This semester has been a tremendous few months of spiritual growth! The Lord has opened my eyes to blind spots of selfishness, discontentment, and wrong thinking. God has been using my personal time in the word, talks with Aaron and Stephanie through team devotions, and the local church to convict me. Throughout the semester we have been reading the book Radical and studying Hebrews 11-12. As I look at my life, I am convicted at how much I buy into the American dream of ease, comfort, security, and success. I am willing to live for Christ if it doesn’t cost me much but when I start having to sacrifice my dreams I want to take the easy road out! I don’t value Christ as worth giving my life to! I often think about what Paul says in Philippians 3: 7, “What things I counted gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Hebrews 11 portrays a list of people who lived extreme lives. They lived lives of faith because they realized that this life is just a shadow of the things to come. We are made to be pilgrims, pursuing a city whose builder and maker is God! This life is not meant to satisfy. Philippians 1:21 says, “for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!” Do I really consider death to be gain? Most of the time I cling so tightly to the temporary pleasures that this world can offer rather than the eternal treasures in Christ.

When I think through what I have learned while traveling two main things come to mind: loving God and others through the local church and living a faith walk pursuing Christ and what will last for eternity. I don’t want to just play Christianity. I want to radically pursue Christ and others! I want to sacrifice and be willing to die to self and the pleasures of this world! I don’t know what God has for me in the future (working, on the foreign field, single, poor…) but by His grace I am going to love Him more through it and thankfully take every trial seeing it as a good gift from the hand of my loving Father.

--Lala Schaedel

The first few months of 2012 have been exciting times as we have seen God work in some special ways. We know that many times we are called to simply be seed sowers and that much of the fruit of our labors will be harvested after we are gone. But it has been exceptionally rewarding as God has allowed us to be included in the harvesting side of many people coming to faith in Christ.

We started our spring in Florida, and did a month long meeting at Faith Baptist Church in Titusville. We began with a week long Bible Conference followed by three weeks of evangelistic training and planning evangelistic outreach events. We saw God both save souls for His glory as well as load the church with new relationships for further gospel contact!

We then moved into the Carolinas for four weeks. One of those weeks was at our home church—Westview Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. It was special to serve alongside of our own church family and provide venues for them to invite their guests to Gospel-focused outreaches throughout the week. The people were excited to see several of their relationships trust Christ at a men’s cookout and a ladies’ chocolate café.

This semester God has allowed us to do more outreach events than ever before. Aaron had the opportunity to speak at another Wild Game Dinner up in Clarkston, Michigan and share the Gospel (and some hunting stories) with several hundred unsaved men. Now that’s his kind of preaching! It is a blessing to plant Gospel seed and see God bring forth the fruit for His great name’s sake.

As we move into the Midwest for the remainder of our semester, we are anticipating that God will continue to move through the power of His Word. It is only through the good news of Jesus Chris that we can offer hope of salvation and lasting change. Please pray that God will continue to give us good ground on which to sow gospel seed for His Glory.