Gager Family Moving Back to America

The title to this post pretty much says it all, the Gager family is moving back to America.  We have put a lot of time, prayer and discussion into how this announcement should be made to remain in unity and honor towards each other and avoid any misunderstandings or wrong assumptions to our readers and supporters.

As leaders, Josh and I have relentlessly pursued the Lord’s heart in how to move forward with the vision He gave us.  Even when there doesn’t seem to be much momentum in some areas and things shifted when we returned from America back in June, we know the Lord has been working behind the scenes to prepare us for the next steps AND WE’RE OKAY IN THE WAITING.  A word that He has given us on a few occasions is, “If you build it, they will come.”  Has He fully revealed to us what this means….no.  However, we know He has been faithful in the first two steps that He showed us – land and garden.  The rest will come one step at a time so long as we stay in obedience to His leading.

In life I’m sure we’ve all experienced, at one time or another, ourselves starting to get ahead of His timing or leading.  This is why it is so important to continually check in with the Lord on what He wants to show you or speak to you about.  When you get checks, concerns or red flags in your spirit, listen to them and invest time and prayer into hearing His heart in the matter.  This doesn’t mean become paralyzed and fearful that you’re going to get it wrong so you just do nothing or bail out when the going gets tough or things don’t go the way you expected, but His grace is sufficient when we do get it wrong and He is faithful to get us back on track as we listen to His voice and submit to His ways.  As you know in my last post, this is what we did with the realignment of Four18 Ministries and it becoming a “sending center for missionaries” and not our ministry title.  We hope our last blog post cleared that up for everyone.  We, along with other missionaries that feel called, will utilize Four18 Ministries to simply funnel secured, tax-deductible donations through.  Josh and Matt will both still remain on the Board of Directors at this time.  You will see that www.Four18.org has been updated to reflect these changes and is currently undergoing further modifications.  You can still donate to us directly through this site as the Lord leads you.  For a list of our current needs, updates, etc., we will be primarily posting these items on our personal blog site: Mason Family Missions

Josh and I feel we were sent to South Africa as pioneering missionaries.  This description I found best summarizes our thoughts.  Pioneers are people who prepare the way for others.  Being a pioneer means having a vision.  This means seeing beyond yourself to the possibilities in the world around you.  Pioneers can see opportunities where others may only see obstacles.  They see promise where others only see confusion or problems.  We believe the Lord has called us into a season of charting new territory as pioneering missionaries while we serve Him all across the nations (currently in South Africa).  We realize not everyone is called to pioneer or lead others in the same capacity.  That is why the body of Christ is so great – we’re all created uniquely with different giftings, skillsets and passions, and yet when we come together and work in unity, it’s absolutely beautiful what the Lord can do with these differences.

One thing that is strongly on our hearts as leaders is we want to be ones that empower people to follow their hearts and passions.  We’ve been discerning in our spirits for quite some time that something wasn’t right and asked the Gagers to pray about their commitment to our vision, collectively as a family, to see if it’s something they feel they want to be a part of during this time of their lives.  We made it clear that if their family isn’t in unity with being here it won't work.  It would not be healthy or wise for them to continue staying here divided.  We agreed on them spending 2 weeks in prayer to seek the Lord’s leading.  We wanted them to have peace in their hearts through this decision process, so we let them know that if they feel led to leave, we will bless them and honor their decision with no hard feelings.  After much prayer, discussion and counsel, we came to realize that we and the Gagers are in different seasons of our lives. Although we initially invited them to join us in South Africa thinking they would help co-lead this vision, it became clear in all of our hearts that the timing for that is not now.  Matt and Bree recently shared with us that they feel the Lord is leading them back to America.  Bree feels like the Lord gave her the choice, and she is choosing to return to America to be closer to family and help with needs there.  Matt feels like the Lord also confirmed with him that his family needed to return.  They plan to continue getting healed, better equipped and prepared for what God has for them next, but most importantly, they’ll be focusing on strengthening their family, marriage and relationship with the Lord.

Upon arriving in South Africa back in June, the Lord has been doing a mighty work in the hearts of the Gager family.  He has brought much healing and restoration in their hearts and is rebuilding a stronger foundation in their marriage and family.  It has been beautiful watching the transformation that has happened in such a short amount of time, and we are thankful to have been a part of their journey in this stage of their life.  We know that the Lord wants to continue healing and restoring other relationships in their lives, and we are anticipating a great outcome from this that will release them to walk in greater freedom!  The Lord has taught us many things during these past 5 months with the Gager family, and we believe we have grown in wisdom, love and honor during a time that the enemy wanted to kill, steal and destroy through division.

