Summer Update

Sharing Great News

It had been since last Thanksgiving that we had visited Alicia’s family. I happened to have no clients scheduled for two back-to-back days, so we made the trip north. While there, we got news from Helps, our sending agency, that we had just received a gift that was given to cover our moving costs to Japan!

As I retreated to a private space, updated and re-checked our budget and then prepared to write this newsletter to share the good news, Alicia’s dad had just given all the kids fortune cookies as a treat and came to share the last one with me. Pictured above is the fortune I pulled from my mouth after crunching the treat; both timely and accurate!

This financial gift was insanely generous, given in of love, costly, and great news to be able to share with others! And infinitely more, the gift of God is likewise: Insanely generous (Romans 8:32). Given in love (John 3:16). Costly (1 Peter 1:18-19). And is not only good news, it is the best news, and we all get to share it (Matthew 28:18-20). And Japan happens to be the greatest concentration of a single people group in the history of the world who have never heard it.

Copeland Family News: Jireh Zebediah

We will be welcoming our 7th child, Jireh Zebediah, into the family come November! This season has been one of trusting the Lord for provision in every way, and although unexpected and not typical of us to find out the gender or reveal the names before the birth, we decided to do both for our kids to help with anticipation of potential upcoming transitions.

Jireh’s name is tied to God’s perfect-timing provision due to ‘seeing’ our need in advance. We found that Abraham, as he is called to a challenge that requires great faith, climbs up the mountain with Isaac and says that God will ‘see to it,’ or that the need ‘will be seen.’ In an act of incredible trust, Abraham obeys God, and indeed, God saw to it, sparing Isaac and, ultimately, pointing to God’s ‘seeing’ the need and providing for the atonement of our sin through the sacrifice of the Son of God before the foundation of the world.

Jireh Zebediah is a declaration of faith and a proclamation of the Gospel—that God sees and provides the gift of His Son. My prayer for Jireh is that he would Know God (John 17:3) and so, like Abraham and all who have great faith, trust deeply and get to see and be a part of God's story of grace. Praise God with us for a baby boy even now, and for His provision in every way!