New Blog Address

Because this blog address is pretty clunky, we've exported this blog to a new, easier-to-remember site: nlfaberdeen.blogspot.com. The nlf stands for New Life Fellowship, of course. So if you're looking for newer posts, you might visit the new site.

Your story

This is the perfect place to share the story of how you came to walk with Christ. We each came a different way and for different reasons. When you listen to (or read) someone's "testimony" or spiritual life story, you can only marvel at the twists and turns people go through as they come to a place of surrender. No two people come in quite the same way. Even kids who grew up in a church-loving home and can't remember not being with Christian family members, even they come to a knowledge of Him in different ways.
If you would be willing to share your story, please send it here: TESTIMONIES.


Since I made the invitation, I'll start out, although Kady already did earlier. You can scroll down to read her story.

ALONE IN THE DARK

My parents gave up on church before I was born, though they sometimes went on holidays for my grandmothers' sake. I remember my grandmother giving me Catholic prayer books when I was 6 or 7.
I also remember a book about Mary and knowing -- even that early -- that I could never be a saint. The book said that Mary never sinned, but I knew I had sinned. I had taught my little brother to take candy from a store display when my mom was shopping and we were supposed to be riding the vending horses near the entrance.
I figured God wouldn't want me because I had blown perfection already. For some reason, and I can only think it was to get us out of her way for a while, my mom sent me and my little brother to a summer Bible school around the block. I was excited because it was called Bible school and I was too young for regular school. I liked the idea of going to school like the big kids. I must have been four and almost 5. My brother would have been 3. I had never been to this part of the neighborhood and I was scared. Mom wouldn’t take us, just sent us. I took my brother to what I thought was the house and got the wrong house. I was scared. The lady in the wrong house pointed out the right house, though, and we came in late.

The problem with Vacation Bible School

I was very uncomfortable at Bible school. They kept talking about Jesus and I really didn’t know who Jesus was. My feelings were not good during that experience. Later, I thought a lot about hell and was scared. When I was older I reasoned that if you burned, you’d eventually burn up and not hurt anymore, so then the idea of hell didn’t scare me any more.
My parents, and especially my dad, became pretty vocal about religious nuts and religion in general. They told us that when we were older we could choose our own religion, as if all religions were equal (and frankly, equally wrong).

Religious People are Stupid

A man at my dad’s work was a Christian and really annoying to my dad. He was everything the fundamentalist stereotype encompassed, unfortunately, and my dad would sometimes rave about Christians at dinnertime. I adopted the same attitude, deciding that religious people were deluded and that intelligent, thoughtful people wouldn’t believe in superstition or religion. But I really didn’t reason or think things through. Just adopted an easy world view. If you make the other guy prove his way is right, you never have to exert yourself. It’s easy to be a skeptic. Doesn’t take any effort at all.

Wondering at night

It's one thing to be a skeptic in the day time, but when you are alone at night, doubts creep in. At night I began to think deep, unsettling thoughts. What if I’m wrong? What if there really is a god and eternity? I had a hard time with the concept of nothing. I felt that after you died you’d experience nothing. But what was nothing? Was it black and cold? Black and cold were concepts. They weren’t nothing. What would nothing be like? That I couldn’t fathom nothing bothered me. I had many doubts. I thought there might be a god every time I saw rays of sunshine beaming through clouds. And I would sometimes, secretly, wonder if God might have been speaking to me throughout my life in different ways, like through my grandma and her prayer books. Through a music teacher at school and other ways.

God doesn't grade on a curve

But if I was wrong, I figured I’d come out okay anyway. After all, I was a moral person. I was more moral than most people around me, even Christians. I just assumed that God would grade on a curve, that as long as I could find people worse than I, I’d have to be admitted to heaven. It never occurred to me that God might have an absolute standard by which He judged people.

Failing Mission X

When I was 10 or 11, a neighbor family invited me to go with them to Missionettes. This was an Assembly of God kids group. I thought the girl said Mission X. Since we were studying California history, and at that time missions, I thought it would be great to visit a mission. I said yes, and my parents said fine.But it wasn’t a mission. It was church.

I had only been in church before when I was very small, at Easter, and I really had no clear memory of it. Here, I sat in the pew next to my friend’s dad and he let me look at the pictures in his Bible. I liked the pictures but had no understanding. Missionettes itself was okay, and I kind of liked it, but I felt awkward not knowing what all the other kids knew. It slowly dawned on me that the only reason I had been invited was for my friend to earn play money for some kind of prize contest. I was being used, and I knew it.

I thought the girl liked me and I was flattered to have a new friend. When I finally understood that I was just a means to an end, I was disappointed and stopped going.

Activist Atheist

In 6th grade, a teacher we all hated would mention the Bible in class from time to time. My friend said it was illegal for him to do this. I thought that if I could tape record him mentioning the Bible, and play the tape for the authorities, we could get rid of him. I had a new (reel to reel!) tape recorder. I asked Mom if I could take it to school. No problem, she said. (I didn’t tell her why.) I recorded Mr. Fode’s first class and also our social studies class. When I came to Mr. Fode’s second class (I had him both for English and for reading) he saw it and asked me if I knew I needed permission to record classes. I told him yes (I had Mom’s permission). He thought I knew I needed permission from him. He asked me what I had recorded. I mentioned the social studies class but not his earlier class. He marched me to the Social studies teacher. I was made to stand in front of the class and replay everything I’d recorded. I stood there beet red. Everything I recorded was pretty much just static anyway. I stood in front of the class. The class had no idea what I was doing there, so it wasn’t too bad, and I could tell the social studies teacher was sympathetic. I never got rid of Mr. Fode, but I begin to really hate religion.

Occult studies

In junior high, from time to time, I made fun of the religious kids at school. I was very lonely in junior high. My best friend had a hip problem and missed a lot of school. I was on my own, very self-conscious and lonely. In 8th grade I turned to the occult. I had read Nancy Drew books which were harmless mystery stories. In the library, next to the mystery stories were ghost stories. I read through those. Then there were occult books on astral projection, astrology and other dark arts, and I read through those. I bought some Tarot cards. I don’t like to dwell on it now, but there was a real spiritual force in the Tarot cards. Not at first, but after a while, I could go into a trance and go through a spiritual progression (regression?) until I came to the death card. After a while I could go through that until I came to the Devil card. I was afraid of the Devil card.

I used the occult practices to feel powerful when I was lonely and miserable. The girl across the street was a bully had beat me up on several occasions and I lived in fear of her. I felt powerful when participating in occult things. I bought a book on witchcraft that had many spells in it. I was not very successful at casting spells, but I did consider myself a witch. I held seances (also not successful) and burned incense and told fortunes.

I feel very fortunate that I was not more ensnared in the spiritual dimension of these practices. I have my mom to thank for not getting in too deep. When I bought the book, my dad told me I could have it as long as I didn't believe in it, as long as I just used it to study witchcraft, not practice it. He didn't believe in religion or superstition and I figured that's why he told me this.One of the spells in the book was for making you invisible. I thought -- wow -- to be invisible, I'd give anything. I forgot the exact spell, but you were to take certain items to bed with you and go to sleep. A spirit would wake you up and you were to do everything it said to do. What could I lose? I gathered the items and was about to take them into my bedroom when my mom stopped me. When she asked what I was doing, I told her, embarrassed. I'm not sure why she warned me against doing this, (it may have been no more than preventing me from being silly, but I felt she was really warning me). I am so thankful. I am certain that if I had gone through with that experiment I might have been lured into a spiritual darkness that would have been very difficult to get out of.
The woman next door considered herself a witch and I didn’t realize this until I was no longer much interested in occult things. I dropped everything except Chinese fortune telling with cards by the time I was in high school.

Turning point

In high school I met Art (my now husband) and he was a Christian. Why he dated me, an atheist who dabbled in the occult, I’ll never know, except that I had once kind of thrown out a prayer in case there was a God saying please send me a boyfriend if you’re there. And here was Art.

