This Saturday

I wouldn't blame anyone for not reading this blog anymore, due to my infrequent postings. This place has been a bit of a madhouse, and this has been one of the last things on my mind.

Tonight, I'm meeting with 7 other men and their families to talk and pray about our journey ahead. The plan is to fly out Saturday morning early, go to New York. I might get to spend a few hours with a friend there at the airport. Then, we fly to Kuwait, stopping in London first. Finally Islamabad at 440am on Monday!

From there, we plan to get some transportation to the base camp up north, where ample work awaits us for the next couple weeks.

I will give more details when I have them. For now, I ask that you pray for me and Katherine as we prepare to separate for a long time. Pray that God will protect Katherine and me, bringing us back together.

Pray for the other guys--Jarrod, Zach, John, Brian, Josh, Ken, and Shon--as they prep to leave jobs and families for this intense time.

Bless you,

JRL

65 men

65--that's how many people are headed overseas in the next 10 days to help earthquake victims in Pakistan. Our office has been working with 53 of them over the last week, and it has been both taxing and exhilirating. Had to tell a few people "No" today--even one who has served with our organization in difficult circumstances before. 65, though. May God grant these men grace in obtaining their visas quickly. May the Lord protect, equip, and prepare them for the suffering they're voluntarily walking into. May He be pleased to bear fruit through their good works, granting them work that makes a difference and prayers that move mountains on behalf of these people.

Incredible Days

Here's a little timeline detailing the events leading to a massive deployment of relief workers heading to Pakistan (from my limited perspective:

Thursday, 11/3--I first began to sense that God might be leading me to go serve earthquake victims in Pakistan through erecting shelters. I talked with my boss, and he said that he was also considering going. That afternoon, I sent an email to some people in my church and on my prayer list. Quickly, I began receiving responses from other men who were considering going.

Monday, 11/7--By now, there are 4 men from my church and one other friend who are seriously taking two weeks to go help. It's becoming clear that other men from around the country are beginning to consider this work, too.

Tuesday, 11/8--I sent out an email asking a lot more people to pray about whether I should go. This evening, Zach, John, and I gather for prayer in a small apartment, asking God to confirm or deny our involvement. We agree together that we will fast on Friday, 11/11. We ask God to send an elder from our church along with us.

Wednesday, 11/9--We receive an urgent phone call from the field that heightens our office's awareness of the need and motivates swift response (excerpt below):
"This is an incredible opportunity and a desperate need. WE NEED MEN HERE, NOW, to get into the valleys where all the houses have been destroyed, and where until now no relief people have showed up. We could save thousands of children’s lives. I can’t sleep. It’s 1:30 in the morning. I’m calling all the pastors I know. January is too late. It can’t even wait until Thanksgiving. The winter snowstorms are coming, and we must get there first. This shelter is amazing, far superior to tents. The shelter will last through the winter. And the materials can be re-used to help build permanent homes in the spring."

This email is then circulated around the country, and we begin to receive a host of inquiries by phone and email from different groups desiring to take part.

Thursday, 11/10--Katherine's birthday! Things are starting to get a lot more hectic around here as the phone keep ringing and applications start flying in. Today, one of our church elders sent an email expressing his interest. I talked with my pastor, and he's excited about it--he's been counseling people to take part, glory to God! He wants to help partner with us in prayer and financially, it looks like, too. I'm still unsure about going myself, but two guys from my church seem pretty sure about it. At Katherine's birthday celebration, I get to talk with John, who is nearly committed by now--he has experience in this part of the world already, and he will be extremely valuable.

Friday, 11/11--Our day of fasting. Today, it seems like I never stop working. But I did get a quiet spot to ask the Lord what He would have me do--below are some of the results I came away with:
1) There really is a tremendous need--if I go, there will be plenty of work for me and my teammates to do. The long-term workers who are there have been persistently asking for men to come help them--not just because the manpower is needed, but also because the people there need to be loved by followers of Jesus. This area and these people need prayer and compassion from people who know Jesus and want to make Him known. In the long-term workers' own words: "Our plea for workers is because we have a need to set up shelters. But we want to bring God's people who will pray over these lands, show God's care for the people, and build up [their] vision for this part of the world."
2) So far, there are four men from my church who are looking to me for answers to their questions about this new work they want to begin in early December (finishing just before Christmas), and I'm already feeling some real bonding taking place. I believe there's a definite place for me to serve alongside them.
3) I believe that I'll become much more effective in recruiting others> long-term for this area, if I take part in this effort now. The long-termers have been praying and seeking new laborers for quite a while, and this aid to the earthquake victims is expected to last long past winter--in hope and faith that indigenous churches will begin to spring up among Muslims who will follow Jesus. 4) My pastor and two of my bosses have been very in favor of me taking part in this work. Katherine is standing with me, too, and that means so much.
5) I can't think of anything more pressing for me to be doing than to join with other men in supplying shelter while offering physical and spiritual aid to people whom Jesus loves. I believe this work will bring glory to God, and I want to be where He's working. I'm going on record to say that I believe God has been calling me to go and serve at this time, and my only choice is to obey and move forward until He says differently, whatever the cost.

