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.