It wasn’t until the taxi was sliding sideways that I actually started to doubt my decision to leave the training trip early. We had gone north for 3 weeks of pastor training conferences. We had our plan! Then, less than 24 hours into our first conference, I noticed that I couldn’t flex my left foot. In fact, I had lost almost all strength and feeling in the foot. By Tuesday evening I was lightheaded and disoriented. We continued teaching and training but by Saturday it became clear that I should return to Monrovia to see a doctor because we were way out in the sticks with no way to get help. Sunday morning I was in a taxi with 2 other friends and we were winging our way toward Monrovia in a cloud of red dust!! I could see that, while I had my plans, God wanted me to see beyond my little world. (Of course when we went airborne and started sliding on two wheels I thought I was about to leave my little world!) God is good, and we arrived safely in Monrovia that afternoon, the same color as our dust covered taxi. Within an hour I saw the doctor and learned that I had a temporary palsy. I still walk like a duck, but the doc says I should be back to normal in less than a month.
We need your prayers! Will you pray for us? That was only one example of God rearranging our plans to get us to see beyond our world. Brenda came to Liberia to work with teachers and to improve schools. God wants her to look way beyond that! God has made it clear that He wants Brenda to be a blessing to SIM (and all the people SIM blesses here) by making her the SIM Liberia personnel director. I can’t even count all the people who have told me what a huge blessing Brenda has been to them. She arranges housing, coordinates short-termers, teams, does orientation training, organizes meals and transportation for newcomers, prepares annual and end of term evaluations, plus keeps communication between SIM Liberia and all the sending offices around the world. She had her plan for her time here – but God wanted her to look beyond and do His bidding.
Have I told you how much we need your prayers? Will you pray for us? I came to Liberia to work with pastors. I love Jesus’ Bride – the Church. My title was the Church relations coordinator between SIM and the SIM related churches known as the Evangelical Church Union of Liberia (ECUL). My plan was to help SIM be a better partner with ECUL in the strengthening and nurturing of local churches and the nationwide ECUL denomination. But God wants me to look beyond my horizons! One month ago, SIM asked me to consider stepping in as the SIM Liberia country director when our current director, Les Unruh, returns to the states. God wants me to look beyond my world. So in June, I have agreed to become the acting director for SIM Liberia. I’ll still be very involved with ECUL, just in a new role.
I think I may have mentioned earlier that we desperately need you to pray for us. My world is too small and as a result my vision and my prayers are often too small. Our prayer is very simply that God would be glorified throughout the entire nation of Liberia as His Church here is strengthened and built up. We are learning to let God decide how He will use us in the accomplishment of that task. In future letters we will share in more detail what our new jobs entail. For now, please pray that as we see beyond our world we would walk by faith and not by sight.
Standing on His promise that He will build His Church,
Matt (for Brenda too)
Serving with SIM USA – PO Box 7900 – Charlotte, NC – 28241
http://www.sim.org/Matt & Brenda Carr – SIM Liberia – PO Box 5968 – Monrovia – Liberia
matt.carr@sim.org brenda.carr@sim.org
It was a joy to meet up with long-time friend and former teammate from Multunomah Basketball days. Miriam (Miller) Rich and her family have lived and served in Kijabe with AIM since we graduated from college many years ago.
