Visiting Home

Our lives on deputation have become such that when we return home, it’s not to stay, but merely for a visit. Nevertheless, we always enjoy visiting home. This last visit lasted for 10 fast and yet refreshing days. We rolled into town from Pennsylvania 20 minutes before our church’s annual business meeting. What made the service significant for our mission team is that the church was voting to officially accept the responsibility to become the sending church for the Bixby and Cole families. Though we were politely excused during that portion of the service, we were reintroduced and told that church family had unanimously voted to support each family for $350 a month. Between this support and the individual support of families within the church, our home church currently provides nearly 10% of our ultimate financial goal. This is actually quite astounding considering the small size of the congregation and the fact that they are doing this for two families in the church and not just one.

Another highlight of our home visit was the privilege to present our ministry to our former home church: Mount Calvary Baptist Church of Greenville. Pastor Mark Minnick and the people of MCBC were so gracious to us. It was almost nostalgic to be able to go back to the church that has played such a formative role in my own life and ministry, a church where I was a member for seven years, where Ruth and I served and grew together as a newly married couple, and where we still have many friends. Their generous love offering frankly astounded us and overwhelmed us with gratitude. We think highly of the MCBC leadership and church family and were delighted to be able to reconnect with them. We were so preoccupied with talking with different people that we completely forgot to take even one single picture. Sorry about that. We did get a few pictures of our pre-service dinner with my Uncle Steve and Aunt Donna Bixby and family (see above), who are members at Mount Calvary.

Some other highlights of our home visit (of which we do have pictures) involved time spent with friends from CPBC. Last Thursday we enjoyed an evening with our pastor and family. The Casillases kept our children while we went to the county offices to submit our absentee ballots. (It is nice to not even have to pay attention to the presidential debates or political mêlée since we have already cast our votes!) Micaiah and Miriam love playing with the Casillas children. Following the fulfillment of our citizenry responsibilities we enjoyed plenty of good food and fellowship with Pastor Ken, Soraya and their children.

Before we left for Florida on Saturday (September 27) we stopped by to visit with a dear man we highly respect and dearly love: Leo West. Last week, at the young age of 84, Leo (whom our children affectionately refer to as “Papa Leo”) finally retired from caring for the church lawns. If you had stopped by our church this summer, you might have seen Leo riding the old red lawnmower in the burning South Carolina heat, or walking with a cane in one hand and a blower in the other. Though he suffers from severe arthritic pain, especially in his knees, Leo is in church for literally every service. His endurance is a challenge to me. He’s one of the reasons we always enjoy “visiting home.”

Slideshow: September in the Northeast

(Double-click on the slideshow to see it in a larger format.)

We returned on Wednesday from our last 2,500-mile trip. We had meetings in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Maryland. This trip also afforded us the opportunity to visit with family: Ruth's sister and her family in Berwick, Pennsylvania; Tim's sister and family in Stoughton, Massachusetts, along with their extra-special visitors--Tim's parents, who were in the States on a brief visit from France; and also Tim's Aunt Debbie and Uncle Phil Dierking of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.

Another special treat on this trip was the opportunity to visit with Pastor John and Diane McKnight (Evangelical Methodist Church of Darlington, MD). Pastor McKnight was a former pastor of Cleveland Park Bible Church, and was greatly used of the Lord here in Spartanburg in the late '80s and early '90s. (Unfortunately, the picture we took of them must have been inadvertently deleted.)

September/October Prayer Update

Dear Friends and Ministry Partners,

Where have we been in the last two months? Well, to tell you the truth, that’s a question I couldn’t answer off the top of my head. I had to look back at our calendar to remind myself of all the places we’ve gone. After you have been traveling for a while, all your separate experiences begin to amalgamate into one mosaic memory. Not that the individual pieces are all forgotten, but my memory doesn’t retain them on a chronological grid. A look back at our calendar has reminded me that in July and August we had meetings in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Ohio again, and North Carolina. Some highlights were the extra preaching opportunities I was given by several churches, including the opportunity to do a mini-series on the book of Jonah in Madison, Ohio; a biographical sketch of missionary William Carey in Rockford, Illinois; and a full day of preaching just last week in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Don’t forget that you can view pictures and frequent updates of our travels under “Bixby News” at www.HopeforFrance.org.

UPCOMING TRAVELS
Before you receive our next update letter, we are should have had meetings in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina again, Florida, Texas and—yes—Arizona. Please pray that God will prevent our Dodge Caravan (with more than 194,000 miles already on its record) from entering an unannounced early retirement. With our hopes set on leaving for France in less than a year, we don’t want to invest in another vehicle. On the other hand, neither do we want to break down on a deserted highway halfway across Texas! We are confident that God has sovereign control even over transportation concerns.

