely in that season and we are learning more about, just being in union with God and listening and waiting and so that's what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, because that's right. 'cause. As Kev always says, like the temple is this, this is not the temple.

This is a building. Let's be real. This is bricks and mortar and carpet and lights and things like that. Electricity. This is the temple. This is what every single one of you is what Jesus died for, so that his Holy Spirit could dwell in you. The temple of the living God. That's right. And so therefore, from that place, we have union with God, we have everything with God.

We have restoration in God. We live from, we live, we breathe, we have our being. Our whole life is in God and he's in us. And from that place, that vine that Jesus talks about, I'm the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. You can do nothing. Nothing at all. And so our very breath comes from him.

So we, we have to have that intimacy with God and serving no matter how we feel. We can't be overruled or overrun by our feelings and our emotions. That's part of that soul that we give over to you. I'll give you my soul, Jesus. I give you my emotions and my will to you, Jesus. And regardless of how I feel, I'm tired.

I'm this, I'm, it's no, Jesus, I just give it all back over to you. But I think this, I, now, I give you my mind, my thoughts, my actions, my words. Yeah, sorry. I was just gonna say, in this new community, we're already starting to get to know people and we're just listening. We're we are, how can we serve this person?

How can we help this person? There's people going through hard stuff and we're hearing about it already, which, you know. It feels like a privilege because we can step in, we can offer help with whatever. So I realized I didn't say earlier, but Tim and Michelle have recently moved to Coochie Malow Island.

Coochie Maldives. Thanks very much for me. Maldives, you might know as Coochie Mud Low, but its Coochie Maldives. That's so good. Yeah, and they are ex. Exploring what a new community looks like. They were on a very early ferry this morning, so it probably feels like lunchtime now for you here. Yeah, so there's a whole new season opening up.

In a moment I'm going to pray for you and Kirsten's gonna sing a beautiful song for us to do a little bit of reflection after that. But I wanted to take the opportunity today because we did put a post out on our. Our church family Facebook page. If you're not on that and you want to be, please reach out and let us know, because we do only add people when they request and they're part of our community.

But there was a post put up a couple of months ago now about a Thailand mission trip, so linking to what you were sharing earlier about Thailand for 2026. And there's an expression of interest on the QR code on the back of your seat if you're keen to put that in. But Tim, give us a. One minute elevator pitch for the Thailand missions trip.

What is the purpose of it? How could people be involved? One minute. Michelle's laughing. Nate. Yeah, so Effective Aid International has been running for, 20 plus years on the border of Thailand, Myanmar, as we said, with refugees. And a bunch of people in the room have been there some, a couple times as well, and know these people firsthand.

You'll go into an orphanage, you'll go into a refugee camp, into refugee village. You'll be firsthand with people that literally will come over and meet you from Myanmar students and that you'll pray, you'll sing, you'll worship, you'll you'll do some teaching discipling.

You'll encourage all those sorts of things. And it like anything to do with any sort of overseas generally mission is it will confront you personally and it will challenge you and it will potentially transform your life forevermore. So I would encourage any single person that's thinking about, or always wanting to do any sort of, mission or overseas mission.

Even though we're missionaries every single day in all that we do, this is just a amplified version of that. And so we're gonna watch a video later on at the end of church, and it'll just show a bunch of the people in the room here that have they've been on that trip as well. You didn't mean every single person did you?

What? When you said every single person, you meant every, everyone, every person in the room. Every person. Single, married. That's, I didn't get that one. Young, old. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your heart and for teaching us how to serve living Life on Mission. I think you've both really demonstrated that in your personal lives, in your workplace just being here in our church community.

We've loved having you growing and. Serving with you also. So I'm gonna pray for you, and then Kirsten's going to sing as Kirsten sings. This song, I would encourage you to think about what Tim and Michelle have challenged us to think about today, about what is in your hand, what is God prompting you to do how.

How can you make a difference in your world or what is God asking you to do with what's in your lunchbox? The loafs and the fish, the little boy came with his. Like me lunch and God just multiplied that. I wonder what God could do through an idea that you have or just that ability to say yes to him and step out and he might multiply that.

So just join with me as I pray now for Tim and Michelle. Father, God, I just thank you for. Tim and Michelle, I thank you for their bravery to step out and share their story particularly Michelle, who is not a comfortable spot on the microphone and under a spotlight. But Lord, we thank you for the encouragement, for the courage they have poured into our hearts today for the encouragement that they are when we talk to them.

And Lord, I thank you for their story. Father, we pray for them this morning as they head into new waters. And a new community and a new space. Lord, it's not retirement from the jobs that they know, but it's advancement in the kingdom. Lord, I pray that you would put into their heart opportunities and new ideas on how to reach this community.

And Lord, we pray for a fruitful ministry and life on cima though Lord, that the people that they meet would be impacted by. Their presence because they carry the Holy Spirit with them. So Father, we just thank you. We thank you for them. We pray that as they go and they are intentionally missional with the people that they meet, that lives would be changed, that people would be turned to you, and that people would know Jesus because of their servant heart.

Lord, we just thank you for them. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Can you thank Tim and Michelle? Thank you so much.