The first thing he took me to was Steambath, a play about God being a capricious Puerto Rican despot or something. I guess it did cover a spiritual topic, but when I saw it I figured it was an anti-God play and that Art must be an atheist like me. We had so much in common! Instead, he was a Jewish Jesus freak.

He never came on strong about his religious beliefs, but he did insist that we go to church Sunday mornings when we were dating. He dragged me to dozens of bad churches and some good ones, and I got a taste of 1970s Christianity. I hated most of the churches and just put up with them. What I saw were people all dressed up trying to impress each other. This was the natural, earthtone 70s when young people wore jeans and T-shirts, especially in California. All the church people just seemed square and phony, and I sure didn’t want to end up looking or acting like them.

In the corn field

One day, Art took me to a Baptist church where his friend Charlie taught adult Sunday school. Charlie’s class was wonderful. He was studying the book of Mark and the story of the disciples going through the corn fields plucking corn and being criticized by the religious leaders. It was a great story. Here was Jesus, and He felt about religion the same way I did! It was quite a revelation.

I enjoyed reading about Jesus by the sea side, hearing his parables and teachings. Everything he taught sounded great; it was the religion part I didn’t like. After this, Art gave me a Gideon's Bible, and later a reference Bible along with a Bible reading chart. He asked me to do two things: Read the Bible, five chapters a day, and pray. I scoffed at this. But I said I’d do it for him.

The five chapters a day was no trouble. Parts were interesting and other parts confirmed my anti-religious outlook. When I got to the part where the Israelites were slaughtering the Amorites and such, I’d say, "See, see. Religion is bad and violent." (This was during the war-is-always-bad Vietnam War era.) It would just confirm what I already suspected.

I remember first reading about Christ on the cross. The priests came by and mocked him. "He can save others, but he can’t save himself. Hey, just come down from the cross and we’ll believe you." I thought, why not? Why DOESN’T he come down? If the big thing is for people to believe, why doesn’t he take them up on it here? I didn’t know yet that the very staying on the cross at that point was the sacrifice that saved the whole world. That by staying there, he took God’s anger on himself for our sins and paid the penalty for us. If he had come down, a few might have believed but the world would not have been saved.

Believing is against my principles!

The hard part, though, was not reading the Bible. The hard part was praying. How could I pray when I didn’t even believe in God. It seemed a violation of some sacred principle. But how could I have any principles? Without God, no principles are real. You make them up and you ignore them. NOTHING is binding if there isn’t a god! But I had promised Art I’d try to pray. I couldn’t break a promise. That, too, was going against my principles!

I finally allowed myself to pray. It was a great effort to humble myself that much. I had pretty much been my own god, and to bow down took great effort. To go against this strong barrier - which I now know was pride - seemed like breaking faith with myself and was nearly impossible.

When God came in

But the moment I did, I was broken, and God flooded into my life. He confirmed He was there and that He’d been speaking to me in different ways all my life. After that happened, I couldn’t get enough of the Bible. I devoured it. I read chapter after chapter. Art gave me a little booklet that explained the gospel in a simple way. I learned that man couldn’t get to God all by himself. That he tried all kinds of ways to bridge the gap on his own, including trying to be good. But nothing brought him anywhere close to the perfection a sinless God required. All religion was that ineffective effort to bridge the gap between sinful humans and a perfect God. It said that God himself bridged the gap by becoming human and laying himself down over the gap as a bridge so that men could get to God. All God required was for a person to acknowledge they were sinful, to believe in His sacrifice, and to confess Him before men. When you did that, you were saved from yourself, from the corrosive power of sin in your life and from eternal doom. He throws in eternal life as a bonus!

New Life

Since then, I've been walking with Him in the "newness of life." It really was a new start. I have never regretted trading my empty, arrogant, lonely, smug atheism for life-giving truth! And I got a whole, new family of Christian believers at the same time.

How did you meet Him? I'd like to hear.

A note of thanks from Tony and Sharon in South Africa

Dear New Life Fellowship,

The entire Jones family wants to thank you for the two huge boxes that arrived yesterday! We were so excited! I had just lamented a few days prior that we never get any mail. Then here are these two huge boxes. Wow - I never expected you all to be so generous! Thank You so Much! It meant so much to be remembered in such a way!

The kids felt so special that their church family thought of them and with Mac N Cheese! The funny thing is we just had Mac N Cheese the night before made with cheddar cheese - Wesley, and Irina were so excited for it until they tasted it and they realized it wasn't what they wanted. Then here is the "real" Mac N Cheese so we had it today Saturday for lunch and the leftovers for dinner! We also made the chocolate chip cookies. Surprisingly enough they are not all gone! We had to set some aside for Tony who is currently at the Inner City outreach, we get to visit him tomorrow to go to church and spend the day there. We are surprising him with homemade chocolate chip cookies!

Irina and Lucy both love the dolls, Irina was strolling them around in the stroller most of the day. Wesley took his cars into the dirt then decided to wash them and has played with them a lot today. I've decided for them that we don't have to eat all of it at one time and so it should all last awhile.

Again - thank you everyone! I think of you all in the new building and wish we were with you to worship together but we are their in spirit as part of the family of God.

Hope you have a blessed day!

In Him,

The Jones Fam 5
Tony, Sharon, Wesley, Irina and Lucy

Hidden riches

Latest from Dan Hagen in Peru

Every pothole shall be exalted, every speed bump and mound made low

No big yellow taxi here. Sometimes, you don't know what you've got til it's here.

So here is this beautiful, "new" building, the Gibson's department store building, Idelman Telemarketers building, whatever it once was called, a building that sat vacant for a very long time, waiting for a new purpose.

And now people from every walk of life, with a whole variety of skills, worked together to make this building into a place of worship -- and it's beautiful.

You kind of wander around in awe as you see old and new faces also wandering around in awe.

The chalkboard walls - awesome! The nursery - state of the art. I actually got to hear the sermon and could even control the volume while working in the nursery! The signs Brian Schultz and Barb Klein made. I saw men up high on dangerous looking machines installing ceiling tiles and men with more dangerous looking machines cutting things in what will be the kitchen.

I saw Bob Marler in a secret back room with dangerous looking wires and connections on the walls, working with all kinds of hanging doors.

I saw Theresa Heupel, so intent on scraping paint from door panes that she was standing up out of her wheelchair to reach spots of paint up high!

I saw my dentist on his knees cutting carpet for those hard to fit places. Only someone with fine motor skills like a dentist could do that kind of job!

I saw Jacob Mellette running a roller over carpet and Rod Johnson down low doing something with carpet trim. There were many, many people I didn't see, working day and night to build a place for people to worship the Lord.

And the result is the gorgeous building that you can only walk around in with your mouth hanging open.

Then, there is the parking lot. Someone said it would cost another 80- 100 thousand dollars to resurface it, and you can see why. Dips and gullies, huge craters and lumps, cracks, lines, hills and lakes and rivers. It seems like an overwhelming problem. After spending so much on the building and working so hard, how can we possibly take care of the parking lot? What will we do? How is God going to provide for this challenge?

(I thought that once a month everyone should bring a bag of gravel and fill a pothole, but no one is too enthusiastic about that idea.)

But leaving alone after prayer this Sunday, I took another look at this vast, uneven surface and words from Isaiah came to me: Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low; and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shalll see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Has spoken it (Messianic group Lamb lyrics repeat "Has spoken it.")

Isaiah wasn't talking about parking lots. I think he was probably talking about justice. Everything will be paid for someday. Justice will be done. Somehow, though, the words just fit. Someday, somehow, that surface will be smooth as glass, or almost. He will provide. He will shock us and put us in awe once again. I don't know how, but I know it will happen.