11/12 and 11/13--Over the weekend, I check my email and see many more people expressing their interest in going--it's almost like a feeding frenzy! Katherine's college friend just married a man who wants to go in a couple weeks. Sunday night, a group of us who are seeking to go gathers for prayer and looks at a map. There are now two more men who are interested. Just before meeting, we've heard a message from our pastor (planned several weeks ahead of time) about disciples being challenged by Jesus to give the crowds something toeat without anything in their hands--about how being a disciple means more than calculating what you have and giving some, but it's more about living beyond our means. On the way home, I pick up a voice mail message from another friend who's considering going.

11/14--There's so much work to be done, but what a great problem to have. We're busy trying to organize who does what, as we now have more than 110 inquiries and roughly 30 completed applications. We're planning to send people out in waves--11/28, 12/5, and 12/12. May God be glorified as we look to Him for strength and determine who is going, how we'll train them, how to support them well over there, and how to help them "decompress" and debrief once they return. Please pray.

Over There

This morning, I got a little surprised when I began to sense that God might be leading me to go serve among earthquake victims this winter in the Indian Subcontinent. I'm not sure yet whether He's calling me to go, what I would do there, how much it costs, who He's calling to go with me--I just felt that I had a part in helping people there and glorifying God. It wasn't an audible voice--just a gut instinct as I viewed some of the photos and heard how people are definitely expected to die because of the lack of shelter this winter. We have a project going on now that helps provide immediate shelter for Muslims who are cut off from aid and have been virtually forgotten.

Katherine is supporting me as I investigate whether this is what God wants. My boss is supportive, too, and he's even considering going himself. Please pray with me. Pray that others will answer the call to come with me, if this is what God wants.

Getting knocked out of the race

This morning, I received a surprise email from a young man whom I had helped lead during my first short-term mission trip to Alaska. He was 15 or 16 at the time, so now I guess he must be 22-23. He's married, working, and going to school. He made some good decisions, like taking part in a one-year Teen Mania internship and attending a Christian school. But an old habit has come back to haunt him and his marriage--one that I had counseled him about way back then, and he is now asking me for "insight" about how to deal with his addiction to pornography.

Repeatedly, I seem to be confronted with this issue as people come to me for advice. With the Internet, I think this junk has found its way into so many more psyches. Sometimes, I recommend a book like Joshua Harris' Not Even a Hint or even Eldredge's Wild at Heart. The bottom line seems to be--guys start to get bored, then they get into trouble. They look to a fantasy woman for safety and good feelings, then they feel disgusted with themselves afterwards and utter things like, "I can't help it..."

I think we're creatures who crave satisfaction and will do anything to obtain it, by nature. God designed us this way and gave us these desires, so that we would be satisfied and delighted by Him and through Him. If we don't find satisfaction in Him, we'll find it somewhere else. We demand it--that is, our flesh. Another writer (maybe Chesterton) said that "Every man who goes into a whorehouse is really looking for God." It may not seem that way on the surface, but that's how serious seeking porn is--straight up idolatry.

So I'm tempted to get in this guy's face (even though he's in another state) and tell him he's an unbeliever--that his eternity is at stake, along with his marriage. For now, I'm strongly encouraging him to seek Biblical counseling through his church, read those books I mentioned earlier, and I also told him about a program called Covenant Eyes that tracks every website a person looks at and provides a report to someone else. Please pray with me for this young man and so many others like him who are addicted to this junk and being drawn into their doom and distraction from the main thing--glorifying Christ in their bodies.

Freedom from fear of man

We're doing an office staff retreat today, and I heard a message from a field worker (our main speaker) about not submitting to the fear of man, but everything becoming overwhelmed and dwarfed by our fear of the Lord. It was a real burden-lifter, and I could see how my efforts to win people over to Christ through persuasive argument or to get them to apply with Frontiers or come to a conference really reveals a lot of my fear of man and failure to love others as I love myself.

