2 Weeks and 3 Weeks

2 Weeks
What a great last couple weeks it has been.  The Lord is good and has already given Erin and I in our late 20's more blessings than we could ask for in 100 lifetimes.  Our prayer now is one of gratitude and thanksgiving for God and His precious gifts, as well as making memorials for the times when we need to remember His goodness and faithfulness.

Praise the LORD, my soul;
   all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
   and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
   and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalm 103:1-5


In the last two weeks a lot has happened.  Erin was shipped off to Chicago for work where she got a little break from warm weather, but not so much of a break from job demands.  She's such a hard worker and constantly encourages me and challenges me to 'work as if serving the Lord and not men' and we are grateful for both the job she has and the people she works with (Colossians 3:23).




I had the privilege to take my last group of high school students to serve at the MITC in Cordoba, Mexico.  The Holy Spirit broke us down, worked us through, and built us up that week and I feel genuinely blessed and humbled to be able to be there with those students and leaders.  It's incredibly strengthening to my soul to see the tangible, expressed movement of God in the lives of people and we all were graced with the honor of having God move in our team.  Praise God for delivering miracles still today.

And Erin and I have spent time together getting the home organized.  It's crazy how much is going on, but it's so fun getting to play 'house' with Erin.  I'm ready for her to be there as it is hard when she drives away at the end of the day.

Which brings me to...

3 Weeks
Three weeks from today (and about 4.5 hours), Erin and I will be standing together before God, our family and our friends to enter into the convenant of gospel-centered marriage together.  I am so blessed to have such a beautiful, smart, fun and compassionate woman to spend the rest of my life with and I know we are both excited to see the journey God will take us on.  Our hope is to love each other well and to let our marriage and lives be spent on proclaiming the only hope of the gospel of Christ.  I can't wait to start this life with her.  (I mean I can wait because I have to - but you get the point!)

Some prayer requests:
- Erin and I would honor Jesus in how we love each other now, through the ceremony, and in life together.
- Although some job opportunities have opened up in McKinney, nothing is certain or stable and so continued prayer that God might present to us opportunities for me to work and give us wisdom in where to invest.
- For the families we have already met in our neighborhood: for their salvation and that Erin and I might be good ambassadors for the gospel with them
- Thankfulness to God for His goodness, unchanging character, grace and power in our lives!

Thanks so much for all your love, encouragement and support!  Remember, Erin and I love to read comments or get emails from you all!

mazur.erin@gmail.com
michaeltmc@gmail.com

In Christ,

Honey, I'm home.

Feels like home.

...Choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  
Joshua 24:15

I'm here.  Literally.  Sitting here in our new living room, in the middle of our new city, awaiting our new ministry and embarking on our new life together.  The wedding is just over a month away and the anticipation is growing.  Some wonderful friends helped us move all of our things into our McKinney home and this is where I'll be until my beautiful wife joins me soon.  I can't wait to begin our life together and start things off in this amazing little answer-to-prayer house that the Lord has provided.


75% Success Rate
Erin and I are both new to the McKinney community, but I think we are both already seeing why so many people love it.  It's got an amazing mix of old and new, historic sites and contemporary amenities, different ethnicities and economic standings living a few yards away from each other - a ripe field ready for a gospel harvest.  I can't wait to see the relationships and lives that God has ordained for me and Erin to get to know, love, learn from, and share Christ with.  And it is so friendly already!  On a jog through the neighborhood early this evening, I would bet at least 75% of folks (you've got to say 'folks' around here!) that were either driving, walking, or sitting with friends in the driveway offered or responded to the 'stranger wave.'  You would have thought this was the 100th time they'd seen me run by based on the friendly smiles, waves and few sentences of small talk.  Such an encouragement to my heart to know that there is an atmosphere of open community here that should make for great relationships and friendships to be built.

My First New Friend
So, speaking of relationships.  Meet Landon, my buddy from across the street.  He is the young man that saw us moving last week and helped us out (and ate lunch with us).  He is out of school for the summer and has been frequenting the house looking for something to do.  This morning he helped me with some landscaping around the house and then, in return, he helped me learn about all the new Xbox games coming out!

