It’s always good to include “the Lord willing” as the determining factor in your plans.

‘Yo budi,’ Greg Greenlaw writes. “It’s the Nakui way of saying ‘maybe.’ It literally means, ‘Yes, possibly,’ and it summarizes the theme of our last two weeks.”

It is the attitude, says Greg, that the Apostle James was promoting in James 4:14-15 when he wrote, “You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. … You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”

Greg says that their plans are often changed by circumstances that he knows God allows for His purposes. This summer, for instance, has seen some big plan revisions. There have been some dramatic changes in ministry plans for various reasons. The timing for a season of home assignment originally planned for June 2014 needed to be adjusted due to the projected needs of their high schoolers.

Now instead, Greg writes, their home assignment is projected to begin in August of this summer, following a hike into the Nakui village that was their home for 15 years. There they will visit with and encourage the growing Nakui church, a church where transformation and maturity have been visible in recent months.

Greg and Heidi are remembering to preface all their plans with a very important phrase: “If it is the Lord’s will,” Greg writes, “following that visit, we will then fly home. Yo budi.”

“Thank you, for the reminder, James,” he adds.