In other words, I was convicted, I'm happy to embrace some new changes, and I'm looking forward to meeting with people tomorrow in Tucson with a lot better attitude. Please pray for me as I go and listen to people's hearts and goals. God, please grant me wisdom to know when to speak, what to speak, and listening ears more than a ready mouth.

Getting good and scared

This morning seemed like it would be fairly normal--I had some oatmeal with nuts and raisins alongside the love of my life, along with some orange juice (is that what did it?). I went to work and sat in front of my computer working on email and Take My Life web text--suddenly, I began to feel a lot of pain that began in my chest, near my heart, and it rose up to my jaw and head without much explanation. Having never felt a real heart attack before (and not wishing to anytime soon), I didn't know how seriously to take this. It went on for several minutes, and I asked my co-worker if I looked pale to her. I think she said something like, "Not any more than usual." Thanks!

I told my wife about it a little later when she called me, and she asked me to promise to see the doctor today. So I called my doctor's office, and they couldn't see me today. When I was asked for my symptoms, I was directed to head straight for the emergency room--"Do not pass go, be sure to pay $150 for your co-pay..." Not in a lot of pain anymore, I decided to try an Urgent Care place instead, and they took care of me fairly well. They seemed to think it may have something to do with my ongoing struggles with heartburn or be stress-related. They even hooked me up to an EKG machine! Came back normal, praise God.

It's interesting when I reflect what I was thinking about today, in relation to meeting the Lord, as I considered that it might be sooner than later. So much that I have been delaying, so many things that I have been doing that could wait, what will Katherine do now?, could I have prevented this?

I feel pretty fine now, but I don't want to forget the sense of urgency had for about an hour earlier today--"Because night is coming, when no one can work..." and "The days are evil..."

A Sampling

Without invading anyone's privacy, I thought you might be interested in learning about some of the new stuff going on in the lives of people I'm working with who may be headed for the Muslim world, as God leads:

--Two newlyweds, one of whom already went through the app. process with Firestone as a single, are looking to go to North Africa in the near future.

--A young man with a handicapped arm isn't letting that stop him from pursuing a nursing degree and eventual church planting in North Africa or Central Asia.

--A young couple has joined two other couples who are planning to head overseas with another prominent mission agency. They are heading out for a vision trip next month to investigate where God is leading them to serve together.

--A young man is looking into the possibility of making impacting films in the Muslim world, which could help with recruiting.

--An entire team of seven are meeting together regularly in a house church, along with many others, and they're planning to head for the Muslim world in the summer of 2007. A second team plans to head out during the summer of 2008.

--A young lady let me know this past weekend that she's interested in serving in India after she graduates in May--we're looking into how she might reach this goal.

--Three single women, a single man, and a couple are taking part in a one-year internship to prepare for the field, led by one of my esteemed pastor co-workers and friends.

--Three of the people I've been working with are engaged to be married: two of them to one another.

And there always seem to be people jetting off with their church to do short-term mission trips. If you would like to connect with one of the people I've mentioned here, send me an email at jeremyloveskatherine@yahoo.com

A Refreshing Perspective

This email message recently arrived from a friend of mine serving in the Middle East--thought you might enjoy it:
Dear co-worker,

If you're like me, you might have spent several years in the field and be discouraged by an apparent lack of success in your ministry. My team has been in place for 10 years, with about 10 unbaptized Muslim-born believers (MBBs) to show for it. Of them, most are not extremely interested in growing mature in their faith, nor do they want to meet with each other.

While sustainable at first, a good attitude under adversity becomes harder to maintain over time and with the accumulation of difficult experiences. One is tempted to allow nasty little questions to float through the mind. "Why isn't God answering our prayers?" "Is this really worth the effort we have spent, not to mention the expense footed by supporters?" Or worse yet, "God, have you found me unworthy of bearing fruit?"

We all want to see the fruit of our labors. And when I say fruit, I mean shiny red apples or bright oranges hanging in trees; clearly visible against the healthy green leaves. We want reproducing fellowships of MBBs. What I would like to suggest to you is that the vast majority of us are laying groundwork that will later lead to that fruit. However, since we are working in the ground, we should look for the fruit of the ground: Potatoes, carrots, turnips... Let me explain.

