What IMM is doing in Romania this week

One of my favorite things we do at IMM is invest in national people...training them to reach their own culture with media. Awesome.

On Location with IMM: Report from EEBC, Oradia, Romania from Jerry Gibson on Vimeo.

What really is TRUST?

Wednesday in the Word

"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.  Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He's the one who will keep you on track."
Proverbs 3:5-6 The Message Bible

I confess.  I am one of those people who try to figure out everything.  In my mind I think everything has to make sense...it has to be LOGICAL!

But through this journey we have been on the past couple of years, God is teaching me that this shows that I don't really TRUST Him.  The first time He dealt with me about this - I said, "What do you mean, Lord, that I don't trust you?!  I have given my life to you.  I have given my life to ministry!  One of my greatest strengths is being able to think through things and figure them out!!!"

Then God so gently brought to my heart and mind the fact that I wasn't willing to take a leap of faith onto the mission field... because I was trying to FIGURE it out.  I was trying to make it all LOGICAL.
The truth is - I was trusting in MYSELF to figure it out...and if I couldn't figure it out - then I wasn't willing to do it!

That day...over 2 years ago now...I surrendered to the Lord my logic.  I surrendered CONTROL.  Me being in control of my life.  Abandoning being able to KNOW how it was all going to work, and TRUSTING Him...REALLY trusting Him for the first time in my life....WITH my life. With my everything.

Do you also try to figure out everything?  What area is God calling you to trust Him in?

Make a Video on your iPhone

Tuesday Technology Tip

I downloaded this really cool app during our snow days.  It is called SPLICE and it is FREE!  I think I actually paid $1.99 to upgrade it to remove all ads though.

Here's what I did:
I took several videos of the girls playing in the snow.
I then opened SPLICE on my iPhone.  I clicked on the + sign to add a new project, I named my project, I chose HD/SD for project settings, chose HD (high definition), clicked DONE, clicked TITLE, added "Backyard Bobsledding" for  a opening text screen, clicked DONE, clicked DONE again to apply a 3 second setting to it, then tapped the + sign again to add another feature, tapped video/photo,  selected camera roll, then selected the video pieces I wanted in my video, tapped DONE, clicked YES for automatic transitions, waited while it loaded, then tapped the AUDIO button, then tapped either SPLICE LIBRARY or iPod library (wherever you want to select a song from), select your song, hit done, then DRAG your "song" up onto the storyboard and drag left to the beginning of your video and drop it.  Then hit preview, and if you are happy with it, export it!  It will take a few minutes to "render".
It will then be in your "Photos" folder where you can then email it to yourself or others!

It took me about an hour all together to do my first one.  After you figure it out - it comes easier!  Who would have thought you could make videos totally on your phone one day?!
Just click on the PLAY triangle below to play my Backyard Bobsledding video!  :)  The best part if the last 5 seconds!

Mia the Comedian

The past two nights we have finally gotten back to some semblance of normal.  We have had dinner at the table!  This is something I ask for most of the time.....I just love it.  I make a point for conversation....having each girl tell us about their day...(even if WE already know the answers!)
Last night (Valentine's Day) Mia told us that there is a boy named Aiden in her class.  She then leans over to me and whispers... "I think he's the Love of my Life".
To which we all erupt in laughter!!!!!  I asked her where she heard that and she reminded me they talked about this on a recent episode of Disney's "Good Luck Charlie"!  That girl!!!!

THEN, tonight.... I am reading Macy's new book we got her for Valentine's day at the table after dinner...
(It is called "Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers; The Gospel" -very cute and VERY good at explaining salvation!)....
Page 1 goes... "Hi, my name is Gracie.  I want to tell you the best news in the whole world.  The best news is that God loves you, and He wants you to be with Him forever."
...to which Mia makes an indescribable silly face and says... "I don't want to... I want to stay with you, Momma!"

February Prayer Needs

There is ONE thing that we need this month more than ANYTHING else.

We need monthly pledges to be made.

We have raised almost all of our cash budget needed to go.  But until we have monthly sustaining pledges - we can not leave.

Would you please take some time this week to pray that God will give us FAVOR with churches, pastors, and individuals that are destined to partner with us to get us to the mission field?

We have had SEVERAL new pledges in January!  Many have come through churches and friends logging on to our website:  McMath Family and clicking on  "Support the McMaths".  Wow!  Some for $125 monthly, some for $50, and some for $25!

Every one gets us one step closer to our field!  All are invaluable, no matter the amount.  We are honored and humbled by every partner!

Please pray that February will be a MIRACLE month!

January Miracle!!!

God works in mysterious ways!

In January a business owner that knows of our ministry SOLD an extra corvette vehicle that he had - and gave the $22,000 towards our cash budget for leaving for the mission field!  (The cash budget covers all of the expenses of moving overseas, shipping your goods, setting up your household overseas, language school etc.)

WOW!!!!  That almost meets our entire cash budget!  Now we just need monthly sustaining pledges to be ready to go!  Thank you Jesus!  And thank you prayer team for continually praying for us!  Much love!

January Update in Photos!

 Macy turned 8 on January 7th!!!  Still loving Littlest Pet Shop!

 This big girl wanted to get her ears pierced for her 8th birthday!

 Snow!

 I don't know what is up with everyone sticking their lips out for pictures these days!  I guess we are trying to look like gangsters!  Don't we look TOUGH!?

Christmas Time!

 We had a WONDERFUL Christmas this year!  We are blessed with health, vision for the mission field, and more blessings than we can count!

 Of course we have to make silly faces too!

 Christmas morning!

 We were honored to be the special missionary guests at National Park Assembly in Hot Springs for Christmas!  They blessed us beyond measure!  Pastor's wife Alicia WROTE and directed an AWESOME kids program called Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas... it was AMAZING!  She is very talented!

 They even let Macy play a sick kid at the hospital!  :)  She loved it!

 Macy and one of her very best friends in the whole world!  Raegan!  Silly girls!

Update on Mia's Eye

We had our second post-op appointment this week!  Mia's eye looks GREAT!  On all normal distance tests her eye does NOT turn out.  On pushing her to look really far, the doctor did see a small tendency to want to turn a little.  We go back in 6 weeks for one last post-op appointment.

Overall we are still very pleased with her healing!  Thank you Jesus!  And thank you to all of you who have prayed with us!  We are filled with gratitude!

Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center is where she had her surgery - and they took her down a special hallway right before going to the OR.  It was filled with toys!  She got to pick anything she wanted to keep & take to surgery with her!  She picked out this pink pony!  She was pretty proud of it!

Sabbatical or chaos?

I'm not sure if you would say I have taken a month long sabbatical from blogging... or that life has just been chaos.  I'm betting for the latter!  Actually, things started spiraling out of normalcy right before Christmas!  Our first pre-op appointment for Mia's surgery was December 23rd in MEMPHIS (5 hours from Bentonville) - and we had to travel back 5 hours for her surgery on January 10th, stay through the 12th for the first post-op, and then travel back again February 2nd for the second post-op.  That's 30 hours of driving over the past month on TOP of our regular travel/speaking schedule.




So is that a good excuse for my messed up blogging routine?  :)

More in the next post this afternoon about Mia's follow up appointments!