“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Pet 5:6–7). These two very familiar verses are usually quoted separately, although in classic Petrine style, the imperatives are almost always accompanied by one (or more) participles. This chapter instructs us to live humbly before our sovereign God in several different settings, and one of the most challenging is to humbly submit to God when we are suffering. Surely that can’t be the best way, right? Peter proposes humble submission under God’s providential hand, waiting for his perfect timing. Meanwhile, we demonstrate that humble submission by trusting his sovereign care and allowing God to take charge of all the “what ifs” that plague our minds.

The highlight of this past month for us was the chance to travel 450 miles north to Arica and spend  four days with the Flincks. They took us to the beach to go swimming in the ocean, and we traveled quite a ways up one of the three valleys that flow down to Arica. We walked the coastline at sunset and joined the church plant for their Wednesday evening prayer meeting. We were able to visit a house that they hope to purchase, and we shared Thanksgiving dinner with them and several other American guests. Back in Antofagasta, Mark finished his teaching series through the book of 1 Peter, and as always, we had several guests visit in our house and enjoyed the time with them. It is a blessing to be able to serve our brothers and sisters in small ways, with good food, a listening ear, and biblical encouragement. Several of our church family had birthdays, and we got to celebrate with them, and we hosted our teammates for a Sunday afternoon lunch. It was a good month!

This coming month brings lots of travel, so we appreciate your prayers for safety, health, and profitable ministry. Mark will be in Santiago for the first week of January for the annual meeting of the Chilean churches. The following week we will be traveling to Argentina for our annual GMSA missionary conference. We appreciate your prayers for us. We can trust our sovereign God because he cares for us.

This is our December 2024 email update. You can sign up to receive our updates in your inbox here. You can download a printable PDF here.