A DEPARTURE DATE
We do have some exciting news to share! My parents would like to come home on furlough next year and have asked us to come and replace them in their ministry in Bordeaux, France, during that time. Our plans are to go in mid-June 2009 and stay at least through the end of the year. If we have reached our support goal by the time we leave, we will simply remain on in France. (Boy, wouldn’t that be exciting!) If not, we may have to return for a few months in 2010 to finish raising the needed funds. Since we were already planning to kick off our French ministry in Bordeaux, this new opportunity comes not as a delay, but as an acceleration of our plans. It will allow us to get re-immersed into French ministry (I’ll be doing all the preaching in French), to study and improve our French skills in the university, and to begin preparations for our own future church plant. Needless to say, we are excited to have a departure date in sight.

Please pray that God will guide us as we begin to navigate the complicated visa system. We will soon have to choose between the short-term fix of applying for a student visa (good for one year) or the more permanent (and more difficult to obtain) long-term visitor’s visa. The determining factor will probably be how much support has been committed by the time we have to apply for our visas. Please pray that God will either bring in all of our permanent support in time for the June departure, or give us partners who would be willing to support us as short-term missionaries for the six months we hope to spend in France next year.

THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Adoniram Judson once said, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.” As we (along with you) look to the future with hearts full of aspirations and uncertainties, may we always remember that our lives are guided by the all-wise, all-powerful, and all-good God. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

In Christ,
Tim for the family

ITINERARY
September 3 — Greenville, SC
September 7 (am) — Reading, PA
September 7 (pm) — Berwick, PA
September 10 — Pepperell, MA
September 14-15 — Darlington, MD
September 24 — Greenville, SC
September 28 — Lady Lake, FL
October 1 — Winter Garden, FL
October 3-5 — Panama City, FL
October 12 — Houston, TX
October 15 — Rockwall, TX
October 19 — Katy, TX
October 22 — Tucson, AZ
October 26 (am) — Sahuarita, AZ
October 26 (pm) — Scottsdale, AZ
October 31 — Buckeye, AZ

Slideshow: Carolina Travels

It has been a special blessing to be based out of our home here in the parsonage of Cleveland Park Bible Church for the last month. Though during that time, we have only trekked across the parking lot to church three or four times. One of those visits afforded us the joy of hearing our future French co-workers, Michael and Liz Cole, present their burden for France to our home congregation. Having the doctoral work behind them, the Coles are now seeking to hit the road on full-time deputation. We all would appreciate your prayers for them to find open doors for services and that God would direct them to churches and individuals who would be able to partner with them in ministry.

We have been grateful for the opportunities to visit a number of churches in the Carolinas during this month, where we found many friends from the past. Among them was a visit to one of our more recent supporters, Grace Baptist Church of East Flat Rock, NC, (though I’m afraid we neglected to take any pictures to add to our slideshow!). We also visited Emmanuel Baptist of Mills River, NC, a church that has supported Tim’s parents since before he was born. A full Sunday in Goldsboro, NC, gave us a good excuse to visit my parents in Wake Forest, and another supporting church there: Friendship Baptist Church of Raleigh (alas! No pictures here either!). We thoroughly enjoyed our Sunday with the people of Trinity Baptist in Goldsboro, a church which we had visited as youth group chaperones in our newly-married days. The slideshow above will give you a little pictorial history of some of those recent travels.

The death of a dear friend: Omie Deaton

We were heading out the door this afternoon (literally) to visit a 98-year-old member of our church, when we got a phone call from Pastor Ken Casillas letting us know that Mrs. Deaton had just died. Micaiah, who was holding a drawing of three crosses that he had made and was planning on giving to Mrs. Deaton, burst into tears. We all are grieving a lady we loved.

Mrs. Deaton loved Ruth because she was from North Carolina and loved me because I was Ruth’s husband. She had a wry sense of humor and loved to tease and be teased. I remember the time (before I even became pastor) that I preached over time and didn’t end the service until 20 minutes after noon. She reminded me after the service that some people in the congregation had diabetes and couldn’t wait too long to eat. When I assured her that I would try harder next time to end earlier, she responded with a simple, sweet, yet authoritative, “Do.” When we visited her for the last time last Tuesday, she could hardly speak due to fatigue, paralysis on her right side (the effects of a stroke) and a broken arm that was wasn’t even discovered until later. Though she was clearly aware and appreciative of our presence, she didn’t say anything in return until we were ready to leave. Ruth leaned down and said, “We love you.” She replied, “I love you, too.” Then we promised her that we would return to visit her after our brief trip to North Carolina. She replied with her inimitable, “Do.” We missed that appointment by a couple of short hours.

Mrs. Deaton ministered to me as a pastor because she always had a vital interest in the progress of our small church. She had a definite opinion about why this or that person hadn’t joined yet, etc., but, oh, how she rejoiced when new members were added to the body. She had passed her 97th birthday before she had to stop coming regularly to church. I’m praying I’ll have a similar record of faithfulness.