I surveyed my team last week, and asked them to give estimations about the work that we have done here. After we had finished, everyone agreed that they believed their numbers to be conservative. After calculating the totals, I came up with the following statistics:

32,000 hours of prayer have been spoken over our city by our supporters and us
2,600 people have been mobilized to pray regularly for our city
900 copies of the Injeel (New Testament) have been discerningly placed into responsive Muslim hands
2,200 people in our region have been influenced by our reputation in the community
3,000 hours have been spent "good-newsing" (gospel and other godly subjects)

Now I know that God can do anything that he wants to without our
\help, but I can't help wondering if maybe none of this would have been true if we hadn't responded to God's call.

This is the ground fruit that I am talking about. When we arrived, we had the option of building immediately on the sand, but we started about the work of placing the Rock first.

There is a building going up next door to ours. I watched the builders carefully as they were putting in the foundation, wondering how they would stabilize the structure when there was only sand to work with. As I watched, they spent 6 months digging a single floor depth into the sand, filling the depression with several tons of intricately bent and arranged rebar, and finally poured an incredible amount of cement into it. After all that work, they were still at ground level. Except for a few vertical strands of rebar, they hadn't accomplished anything!

Sure, nobody wants to point to the footings of a building and say, "Look what I did!" We all want to see the finished new building, standing tall and strong. But be encouraged! The work that you have been faithful to complete is as beautiful in God's sight as the end product, which he is faithful to produce and finish.

Let me finish by giving you one of my favorite scriptures, and an explanation for it.

"Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel." (Zech 4:10)

When the children of Israel were returning from exile, there were with them old people who had once lived in Israel and young people who had been born in exile and never seen their home country. The plumb line is a tool used to make sure that the foundations for a new building are level. When the foundations for the new temple were being laid out, the old people who had seen how much bigger and grander the first temple had been, started grumbling and despising this day of small things. However, the young crown were rejoicing at the start of the new project, even though it was just a small beginning.

Rejoice! The kingdom of heaven is being built in our day among Muslims!

Salaam,

Disqualifying People

Can anybody who volunteers be a missionary? Does God care about the quality of people He chooses to use, or merely quantity? What could stop God from using anyone He chooses? The answer to the last, of course, is no one. But there does seem to be a lot of blockages helping to keep people from getting to the field. Even when agencies like ours desperately want them there--there are pauses that can take years and even prove to eliminate some of the people who may have once felt called to the mission field.

I have been working with a man who's quite skilled in many areas, and he wanted to go work in one of the most dangerous regions of the world. He was excited, but we weren't quite ready to send him off for training because it was so expensive, and we wanted lots of other people to benefit from this training alongside him. So he waited, and waited, and we kept telling him a target month, then another, then one more, and...

Finally, he made a choice at work that made it very hard for him to finally go, once we were ready to send him. We respect that choice, but I ask God, "Why?" "Why were we not able to send this man overseas, who seemed so qualified and ready?" I don't have an answer yet, but, for now, it seems to be, "Wait and see."

3D communication

Yesterday morning, the head of our movement came to our morning meeting and gave us an update about "3D Communication," a rather new concept that means we are striving to adopt the same message that may be used among Muslims, secular media, and the church--without being offensive to any of them. Our leader emphasized that we will, by no means, leave behind our apostolic calling, but we will seek to make some big changes that will grant us more integrity and keep us from appearing to be one thing in one circle of people and another in a different circle.

For instance, if I go to church, I may be introduced as a missionary, whereas in the Muslim world and talking to the media, we might identify ourselves as English teachers. How can we communicate effectively with all groups in the same way and not deny what God has called us to do? Do we start calling ourselves "peacemakers"? Will that term fly better with the media and with Muslim governments? Will churches be willing to accept it and help send peacemakers, rather than missionaries?

This is tricky stuff. And I keep hearing how change is needed because we're now living in the post 9/11 world, where the media is now tuned in to ministries like ours seeking to reach Muslims. But I ask myself--who are we trying to please? How will we know when our mission has been accomplished? What is motivating this change? Is it God? Is He calling us to be transparent and develop new language that everyone will accept and condone? Or does He know that His name is and has been offensive to many throughout most of the world...and doesn't care? "Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me" I don't think the Lord is calling us to hold tightly onto the term "missionary" with all our might. But what are we doing by giving it up? Are we saying that the generations of church planters who went before us were wrong to use the word to define themselves? Do we stop referring to them with the dreaded "m" word? Must we now legitamize our ministry from the Lord with some type of humanitarian aid or other social service?

