April 2009 Archives

I have never understood how any Christian could turn their back on those in need of basic necessities ... like food, water, and shelter. Food and water is our most basic of necessities (after our need of the Savior) and unfortunately there are children all over the world who are going without them.

They are going hungry. Many are starving. Many are dying.

If you are interested in helping ... and I hope you are ... I have a few resources available to you. Please consider helping those in need. And, if you still aren't sure ... check out this blog post by Anne Jackson. Maybe in it, you will hear the "plea" from another sister and the "why" you should respond.

- There are many ways to help feed the hungry through Feeding America. You can donate money. You can even set aside a dinner at home to educate your family and friends about hunger. I played a trivia game yesterday and was able to donate 200 lbs of food just by having a little fun.

- You can pledge to give, share, and/or volunteer over at Pledge To End Hunger. Just making that pledge will help get trucks of food to your state. How easy is that?

- Feed The Children is another organization that is devoted to feeding children in America.

- Compassion allows you to sponsor a child for just $32 a month. You can write letters to your child, develop a relationship with them, and help provide opportunities for education, health and personal development. Your sponsored child will even learn about Jesus in a church-based program where they live.

- Heifer International helps provide livestock and training to desperate families so that they can help themselves and their communities.

- Feed My Starving Children is an organization that sends food packets around the world to fight hunger and starvation.

There are many organizations out there that are working hard to feed and care for hurting families. Prayerfully consider partnering with one today.

Living Waters is offering The Divine Butler for $5 a copy or $1.50 if you order ten or more.

Also, for the next two weeks (from April 27th - May 11th) they will reduce the School of Biblical Evangelism Textbook from $25 to $12 each. This is a great price (it's the size of a phone book) and has 101 lessons.

Don't forget that you can join the School of Biblical Evangelism for half off through the month of April. That deal is almost over! I joined and am loving it. :)

In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to post a snippet of one of the best articles I have read regarding Christians and Environmentalism written by Randy Alcorn ...

On one extreme, there are those who assume that every claim of man-caused global warming is true, ignoring the fact that many groups, including pro-choice organizations, are capitalizing on exaggerated environmental fears to justify ungodly agendas that include increasing global abortions.

On the other extreme there are Bible-believing Christians who figure that since the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and the devil is the god of this world, and they are not to love the world, then they shouldn't care for the creation. Since the earth is going to sink in flames and ruin anyway, why bother rearranging the furniture on the Titanic?

This ignores the biblical mandate so clear in Genesis 2, as well as the promise of Scripture that God is going to redeem the entire creation. He is not done with it, and He never revoked his command that we should take good care of it.

Read it all. Good stuff.

Okay ... I normally wouldn't read anything that came out of the Daily Kos or anyone who participates in their community, but I have to say ... I did love this from Pastor Dan:

Pay up, whiners. You participate in the economy, you receive its benefits, and there is no lawful reason for you to buck authority. Cough up the coin you have accepted and be done with it.

You know, we had to pay in past what we had already paid in. Yeah, it sucks to owe the government money. But, I agree with that post. Read the whole thing. :)

HT: Satchel Pooch

We have many Bibles in our house. We have your standard King James Version. A few of them actually. My husband has his mother's burgundy leather Bible with her name on it. I have one from when I was a child, one from when I was a teenager, and another I bought myself back in 2003.

We have a few NIV's sitting around. We have the NLT. We have a few Life Application Bible's sitting on the shelves. We have a big Family Bible. There are two Fire Bibles. We have devotional Bibles. We even have a few Bibles that the kids got from the Gideon's. If you are looking for a Bible ... we are the house to be in.

But, my favorite Bible ... the one I love to read and read often ... is the Nelson Study Bible. It is the NKJV and it is awesome! I love it. I really do. It is one of the most comprehensive study Bibles I have ever seen and I am never left wondering what something means or how it applies to the scripture at hand. It is the Bible I study with. It is the Bible I read.

And, it speaks for that. If you could see my Bible ... you would see just how worn it has become. It looks pitiful! Which is why I am so excited because my husband is going to by me a new one in geniune leather with indented tabs for my birthday in June. I can't wait! I am so excited!

So ... what is your favorite Bible?

I was asked the other day why I don't blog much about politics anymore. I guess there is about three reasons for that:

One ... I haven't been doing that much in the way of blogging. I don't read that many blogs anymore either. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I am totally disgusted by how ugly a lot of the brethern online are coming across right now. I would much rather talk to Christians that I go to church with and who I am surrounded by in "real" life.

