We have a Major Life Update to share with you all, Emert Friends and Family!
It’s been over three months since we last wrote a family update, and honestly, it feels more like three years! We’ve been stateside celebrating a huge milestone with our college-bound firstborn while also dwelling in this season of sabbatical: reflection, refining, renewal. “Seasons.” A word we’ve heard highlighted over + over these last months, something the Lord has been helping us to appreciate. It’s how He orders things…how He always has. And it’s the way He works with his children, too.
The most recent season has had us planted in Choma, Zambia. It has been one of our family’s greatest privileges to partner with God in his mission to see the people of Choma encounter Him and experience healing, restoration, salvation, and fullness. There’s no way to succinctly convey what we’ve learned + what we’ve witnessed living in Choma. From early sewing projects, studying the book of Acts + sharing weekly meals with neighbors in our home, Girls Revolution, Pastors’ Fellowship, year after year of short-term teams + watching our Intensive program explode; praying over building projects, coffee shops, city-wide worship events; experiencing births + baptisms, weddings + funerals. It can’t be adequately expressed, this gift of walking with God through this season.
However, He is now inviting us into the next season. Over the course of the last two years, even as we’ve loved Choma, God has rekindled + deepened our heart for the North American Church. We’ve witnessed Him move in power + love in southern Africa, which has stirred in us a desire to see Him continue to move here, too. As we have asked the Lord to speak + to guide our steps, his response has been a call to return to Florence, SC to serve underneath the ministry of Helping Florence Flourish. (HFF)
As you checked your email, you may have wondered about this unfamiliar email address. Helping Florence Flourish is one of a network of similar movements in cities across the nation, whose heart is to demonstrate the unity of the body of Christ + to bless the city. HFF practically demonstrates this mission through citywide prayer gatherings, interdenominational pastors’ gatherings and discipleship classes, + organizing service projects for churches to serve the city together. These events are all unto bridging racial + cultural barriers, poverty alleviation, + ultimately the unity of the Church. Their mission declares, “As God’s representatives in a broken world, (we) work to show the reality of God’s Kingdom by bringing a taste of flourishing to Florence.”
While we are incredibly eager for what God has in this next season, we’re filled with mixed emotions. It’s no small thing to say goodbye to a home + community that means so much to each of us. We’re reentering a culture vastly different from the one we’ve lived + raised our kids. We’re leaving behind memories + friendships, ten years of a beautiful season. But we also trust that the Lord has gone ahead of us, sewing seeds for the season ahead.
Can I share some prayer requests? Continue to pray for Olivia as she adjusts to life as a college freshman. Pray that we are all able to grieve and celebrate all these major life transitions: goodbyes + hellos, giant cultural differences. And please pray for the financial challenges ahead. As missionaries to Florence, just as in Choma, we will continue to raise all of our support and funding. This has never been an easy part of the journey, yet we’ve always seen God’s hand in faithfully supplying our every need.
Lastly, if you’ve been giving to our family through Poetice, we would kindly ask that you stop your giving and prayerfully consider redirecting your financial gifts to our family’s new ministry platform.We also have many one-time needs that this transition necessitates including all our home furnishings, as we sold them all when we first left for Zambia. It’s been your generous and faithful support that the Lord has used to sustain us and that we are trusting will continue to sustain us in this next chapter.
We love the city of Florence. We love the Church of Florence, and the people of Florence. We believe that the Lord is up to something big there and we are ready to participate with Him in it. We mourn leaving Choma, but cannot think of a better place to jump in and help unite the Church than Helping Florence Flourish. Thank you for ALL the ways you’ve been with us as we’ve followed His call in our lives. We pray whatever season the Lord has you in, that you’re experiencing his goodness and mercy following you each and every day.
Blessings upon blessings,
Jeremy, Courtney, Olivia, Jude + Lincoln
jemert@helpingflorenceflourish.org
cemert@helpingflorenceflourish.org
(336) 858-3329