A new season of grace

By Na Keum Dong (Kady)

a Korean believer at NSU

The woman is going her dormitory powerfully and laboriously with a big load: textbook, laptop, and diary which is filled with compact writing that lays out a full schedule that makes feel alive, and her face is brilliant with a smile and confidence from deep in her heart. She looks so steady and durable, maybe the reason is that she has not only annual rings of summer but also winter ones, too, which have made her stronger than ever because they are the traces of her hard seasons and long winters that were so harsh and gruesome.

YOUTH AND HAPPINESS
On a vast, open cabbage farm, in the mountains, there is one house in which five family members have been living, including the girl. It is looks a cozy hut enclosed by mountains which seem like mother’s plump breast to protect newborn baby. The girl had brilliant black hair, two dark eyes, and she was healthy. Her parents were good people and had warm hearts. They loved inviting others to share life and feeling. She never felt lonely because her family was really harmonious and loved each other before she began her long journey with solitude. Later, she realized that to be good lumber, each tree should have both annual rings: summer one, and winter one. Obviously, the best lumber doesn’t grow overnight.
In one elementary school, she was so clever. Not only teachers loved her, but also she had many friends. After school, she was playing with friends doing active games like hide-and-seek; she loved outdoor activities. Her father and mother loved her skin tanned leathery in the sun. They loved everything about her: bravery, smartness, kindness, winsomeness. In the summer, her house was a fantastic and fabulous place to ride in a sleigh with her brother and sister. The girl’s father was so healthy and generous and he had a well tanned skin like her, too. He was always good friend to her and her siblings. After playing, her truly womanly mother was preparing awesome food for them. There was no family happier than the girl’s.

A HARSH MOVE
When she was twelve, her parents didn’t want their children to stay in a rural area. Because there was no appropriate school, it was hard decision but they transferred them to an other more developed area. It had good schools so that they the children could see bigger and better things. The girl was excited to experience a new world. At the same time, she felt uncomfortable and was afraid of unexpected circumstances since she and her siblings were only around twelve-year-old. Indeed, they were too young to handle burdensome circumstances.
She loved her new house, which was big and charming enough, because the house was covered with a vivid red color which was her favorite. However, soon she didn’t love the house anymore because there were not any parents. Instead of parents and warm air, boring grandmother, grandfather, and cold wind was there. Absence of parents at too early an age was very deadly to the poor children.
One day, an event happened in her new elementary school. The girl was always the best student in school. The teachers loved her because she took prizes in and out of school. Before long, friends who got to know each other well in small size town for a long time started to hate the new and uninvited guest because of jealousy. When she brought an assignment to school, after she come to her desk, her copy was torn. They kept glaring at the poor girl as if that was funny. After school, she couldn’t focus on anything. She felt abandoned from the world, friends, and everything. Only the big new empty house kept looking at her with silence. The small wood was in the harsh rain and hailstorm with a small and feeble body standing everything all alo

LONELINESS AND REBELLION
Her Parents were working in a totally different area that made it hard to meet. As time went by, in her mind, love toward her parents was changing into love and hatred. Circumstances lead her to be negative and depressed, she was too young to handle her mind and feeling and she indeed needed shelter and shield.
In one high school, she was wearing a blue school uniform, and she was not a girl with winsomeness anymore to her parents. Instead, her face was solid with no laugh, like a dark cloud. After twelve-year-old, she was getting more and more independent, with a shortage of love, so she became disobedient, going through the age of puberty. She didn’t obey her parent’s order intentionally. When parents who occasionally dropped by house nagged, she mouthed back always. When they saw her wrong behavior, her parents started to whip, but she didn’t answer with her lips firmly closed and with her tears kept in her eyes. When she watched her parents’ leave, she was crying in her room alone, but she wouldn’t express her feeling anymore to her parents. Her mind seemed already frozen.
Indeed, there was a too deep of a river which couldn’t go over among parents and her because time passed too much. Even while she was living independently, she was suffering from insomnia, there was nobody who could understand her feeling of loss, even her parents. Actually, she told them like this, “I NEED YOUR LOVE!! I AM STARVING TO DEATH FROM LACK OF LOVE.” However, they didn’t have much time to catch her feeling because they weren’t able to support three children. After finishing school, there was no one who could listen carefully to her feeling. In the hailstorm and rain&storm, there was a deep, dark, solid annual ring. That was really horrible winter to small wood.

A FRIEND WITH GOOD NEWS
Meanwhile she had met one friend who was coming to her. She never had religion. The friend was tall and beautiful, always with many people following her. She became her good friend. As the girl knew her, she could know God too, because her friend was devoted to God. The lonely cloud was starting to leave because of her truly good friend. Her beautiful friend told her “If you are lonely, with closed eye, just call ‘God’, and tell your hope to him. He is always with you.” It was awkward, but she started to pray to God. Although she didn’t be sure to whether God really exists or not, but she needed help to save her. She needed love to fulfill her emptiness in mind. At first, to her, Jesus Christ was just name of the bible that seemed to be fake to her. The bible said there is no other name that we are saved except Jesus Christ. Sometimes, she read bible, especially she loved psalms 13:1-2 “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” When she was suffering from insomnia, it gave her strength and hope, and then she often sobbed herself to sleep.
When she entered University, she met a church which was totally different compared with others. One day, she entered a church that was small and cozy, there was one Evangelist whose smile seemed like sunshine that made her relax. He prayed for her, holding her hands. There was nothing without calm sound of coming spring toward small wood.

WARMING TO JESUS
In that church, all people seemed that they really were believing God and Jesus Christ exist. They were really warm to accept her everything. Her mind and spirit which were frozen were getting warm. The love she felt in church and from faith was bigger than any other love in the world, even that was above love of parents’. She was really wanting while she was alone. Finally, She got real love that she was really eager to seek! She is getting brighter like her real nature from God. Laugh and passion which was lost was flowing through her body and heart again. By grasping Jesus Christ’s hand, she took back her smile like an awesome flower.

REUNION
Now she not only got an annual ring of summer, but she became strong lumber. Amazingly, after she started to attend a church and prayed to God, her family started to attend church too, about 2 years later. Now, they are attending church together, also talking often, forgiving each other, and understanding each other too. Now, she confirms that there is no other name that people are saved except Jesus Christ, as someone told her formerly. Now, her step is really nimble and powerful. She isn’t sad anymore, because now she has taken her everything more than she expected: a strong bond with family that at once had difficulty with communication, a stability of mind from love of God, and furthermore, annual rings of summer too. Finally, she became healthy and durable lumber! Yes, Indeed.

Toward the Light

My window garden has been growing, and one thing I can tell about my plants is that they hunger for the light. My large zucchini especially leans over toward the window, almost as if grasping for light shafts.
I pray for my kids, that they, too, will lean toward the light, that they will hunger for the presence of the Lord beyond anything else. I also pray that nothing I do or say will be a shadow between them and the light of the Lord. No impatient outburst or selfish response, no careless neglect or impulse.
It's too easy to be an obstacle. I pray instead to be a window.

Thinking about windows reminds me of lyrics of a Keith Green song:

Stained Glass

We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
Set in a darkened room
Till the bridegroom comes shining through

Then the colors fall around our feet
Over those we meet
Covering all the gray that we see
Rainbow colors of assorted hues
Come exchange your blues
For his love that you see shining through me

We are his daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the king
Rejoice in everything

My colors grow so dim
When I start to fall away from him
But up comes the strongest wind
That he sends to blow me back into his arms again

And then the colors fall around my feet
Over those I meet
Changing all the gray that I see
Rainbow colors of the risen son
Reflect the one
The one who came to set us all free

We are his daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the king
Rejoice in everything
We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you
No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you

Jones kids in South Africa

So how are the Jones kids holding up as the family trains as missionaries in South Africa? Here's what Sharon has to say about their adventures:

The kids had some interesting
adventures:
1. Using the longdrop (outhouse).
2. Living without toast for 17 days.
3. Meeting and making friends with
children that don’t speak the same
language.
4. Lots of walking - Irina found this a
challenge.
5. Very dark nights
6. A trip to Kruger Park
7. Wesley wanted to be involved in
everything. Irina would often sit
down and just play in the sand.


