The Fingerprints of God

I am always cautious in saying I know what God is doing. I am not worried about sounding arrogant, but about being presumptuous. So I look for the “fingerprints of God” to help me discern where God is at work. The “fingerprints of God” are circumstances that cannot be a coincidence but rather are a sign that God is up to something.

While we were on our partnership exploratory trip to the Trinec Church in the Czech Republic last January, I began to clearly see the “fingerprints of God.” In fact, they were all over the place! It started with hearing about the core values of Pastor Marek and the elders. It continued with hearing the vision they had to reach their community. It crystallized as we listened to the needs they have, needs that we seem uniquely prepared to partner with them to fill.

One need they have is for servant leadership training. God has blessed New Covenant with individuals who are strategic thinkers and who model servant leadership. For over 5 years, God has allowed us to strategically plan and to implement those plans. While things are different culturally in the Czech Republic, there are many principles we can share with them and help them to explore how the principles would apply in their setting. After hearing about our process of strategic planning, they asked for us to come back and teach them. We are currently making plans for a small team to return in October to meet with their leadership, as well as leadership from other churches in the region, and teach a weekend seminar on strategic planning.

The Trinec Church has a strong commitment to reach the children in their community. This is somewhat unusual to find in other countries. As we talked about their goals, Pastor Kim realized that they were describing the ministry of Cindy Howard, one of our very own missionaries! God had closed the doors for Cindy to return to Moscow, and Kim had just talked to her right before our trip to Trinec. She was looking for a new location where she could come alongside a church or group of churches and help them grow their ministry to children. We joked that we would come back to Iowa and tell Cindy, “God loves you, and we have a wonderful plan for your life!” When we did first tell Cindy about the opportunity, it did not seem like it was the right option. But over the next few months we watched as God closed doors to other options and threw open the doors for her moving to the Czech Republic. Looking back seven months later, it is absolutely clear that God’s hand was preparing the way for Cindy to have an open door of ministry in Trinec and the surrounding region.

God’s hand was clearly at work. His fingerprints could be seen everywhere we turned. The next step was to put a partnership agreement in place.