Two ... I am sick of hearing about the "Tea Party" and how wrong it is to raise taxes and increase spending ... NOW. It was totally fine when a Republican President was doing so for various reasons, including war and more WAR. Let a Democrat do so and suddenly the hypocrites come out of the woodwork. I have no interest in being a hypocrite.

Three ... I almost said I am too busy, but that is not necessarily true. I do spend time on Facebook. I do enjoy twittering. I enrolled in the School of Biblical Evangelism. I have now lost thirteen pounds. So, I could blog if I really wanted to. It's just that reasons one and two affect that a lot and so I don't blog as often as I used to.

Don't get me wrong ... I don't agree with everything President Obama has been doing. Some of the things he has done has rubbed me all wrong ... like some of the decisions he has made regarding abortion. But, to jump on these stupid bandwagons that mean nothing in the end ... like the "Tea Party" and "Going Galt" ... while claiming your Christianity out the side of your mouth just doesn't do it for me. Why weren't you doing that when President Bush was doing some of the exact same things? Show me why it wasn't biblical then, but now it is.

Honestly, I don't think you can.

Well we are done and what a trip we have had!! We just left our team meeting where we had our local missionaries come and speak to us for a few minutes.  They shared with our team the story of how they met and married. They encouraged our team to pray and wait for the right mate.  They also shared how about the missionary call and life.  We had prayer with them and for them.  We also presented them with an honorarium for the hard work they have done to make this trip a success. 

Each team member took a moment to share what they were going to "take home" from the trip.  This was an emotional and also funny time as we reflected on what God had taught us personally on this trip.  

Our day began with with our final day with our VBS.  What a great time we had.  It was an awesome service with the opportunity to pray with a lot of kids. We presented each kid with at "gold' medal and a certificate for participating.  Our team was a little "misty" when we left.  They have become very attached to these kids and developed some great relationships with them. 

After VBS it was off to Brugge!!  We caught the train to Brussels and had 6 minutes to catch the train from Brussels to Brugge.  Brugge is a beautiful old European city.  Cobblestone streets, canals, old churches, and homes with flower boxes in the windows.  It is very beautiful!!!  We spent about 3 1/2 hours in Brugge, ate dinner and caught the train home. 

We have a wonderful team.  Each one of these students has represented the Lord, their parents, their church and the Kentucky district in a wonderful way.  Each parent should be proud.  They have worked hard and served well! I believe the Lord is pleased with their efforts and I know that I am.  It was an honor to lead this team.

I know they will be excited to tell and show you all that God has done but that may come after a day or two of sleep!!

• AIM Trip Update
• AIM Trip Update II
• AIM Trip Update III

I have been a big fan of the Way of the Master ministry for sometime now. A few years actually. I have always envied their boldness to just get out there and open-air preach and evangelize the way they do. I don't know where to even start.

Well, I take that back. I do know where to start and it is the School of Biblical Evangelism. I have been wanting to take their course for a long time, but $150 is a bit steep when you have eight kids and four dogs. But, this month they have cut the cost in half! For $75 you can enroll and get all the benefits ... just like you paid the full price!

You get:

• 101 Online Lessons
• over 45 Audio Lessons
• 50 Cartoon Kids Lessons
• a student community forum

Plus!

• The Way of the Master (book)
• Out of the Comfort Zone (book)
• Hell's Best Kept Secret (cd)
• True and False Conversion (cd)

And when you graduate ...

• Bonded Leather Evidence Bible
• A Quality Graduation Certificate

Hubby says we can squeeze $75 out of our budget for this and I am so excited! I plan to enroll tomorrow or Monday and I can't wait! You really ought to join me. :)

We didn't get an update for day five, but here is what we got last night ...

Day Six

Greetings again!

Sorry I did not get the email together yesterday.  I had a full day and just did not have the time.

We are having the time of our lives on this trip.  We have some students who are becoming attached to some of these children, so you may need to watch for some unusual "souvenirs"!!!

The CC group leaves every morning at 7:45.  We pack our lunch each day and take it with us.  We have about at 30 minute drive to the church. The VBS has been a great hit.  We had 73 kids in attendance today.  We prayed with about 10 to accept Christ today!!

The other team (OIC ministry) has been working in the inner city. They leave about 10:00 a.m. Their ministry does not begin until about 1:00 p.m.  This team deserves a great pat on the back.  They have had a great challenge this week.  They have been working with unchurched inner city immigrant kids who speak primarily French.  Hat's off to P, S, K, K, K, L, N, C, and NS.  They have done an outstanding job under very difficult circumstances!!!