Prior to the Gagers moving to South Africa, we all spent some time together in McCall, Idaho at a cabin to bond and talk about things before our joint departure to South Africa.  We were blessed by our friends, Billy and Katherine, with this gift.  Some people from their church, whom we didn’t even know, came over to worship with us and pray over our families.  One of the words the Lord gave to the Gager family was, “God’s going to encounter you when you get there.  Your whole family – there’s going to be some kind of encounter.  Your family’s going to be blessed and touched because of that.  There’s an encounter that’s coming.  You have to “go” to have it.  You can warm up to it from here, but you can’t have it like you’re going to have it there in Africa.  It’s yours!”

The Gagers have received many God encounters while here in South Africa and to God be the glory!!  Matt had gotten a word from the Lord that this farm would be a place of healing and restoration.  The Lord also showed me that the healing and restoration was especially for Bree. That word became a reality for their family personally, and we are overjoyed with the continued work He is doing in their lives.

Josh and I appreciate your prayers as we continue to move forward here in South Africa.  Please pray that God would bring like-minded and like-hearted people that are 100% committed to serving the Lord here with us and that we would have greater wisdom and discernment on His timing for when to bring others here.

We bless Matt, Bree, Abby and Eric with honor, love, peace and joy as they continue their journey with the Lord whatever that may look like.  Please pray over their transition back to America and that others will be gentle and sensitive towards them and their decision to move back.  It was not an easy one, and not everyone will understand it.  Please pray that their hearts and time as family will be protected once they return and that people will honor their need to spend time away from others in order to process things with the Lord.  Please pray that their next steps will be made very clear to them and that no spirit of confusion or doubt will have its way in their lives.  Who knows, maybe one day they will be back in Africa.  We are thankful for their compassion in caring for the animals on the farm, for their helping hands with daily chores and preparing the land for crops, for their hearts to love on children at Sonskyn Valley and for their love and support towards our family.  They brought much laughter and fun to us, and we are grateful for their friendship!  Be sure to ask Bree about the lion she saw, haha!!  We love you Gager family and are cheering you on in the walk ahead of you!!

Realignment to Move Forward

Ever since we returned from the States back in June, Josh and I had been sensing that some things needed to change.  We’ve spent a lot of time in prayer and discussion these past few months seeking the Lord for direction and wisdom in how to align things so that we would be able to continue moving forward with the Lord’s plans here in peace and unity.  On October 5th during our family worship time, the Lord told me to revisit 2 checks I had in my spirit while in the States this past April-June.  I knew exactly what He was referring to and shared with Josh what the Lord was showing me.

As all of you know, a non-profit organization [Four18] was created to provide an avenue for those that have felt led to make tax-deductible donations to our mission here in South Africa.  Josh and I have never wanted to or felt led to have a “ministry name” for what we are doing here in South Africa.  With that said, in trying to connect our vision to Four18, we realized that it was starting to become our umbrella so-to-speak; a name by which people were starting to know us by.  This was never our heart or the intent for setting up this non-profit organization.  Therefore, we recognize where we should have done things differently and are wanting to let everyone know that some changes will be coming to the Web site: www.Four18.org. We want to be in line with God’s leading so this realignment is necessary.  That is the word the Lord gave Josh, “Realignment is needed to move forward,” so we want to be obedient to His voice and no other, yes, even if that means humbly admitting our faults and acknowledging that we’re not perfect leaders!

One thing the Lord continually reminds me of is to pay attention to those little checks in my spirit and to not move forward with anything until I have 100% peace.  He’s reminding me to have the courage to speak up when I sense something is off.  He’s reminding me that it’s okay to get it wrong – at least fear of getting it wrong no longer paralyzes me like it used to!  That spirit of perfectionism is ugly, and I’m thankful it broke off me when I was freed of religion.  Either way, He works all things out for good, and we continue to grow as sons and daughters through this journey.  We are thankful to have Matt and Bree Gager serving the Lord with us here in South Africa.  They are a great joy and bring much goofiness and fun, which is so important to not lose sight of in ministry.  Ministry without joy…..well, it’s just not God’s way!

