February 2005

Hello, most of you probably know that my wife and I are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, we're raising our financial support right now (like most missionaries). We need some serious prayer… here is the text of and email I just sent out to some friends.

Carrie (my wife) and I are desperate.

We are at a very very stale and frustrating spot with support. I've been trying to raise it for more than a year and a half and we both feel like we're just spinning our tires and getting nowhere! Please, pray for God to do something BIG in the next week. We're both at the end of ourselves, and don't know what else to do.

I could cry I am so frustrated. We know that God is able to bring in the entire amount of our support quicker "than we can even ask or imagine." It's been so hard to trust that God is going to actually do it. I've been praying the "I belive, help my unbelief," prayers a lot.

Love,
Jayson Whelpley

I just finished reading the book of Deuteronomy. The ending is really pretty emotional, I've never really understood any emotion but fear, awe and humilty while reading the Old Testament before. But the end of Deuteronomy has Moses giving his final speech to all of Israel before he dies and before they actually cross the Jordan into the Promised Land.

He goes through and re-counts everything from Egypt to that point and then gives a blessing to each of the tribes. It's funny to see how frustrated he is during his life with the rest of the Israelites, but when he knows that it is the last time he's going to see them I can just imagine him giving this last speech and tearing up.

I mean, he has been this group's leader for more than 40 years now. He's the oldest person in the entire group by at least 30 years (possibly more like 60). Joshua is ready to take the helm of leadership and God has told Moses that after all of this work that he won't be entering the Promised Land, that he'd die on a mountain on the other side. God has a special relationship with this former Egyptian quasi-Prince, He tells him, I'll let you see the whole of the land, to understand what it is that you've worked for, to see how I will provide for this people that you've given your life leading.

Moses climbs to the top of the mountain – 120 years old, mind you – and sees all of it. All the way to the Medditerannean, down to the Dead Sea… he can see the whole country of Israel and he knows that it was worth it. He is finally able to lay down and rest. Not only that but it says that God Himself buried Moses, that only He knew where he was buried – He honored him more in death than any other person.

Amazed.