PRAYER REQUESTS:
1. Healing for Wesley - who is on
medicine for tick fever.
2. That none of the children develop
any worms from the sand they
played in.
3. That they understand why they are
not going on the next outreach to
the city.
4. Prayer for Tony and Sharon as we
are dividing up the next ministry
one of us will stay at base for a
week with the kids while the
other one goes out for a week.

Tony and Sharon return from rural outreach

Ministering as a Family on the Rural
Outreach

Tony and Sharon Jones

The rural outreach was about a
few things: Living a simple life, learning
about the culture and using our
initiative to do ministry.
As a family our goal was also
about surviving the whole time. As
long as the kids were thriving. I know
now that as a family we can pretty
much live through anything and with
the bare minimum. There were times
when I thought I had about as much
as I could take. The challenge was too
great, but some how with God’s
strength we continued on and it got
better again. Our team was great and
really stood behind us, even though
because of the children they didn’t get
as much peace as they might have
had at camp without them around.
As for ministry - I found that I
really enjoyed teaching the High
School students the HIV/AIDS awareness
training. God really showed me
that I really do have a gift in the area
of teaching. I didn’t enjoy the kids
ministry so much - the dramas and
cute songs were fun, but I find that I
want a more relational experience
then just performing. The home visits
were great and sharing the gospel is
really at my heart.
Pray for Given a young man that I
was able to share the gospel with.
Jeffery - was a young Deaf man that
came to the camp often our conversation
was challenging to me as we
didn’t understand each other, but after
visiting the Disabled school and
talking to his Deaf teacher I was encouraged
about Deaf ministry in the
future.

New Life, New Home

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Photos by J

New Start

Somewhere under that snow is grass. In my window, I have several vegetable seedlings started. (I always get started too late and have to buy starter plants. This year, I think I started too early.) Whether they will mature to full-size plants that give crops later is yet to be seen. But for now, they at least give oxygen and wonder.

Thank you, Father, for the new start that comes with your Spirit.

Baby, bath water and Christian cliches

One project I've been working on lately is gathering in one place lots of links to spiritual abuse sites, and in the course of doing this, I too often come across people who've been so burned by their prior church experiences that they sit there, suffering in their gauze wrap and crying out in different ways. Sometimes, they just want to throw their whole spiritual life down the drain, Jesus and all. Sometimes, they are able to separate the fake from the real and they cling to Jesus, but won't set foot in another church.

Sometimes, they find a church home that is nurturing and healing. That's what I've found at New Life. When I think of New Life, I think of the balm of Gilead. Not sure what that balm was in the Bible, but people traveled a distance to go to Gilead for it.

Anyway, in the course of my hunt, I CAME ACROSS THIS SITE that seems to be from one of the third-degree burn victims crying out. The site, called "Leaving the orbit of Planet Christian," includes a list of things the blogger no longer believes in. What I found interesting were the cliches, the pre-digested thought morsels Christians use without thinking. Now, I don't toss all these out, like the blogger does, but I do think the list of things is important to consider.

How many items are just knee-jerk Christian cliches, words you don't even think about, pre-formatted auto-pilot phrases and ideas? It's also important to think of how these things sound to the world at large, the world that isn't cocooned in church.

Two things to digest here. 1. Many people are hurting from bad church experiences and ready to leave "the planet." How can we provide a place of safety and health in the Lord for these hurting people? 2. Is it possible to talk about things of the Kingdom of God in fresh, new ways so we aren't sounding like Christian robots?

Your thoughts?

Donna

The age-long minute

By Amy Carmichael


Thou art the Lord who slept upon the pillow,
Thou are the Lord who soothed the furious sea,
What matter beating wind and tossing billow
If only we are in the boat with Thee?

Hold us in quiet through the age-long minute
While Thou art silent, and the wind is shrill:
Can the boat sink while Thou, dear Lord, art in it?
Can the heart faint that waiteth on Thy will?

Latest from Tony and Sharon in South Africa

Our location for the rural outreach is Mabarhule
which is a village in the Limpopo region of South
Africa. We will be spending almost three weeks
camping in this rustic part of South Africa.

Please pray For our MabarhuleTeam:
Jaco - South Africa
Faith - Hong Kong
DongHyuk - S Korea
Magdalena- Sweden
Jonathan- South Africa
Danree -South Africa
Maria –USA
Tony, Sharon & Kids -USA

Helpers of Joy?

Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand - 2 Cor. 1:24

I came across this verse yesterday and instead of steamrolling over the last verse in a chapter like I do a little too often, I actually had to sit and think about this one.

We're called to be helpers of other people's joy. Earlier in the passage, in verse 14, Paul says that the Corinthians are his and his friends' rejoicing, even as he and his friends are the Corinthians' rejoicing. We're here to bring joy to others.

Probably a good idea to keep that in mind when we're tempted to complain about someone. Or when we are about to sin, or about to sit alone and sulk.

Donna

Listening for that still, small voice

Donna Marmorstein

And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight

- Luke 24:31

The last three months have been full of noise. Mostly good noise, but still noise. A family crisis. Three weeks with my son and his family visiting home. Christmas. Two weeks with my daughter and her family visiting home. More school activities than I can even keep straight.

Between piano lessons, show choir, debate practice, jazz band, worship team practice, science projects, museum presentations, cheerleading practice, basketball games, concerts and debate tournaments – and all the driving involved with it all – I’ve hardly had time to catch a breath, let alone catch the breath of heaven.

The contrast between the house when ten people are in it and the house when I’m alone can be measured in decibel levels. When everyone is home I hear running, squealing grandkids; piano music; movie soundtracks; guitars and mandolins; computer game noises; singing; talking; laughing; political debate and card games -- all at the same time.

It’s hard to make out any one voice among the many. The voices are good. The noises are full of life. But coming all at once, they obstruct single voices, especially quiet ones.

But even when I’m alone, it’s hard to make out the one voice I want to hear - His voice.

I can hear His voice in nature: The heavens declare the glory of God - Psalm 19:1. Whenever sun rays stream down through mottled clouds in big, bright lines, I know He is speaking to me of his majesty. Early morning clearness, silver water reflections, powerful storms, bird chatter in the yard – He speaks of Himself through it all.

I can hear His voice in the Word. When I read old passages in new ways and discover unexplored facets of familiar passages, I know He is speaking to me, guiding me and showing me what I need to know.

Still, I crave a more direct communication, a more personal and familiar conversation with the One behind the torn veil. To speak with the Creator of all things isn’t something to take lightly. Who am I to seek to speak to the mightiest being in the universe? How do I dare even presume to do that?

Ask. Seek. Knock. He tells me to seek Him and tells me to persist, so at His urging, I do this, despite gross inadequacies.

He cleans me, makes me ready, but still I feel like Esther, unsure about that scepter, unsure if I should be allowed in the palace, uneasy about the consequences of being face-to-face with Something so pure and undefiled that it would burn me to powder in an instant if my own dirty righteousness, and not the righteousness of Christ, stood in Its presence.

So I uncertainly ask; I hesitantly seek; I lightly knock. And every once in a while, I hear that small voice. Every once in a while, I am certain it is His voice speaking directly to my heart and circumstance.

To explain it to someone else, though, is fruitless. He speaks in the punctuation marks of sentences, not the grand verbs and lusty nouns. He speaks in the margins. No one else would understand the odd, personal ways He answers doubts and questions particular to my circumstance – any more than I would understand if you tried to explain to me the way He speaks to you.