We’ve been greatly blessed these past few weeks with new friendships and generosity.  Some new friends of ours, James and Marlize, donated a bunch of furniture, a gas heater for next winter, lumber and miscellaneous items to us.  In this included curtains for our bedrooms, of which we had been going without.  It’s nice to have some more privacy now, wink-wink!  They felt led to sow into what the Lord is doing here through us, and we are extremely grateful that the Lord has connected us with like-minded people who understand our hunger and passion to be fully surrendered to the Lord.  We recognize that they aren’t just sowing into physical needs but spiritual ones as well.  We’ve enjoyed chatting with them on a couple of occasions.  During my first time visiting with them, I sensed a strong prompting to ask them to pray over me and Josh.  James had been turning the car and trailer around, but when he got out and we asked him if they’d be willing to pray over us he said that while in the car the Lord told him to do that very same thing for all of us! Their prayers and prophetic words were very timely and encouraging and gave me and Josh confidence and confirmation to move forward with a realignment we were sensing needed to happen. They didn't know anything about what was going on in our hearts, but the Lord did!  They are a strong couple that is living by faith, power and radical love.  Please keep them in your prayers as they seek direction for the Lord’s next steps in their lives.

We continue to move forward with expanding our garden space and were recently blessed with 25 FREE chicks from our missionary friends, Josh and Abby, to raise in preparation for food when it’s time. 

These are the rocks we've encountered with our shovels and pick axe while clearing the garden space!

Our heart is to become as self-sustainable as possible so that we can live off the land and put more of the Lord’s money towards helping others.  It's been a lot of intensive work clearing the land with only shovels and a pick axe.  A tractor or plower and chain saw would come in real handy.  We have these beautiful "trees" that are apparently weeds.  We have to cut them down with an axe, which takes a great amount of time as they are all over the farm.  Having a chain saw would be a huge blessing.  Our desire is still to own this land/farm once the finances are available, and we are holding onto the promise that the Lord has spoken to us – that He would give us land!  We are also still in great need of a vehicle.  If you feel led to help contribute in any way, you can make a tax-deductible donation online at www.Four18.org.

Something exciting is happening this November….Josh’s parents, Renn and Marita, are coming to visit us for TWO months!!  They will be here just in time to celebrate Josiah’s 5th birthday on November 22nd.  Renn will also be celebrating a birthday in South Africa on November 27th.  Their passports have arrived and plane tickets have been booked!  We’re all very excited to spend some time with them, and our desire is that they get some much needed relaxation and refreshing while here.  Please pray over all of the preparations that need to take place prior to their departure.  Also, please pray over their health and that they would remain strong and in a place of peace as they get ready to travel internationally.

This past Monday Josh had a meeting with a teacher at an at-risk high school.  He asked how we might be able to get involved with the students there, and a door has opened for us to go and counsel kids during their break times as often as we’d like!  Josh will be going this Friday (tomorrow) to introduce himself to some students and then he’ll go with the flow from there.  We’ve also asked about holding a camp at the farm, possibly during the students’ holiday break, so the teacher is going to look into that with the Vice Principal.  Please cover this opportunity in prayer that the Lord’s plans would be made clear to us.  We want to stay in line with His leading and not get ahead. 

Some people have shown interest about coming to serve with us here and possibly bring teams.  We are praying about the timing of this.  If you could join us in prayer over this, it would be greatly appreciated.  As exciting as it is when people show interest in what we’re doing for the Lord here, we also want to make sure His voice is the one leading us in our decisions.  And I’ll end this post on that note with Hebrews 12:25, “See to it that you obey God, the one who is speaking to you…..”

Fire 101

Several months ago the Lord spoke to me, "If you build it, they will come." Without knowing this, a friend of ours spoke these very same words over us within the last couple of months. This has different meanings for our family, but to start, during our family morning worship time this past Monday, my mind was focused on nothing but the Lord. Immediately a picture came to mind of a fire pit in our yard and many were gathered around it worshiping. I saw many cars making the trip down to our farm, and local neighbors even joined us for a time of worship. In my spirit I sensed the Lord saying it is time to build a fire pit at the farm and to invite the lost and broken to join us. In reality, we don't even have a vehicle that lawfully seats both of our families, so how we're going to help transport people from town to the farm is beyond my current understanding, but we serve a mighty God that knows our needs and sees our hearts.

After sharing with Josh what the Lord had shown me, he decided to get on it that very day (with the help of others) and build a fire pit with benches!

So blessed by such hard working men that also heard my heart and found value and purpose in what the Lord had shown me.

So, we now have a fire pit and plenty of firewood and have already enjoyed our first night of worship around it! Plus, we have company coming over this Saturday for a braai and hopefully some worship time.

Thank you for joining us in prayer that "the people will come", we will have a proper vehicle to move forward with the things on our hearts, and that our faith will remain strong as we trust the Lord for finances.

Here's to many worship nights, great conversations, relationships built, roasted hot dogs and s'mores for South African's that have never experienced this delicacy before!