My brother and sister in Christ, Jedd & Rachel Medefind, are intensely committed to the cause of loving orphans. They are also amazingly loving and dedicated to their family and community. Jedd leads an organization well known internationally for coordinating and encouraging growth and impact for over 140 different organizations spear-heading efforts to care for orphans. You can read his bio here.

Follow the international event happening this week at Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit 10.

Jedd and Rachel are a beautiful couple, loving Christ with all of who they are. They follow our Savior with an intensity that is refreshing, and this makes them all the more inviting to deepen with in friendship. Carrie and I have grown in our friendship with them to find them to be so kind and interested in us! They are such a marvelous couple, and yet, because they are so others-oriented and gracious, we seriously have to wrestle conversationally to check in on them and encouraged them. I’ve met very few couples like this, together seeking to intensely know Christ, know and enjoy one another at the deepest level in their marriage and friendship, and care for their kids (five of them!) and friends/family with such intentionality. Rachel and Carrie are quite close, as are Jedd and I, and we are close as couples. We truly feel we are with family when we are together.

This kind of cultivation of friendship is I believe essential for anyone seeking to see the Gospel of Christ showing up on the ground of their lives long-term. Christ is working in our lives through the Holy Spirit and through His Word to transform our lives and the lives of everyone we touch. Jedd is only as impactful long-term as he and Rachel are together. Rachel’s wisdom and kindness in thinking through women’s present-day challenges and opportunities is only deepened as much as she grows in her love for Christ and team-work with Jedd. They are truly a unit in Christ. They function with such grace and support and kindness; it’s truly refreshing. With as capable and impactful as they are, I know they will only continue to grow as they follow Christ right where they are planted.

The truly remarkable aspect to all of this is their global impact from a little central valley town here in Central California. You’ve likely heard it said to think globally and act locally. This is what the Medefinds are doing as a family, along with their parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. They have returned to their home for the last several years and found that they still have a great impact even globally, while growing and having tremendous impact among their friends here in Central Cal. Carrie and I could speak for hours to this being very true. I plan to post about their family through the years again, because they truly want to see and are seeing the Gospel of Christ showing up through their lives both extra-locally, locally, and globally. Not all of us will have this thorough of an impact, but I share a taste of their story to remind us to be present. Be fully present where God has placed you. Do well with what God has already given you. Don’t be anxious about what else He may have for you at this time. Simply be amazed that He has you where He has you. Rest. Celebrate Christ right where you find yourself in the here and now.

In that rest, you’ll find His Word to be more satisfying, His presence to be more real, your family and friends to be more precious than they have ever been to you.

There is great joy in Christian contentment. As you rest, God will guide you into the life’s work/labor you are called to, no matter how formless that may seem in any given year. Labor in the love of Christ, and you’ll be carried along by this sovereign and awesome love of God to find yourself loving more deeply and fully right where you are and wherever God leads you to.

Grateful for these refreshing friends.

Final note: Please do pray for Summit 10 this week. I was able to attend Summit 8 and it is a wonderful taste of God’s people working together in thousands of local churches internationally to address the grieving situation of children without family loving on them. Pray specifically for Jedd and his beautiful family, that God would give strength and rest and confidence as God reaches and loves on orphans through ministering to these dear friends of ours.

In His friendship,

– Torrey