“In God we trust” is our familiar, all-American go-to phrase, but how do we do that when we are all bound up by fear? Fear is holding you back right now. Me too.

Scripture talks about many times when God asks His people to do something crazy, irrational, and dangerous! How about Abraham when God asks him to leave his land, his family, and everything that was familiar and comfortable to him to head out to an unknown destination? Think he was full of fear? You betcha. God’s message to him: “Fear not.” The same applied to Joshua, when he was to lead the children out of the wilderness and into the promised land. He saw some giants and everyone around him was in a panic. God’s message: “Fear not.” Scripture tells us not to fear over a hundred times! I think He is sending us a message.

Many times we think, “I will take the leap when it looks a little more certain.” Or, “If God gives me a neon sign, it will be less scary.” Let me tell you, faith is not about living “safe”. It never has, and never will be. Our “safety net” is always Jesus. It is not our bank account, the economy, our stuff, or other people…purely Jesus. If we waited ’til everything was safe and certain, we would accomplish very little for God or anyone else.

What are you afraid of? Losing a loved one? Losing your nest egg? Not being accepted by others? Never knowing your purpose in life? People are always telling us, “Oh, I could never do what you guys are doing!” What they are really saying is, “I am too afraid.” I want to let you in on a little secret…

SO. ARE. WE.

Man, it feels GOOD to get that out! Do you think for a second that we aren’t afraid? We are afraid of living in a new country where the people don’t speak English. Plus, it’s hot there — really, really hot — and I hate heat! We are afraid of what people must be thinking. (Our families aren’t exactly running beside us with pom poms.) We are afraid that all of you won’t sow into God’s mission for us. We fear people can’t relate to us anymore. The point is, we are afraid.

What would you do for God if you knew you couldn’t fail? He is big enough. We all have fears. We can not run from them! Stand up to fear, look it in the eye and say, “NO! My God said to fear not!” Our lives cannot be ruled by fear, but by the Word of God!

We are at the place of looking fear in the eyes as we are called out to live and be full-time missionaries in Thailand. So, we do it afraid. We lean on His strength and activate the age old saying, “In God we trust.” Can we ask you, our friends and family, to do the same?

We finished our monthly support letters and they will be going in the mail this week. We need to start the last part of this process, which is raising the money to go. We need financial support for our airline tickets, transportation, passports, work visas, first monthly expenses, and much more. The reality is, we need to raise $16,500 just to go.

When I wrote that number down my first reaction was, “Oh Lord, give me more faith”. My second, much stronger reaction, is to remember what God did almost exactly three years ago. We needed $32,000 to go to New Zealand. The night before we boarded that loooong flight, we still needed $9431.13. We had no idea how He was going to do it. A lot of you remember that night, because for many of you, God did a miracle in your heart. You got to meet the God of miracles — to see a church give an offering that was the exact dollar amount — TO THE PENNY. God’s big. Real big. He expanded all of our faith. He grew it! It was an incredible time, and many of you sowed into it. We got to hear many faith stories of how God used that night to change lives. What an honor to see His glory! What IF God is who He says He is, then can we trust Him?

So He reminds us. Sometimes daily. “Fear not.”

There it is. $16,500 to leave in two months. We are praying we raise half in the next three weeks. We really need to get Tessa’s passport and my work visa…like, yesterday. If you feel called to be His hands and feet, please hit the ‘donate’ button on top of our blog. Airline tickets are already jumping up, so we are hoping to get them booked in the next few weeks. Will you join us in this journey? We want to give these kids a new hope, one where they go from losing all the light in their eyes to finding the One who brings the light. We need to hear their cries. They are crying. We may choose not to listen, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t crying. We have to do this because…God said go!

In His grip, Samm & Angie

p.s Come out tomorrow to The Crossing for a live album recording and we will have table set up selling jewlery, we would love to talk to you guys!