{"id":6494,"date":"2019-01-16T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=6494"},"modified":"2019-01-16T08:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T13:00:34","slug":"ebrethren-1-16-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2019\/01\/16\/ebrethren-1-16-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Stitched with hope and love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"By Matt DeBall, coordinator of Mission Advancement Communications<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for [God] has looked with favor on the lowliness of [God\u2019s] servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.\u201d ~Luke 1:46b-48<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite blanket? Mine is a purple, gray, black, and white afghan that my wife made for me years ago, right after we started dating. I was on a mission trip at the time, and it was carefully crocheted with the hope of my safe return, and with love.<\/p>\n

As experienced during Advent, Mary\u2019s song is a beautiful stitch in the larger, intricate blanket of God\u2019s story. God\u2019s promise to bless her and to save Israel filled her with joy, and she sang a new yet familiar song, testifying to what God had done and would do.<\/p>\n

The song of Mary echoes the sentiments of an earlier song.\u00a0\u201cGive thanks to the LORD<\/em>….<\/em>Sing praises to the LORD, [who] has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy\u2026 for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Isaiah 12:4-6). Mary and Isaiah both offered praise to God for past faithfulness, current presence, and future promise. Their eyes could not behold the fulfillment of God\u2019s promises, but through faith, their hearts perceived God\u2019s work as already complete. Their words are great for us to read (and sing) now because of all that God has done, is doing, and will still do in our midst.<\/p>\n

As we reflect on this past year, God has surely done great things among us. Youth and advisors gathered at\u00a0National Youth Conference<\/a>\u00a0to be challenged in their walk of faith. Church planters and others gathered at the\u00a0New and Renew Conference<\/a>\u00a0for professional development and encouragement for the work of nurturing new disciples.\u00a0Josiah and Christine Ludwick<\/a>\u00a0and their children began a year of\u00a0service in Rwanda<\/a>\u00a0to preach, teach, and demonstrate a Brethren way of living. Brethren in Spain<\/a> continued to add new congregations and expanded their membership. In Nigeria, Global Mission executive Jay Wittmeyer was present at the\u00a0commissioning of a new EYN congregation<\/a>\u00a0at the Gurku Interfaith Camp for displaced people. \u00a0These are just a few examples of how your gifts helped add to our larger community blanket in 2018.<\/p>\n

As you reach for your favorite blanket this winter season, please sing a song of thanksgiving for all that God has done through the Church of the Brethren, offer a prayer for the continued work of our ministries, and\u00a0make a gift<\/a>\u00a0with hopeful expectation of what God will do. God surely has great things in store for us, and with God\u2019s help and through your partnership, 2019 will be wonderfully stitched with hope and love.<\/p>\n

(Read this issue of eBrethren<\/a>.)\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matt DeBall, coordinator of Mission Advancement Communications \u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for [God] has looked with favor on the lowliness of [God\u2019s] servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.\u201d ~Luke 1:46b-48 Do you have a favorite blanket? Mine is a purple,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[54,133,419,505,633,728,793,802,813,1015,1089],"class_list":["post-6494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebrethren","tag-advent","tag-blanket","tag-eyn","tag-global-mission-and-service","tag-isaiah","tag-mary","tag-national-youth-conference","tag-new-and-renew-conference","tag-nigeria","tag-rwanda","tag-spain"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}