After our ministry at CC yesterday we did a "prayer walk" at the University.  This large metropolitan university is "officially" atheistic".  They do not allow religion, religious doctrine or thought on the campus in any official form.  Student religious groups are not even allowed on campus. BT and DT took us around several areas of the campus and we prayed fervently that somehow the light of the gospel would come to this university. 

The O team met a small team from CC and went to the weekly Students For Christ meeting at our local missionaries home. It was great to worship with them and see their ministry. 

Today, (Wednesday) we had our 3rd day of VBS.  The O team concluded their ministry downtown and will join the CC team tomorrow for our final day.

Tonight we all went to the CC for church.  I bought pizza for our team and the youth group at CC.  They have a great bunch of students and I wanted to make a greater connection with them.  We taught them our songs and they are going to join us tomorrow as one team.  A musical team from CT Seminary ministered in the service.  They represented 9 different nations. 

We open and close each service with our VBS theme of "Are You Ready".  The team put together the motions and learned it on Sunday night after our arrival.  It even involves the "electric slide".  It is really good!!  Can't wait for you to see it you will really be proud of them.

Good bye for now.  They team is doing great and God is using them in a great way.  Pray for our ministry in tomorrow morning and then we hop a train!!

God Bless!!

I got an email from my daughter and she is having the time of her life. Thank you again to those that helped make this a reality! :)

Related Posts:

• AIM Trip Update
• AIM Trip Update II

I participated in the Pound For Pound Challenge this year and pledged to lose ten pounds. I am happy to report that I actually lost 11.5 pounds! :)

For more information on Feeding America, click here.

Here is day three and four as promised ...

Day Three

What a great day in the city!! We started our day leaving for ICC about 8:30.  Our team was involved in different aspects of the ministry.  We helped in the nursery, Sunday school, 4 and 5 year old kids church, and we partnered with CC's children's ministry and did kids church with them.

The church is amazing.  There are 33 different nationalities represented at CC.  Many of them are associated with the European Union or international business.  Today our students met people from Zambia, Congo, South Africa, Columbia, Switzerland, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ghana, Philippines, Singapore.  They had over 300 in the A.M. Service.  The service is translated into 4 different languages.  I had the opportunity to bring greetings from our Kentucky District, tell about our team and invite all kids to our VBS.  TA did a sign language solo for the congregation. 

After church the children's ministry staff prepared lunch for us.  We ate with the staff and the students from the youth ministry.  Our students really connected with the youth group at CC, many of which are missionary kids from the U.S.

After lunch we made a Speed the Light presentation to our local missionaries.  Kentucky Speed the Light presented them with 2 brand new video projectors, and the keys to a brand new car.  They purchased the car last week so the timing was great.  We filmed the presentation and will have it on YouTube sometime tomorrow.  I will send you the link.

Of course the annual AIM trip makes me do a continual refresher on driving a straight shift and remembering the traffic rules of the European roundabout.  In many places they don't have intersections they have circles.  It is interesting to drive through them!!

We did a late afternoon tour through the city.  It is the classic European city.  Lot's of cobblestone roads and roadside café's. It is also a very modern and progressive city in industry, politics and business.  We went to the main tourist area which is the "Grand Place."  We had several hours of shopping, sightseeing, eating waffles and frites.  It was wonderful!!  Part of the youth group from CC was assigned to our teams to serve as guides and translators.  Then we bought chocolate, lot's and lot's of chocolate.  Godiva is the most popular but the locals favor a brand called "Leonidas". Incredible!!

We returned back to our accommodations about 8:00 p.m. and had our nightly team meeting.  We had about 30 minutes of worship, scripture reading and prayer.  We had a very powerful time of prayer; praying for our upcoming ministry.  We divided into our ministry teams for planning.   We have one team going to the downtown area to do ministry with immigrant children.  It is a type of side walk Sunday for all nationalities. I.e. Albanians, Moroccans etc. 

The other team will begin our VBS tomorrow.  The children's director told me this is the largest preregistration of any outreach they have had.  We spent about 2 hours tonight working on our VBS.  We are also going to do street ministry in the city tomorrow. 

Your kids are doing great, having a great time and spending a lot of your money!!

Sorry we did not have time to write emails tonight, will catch up tomorrow.  Feel free to send yours.  The AIMers love reading them.
 
THE CHOCOLATE IS AMAZING!!!

Day Four

Greetings Everyone!!