Because His voice is small and because it is still, it tends to fade from memory over time unless I specifically write down or mark in some way what He has said and how He has said it. But even then, it won’t make the same impression on me years later when I am in different circumstances and facing different sets of questions.

Blessed are they who seek him with the whole heart, says Psalm 119:2. It’s when I stop seeking Him that there’s a problem. When I think I hear Him enough and no longer need to seek, that’s trouble. I’ve been there. I don’t want to be there again.

The Death of Love

by Art Marmorstein

The Most Important Thing
I promised I would talk about something more important than anything I talk about in class. I'm going to talk about the most important thing in the whole world.
And what's that?

If I had asked that question 30 years ago--or almost any other time in history--I'd have gotten a quick answer from almost everyone.

Almost everyone would have quickly said that love is the most important thing in the world.

"Love makes world go around." --Gilbert and Sullivan
"The light of the whole life dies when love is done." --Bourdillon
"Flower o' the broom, take away love and earth's a tomb." --Browning
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, whatever stirs this mortal frame, are but the ministers of love, and feed his sacred flame." --Coleridge.
"All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need."--The Beatles
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I am become as sounding brass, as a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give up my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." --St. Paul

Now I suspect that most people today would still say that love is the most important thing of all. But the answer would be slow in coming. And we certainly do not live our lives as if love was the most important thing of all.
As one looks around American society, it's apparent that love is dying, if it's not already dead.

Love is Dying
The best example of this is the break up of the family. Widespread divorce - and failure to form marriages in the first place - is destroying some of the most fundamental of loving relationships--not just the relationship of husband and wife, but relationships between fathers and children, between mothers and children, and between brothers and sisters.
Fewer and fewer people even have brothers and sisters.

...
We have a neighbor,a little boy of four. Every time he plays with my children, he tells the same story--his Dad is going to take him to the zoo. But Dad is more than 1000 miles away, and isn't likely to even see him any time in the near future.

A junior high friend of my daughter's is constantly waiting for a letter or a call from her dad. But the calls never come. The letters never come. It breaks your heart.

...
There's something wrong here, something dreadfully wrong. Suppose for some reason I didn't much like my lovely wife any more and thought I'd be happier with someone else. But I've got kids, kids whom I say I love. How much love would there be in me if I were to divorce their mom, to cause them the same kind of pain I see in so many other children? Not much, right? Not so very long ago, people stayed together "for the kids' sake"--and that really wasn't such a very bad reason.

And it seems like young people are having a dreadful time establishing the right kind of loving relationships in the first place. They don't marry and sometimes their marriages fail astonishingly quickly.

...
And as you look at our popular culture, you see that we really don't believe in love any more. Look at today's song lyrics, and contrast them with those of 30 years ago. Thirty years ago a typical pop song was "More."

The lyrics:
More than the greatest love the world has known
This is the love I'll give to you alone
More than the simple words I try to say
I only live to love you more each day

Another pop song:
My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
Softer than a sigh,
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean
Wider than the sky
My love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines in the night above
And there is nothing in this world
that can ever change my love

Now can you imagine Snoop Doggy Dog singing songs like that? Madonna? It wouldn't happen.

Not that we don't sing about love. But our love songs have gotten bitter, like the T. Rex song "Life's a Gas":
I could have loved you, girl, like a planet
I could have placed your love in the stars
But it really doesn't matter at all
It really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas

It does matter. It matters more than anything. I've had the good fortune of being loved as much as anyone is ever loved in this world. I've never had reason to doubt the love of my parents, my brothers, my sister, my wife, or my kids.

Even my students like me--a pretty incredible thing for a history teacher. But what makes me sad, what brings tears, is to see that fewer and fewer people seem to be able to find this kind of love. That love is dying, and that fewer and fewer of my students will have anything like what I have had in my own life.

Ideas are Killing Love

Why? What's killing love? To a certain extent, love has been killed by ideas--the ideas of men like Freud, Darwin and Nietzsche. For many modern thinkers, love is only an illusion, a product of evolutionary development. It is no wonder that love dies when we are constantly propagandized into believing that our only real desires are to survive and reproduce.

But the real problem is not one of ideas. The real problem is that we have deliberately kicked love out of our lives--or at least, out of many areas in our lives. We've kicked love out of the schools, for instance. In the 1960's and 70's, a series of Supreme Court decisions and bureaucratic rulings banned love from every classroom in America.
Yes. That's right. Now some of you might say, "I don't know of any Supreme Court decisions banning love in the classroom."

But you do.

The courts and the bureaucracies have eliminated prayer, Bible reading, the things like the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Essentially, we have tried to ban God himself from our classrooms, and from most aspects of public life. But do you see what that does, automatically? The Bible tells us that God is love. And we get rid of God, we get rid of love--quite literally.

John Dewey and public death of love
And what replaced God in the classrooms? To a large extent, we've replaced the old Christian philosophy of education with a "new"philosophy, the philosophy of John Dewey. Dewey was exceedingly influential, "the founder of modern American progressive education."

The way children are taught in public schools today owes more to Dewey than to any other individual--and no one is more to blame for what's wrong with American education - and even American society - than John Dewey.

Christians often point out that Dewey himself was an atheist, and certainly he was no friend of religion. Dewey was one of the original signers of "The Humanist Manifesto," a document basically saying that the traditional religious approach to life should be abandoned.

But Dewey has rejected far more than traditional religion. When one looks through Dewey's works, one discovers something exceedingly odd: there's never a mention of love.

Look through the index of Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy. There are references to law, learning, licentiousness, life, literary culture, Locke, logic, logical system, and Lotze--but not love. Look through Dewey's "My Pedagogic Creed." Not a single mention of love.

And look through the goals and objectives of our teacher education programs in America, look at the philosophy statements, the educational credos, the state and national standards for K-12 students. You won't find one mention of love.

There's something's wrong here--something dreadfully wrong. Jesus said the most important thing was to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.
How can we love God with all our minds if 90% of the time we don't even think about Him? Is it any wonder that love is dying, when we abandon the source of love altogether?

Nothing New
But all this isn't really as new a thing as I have made it sound. It isn't a new thing that love is dying. Love has died before.
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him saying, hail, King of the Jews. And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.

Love has been rejected before our day. Love has been mocked. Love has been spat upon. And love has died. But that death did not destroy love: instead, it showed us what love truly is--putting others first to the very last, sacrificing oneself for the beloved. I told you earlier that I have been as much loved as anyone ever in this world. But you know, each one of you has been loved with a love as great, and every one of you right now can enter into a love that truly is "more than the greatest love the world has known."

It is not some romantic lover, some girl or guy who has a love for us that is warmer than sunshine, softer than a sigh, deeper than the deepest ocean, wider than sky. That love, the love nothing can ever change, comes from God Himself. And that love will never die.

"Now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three things: but the greatest of these is love."


Dorm Presentation--February 1996

YES!

From Thought Collage, by Jeanie Rhodes

Last summer, [son in law] Dave and [daughter]Tara led a song Dave had written called, "Yes" (CD by the same title to be released in September) I had never heard it and I was in a really, really difficult time of my life and to tell you the truth, I couldn't sing it.

It seemed at the time I had nothing to say "yes" to (I've written about this previously here and here). I looked around the barn on this beautiful summer evening and saw all these sincere faces with pure hearts, steadfast in their commitment to follow Jesus no matter what and they sang, "Yes!" And I couldn't. I felt like God had taken everything from me there was to say "yes" to and that I alone had nothing to throw myself into.

With bittersweet tears shooting out, I said to a couple of my kids, "What? I am suppose to say 'yes' to rest? What is that?"

I'm telling you this by way of confession because I hope you know that it wasn't true that I had nothing to say "yes" to. I hope you know that I was placing myself in a pity-puddle of the refusal to accept pause and rest as gift. And I am confessing this in case you are reading and feeling the same. Make your list and come out of the fog. Wait until the house is empty and start yelling, "YES!" into the air and refuse to believe the enemy lie that there is nothing more.

