The Agenbroads in Cyprus - Part 2

timandeliza
Aug 8, 2016
3 min read

Hello again from the Agenbroads! We’ve put a few thousand more miles on the clock since we last wrote and we are now in the UK spending some quality time with good friends from our days in Scotland, which is such a blessing. In this letter we want to share about our last month in Cyprus and what we sense God is saying to us about life after our summer of travels.

Shortly after we last wrote, the Oasis Project hosted several events during World Refugee Week, which was in the later part of June. One of the events was called “The Celebration of the Nations” where we highlighted 10 different nations from which refugees have come, and the people from those countries prepared and shared traditional food with those who attended. There were games and activities for children and lots of opportunity to celebrate the diversity in the cultures represented in Cyprus. One of the evenings during Refugee Week, Eliza and I organized and lead a prayer evening for the persecuted church, which was well attended and highlighted how many of the countries where people are fleeing from are experiencing high levels of Christian persecution. XLLM

During our last month in Cyprus, we were also able to help Oasis move into their new ministry location just down the street from where we were staying and were able to assist with the transition of running the weekly programs in a new place. Towards the end of July, many of the weekly programs began to wind down for the summer, because the hot temperatures make it harder for people to get out. However, Eliza and I were able to help out in other ways and got to meet up with some of the refugees on a more one-on-one basis. Eliza got to put her creative juices to work, helping design new brochures for Oasis as well as flyers for Refugee Week. During this time, our close friends, Jon and Michelle, had their 3rd child, a healthy little boy named David, AND also moved into a new house, so we were also able to help support them during those busy few weeks as well. It was such a fruitful time working the Oasis ministry, seeing new relationships built and older ones developed, sharing God's love in word and deed. It was a particularly busy season for Oasis too, and with low staff numbers, we were able to fill some gaps and help in a lot of different ways. And through this outreach Eliza was also able to fulfill her last credit hours and complete her internship for the Community Development school which was one of her goals for this time. As a whole, our time in Cyprus was very eye-opening and God used it to show us to a greater degree, His heart for hurting people and how we can come alongside and share that heart through simple ways and loving actions. It was challenging to say goodbye to all the people we had met and it also highlighted how blessed we are to have the passports that we do, and the privilege to move freely between nations. So, now that we have moved on from Cyprus, we also wanted to take a brief moment to share what we have sensed from the Lord about our next steps as a family. We know that we want to continue working with refugees and that our experience in Cyprus has given us a lot of perspective and experience in how that can look. However, as we prayed, we felt that God is clearly opening up the doors for us to move back to Boise for the next several years to be “planted” and to make our home there. With the growing opportunities to work with YWAM Boise and their heart to connect with refugees in Boise, we are excited to see how we can combine our passion and our training to bless people in our home town. This is obviously a big step for us, with a lot of details still to work out, but we know that where the Lord guides us, He is also faithful to provide for us. Please join us in praying for a place to live when we settle back in Boise and for the provision to meet the extra expenses needed to live in the States. We will share more details about our plans and desires for our time in Idaho in future newsletters as we get a clearer sense of what it might look like. Love and peace,