Missionary Letter

Dear Pastor Cooley and church family,

It is amazing how amazing God is! He does things that only He can do. He is not bound by time. I am not trying to give a lesson in theology, but I am trying to stress that even though we believe that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and immutable, it is still amazing to see God work.

Recently, I have been trying to reestablish communication with a family that had left our church. There was no explanation, no communication, nothing. My wife and I had repeatedly attempted to establish any type of contact to see what was going on. Were they ill? Were they offended? Could I help them in any way? Nothing. We were very concerned but felt helpless. All we could do was pray; pray and ask God to do something.

Months later, I was experiencing some health issues. I had caught virus that made me very ill. For a few days, I could not eat or drink, which of course led me to get dehydrated. The dehydration caused my gout to flare up, and my diabetes severely slowed the healing process down. I was a mess. I managed to hobble around and do the tasks I needed to do, but everything was a slow process.

During this time, our church had ordered new, larger signs, and therefore the old signs needed to be removed and the old poles repositioned. My knee was still very painful, so the fellow that was helping me had to do most of the work by himself, therefore, taking almost twice as long as I had planned to get the work completed. After we were done, I remembered that there was a load of things that needed to go to the local dump. While loading the vehicle, I stepped in a hole, twisting my knee, and further slowed things down! I had to take a few minutes out, but I was really determined to get this load of rubbish (garbage) to the tip (that's British for dump). Once the vehicle was finally loaded, we set off. I parked the car at the area designated for MDF (particle board/chip board), and got out to unload. As I turned around, guess who was pulling up behind me! The husband of the family that had left church! Once he got out of his car, I approached him, hugged him, told him we missed him and his family, and was able to arrange to meet with him later in the week.

I am now so thankful for the physical difficulties that slowed me down that day! I know God allowed, and even orchestrated, these things so I could meet with that man at that exact moment. I think I am beginning to understand what Paul meant when he said that he "gloried" in his infirmities. Praise God that He is in control of His children.

Because of Christ, Damian Pickett