From a Friends Blog...

Important

I heard from a dear brother named Tim Shontere tonight who is back for a few months while his wife has their third child. He is in his late 20s and at 19 he decided that, though he did not feel a "call," that the Lord had already called everyone to go. He stopped pursuing the many dreams he could have pursued as a skilled young man and took his wife to the YembiYembi tribe in Papua New Guinea where he has been for the last 9 years. He has let the harsh conditions take 15 to 20 years off his life expectancy and probably his childrens' too. He said that when he returned to the States he was handed 17 letters from other tribes in New Guinea with their own languages that no one speaks. They are begging for someone to come to them. Tim said he's heartbroken because he responds to them that there is no one to send. He said their reply was, "Then this message must not be as important as you say it is."

Is my car, house, job, and family my end? Or, are they a means to an end: the Gospel. Does the place I live... the car I drive... the dreams I chase... Do they make the Gospel look important?

Getting My Feet Wet

So it’s the end of my third week at First Glance. For those of you who don’t know what First Glance is or how I got here read my previous posts below. Just a quick update financially. I am about half way funded for the next two years. It has been an amazing experience as I have watched your support and love pour in. I can’t describe to you the feeling you get when you feel completely blessed by God as new support comes in. It is an amazing feeling to step out in faith then see God provide. It is such a faith building experience. I continue to pray that more support would come in so I can continue my ministry. I know that God will provide.

I have another circumstance which I am praying for and I ask you to pray with me. The house I and my roommates currently rent is getting foreclosed on. This means I am going to have to move very soon. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is not ideal because this means I have to move very quickly. However, this is God providing in a way because I desire to move into Kenmore amongst the people I am ministering to. We could not have gotten out of our lease this quickly and I did not want to leave my roommates in the “lurch”. It is definitely an answer to prayer for me. However it is causing me to really have to trust God more because I don’t know my living situation after October 1st. Would you join me in praying that God’s will would be done whatever the situation, but also pray that God would provide affordable housing in the area I am ministering. Pray that I would be ale to discern God’s leading.

One area I have been struggling with as I start out on this new adventure is discerning God’s voice among all the others. I feel like the more I seek him the more I seem to have to struggle to find him. I believe part of this is due to the fact that Satan does not like how I am following after God and he is throwing a lot at me to try to confuse me. I believe also at time God allows us difficulty in seeking him to grow our faith. I have taken comfort and hope in Psalms 42

1 

As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.

2 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?

3 

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

4 

These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One[d]
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

5 

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

6 

My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

7 

Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

8 

By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.

9 

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”

10 

My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

11 

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

I hope this encourages you to seek God during your “dark’ times when God does not seem to be near.

The first three weeks have been a learning process as I learn about First Glance and how it operates. I have also enjoyed learning about new students I meet and learning about the culture of Kenmore and the inner city. I have been blessed to meet with numerous experienced leaders from various ministries in Akron and have been trying to soak up their advice and input. It has been very valuable as I seek to follow Jesus and get to dialogue with people who are further ahead in the journey then I am. I pray that God gives me the grace to be humble and realize I will make mistakes, and I can’t do this on my own. It has been exciting to see how First Glance is entering into a season of harvest and I am blessed to be a part of it. I hope you can be blessed in sharing with us in it as well. If you ever want to physically come and be a part of First Glance our doors are always open for more Christlike volunteers. Contact me if you want more information.

Love as a brother in Christ,

Benjamin Rahe

It's About Time

So it’s about time I update my blog. I have been away for quite a while and way to much has happened in my life since then. Instead I am going to share a letter I recently wrote detailing some of what God is doing in my life. After that I will be posting to my blog much more regularly. I am excited to continue to share how God is writing the story of my life. Here is the letter:

Dearest friends and family,

I hope this letter finds you all well and being blessed in abundance through seeking after our Lord. For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). I pray that as you seek to know and love him more you will get to see his intricate workings in your lives and more intimately come to know him.

