Chosen! Us! Can You Believe It?!

Chosen in so many ways! Not to belittle what might be obvious choices, today we’ll just name two!

Chosen to speak what we are passionate about. We love what we do. Thank you for supporting us to evangelize and disciple amaZioni church leaders. Furthermore, today, Carlene is as excited as she can be for another reason!

Recently Carlene was chosen to be on the Launch Team for a book by Dr. Juli Slattery, Rethinking Sexuality. Getting sneak previews has confirmed that the message of Rethinking Sexuality, is a message close to our heart. We plan to continue writing our Bible study, Redeeming Sexual Love. But for now, we believe the message these two books contain is not our message, but God’s to communicate in whatever way He chooses! We’ve asked Him to open and close doors to guide our us to our part in the task of speaking the Gospel truth of human sexuality.

Chosen to love and support, “’til death do us part.” In 2014 when it first became public that we were writing a book entitled Redeeming Sexual Love, one curious and slightly befuddled supporter asked, “Where did that come from?! How is it that a missionary ministering to a traditional African culture decides to write a book about sex?”

The answer? Missionaries are just people, and have real issues to work through too!

In our marriage, God brought together a fundamentally religious good-girl and an anything for a good time Catholic boy. Our marriage survived the addictive patterns of our pasts because God led us on a Biblical path to sexual freedom. He brought us to a place of marital intimacy that exceeds sexual exploits by showing us the Gospel message embedded in “US.”  (Pun intended😉, thank you very much!)

Coming to South Africa was a huge part of our healing. At a critical time, God had exposed what were fruitless patterns of communication to set us on a different road, then stripped us of our support systems. In Africa, we found ourselves on a path where we could see His light in the distance, but it often seemed very far away! Life was hard, but moving toward better. On difficult days we had no one to turn to except one another and God’s Word. Through commitment, communication, and God’s intervention at crucial times, He began to expose the nature of our sin, the threat to family and community, and the abundance of His grace and power to heal!

God’s healing work in our life has changed who we are. It has changed how we relate to one another and how we share the Gospel in our ministry. God’s message for redemption is relevant in whatever culture we find ourselves in, and it is powerful to draw people to Himself and one another. Spirituality and sexually two sides of one coin no matter what continent you call home, or what the color of your skin. It’s time for the Church to speak up and speak out in relevant ways.

Dr. Juli Slattery is a former Focus on the Family talk show host and co-founder of the ministry, Authentic Intimacy. Rethinking Sexuality will be available in bookstores next month (July 24th). Carlene will be posting #rethinkingsexuality information regularly on Facebook and Instagram . If you want weekly or possibly day-to-day updates over the next 10 weeks, please “Follow” us there! And if you really want to help, “Like” our posts with a 👍🏼

Did you like the zebra pic? 25 years in South Africa, with at least one visit to the game park per year has afforded us many gorgeous pics we can never figure out how to use! For the next 10 weeks, we’ll use some of these to highlight quotes from Rethinking Sexuality.  View these quotes by searching for the hashtag: #creationwaits819 (for Romans 8:19).

 

 

June 8, 2018June 13, 2018 by TIDBITS 7 Comments