A Call For Unity

The following is one of the many emails we have been sending back and forth as we prepare for this trip to Haiti.  It's just one example of how we're striving to keep focused as we plan the details involved in making this trip happen and, ultimately, letting Jesus show us the way.

Hey Friends,

I just wanted to share something with you all quick.  Tonight we were talking about more fund raising ideas, and something that really struck a chord with me was the idea of finding unity on how to proceed with all the different ideas that have been coming up.  I was thinking about it on the drive home, and remembered a section of verses near the end of John where Jesus prays for His disciples and then for all future believers:

My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.  I in them and you in me.  May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

John 17:20-26

I just see this prayer, from Jesus, as an amazing encouragement as we progress through the process of getting ready for this trip and beyond.  He was praying specifically for us, on the night before He was crucified, so this must've been pretty important to Him.  What an awesome blessing we have in the glory of His Word and in each other.

Zach