Here's my list:
Yes to being Dave's wife, friend, lover, bride;
yes to grandparenting Gavin and Guini and Hunter and now Gemma;
yes to the friendship and "being there" and mothering, still, the grown kids God blessed me with;
yes to blessing the parents who raised me;
yes to hanging in there with friends and pursuing life-giving relationships;
yes to loving my neighbors and figuring out how that really works;
yes to consuming His Words, like honey to my lips;
yes to pressing in to really know God; and
yes to laying down my desires, wants amd wishes - He must increase, I must decrease.
Yes!

The days are coming: "Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won't be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once - and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills….God, your God says so." Amos 9.13-15 The Message
YES! What promise! Somewhere along the way, hope re-ignited. I came across this in my early 2007 journaling:

Yes to You, Lord
Yes to Your will
Yes to Your plan
Yes to the process, regardless of how long it will take (a lifetime, Lord?)
Yes to the pain of this purification
Yes to the price (because it costs everything)
Yes.
I love that "Yes" song now and sing my head off whenever Dave and Tara lead it. "Yes, yes, yes, yes…"

Yes is better. Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: This quote by Dag Hammarskjold seems appropriate here: "For all that has been, Thanks! To all that shall be, Yes!"

Driving the opposite way

by Sharon Jones

Thought I would share about my experience driving on the "wrong" side of the road. It was the first weekend we were here (South Africa)the director and his wife - Clint and Becky - let us borrow their car. Now of course here they drive
on the left side of the road and the driver sits on the right side of the
car. Their car is also a stick - but you shift with your left hand.

I was talking to Becky the night before we were leaving and she realized
that I had never driven on the left side of the road before, or driven
with the stick on the left side.

I told her. "If I can't get out of the driveway we won't go."

"Fair enough." she said.

That night I was a bit nervous and prayed quite a bit for a safe drive and
then as I went to bed I got a bit of a panic attack at the thought of driving. I prayed again. Then I got a very clear thought. I am sure it was from God! (SMILE)

The thought was - "IF I WAS ON THE AMAZING RACE THEY WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM LETTING ME DRIVE A STICK ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD!" I held on to that thought and went to bed.

The next morning I got the keys and then when I drove it up near our home
- I didn't kill it once! We got safely to the mall and back again. Tony
did have to remind me once to get to the left side - but it was only
because I was turning around because we took a wrong turn.

Maybe I am ready for the Amazing Race. Hmmm.

Now Tony has his own story about his first experience driving on the left
side of the road.

He will have to share that sometime as well.

The Seasons

Some “Grace from the Garden,” things I learn about God while I am digging around in the dirt…



By Jeanie Rhoades

Grace Note: This season will come again (ready or not).

I was asking God, not with words, but from my heart (and I know He heard me loud and clear), Why do I find myself back here in this recurring place of pain, this particular area of brokenness for which I have forgiven the best I can and given it to You and prayed and studied and tried to follow Christ’s example? Why do I repeatedly respond and react to certain things from such an old place of injury? How come, after You last helped me and brought understanding and so much healing, do I find today that I still have further to go?

God immediately drew my attention to a flowering tree of some sort I planted a few years back (pear? dogwood? crab apple?). I don’t think I prepared the planting hole well when I got it. It was an end-of-season clearance, so I got it cheap with kind of a well-if-it-makes-it-good attitude and proceeded to plop it in the ground where it did not have much chance to establish itself before winter. It did not do well. It barely survived the winter and made a very poor showing in the spring. I had to coddle it with special watering and food all summer. The following year, the same. Very little growth and a very spindly and sickly-looking tree. I anticipated, though I allowed it to just keep plodding along, having to begin again in that corner with a different tree.

But this year, there has been a turn. Somewhere, in someway, it has finally established itself after almost 4 years in it’s place. It has doubled or tripled in size. It bloomed profusely this spring and then shot up in height some more. It is now radiant with health and I think it’s going to bring me much joy in the years to come.

God put that tree in my mind. And then I am pretty sure I heard Him tell me: That tree goes through the same four seasons each year. That is the same tree you planted 4 years ago. But that tree is not the same this spring as it was the spring before, or the spring before that. Every year after the time of dormancy (while I, Jeanie, btw, always feared it had finally and truly died), when you’d notice it again, it was the same tree, but the tree was different, not the same. There are seasons. You will go through the same season again and again, but each time, you’ll be different. Sometimes the difference will be below ground, where the roots reach out for what is needed. Sometimes it will be visible, branches waving in glory. It’s just a season. It’s a season.

Thank-You, God. I needed that!

So then I guess the answers to my heart’s questions might be:

Q: Why am going through this same thing again? What is wrong with me?

A: Nothing. You’re right on track. It’s a season. But you’re different this time than during the last season. It’s a growth-spurt opportunity!

Q: When will it finally be done, when will I get it?

A: When Christ is fully formed in you.

Q: When will that be?

A: When you see Him, you will be like Him.

And as I am writing, the strangest thing just came to my recollection. I named my daughter, Stormie, after Stormie Omartian (the wildly famous prayer author, singer, song-writer, speaker) because when I faced my first adult “storm” (try being a teenage preacher’s daughter, pregnant at a Bible College) I ran across her lyrics to a song I still have never heard, but which impacted me, nonetheless. Wow, even as I write (and I googled the lyrics and there they were!), God is reminding me that He has been telling me this all along, for 30 years almost:

“When summer dreams start to fade and lose their light
When the spring in your heart is so cold, it can’t be right
When you feel you’ve lost control and the valley seems so low
It’s not forever, it’s just a season of the soul
~
If you could step away and see just how far you’ve gone
If you would take the time to just see what you’ve become
You’d have the time to grow, you’d have a chance to know
That it’s not forever, it’s just a season of the soul.
~
Walking alone in the desert at night, searching for the rain
How can this happen to me, it’s not right
When Jesus is my friend and everything was going right
I was standing on the line, where did I go wrong?
~
A time to cry, a time to sing - there’s a time for everything
Nothing lasts for that long, so don’t look at what you see
Just keep your eyes on Me, I won’t let you go…
It’s not forever…
~
It’s just a season of the soul.”..Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: I am still me, but I am not the same as last time, by His grace and His undying faithfulness.
Seasons of the Soul” lyrics by Stormie Omartian

WESLEY'S ADVENTURES

More from the Joneses:

Wesley has settled in well. He is best friends with everyone. The food is still something he has to get used to. Pray that he starts to eat a little bit of it at least here pretty soon. Because our first outreach is called the rural outreach. No running water, no electricity, and campfire cooking. If he doesn't start eating some of the beans or pop, it's going to be hard for him. Because I don't think there well be enough room to bring along bread for about 60 people for two weeks. I think Sharon explained South African pop in a previous letter. If you are not sure what it is, then email me back. It's not a cola drink.

Also typical for a boy his age, I don't think there will be a tap that he has not turned. This morning he turn on a outside faucet ( they call it a tap down here) outside the womens' dorm and they lost all the water pressure inside. It good that he is curious but....
Irina is playing well with the three girls here.
Lucy is doing well and smiling at everyone. She is so cute.

This week at classes we did several things. We took personally tests (or inventories), spiritual gifts inventories, and did almost a 3 day overview of the Bible. Our instructor really emphasized his plan to reach the nations. It was very interesting how God had the Levites as the priests to the nation of Isreal. That part I knew. But the interesting part was that in the same way the entire nation of Isreal was called to be priests to the other nations around them. I have been munching on that one for the past two days.

We also are able to lead devotions if we wish. I signed up two weeks ago to do it this last Wednesday. I was kinda nervous but spoke about Psalm 62:5 - 8. I guess I did not do too bad since 2 or three people told me God used part of it to speak to them. God is gracious to give us the feedback that we need.