We are having a great time together!! Today we had a full day of ministry and it was wonderful.  One team went to a downtown inner city location for ministry.  That team was lead by PN and consisted of NS, CT, K and K, SS, KS, and L and N.  They had a great time of ministry that was conducted primarily in French.  This was with immigrant kids from Turkey, Morocco, Eastern Europe, Romania and Bulgaria.  It was a sidewalk Sunday school type event but had great success. 

The rest of the team went to CC for our VBS. It was a tremendous with over 65 kids on the first day.  We had good success in reaching families outside of the church in attendance.  Of course teaching and playing sports while translating in French is a challenge but our team did great.  We are working on putting some of it on YouTube.  It was a really great opening day and a lot of fun. 

After the service a Mercedes pulled up at the church.  It was the personal driver of the Ambassador from the Seychelles Islands.  The ambassador had heard about our event and sent his driver to find the location and get the details so his kids can attend.  There is a strong diplomatic core that is reflected in the constituency of the church. 

The downtown team stayed at their location all day.  The  CC team left and went to the city to do street ministry.  We had worked on the sign language to the song "How Great is our God."  While part of the the team performed the song the rest passed out literature in English, French and Flemish.  There were many interesting exchanges that occurred during our ministry time.  God's presence was very real.  We concluded with public prayer for the city and the country in the square where we did our ministry.  I was very proud of them.  For many it was a good stretching and growing time!!

We met back for dinner at OM and had the rest of the night off.  We have been going about 18 hours a day (if you factor in jet lag) for the last three days so a little down time was nice.

We had our team meeting/worship, devotions, journaling, sharing our perspectives of the day, tomorrows schedule and we work on anything that needs to be done the next day.

Each team has to serve on kitchen and dining hall cleanup crew.  Let's just say I am happy we have a lot of ladies on the trip.  They guys??? Well you figure that out!!

Several parents had contacted us about our safety after the earthquake in Italy.  We are fine and had no idea it had occurred.

Pray for us as we have a long day of ministry in front of us tomorrow.

More tomorrow!

Bush said it in 2003 ...

In a 2003 interview with the Arab news network Al Arabiya, he said: "I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That's what I believe. I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. (source) (emphasis mine)

Obama has said it too:

"So, I have a deep faith," Obama continues. "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. (source) (emphasis mine)

And, I said it then and I will say it again ...

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ~ John 14:6

The more I hear other "Christians" say things like that ... the more I realize that they are obviously not worshipping and serving the same God I am and we have very different views on what it means to actually be a Christian.

I was quite excited to hear about the Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament MP3 Set published by Thomas Nelson. As the mother of children who love the new technology life allows them, I know how hard it can be to get them to sit still and read a book ... let alone the Bible. They feel it is "dated" and they are on the go! They want something that can get up and go with them.

As soon as it arrived in the mail, I immediately loaded the MP3's onto my computer and my eleven year old's MP3 Player. I know I spent at least four hours that very first day just listening myself. I recognized a lot of the actors and enjoyed listening to them act out my beloved Bible. The sound effects were right on time and appropriate for the dialogue. I really enjoyed listening ... though there were times that Hanna Montana's Cody Linley, who plays Jesus, reminded me of how William Shatner might sound playing Jesus. He is quite particular in the way he talks.

Of course, the ultimate test was left to my daughters. How were they going to respond to listening to the Bible on MP3? Would they like it? Would they enjoy the actors? Would it keep their attention and draw them into their Bible? I was happy to find out that they loved how easy it was to listen on their players, the computer, or even through our DVD player. They loved recognizing the various actors from their favorite shows. They especially loved how it helped them to pay more attention and get even more out of their Bible time than before. One of my daughters even likes to go to sleep listening!

The sound effects, the voice clarity, and the spectacular cast makes this collection well worth the price. The set includes 24 hours of audio drama on three MP3 CDs. There is also a bonus Behind-the-Scenes DVD featuring interviews with the actors. Adults and children alike can enjoy the quality and how easy it is to understand what the actors are conveying. I give it a big four stars and recommend it whole-heartedly.

- Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament MP3 Set was reviewed by me and I was not paid for this review.

Well, the girls have been abroad for a few days now and we are getting daily emails updating us on their activities. I figured I would share some here. :)

Day One

We made it!!! We are at our hotel getting settled for the evening.  After a 2 1/2 hour delay in Louisville we made it to Atlanta 10 minutes before our connecting flight took off.  They held the flight for us.  Of course trying to rebook a team as large as ours would not be an easy task.  Thanks Delta.  They even welcomed the "Kentucky Assemblies of God" over the intercom.  Out of 38 students and leaders on the trip 27 had never flown before.  We encountered a lot of turbulence which made for a quite interesting experience.  Unpleasant for a few.