Are we following the world, or are we following the Lord? To what length will we go to be accepted by Muslims and the media?

Easily Offended

In reviewing my own character over the years, I think I can say that I'm someone who's been quite easily offended. Whether it's someone who doesn't reply to phone calls or email promptly, or if I detect some character flaw, or whatever, I tend to take it personally. Somehow, I'm able to see with eagle eyes the imperfections and sins in others, but my own seem to remain in utter darkness...so I often don't even try to pick them out and delete them.

This morning, as I took my shower, I was somehow reminded of a person at work who I felt had wronged my wife more than a year ago, and I began rehearsing scenarios in my head where I would confront that person, and they would feel ashamed, and I would be heroic. I think that I went on like this for about 10 minutes before finally catching myself--yuck.

When I took this job, my new boss told me that I seemed like an unhappy person, and I then tried to explain the circumstances I was living under that might cause him to be perceiving me that way. Then he told me that I should expect people to let me down in this new work of recruiting, and he asked whether I would be OK with that. I said yes. 18 months later, I have a better understanding of what he was talking about back then.

Ultimately, I have to recognize that when I'm angry with other people, I'm really angry at the Lord. I'm shaking my fist at circumstances He's put me in for my good, and He's calling on me to look at Him with thanksgiving and faith that He's working all things together for my good (and theirs, too).

Thankfully, He also chooses to mold us through victories, too. When things are going well, people are living up to my expectations, and life seems pretty grand, it's sometimes even more difficult to look at Him and deny all the "treasure" I see around me, counting it as worthless in comparison with knowing Him. But He calls me to do it all the same--even when I just want to bask in earthly glory.

KnowhutImean?

Spurred to Action

Last week, I encouraged a group of people to take part in a Fast-A-Thon that some Muslim students at ASU were putting on to help raise money for local food banks. Basically, they encouraged non-Muslims to fast with them all day Friday, and there were local businesses that had already pledged to donate $1 for each non-Muslim student who participated. More than 60 then showed up for a dinner that happened after the sun went down. Several of my friends were there, and one young man, who I know well, was able to strike up some relationships with Muslims who were there.

But one thing that impressed him, he said, was the testimony of a young lady from my church, who stood up and testified about Jesus to everyone there--way cool. May God grant many other aspiring overseas workers this kind of boldness while they're preparing in the U.S.

On a different not, it seems that the fatality count as a result of the South Asia earthquakes is now around 54,000, and it's expected to rise near 100,000 total. Our workers there are braving the elements to get survivors some of the relief they need. Here are some of their stories and prayer requests:

The 2 teams in the area joined up for an immediate response to provide some relief to those affected by the earthquake. The main focus for the last week has been identifying villages and their needs, locating and buying tents, and some food distribution. There has not been a need for additional medical relief.

Prayer requests:
1. Dynamic situation - It seems that the situation is always changing as each hour passes and more information is gathered. Pray for wisdom in assessing what to do, how and when to do it.
2. Communication and teamwork - We are working with international relief organizations, local groups, military personnel, and other workers.There a lot of logistics behind the onsite efforts so please pray for clear communication between groups, unity as we all work together, wisdom to know who should be involved and how, effective networking, and for communication means to be functional such as cell phones, computers, and internet connections.
3. Identifying needs - There are still villages that are in need of help because of their remote location or simply because people are not aware of them. Pray for those that are onsite as they explore areas for villages in need of relief - divine appointments, protection for all the traveling by car and on foot, info they gather to be distributed accurately and in a timely manner, strength and energy as they travel/hike into affected areas, and for the relief to be culturally appropriate (i.e. What do different villages use or not use as means for warmth or shelter? There are more than one people group living in these villages so culture varies.).
4. Long term vision - Some areas are already getting snow, so there is a possibility that much of the permanent rebuilding will happen in the spring. Also the emotional and psychological stress may not be evident for weeks. Pray for wisdom and insight as we look to the months ahead and how we can continue to help those affected by the earthquake.
5. Accounting -There are strict and complicated financial logistics for receiving and accounting for money coming in for relief work which requires a lot of time and expertise in American and German accounting. Pray for a competent and bilingual accountant to be able to come out for a few months to help with finances.
6. Aftershocks - There have been many aftershocks since the initial earthquake, none as strong as the first one but we still have felt many of them. They affect not only those closer to the epicenter but also all of us here. Pray for our emotional and spiritual well being as we all deal differently with the experience and that we look to the security and refuge we have in His Word. Pray for the kids as they are also processing their experience.
7. Life Goes On - In the mist of the situation, life goes on for us. Pray for wisdom in setting and maintaining daily priorities in light of immediate needs for relief efforts. Pray for two families that are in the middle of moving, several people are in language learning full time, household responsibilities that need attention, and families with children.
8. Our city - Pray for opportunities to talk with our friends and neighbors about how they are dealing with the experience - although there was not much damage in our area, many could be unsettled and nervous. Pray for openness and transparency as we talk with people and that we would speak truth and hope into their lives.