Tony and Sharon Jones OM South Africa TT Private Bag N03 Lynnwood Ridge 0040 South Africa.

You can also email them here: Tony OR

Sharon

What's it like to train as missionaries?

What our days are like...South Africa training team 2009

We are fine - but busy and very tired in the evenings so we generally just go to bed. Usually by 9:30. Tony is waking up at about 4:30 so that he has some time to do his devotions. I get up at 5:30 with the sounding of what is left of the wake up gong - I am thankful that it doesn't wake all the kids. Wesley once woke up enough to tell them to cut it out and went back to sleep. I wake up with enough time to just wake up - sometimes shower and make it to the lecture hall by 6 am for morning devotions time. I am not a morning person! But am learning to be.


Then we are suppose to have until breakfast at 8 am to spend time in devotions alone - but Lucy generally gets up sometime between 6:30 and 7am and the rest of the kids get up no later than 7:15. Wesley is usually next up and we sometimes have to wake Irina up. They are playing hard every day with the other kids that are here.

There is a kind of routine to our day -
On Mon, Tues, Wed - we eat breakfast at 8 am. Then about 8:45ish we have team devotions - where someone on the team shares a devotion time. Then there is a break then we spend the rest of the morning in about 45 blocks of time doing classes on something related to personal development or what it is to be a mission etc. There will be many different types of topics. Then at about 1 we are done for the day. We have lunch at about 1:30. (Lucy has been taking a morning nap at around 10:30 or 11 until lunch time. I've made this kind of a set time as it is easiest for us for her to nap in the mornings and since she is waking up so early it works for her as well. I had been waiting until after lunch but by then she was just so tired she sometimes fell asleep in the backpack then we woke her up for lunch and then trying to put her down again wasn't working. The rest of the day we rotate between
1- Rest and reflection time - you can do whatever you want really - do your own laundry, read, sleep etc.
2- Practical work
3 - Mall Day - because of the number of groups every few weeks you won't get to do this and there is only 3 days with 4 things to rotate
4 - Care time - where you talk with one of your Care Team Leaders about your concerns, prayer requests, struggles.

Every 8 days we are also on Kitchen Team where we are responsible to prep and prepare the food for the day. Breakfast, lunch and Dinner and clean up after dinner making sure that the kitchen and eating areas are kept clean.

We were on Kitchen Team this Monday so we will be on next Tuesday. It is kind of funny - because we have kids the other team members are always telling us we can leave if we want and both Tony and I are actually kind of enjoy the whole kitchen process. We also have more experience than most of these "kids" doing the kitchen prep kind of stuff. We end up telling them that no - we don't want to go we want to work. I remind them that until we came there not only did I do all the cooking I also had to clean the rest of the house as well. Some of our team members are right out of high school so they are finding some of this work very challenging.

Lets see after lunch if it is your mall day - you go do that. If it isn't your mall day than you do one of the other 3 things. Practical work - Tiny whose real name is Peter and who isn't really tiny at all - he is 6 feet 5 inches tall. He tells us we are his slaves - with this huge smile. He is kind of like the friendly giant. He gives out tasks to do and we go do them. Like pick up trash, clean and mop things, fix something, mow the lawn etc. I actually don't have to do Practical work because of the kids. This week I didn't because I went to the mall to get Wesley a birthday gift. His 6th birthday is this Sunday. Tony of course does practical work and Wesley is always very excited for Practical work and really likes to help out. Irina will help out a bit but then usually runs off to play with the girls when they get home from school.

Practical work is from 2:30 to about 3:30 - 4 depending on what you are doing. Then you have free time really until dinner. They encourage everyone from about 5 pm to dinner to do some kind of sport activity. Today I did a dance aroebic class. It was really a good workout. Leann (Tiny's wife) leads it. Since Tony ends up watching the baby if I do it and then he can't do anything so we will try to switch off who gets to play and who watches Lucy.

After that is dinner and then depending on the night - we have different things to do:
Mondays 7:30 we have a bible study with our Care Group
Tuesday - is a free night - the team staff coffee house is open from 7:30 to 9:30
Wednesday - Care Group night - a night where we can talk, play games etc
Thursday - is a free night - the coffee house is again open but not as late only 1 hour - Tony is there right now.
Friday - we will have whole team activites - that are to be anounced - we haven't actually done this yet this week will be the first time.

Thursdays and Friday's are a bit different.

Thursday we have the devos at 6 am still but breakfast is at 7:30 because at 8:30 the whole OM staff comes here for a Prayer meeting. We have worship and then we talk about the different activities that OM is involved in and pray about them. Like last week it was about AIDS HOPE and today was focused on their Teen ministry - can't think of it's name right now.

Then we have a class then it is lunch time then

Then after Lunch we have classes - again until Sport time. Then we have Sport time then dinner and then it is the free night I told you about before.

Friday's is pretty much just like Monday - Wednesday - only after Lunch we have free time for the rest of the day until after dinner when we will have some kind of team activity - it might be watch a movie, or have a game night or something but I guess we will try and do it all together. Probably not going off the base as there are so many of us. I will see how this revels itself over the next few weeks.

We do our first out reach March 19 - I guess it is the hardest as it is in tents and in a rural area - generally without modern bathrooms and no running water. I did see a photo of what they do for bathrooms. You dig a hole and then they have this contraption that is fitted with a toilet seat and there is a kind of curtain that goes around it so that you can sit there and do your business into the hole in the ground. I guess after awhile you fill in the hole and dig a new one. I am sure we get to take turns doing that job.

Pray that Irina won't have a problem using that toliet. I am sure Wesley will think it is cool.

They like to do the hardest retreat first. Everything will be made a little bit harder with the kids. My goal for the rural outreach is to stay at long as possible. I want to stay the full two weeks, if things are going really bad I can come back after a week, but pray that we are able to make it the whole time. I think that the kids will learn a lot from this and I really want them to get the full benefit of it. I don't have many details yet what we will be doing there - I will let you know more as I get more information.

Saturday is an off day - free day. As a family we have permission to leave and go out if we can arrange for a car or something. Last week we went to the mall. We don't have any plans to go anywhere this weekend, but we will see.

Sunday - we have church here at 10 am. They are going to take a few people out to another church - we will all get a chance to go to church off site. If we had a car we could go off on Sunday's too but Tony and I decided we wouldn't do that every weekend we want a chance to be able to bond with those that are here as well.

So that is our week - hope you found that interesting.

E-mail me back at this address if you have any questions.

Sharon

Jones Sharon
sharon.jones@tt.rsa.om.org

Total Rubbish

By Jeanie Rhoades

In the book of Philippians in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives his personal biography of a totally miserable, religious past (miserable because anytime getting close to God is dependant on what we do and how we do it, it is a cumbersome load). In the spirit of chapter 3, verses 4 - 6, I hereby submit my own biographical history outlining the stupidity I once clung to (that is me in the photo - a Pharisee in the making! )- that somehow I was worth something to God, valuable to His kingdom because of my own good works and where I came from.