Please know every one did so well through a very stressful transition through the Atlanta Airport and through customs.

I let my daughter pack our snacks for the flight.  There is nothing quite like the taste of  beef jerky and gummy worms.

After we arrived, we dropped off our luggage and had lunch.  After lunch we had a brief orientation with the our local missionaries and quickly left for an afternoon of passing out flyers for our VBS.  We went to schools, parking lots anywhere there were people to advertise our event.  We probably passed out over 1500 flyers.

We had dinner at 6:00 P.M. and a quick team meeting.  The team is very tired and many of them are in bed for the night, and it is still daylight!!! They are adjusting well.

The bus for Paris, France leaves at 7:00 a.m. 

Thanks for allowing your family member to go on this trip.  This will be a trip they will never forget and for some it will be life changing!!  Many of our present day missionaries felt a call to missions during an AIM trip.  Pray for us!!  We have a very busy and very complex ministry schedule.  All of which we do will be in at least 2 or 3 languages.

Day Two

Wow what a day!! We left for Paris early this morning at 7:00 A.M. It was about a 3 hour bus ride into the city. We went first to the Eiffel Tower. It was about a 2 hour wait to the elevator but how many times are you in Paris? So we waited. The Paris Marathon is tomorrow so there are many people here for that. As we got to the ticket booth they shut down the upper portion of the ET. We only got as far as the second floor ,which still give you a wonderful view of the city. It is truly a beautiful city!!

Because of the long amount of time we spent at the ET we did not get to take the boat ride around Paris. We traveled along the Seine River to the Latin Quarter where Cathedral of Notre Dame is located. The church was built beginning in the 1300's.  I am not sure the team caught the significance of a church that is over 600 years old but they took a lot of pictures. We gave them about 2 hours in the Latin Quarter to shop, eat and walk around. The families will be pleased with all the "expensive" gifts you have coming home. (Hint: I hope you like Eiffel Tower!)

We left and went to the Hard Rock Café of Paris for dinner.

This bus ride was great bonding time for our team. We started with our devotions this morning as we crossed into France. There were no strangers during our trip; lot's of laughing and talking.

We had two friends of LT, (L and F) on the bus with us.  L's family is Swiss and F's is Columbian.  They both (with LT) speak 3 to 4 languages.  They were teaching our team words like: God, Jesus, love, Bible, church in French, German and Spanish.  We taught them "grits and holler". (Not the vocal holler, the holler that is like a street). I not sure they understood our explanation of "holler". It was very funny!!

Everyone is doing well. Having an entire nights sleep was a big help.

Tomorrow we begin our ministry time.  We have a service at the ICC. Our students and leaders are doing nursery, kids church and all of the kids classes. The church is providing lunch for us and our hosts are going to take us out for a little sight seeing in the afternoon. Our VBS begins Monday. We are having a great time!!

Please forgive me as I had to do a little editing. I removed names and some places just to make sure that our missionary team remains safe while on their trip. Please continue to keep them in prayer! Tomorrow I will post day three and four! :)

I don't know if you have read the blog post by David Wilkerson where he prophesied about an upcoming earth-shattering calamity. If you haven't you might want to check it out. It makes for interesting reading.

Let me say upfront that I am of the Pentecostal persuasion. I believe in the Word of God and therefore I believe in visions and prophecy. My understanding is that David Wilkerson is a well-respected man of God and I have no reason to doubt that or what he says. Saying that, I will tell you that I believe prophecy can be tested and since the test of it is whether or not it comes true ... I say it is better to be safe than sorry unless the "prophesy" contradicts the Word of God and then you can just ignore it.

Dr. David Reagan has written a blog post regarding Wilkerson's vision. Tony Miano also wrote a post regarding it as well. Both men take different stances but remain respectful to everyone else. Some really good reading.

What do you think?

The girls meet today at five o'clock and begin their trip to Belgium. They will drive up tonight and get on the plane tomorrow. They are so excited! We were able to raise all of the funds needed and that was a miracle in itself. We had so many obstacles and there was added expenses tacked on just a couple of weeks ago that equaled more than a thousand dollars. We did it though!

Thank you to everyone who cared enough to donate here on the blog. You have no idea how much the girls appreciate it. Every penny definitely counted and we couldn't have done it without you.

Please keep the girls in your prayers as they spend the next week ministering to the children of Belgium. Please pray for God to move in a mighty way amongst their lives and the lives of those they touch.