Heart, Service and Provision

[Mizpah Steve]

I chuckled from the very start when I read the author, Dr. Timothy S. Laniak, had his first trip to the Middle East in 1977. That was the same year as my first visit. Later trips included Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and living in the West Bank with a Palestinian pastor’s family. So, I was really excited to get into the book and see where our experience overlapped as well as how much more I could learn. There was some overlap. There was a lot of learning.

For example, Laniak’s opening discussion about Provision in Day 2 demonstrated God taking care of his family’s needs as he and his wife cared for others and shared the Gospel. They had the heart for it as Jordanian Bedouin Abu-Jamal observed in Laniak and his son. They were faithful servants, good shepherds to the people the Lord brought to them. Referencing this experience, he quotes from Nehemiah 9:21 which says, “They lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet become swollen.� This describes my own experience while living in the West Bank.

We do indeed serve the one true and faithful God who provides.