The book of Jeanie's stupidity 3:4-6:

I had lots of confidence in my value to the kingdom of God because I was born into a Christian home to a ministry family. My first full sentence was "I'm gonna go to church" and I was a church girl among church girls. I was a Christian of the Pentecostal persuasion (others had some of the truth, but we had more, thus the term "full-gospel"). All of my siblings and their families are in the ministry. Many aunts and uncles and cousins are in full-time ministry. Concerning the law and attempting to get God's favor by my own self-suffiency, I could totally relate to Pharisees - working hard to keep it, and hoping for those heavenly brownie points because of it. Zealously striving for favor for my performance and being a "good girl," I was devasted when the less-holy were blessed. I grew up to attend Bible College and marry a pastor. And then I set out to raise my own bunch of good, Christian kids.
I am so grateful for my godly heritage, the roots I have. I love the stories of how God made Himself real to both my mother and father, each from Godless homes, how He changed everything in them and through them. Many, many people are walking in the redemptive grace of God today because of the choice Ross & Norma Moslander made to follow Christ.
But oh, my goodness, I have to work at not allowing these things to become a snare to me and to others. I have to keep dragging my pride to the cross.
I am in awe of the person who did not have the salvation message and cross of Jesus Christ served up on a silver platter, and yet they live in the full joy of knowing Christ without any of the doctrinal, or religious baggage that can so easily beset us. People with a "past," who come to Christ knowing how badly they needed a Savior and that they have no chance of impressing Him with their works or religious reputation just blow my mind. It reminds me of Christ's teaching that "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." We often judge a person's qualifications to lead in the kingdom by where they came from, how they were raised, who they are related to. God's criteria are different. It is all about the heart. God is looking at the heart!
But thank goodness, like Paul, I have been knocked off my religious high-horse (although I have the amazing ability to run it down and remount it at times, yikes!) and I can now see all that stuff for the rubbish it is. What I once thought were assets, I now see as liabilities. My passion is to know Christ and to somehow, finally - totally get over myself. What a relief.
Laying aside all human achievments in exchange for the free grace of God, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Phil. 3.8 NKJV

The Stoning

She was an adultress, a cheater, a sinner. She was a disappointment, a law-breaker. She had let so many people down.
Now she was being exposed to the Light of the World.
The scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus as He was teaching in the temple. They'd caught her in "the very act of adultery," they told Him. They were testing Him, who claimed to be the light of life, the One who, "being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." (Phil. 2.6)
"Moses, in the law, commanded us that such [a person] should be stoned to death. But what do You say?"
Would Jesus respect and follow the ancient law? Would He condone her sin?
Their purpose, those learned and religious men, was to trip Him up - to find a way to discount His teaching and refute His words.
Jesus says nothing, but stoops down, writing with His finger, ignoring their demand for a verdict.
The religious kept asking, pressing the matter like the playground tattle-talers they were.
His answer was short. "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." Then He leaned over and continued writing on the ground.
And none of them wanted to be the one to start the stoning. From the oldest to the last, one by one, they walked away until only Jesus and the woman were left. He looked at her and asked her, Where did your accusers go? Hasn't anyone condemned you?
"No one, Lord," she answered.
"Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more," the Embodiment of the light-glory of God said to her. Your sin is not unto death. I will not serve you a death-sentence, either. Go. Be well. Be whole. Be at peace. Find true love. Live in honor. Sin no more.
Jesus didn't condone her sin. God hates sin because it interrupts the beauty and wholeness of the life He planned for us. God didn't forbid adultry to mess up our good times, but He forbade it because it will hurt us and some one else and probably more than one other person. It will wreck lives and break trust and hearts and disrupt the peace of homes and rip families apart. It is violence towards the "one flesh."
People often wonder what Jesus wrote on the ground. Did He list the sins of the people standing there that were also punishable by death? I don't know. Did they leave because they were ashamed or did the encounter with Truth fill them with mercy?
I just know that I have always related to the woman. I have always been keenly aware of my sin, my inability to measure up to religious standards imposed upon me. In church life, my imperfections have been publicly touted, I've felt shunned by fellow Christians. I've read this account of the woman and felt what she must have felt. I have ranted and raged against the people who told me what a disppointment I was. I have pointed out the futility of religion and condemned the spirit of religious superiority that hurts people as being no different than the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' time.
Then today, very quietly, Jesus wrote upon the ground of my heart. Suddenly I wasn't the woman, left with her head hanging - thinking I was about to die at the hands of the holier-than-thou religious. I was one of them - I was in the crowd - looking at her: the Church, the Bride of Christ, the one for whom, because of great love, Jesus died.
In my hand I have held stones. The church has sinned. She has been unfaithful and faithless, a disappointment, a cheater. She has hurt people and broken hearts and sinned against God. And I have stood in the crowd, ready to take my stand, taunting God, "Well - can you see this? What are You going to do about this?" I have been one of them.
I opened my hands toward the ground, symbolically dropping the stones I have wanted to hurl with great pain-infused force at churches and pastors and leaders in the Church who have let me down.
I am turning my hands upward with this prayer, "Replace the stones I have wanted to throw - with mercy for Your Church. She has failed. She has let me down, but show me how I can be an agent of Your mercy towards Her, as You have been towards me."
It is humbling to get a new perspective of yourself and see the enemy you have been flailing against is yourself. It is humbling….Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Repent for the stones that have already left my hands

Jeanie Rhoades (Pastor Joe's sister)

News from South Africa

Thought I would send you all a hello from South Africa! We are doing well and getting use to our little house. We hope that you are all doing well also! We are in the second day of our training here though we have been here a week. The official kick off was this past Sunday. Our days right now are spent in classes going over the basics of life here on base and getting to know the other people in the training. There are people here from all over South Africa as well as Europe and Australia also a lot of South Koreans and one girl from Hong Kong. The ages range from 17 to 44. With the main age being around 18 and 19. So we are one of the old ones. Wesley is really enjoying hanging out out with all the guys. The challenge of course is doing this with the kids as I need to keep them busy doing things while we are in class. They are able to be right next door playing and doing some "school" work while we are in the meetings. Lucy loves walking around the base and so she is already tired of the lecture hall. Pray that we are able to find things that keep her interest. One thing that has helped is that in the afternoons she has a little ride on toy that is brought out for her to ride and play on. Even Irina finds that interesting.
Pray that Irina would begin to like some of the food that is served. She really didn't eat enough last week to satisfy this mommy. She is doing better this week - eating more fruit. She really is hard to feed - she was in the states and here I have less control. The kids were a bit sick last week and Saturday - they just were not eating enough I think and then with jet lag and the new environment = Irina still looks too pale - but it might be because those that have been here for awhile have a nice healthy tan instead of this pale South Dakota winter skin. They are doing much better today. I can give a list to the kitchen guy what he should try to have occasionally and he will get it for me so they are very accommodating here. They are going to get us a ref so that we have a place to put snacks and can keep Lucy's milk cold without having to go to the kitchen which is locked in the evenings. They did get us a key to that as well. Though having a ref to get our water cold will be a real luxary! I never thought I would say that. Smile.
Really the people here are so great they are very welcoming and I know that we make things a bit of a challenge with three kids - this is the most they have ever had at one time.
Our first outreach will not be until March 19th - this will be to a rural village in northern South Africa. In an area with no running water and we will be camping. Pray that there is a Pastor that might have ref that we could put Lucy's milk. I am told I don't have to go the full time of two weeks - but I would really like to be able to be there for as long as possible. My plan right now is to plan to be there the full two weeks, but that I will give myself the ability to return after a week if the kids need it. The good thing is that we eat a lot of peanut butter on an outreach as it is very portable and is a good source of protein. They also eat something called - Pop = not the drink - but a porridge that reminds me of Malto Meal. Really just cream of wheat. It is a staple here in South Africa. We had it several times already - they have it for any meal thinner at breakfast and thicker for Lunch and dinner. You just top it with different things. It really is pretty good with some honey in it. I even put some peanut butter in it with the honey and Lucy really loved it.
A few non ministry goals I have - is to touch the Indian Ocean and to see some wild animals. They are not running wild everywhere. We will be near a big state park on our rural outreach so maybe at that time we can go on a Safari. I am told that for foreigners it is not too expensive. They charge more if you are from SA - which I thought was kind of strange. Liz will find out how much that might be. Anyway - the first thing Wesley said was that he wanted to see some animals.
I'll let you know when I see something interesting. A praying mantis did land on my arm and scare me half to death! Oh and dung beetles are huge and quite disgusting.
I hope this finds you all doing wonderful!
Much Love - time for bed for me!

Sharon