Hi there! 

This past month has been so impactful, exciting, and full of new things. When I posted my last update I thought things were crazy and amazing and so full of God that they couldn’t get any better but throughout this past month I’ve learned that there is never a best with God. There is only the next step higher and deeper in and through Him. Through this experience, God has given me vision and direction that I’d like to share with you.

 Back in 2015 when my mom and I were in Japan, I began to really focus on my education and what I wanted to do with my life. It was because of this that I decided to push to graduate early and, with all your help, attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. I spent an amazing year there learning and making friends but to be honest, it burned me out. I had been pushing so hard to graduate early and attend this amazing but extremely difficult university that I forgot to give myself time to relax and bask in the presence of God. This moved me to take a year off. Not to quit or give up when it got hard, but to give myself a break and realign myself with God’s desires, rather than my own. 

About a month and a half after the semester had ended in May, I began to think about Harvest School with Iris Global and about how changed all of my family had been after experiencing that place so I started to ask God whether I should apply or continue to work and rest. Soon after this, I talked with my mom and she randomly asked if I’d thought about attending the next school in October. Not expecting that, I said I would pray about it and spent the next week asking God what I should do. I had been so focused on school that I’d forgotten what else had been stirred up in me when we were in Japan. One of the first days after we’d arrived in Japan, my mom and I were walking around the city seeing the land that we’d come to serve for the next season and I turned to my mom and said, “I could see myself living here.” Although I’ve lived in Malawi and had traveled around, I had never once felt fully at home in a place until that day; walking in a city I’d never been to and surrounded by a people I couldn’t communicate with.

Remembering this, God said to me, “Caleb, I didn’t make you by hand so you could sit around working for yourself. I made you to show the world who I am. Come to Mozambique and spend time with me.” So I called my mom at the end of the week and told her that I was going to apply and I started the preparations even before I’d been accepted. Surprisingly, I heard back a mere week after submitting my application and suddenly my life began to change. My mom came home and our apartment was filled with preparations as both my mom and I were traveling to the same place with different callings. She was going to serve and I was going to receive. 

I left with so many expectations by God looked at my expectations and laughed. I had so many questions and now I have so many more but none are the ones I came with. I had so much junk that God dropped off at the dump. I came with no direction and now I have a vision and a plan. So let me tell you some of the things God has asked me to do and some of the things that’ve happened. First I’ll tell you about the past month. 

I’ve heard so many amazing messages and I’ve gotten closer to a God in a new way. My skit went amazingly and was powerful. My mom shared her testimony in class last week and so many were touched by it. My outreach group had a dinner with the bible school students who were to accompany us on our bush outreach the next weekend so that we could connect with them and bond as a group. This last weekend I went on an outreach 7 hours away from Pemba for 3 days. We left around 3P.M. on Thursday and drove 4 hours to a town called Namapa where we stopped and worshiped with a small church before blessing them with a motorbike to help with evangelism. After an hour or so there, we drove another hour and a half to a small village by a river and set up camp. The next morning we went to the river and baptized 55 people as well as played with the kids in the river before lunch. After lunch I played with the kids some more before we broke into groups and went to houses to evangelize. That night we ministered to the whole village and showed them the Jesus film before going to bed again. The next morning we honored the chief, dedicated the church, and had a wedding before traveling back to Pemba. It was such an amazing time and so many lives were touched, myself included.

Before class a couple weeks ago I slipped and fell on a concrete porch outside my room and hit my back and hip on a wooden chair and since then, I have been in immense pain from my hip so if you think about me, please pray for healing and rest as it has been keeping me up at night. 

Now that you are up to date, I’d like to share with you the plans I’ve made with God for this next season even as I close my time here in Mozambique and transition to England next week. 

I have applied to Iris’ M24 mission school in Pasadena, California in March. This is a school for those who have attended Harvest School who want to pioneer a base with Iris. I hope that, once I’ve completed this next school, to travel back to that place where I felt at home for the first time; back to Japan to start the first Iris work there in the end of August. While I’m there, I want to reach out to the community, the shop owners, the homeless, the hopeless, and those who are blinded by Buddhist and Shinto beliefs—to show them the love of God and teach them how to love each other and God. 

I also plan to step forward with my plans to make Divine Lights Media an official company and to sell prints of my photographs to raise money for missions. All proceeds other than operating costs will go directly to supporting other missionaries around the world. It is my heart and goal to make sure that God’s work is funded and supported even if it’s only a single dollar. I hope to give hope and joy to those who are in the darkest of places even as I pour out God’s love to the people in Japan. 

Some of you have been and are wondering what I plan to do about my schooling and if you’ve helped me get to school through monetary or prayer support, I want to thank you for all you’ve sown into my life and I want you to know that I’m not giving up on my education. I’m not letting all that seed go to waste. While I’m in Arizona and California over the next 8 months, I will be learning Japanese and, once I get to Japan, I will be attending an university online, continuing to learn and work towards my degree. 

As I begin to prepare for this next season in my life, I’m asking if you would prayerfully consider partnering with me in prayer, as well as financially on a monthly or yearly basis. At some point there may be an option to give through Iris once I transition into Japan which would make all your donations tax deductible. Until then, PayPal is the best option. I am also compiling a list of names who feel led to intercede for me. If that is you, please contact me through divinelightsmedia.com/contact-us. 

I would like to thank those who have already supported me financially and through your prayers. Please know that all you give, in every way, is a huge blessing and honor. I know that my Father in Heaven has cattle on a thousand hills and that He will meet all my needs, and yet I also feel it is a gift that we are a part of His family, allowing us to do things together for His Kingdom. The past years would’ve been so much harder had you not made the sacrifice of time in prayers and your generosity to help carry me and my family. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am. 

God bless, 

Caleb Martin