As I have been seeking God more in my life and learning more of his character and his ways, I feel called to greater action in serving for his kingdom. As many of you already know I have a heart for missions and feel that one day I will be called to the foreign missions field. However, I have felt that until I learn to really live out my
faith, or be “on mission” in my own country, among my own people; what right do I have to go elsewhere and be a missionary? For the last two or three years I have been really trying to live out what I see laid out in the Bible. It has definitely been a struggle and a learning and growing process. As I study the Bible for myself I can come to no other conclusion but that Christ wants all of me, fully surrendered, to be used for his work. In Matt 16:24 Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” I have been trying to really live this out, not living for the temporary pleasures in this world that we so often seek for in our American culture, and instead seeking only to live for things in the life to come. In Matt 6:19-21 Jesus tells us not to store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. There is obviously a great cost in this, but if we say we believe what the Bible says, then the promises laid out in it are much greater than the temporal pleasures in this world. If we really believe everything in the Bible as truth like we claim, the question then really becomes are we willing to do what it commands, even when those commands often sound extreme.

So why am I sharing all of this with you? As I meditate on these truths, coupled with experience in the short term mission’s field and in ministry that I volunteer with her at home, God has revealed to me that I need to take a step of faith out into full time ministry. Out of circumstances that only God could orchestrate I have been offered, and decided to take a position with a ministry in the Kenmore neighborhood of Akron, Ohio called First Glance. First Glance’s Mission is to connect students and their communities to Christ and the Church through real, loving and non-threatening avenues. We work to meet the needs of the community by sharing the love and hope of Christ with the local teens. Over 3,000 individual students have come through our doors in the past three years. Over 100 people continually volunteer with us. 

At First Glance I will be running their student leader program. This program gives students who are serious about being leaders, or taking the next step in their faith the chance to really excel at doing so. I will be getting to personally disciple some of the inner city students, as well as disciple the volunteer leaders that God brings to help run this program. I will also be running a recreational night which is an opportunity for students to come to a safe place and hang out. It is here that we as adult leaders have the opportunity to intentionally build relationships, mentor, and disciple students.
First Glance is such a light in these kids’ lives as most of them have no church experience, and this is our chance to show them Christ’s love. First glance also offers many other programs to meet the needs of the community, and most importantly to share the gospel.

The reason why this is such a big step of faith for me to take is this; I will be going part time at the fire department at which I am working now. I will be working minimal hours, just enough to cover my school loans. I will be a missionary intern for the next two years, meaning I have to raise all of my support to cover the cost of living. I have faith that because God is calling me to follow him in this endeavor, he will provide the means. One verse that has been challenging to me in this area is Proverbs 30:7-9. “Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” This is such a challenging and un-American prayer to pray. Lord, let me live day to day so I can fully depend on you. Don’t we want to be comfortable and in control though? I know the Lord will provide for my needs (Matt 6:25-34) but I believe it will be a daily dependence on him.

As part of the same body in Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31) I know we all have different gifts to help in ministry. I would like to humbly ask you to use your gifts and partner with me as I seek to follow after Christ in this new adventure. You can help share in this in several ways. First and foremost I would ask for your partnership in prayer. Without prayer there is no power in ministry as we just try to do things on our own. I have attached a prayer card with requests that you could put up on your refrigerator to remind you to pray for me. I will also be regularly posting on
my blog http://mypartintheepic.blogspot.com/. I hope this can be an encouragement for you as you see God working, and see him shaping and molding my heart. Another way I would humbly ask you to partner with me is through action. As I stated before I will need to raise my own support. Would you please prayerfully consider supporting
me with a one-time, monthly, or annual donation? I estimate that I need somewhere around $1000 a month for the next two years to support myself off of. I do not feel right about using your support to pay of school loans, so as I said before I will use money from the fire department for that. As I am accountable to you, my supporters in my ministry I would like to be transparent in how I utilize the money I spend and will attempt to keep you updated. Again, First Glance is a nonprofit organization and all your donations are tax deductible.I have included a page that explains the process for giving. Your support will help to provide opportunities for Christ to work through me in reaching a hurting community. 

Thank you all so much for your love and encouragement over the years.

Love as a brother in Christ, 

Benjamin Rahe

So there you have a brief update. I would love to meet and talk with any one of you individually. If you would like to do this either contact me via my phone or email me at ben@firstglance.org. I also would ask that you would partner with me. I can use all the prayer I can get so I am going to add the prayer requests that I sent out with my support letter to the bottom of this post. I also still have a long way to go until I am fully supported, so if you still want to support me and you haven’t gotten a support letter, email me and I will send one to you. If you are unable to support me monetarily, anything is helpful and accepted (ie... a hot meal, meeting for prayer, extra toilet paper). Thank you all for the support I have received so far. It has been an incredible blessing.

Love you all,

Ben