Thursday, December 06, 2007

Tales of the Tryons

(August, 2007)

“...for those who leave homes...for my sake and the Gospel's shall be blessed one hundred fold.”
(Mark 10:24)

This Scripture hit me like a thunderbolt a few months ago. It's time to go!

After years of preparation, we are following the call the Lord challenged us with at Urbana 1976. We have been officially accepted as members of Operation Mobilization (OM).

Operation Mobilization is an international faith-based evangelical missions agency that began 50 years ago with the prayers of George Verwer and a few fellow college students. Today there are 4000 OM missionaries serving in 110 countries and on three literature ships. OM's ministry is supported by both churches and by tax-deductible donations from individual people.

We will be serving in the United States home office of Operation Mobilization, which is located south of Atlanta in Tyrone, Georgia. Chuck has been doing short term projects at the headquarters for several years, but now we will be going there to work full time. Some of the many ways in which we will be working are:

  • Computer and technical support for missionaries in the US headquarters and on the field
  • Facilitating communications for the 200 member central office and others around the world
  • Participation in fervent prayer as we keep up to date with newest developments from around the world
  • Hosting missionaries and conference speakers from around the world
  • Participation in short-term mission opportunities in other countries as opportunities arise

As you can imagine, we are up to our necks (and further) in things to do and details to work out before we can actually leave for Atlanta. Our most important task is developing a Partnership Team -- a team of people who commit themselves to regularly pray for us and give to OM for our support. As is the case in any army, it's the people behind that lines that make the ones out front effective.

Here's a way that you can help us RIGHT NOW. We need a lot of prayer every day. Look at some of the mountains we need to see the Lord overcome before we can go:
  • selling our house
  • wrapping things up with our respective jobs
  • packing, sorting, giving away “stuff”
  • time and energy to do everything
  • developing our Partnership Team
  • seeing the Lord fill the gaps at church that our leaving creates
  • moving, and finding the right living arrangements in Georgia.

In this day and age of email and electronic communications, it's still nice to receive a piece of paper and a canceled stamp on an envelope delivered by the US Mail service once in a while. However, there are also some advantages to using the Internet, such as speed and the efficient uses of resources. If you would like to participate with us in this vision, please send us back a note, and include either your phone number or a mailing address.

In spite of the mountains, we are excited about finally moving forward into this new stage or our lives together. We invite you to be a part of our ministry too.

We're looking forward to hearing from you!

Chuck & Sue Tryon

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Free-fall

Well... I've finally finished my assignment at Xerox, so I am now in "full time" Partnership Development. It's a step of faith, to be sure. Up until now, I've been able to depend on my income from my Xerox job. Now, I really have to get serious about getting to the goal of 100% support.

I sort of feel like a sky-diver who has jumped out of the plane and suddenly discovered that he can't find the handle to the rip-cord, only to remember that he's strapped into a double harness with the instructor, and the INSTRUCTOR is the only one with a rip-cord. So, I guess I'll be in free-fall until He decides it's time to deploy the 'chute..... ;-)