The past two days were filled with blessings from God. Peter and I were privileged to attend the ABC-OH Annual Gathering this past Thursday-Friday. This was my first annual gathering but Peter has attended every year we have been in Ohio. This year, was both new and exciting for us! In what way you may ask? This year we attended as Endorsed Missionaries with IM! For me, Sarah, it was an interesting dynamic to be known by many people whom you have never met.  Yet it was a blessing to be welcomed and loved at the same time. The gathering was an awesome opportunity to share our calling to missions and to meet face-to-face the pastors, lay leaders, church leaders, and others whom Peter has talked about and has worked closely with. It was also good to see the few I already know too! It was also a time of blessing to listen to others and their connection or experience with the Dominican Republic and/or missions.  We really enjoyed the MPTs of the Wu’s next to us in the exhibit hallway.

The key note speaker this year was Dr. Alistair Brown, President of Northern Seminary. What an inspiring speaker of God’s Word he is! It was a blessing to sit, learn & listen to the messages that God laid upon his heart to share with the attendees of the annual gathering. One bit of wisdom, among many, that Alistair said which resonated with my heart was the following (this is paraphrased and try to read it with a Scottish accent): when a couple is called into doing God’s work they both receive a calling to ministry, not just one of them. This really resonated with my heart because in our calling to missions God didn’t only speak to Peter or me; He spoke to both of us in different ways.  In fact, we weren’t even in the same country when He spoke to us! Both of us knew with our individual calling that it was a calling for the entire family. It wasn’t until we shared the individual calling with each other that God confirmed it in our hearts. Alistair’s words were a beautiful reaffirmation of our calling.

Another beautiful thing that happened this past week was that my mom volunteered to come all the way to Madison, Ohio and take the kids back to WNY with her.  This gave us some time together and freed us up to be fully present at the convention.  It was also exciting to arrive home and find the article in the News-Herald, our local newspaper, featuring us.

God blessed us these past few days by beginning to build our MPN (Missionary Partnership Network) and we look forward to seeing God continue building it. We would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining our MPN through praying for us and partnering with IM to support us financially to help offset the ministry expenses of our mission work.  We know that God is drawing these precious individuals together who will go with us to the field through prayer and financial support. If God is prompting you to support us in either of these capacities or in another way we ask that you step out in faith, just as we have in answering God’s calling to become missionaries. A huge thank you goes out to all who have already committed to supporting us through prayer and finances- Thank you! If you would like us to speak at your church, women’s circle, men’s fellowship, Bible study, or church group to share our calling to the DR and Cuba we are more than happy to come. All you have to do is contact us to get that conversation started: peter.mccurdy@internationalministries.org or sarah.mccurdy@internationalministries.org 

Please pray for us. Pray that God continues to grow our MPN. Pray for us this week as we prepare for our exploratory trip to the DR. The whole family will be in the DR for 10 days at the beginning of November. Pray for our health and safety as we travel.  Pray for the Pastors and churches we will meet and visit. Pray for us as we have our first two speaking engagement this coming weekend.

May God richly bless you throughout the coming week!

Sarah