Prayer Request
We have had so many sweet friends (and friends of friends who I've never even met!) who have offered to spread the word about me needing to find employment soon, but we could still use prayers and any leads you might have to offer.  The sovereign Lord has everything worked out, we just want to be faithful to walk in the steps He desires.

Pray for the upcoming wedding.  Most all of the details are set in place, but Erin and I both desire it to be a Christ-centered time where we celebrate the gospel together!

Pray for us.  That I may learn to love Erin as Christ loves the church and that she can love me as the church is to love Christ (Ephesians 5).

Living Room of our New Home!! : )

Thanks so much for all your support!  To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Tinkerbell

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

I just want to start this update off by giving thanks to God the Father for all He is, all He has done, and for the steadfast promise of what He will do.  Erin and I have been so blessed by Him up to this point in our lives and want to direct all praise, thanksgiving and honor to Him.

With that, here's an update!

Tinkerbell.

As summer rolls in, cars begin their melting process, AC bills sky-rocket and the Mavericks provide us with great water-cooler talk, the pace of life is picking up around here.  Erin is working hard at her job, serving as a leader in the 20s group at Woodcreek, planning a wedding and preparing for a marriage.  I am working on finishing well at Woodcreek, preparing for the transition of leadership in Senior High, and beginning to sow the seeds of our new life together in McKinney.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to do all of life's major transitions all at the same time, right?  Get them all out of the way?  Sort of like ripping off a band-aid - just do it all really quick and it might sting for a bit but then it gets better!  Right?

That reminds me of what my college mentor, Chris Taylor, told me when I unveiled to him last winter what I felt God was leading me to do - marry Erin, quit my job, move to another city, look for a new job and plant a church.  He lovingly bestowed some kind, godly words of wisdom to me.  He leaned forward, drew me close, looked me straight in the eyes and softly said...

"You're an idiot."  : )

It was all in love and fun and he said it as a loving older-brother/father-figure would and we laughed about it.  The truth is I've never argued that fact.  I am an idiot - an idiot saved by the grace given to me by Jesus.  But I do appreciate Chris' words of wisdom as he was "speaking the truth in love" reminding me that if I was doing this under my own power and determination, I was an idiot.  But I know he believes, like Erin and me, that God's story is full of Him doing amazing things with simple, ordinary people.

And, although I may be an idiot trying to do many of life's hardest things at one time, the only way I could be a bigger idiot would be to say "no" to God as He leads me (and Erin) this way.  And, just to make it clear, there's no way an idiot ends up with a girl like Erin! : )

So, you're probably asking what in the world this has to do with Tinkerbell.  Well, I am moving into our McKinney home this weekend, 6-weeks or so before Erin joins me as Mrs. McCullough, and this is the key that was left for me to open the doors of our new abode.  Needless to say a trip to Lowes jumped to the top of the 'to-do' list.

But it's exciting.  I plan on imploring my "fresh-baked-cookies-hand-delivered-to-the-neighbors" tactic that I used at my apartment to begin getting to know and building relationships with the people the Lord has placed around us.  I've found this tactic to be quite lucrative in making friends and breaking down walls.  As my friend Jon Lilley told me once when I second-guessed if this was a good idea, "Who doesn't like getting cookies?"  Good point.

So, pray for us.  The time is drawing nearer and we are growing more and more excited to follow Jesus into this unknown (unknown to us, not Him).  But there is a specific prayer request that you can still lift up for us.

I am still in the job hunt here in McKinney and trusting God has something in line for me.  I just want to be faithful to being where He wants me to be.  Please pray for that and if you have any connections to people or places in McKinney that might be looking for part-time or full-time work, please let me know! You can email me.  Also, you can read more about the Job Hunt at this blog post.

Thanks again for the support and feel free to comment or send any emails!  You don't realize the power of your words of encouragement to us in this process!!

As Paul wrote in Philippians 4:20

To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.