Preparing for Milano

The Lord has brought Kristi and myself, as He does with all His children, to a higher level of trusting Him for our provisions. I say that because, this morning the Lord had spoken to my heart about this very issue and I want to share that with you.  Here are those areas:

1. Don’t bargain with God (Genesis 28:10-22).

The Lord had given many promises to Jacob in verses 13-15, but when Jacob arose from his sleep, he made a vow to God saying “If God will be with me (God already said He would), and keep me in this way (God already said He would), and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on so that I come back to my fathers house in peace (God already said He would), then the Lord shall be my God (v.20-21).

What is he doing?  He wants to trade with God.  He says, “Now, God, if You will do this for me….”  But God has already told him that He is going to do every one of these things for him—“I am going to keep you; I am going to bring you back to this land; I am going to give you this land; and I’m going to give you offspring.”  Then Jacob turns around and bargains with Him, “If You will do it, then I’ll serve You.”

God doesn’t do business with us that way.  He didn’t do business that way with Jacob either. If He had, Jacob would never have made it back to that land.  God brought him back into that land by His grace and mercy. When Jacob did finally come back to Bethel, he came back a wiser man.  Do you know what he came back to do?  To worship and praise God for His mercy.  God had been merciful to him.

Many people even today say they will serve the Lord if He will do such and such.  Again, He doesn’t do business that way.  He will extend mercy to you, and He will be gracious to you without asking anything in return.  But He does say that if you love Him, you will really want to serve Him.  That will be the bondage of love.  It is the same kind of love a mother has for the little child.  She becomes its slave.  That’s the way that He wants you and me.

So, the Lord has shown me that He will provide for all of our needs that we have in order to move to Italy.  The needs are great, the legal aspects are great, finances, etc, but He will provide.

God bless you as you seek the Lord

Pastor Ronnie

It’s interesting reading Dave’s post about Daryl Record. My reading today in Exodus 4 states the same thing:

Moses states “I am not eloquent” and “what if they don’t listen to me”, etc.

God says, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you should say.”

As long as we trust in God and are constantly seeking to do His will, He will guide us. But it is so hard for me to believe because I don’t have much to offer. But Moses did great things. And I haven’t seemed to make an impact here at my work in the US. How can I go into another country and expect people to listen and understand me? I’ll have to trust that God will be with me like He was with Moses.

Spoke last night at CCLM. Daryl and his wife Kayo are going on a long term mission to Cambodia. He spoke on the feeding of the 5000 and a couple things just kept jumping out at me. When the disciples tell Jesus to send the people home so they can eat, he tells them “you give them something to eat”.

They respond “we have only ……”, and Jesus says “Bring them to me”.

I start to wonder every once in a while how exactly we are going to be able to minister to the people of Milan, what we are going to be able to do, how we can overcome the language/cultural barrier etc, and minister to people. This passage is the answer. I say “but I only have…..” and Jesus responds, “well bring that to me”.

God bless, Daryl, and may you and Kayo bear much fruit in Cambodia.

……ha parlato ieri sera a CCLM. Daryl e sua moglie Kayo si trasferiscono a Cambodia fra poco. Lui ci parlava di quando Gesù diede da mangiare a cinquemila uomini [trovato in Matteo 14:13-19] e c’erano un paio di cose che ho notato. Quando i discepoli dissero a Gesù di lasciar andare la gente in modo che possa comprare da mangiare, disse loro “dategli voi qualcosa da mangiare”.

Risposero “noi abbiamo soltanto…..” e Gesù replicò “portateli qui a me”.

E di come precisamente noi saremo capaci di ministare alla gente di Milano, io mi chiedo ogni tanto. Che possiamo fare noi? Come mai possiamo superare gli ostacoli culturali/linguistici? Questa risposta di Gesù ai discepoli e infatti anche la mia risposta. Penso “ ma io ho soltanto……” e Gesù mi risponde “lo porti a me”.

Che siate benedetti, Daryl and Kayo, spero che portiate molto frutto in Cambodia.

I want to translate the blog posts into Italian, when I can. Not everything will get translated, but hopefully I can do a lot of it. 

Quanto posso, voglio tradurre i post del blog affinché siano pure in italiano. Non tutti saranno tradotti, però è la mia speranza che posso fare abbastanzi.  Se capita che il lettore é italiano, e ho fatto qualche errore [una certezza!], fammi sapere.

Hello! This is the first post of our blog, which chronicles our journey from LA to Milano. The story will be told in a fuller version (or at least in enough bits that a reader could piece it all together) in the next posts. But ccmilano.org is here to tell the story of how four of God’s servants are being called together to start a church in Milan, Italy – as well as to keep people updated on the various things going on in our journey to get there.

My Name is Dave Walston and my wife is Shelly. We lead worship at Calvary Chapel La Mirada. Our two friends are Ronnie and Kristi Mitchell. Ronnie is an assistant pastor at CCLM and he and his wife work with the youth there. They have two children, Brittany and Ryan, that will be coming with us.

Ciao a tutti! Questo sarà il primo post del nostro blog raccontando il viaggio da Los Angeles a Milano. Il racconto sarà capito meglio nei prossimi post. (vendrà a pezzi che il lettore combinerà) ccmilano.org è una storia che ancora si fa di quattro servitori di Dio chiamati insieme per formare una chiesa in Milano. Ed anche di informare a chi s’interessa di questi fatti e le cose che averranno sulla strada.

Io mi chiamo Dave Walston, mia moglie si chiama Shelly. Sono il capo di adorazione [la verità è che io non so come si chiama questo posto in italiano…..] a Calvary Chapel La Mirada. I nostri amici che ci accompagnano si chiamano Ronnie e Kristi Mitchell. Lui è un pastore assistente a CCLM e entrambi lui e sua moglie ministrano ai giovani là. Hanno due figli, una figlia- Brittany, ed un figlio- Ryan.