Happy Tuesday, friends! We had our first two formal presentations this last weekend and – praise God – they both went well! Thank you so much to those who prayed specifically for the WOM Celebration on Friday and the Church Council meeting on Sunday. We are so thankful for the partners the Lord has given us already. I have a brief story from Friday and some updated praises and prayer requests at the end of this post, so read on!

Friday was a tough day, to be honest. I had to work from 7:30am – 5:30pm. I was supposed to be in Anchorage by 6:00pm (which did NOT happen) so that I could facilitate the evening session of the Celebration prior to teaching my breakout session. I arrived at 6:15pm, exhausted, and was told that I missed my breakout session, which was supposed to be that morning. Oops. It seemed like one thing went wrong after another and I felt so lonely and out of place. So going into sharing about our vision had me like this:

I stood up to begin sharing and said, “Hi, my name is Melissa… Batts. Not sure why I just paused. That was awkward. Let’s start over.” I turned around, took a breath, prayed, “Lord, I’m going to need you to do this for me!”, faced the audience again, and started over!

After my awkward start, I ended up sharing for about 15 minutes, probably, and was able to share some of our backstory, along with the key verses God has used to confirm His will, the vision He has given us, and what our next steps are. After I shared and sat down, several women shared with me their excitement for our family, how they would be praying for us, etc. It was so encouraging.

I was able to set up a table (with the tablecloth I got years ago from South Africa, a picture from my sweet and artistic friend Jade, some photos from Africa, a giraffe figurine from Ms. Linda, and our prayer cards) in the fellowship hall. It was so exciting to see a visual representation of what God is calling us to!

Praises:

• Positive and encouraging feedback from our ministry presentations this weekend!
• Allen and I went on a date Saturday night and the time away from everything was so nice and rejuvenating.
• Some women at the Celebration shared their desire for us to speak at their respective churches, so we are scheduling several ministry meetings this week.

Prayer Requests:

• At the FLBC Business Meeting on May 20th, we will formally be voted on by the church as to whether or not we are “sent” by FLBC and what their level of support will be. Please join us in praying for a unanimous affirmative vote!
• Pray for good time management to balance work, school, ministry commitments, prefield needs, family, etc.
• Our (aggressive) goal is to be at 50% support by June 25th so that we only have to fly to PA twice for training. Please join us in seeking the Lord’s will for partnerships this month!

We so value you and the time you spend before our Father lifting us up in prayer. Please comment below, send us a message, or email us with how we can be praying for you and your family as well!