And more....

We have been generously donated and loaded 500kg dried Apricots on our Landcruiser as relief for the _______ area along the ___. We have some money and will load a truck tonight with 500 quilts for the affected. Tomorrow we should be able to distribute the goods as a family, do assesments of the situation, as well as reaching ____ late at night on Saturday (two days ago).

Please do pray for our journey as we all do not feel well
Pray for me as I am driving myself
Pray against landslides and falling rocks
Pray for much blessing for the hungry, cold and homeless families on the way

One more from a family that's been seeking to return to this area for more than 2 years...

I have dreamed of working in this city since the very beginning of our work but have struggled to be allowed in let alone get an invitation. Now I have a specific request not only to bring relief supplies but to immediately startup our education programs. Our capacity to supply teachers has also dramatically improved recently. Pastor _____is the head of an agency that has started many small and a few large schools throughout the southern portion of the state. They have also recently set up schools in the northern portion. He happens to be traveling in the states right now and we have firmed up our plans to work together to form a new outreach from his organization to establish mobile education centers for the nomads and remote villagers still beyond the reach of education. Believe me when I say that our education will be designed around our full objectives of transforming society from the inside. Every teacher will also be a teacher trainer. Every trainee will learn the stories and faith principles of the Book (Bible). It will not be something imposed from the outside, it will be something they are yearning for but have never seen. Finally, those who seek, will find, for those knocking the door will be certainly opened.

The glory of man

This morning, I spent some time at Quo Vadis Bookstore with campus ministry leaders, and we shared what was going on in our lives/ministries and prayed for about 30 minutes--very encouraging. Then I decided to do something that's been all too rare in my 14 months on this job. I walked the campus of ASU, went inside buildings, and sat down outside--to pray and to listen to the Holy One. And I got a little scared, too...

You see, my work is fairly simple, and then again it isn't--I tell people about Firestone's work among Muslims and follow up with people in AZ and NM who are interested in working with us. But who do I talk to? Do I just go to churches, where I'm pretty sure the people I'm talking with are already Christians? Or do I set up little booths on campuses around the two states, hoping to attract notice from anyone and everyone? Do I go to high schools and youth groups or stick with college-age people and older? Is there anything I can be doing now to help compel people who will someday answer God's calling to reach Muslims? Is there anything I'm now doing that could be hindering this movement? If Jesus had my job (and He does, in a way, if I'm really His bondservant), what would He do to find workers? Would He simply know them when He saw them and say, "Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men"? Or would he host a conference, the way we're getting ready to do again soon? Would He take lots of people out to lunch and ask them questions, like I do? Or would He make constant trips to the field and take people with Him? Would He show up at other campus/ministry events, like Christian concerts, etc.? Or would He just hang out with Muslims all the time and call on others to follow His example?

So anyway, I began to get scared thinking about the big job I've been entrusted with and how am I going to possibly accomplish all He wants me to do as far as sowing new seed and have a home life, a personal life, an office life, a church life, and follow up with all the people who are already interested in heading overseas? By the grace of God and your prayers--that's how.

Though I haven't received one comment since I started writing on this blog, that doesn't stop me from asking for your feedback, as I seek to answer some of these big questions.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I had lunch with a young friend whom I've known for several years through church. He went through a very thorough missions-training program for 9 months (which I did also, the following year), and he has suffered much rejection from his family in following Jesus. He's supported our ministry over the last year--when I finally caught up with him by phone, I learned that he and his new bride had not been going to church for a while. When I had seen him last, one year before, he was excited to be at the beginning stage of forming a house church with some other friends.

So I brought up the subject of him being out of fellowship cautiously yesterday afternoon, hoping that I could hear his heart and discern why he had forsaken the company of other believers (not counting his own family). He talked about his wife constantly being wounded by other women in the large church they once attended. I shared my own story of wanting to protect my wife by taking her out of the same church--and how I needed to go back and pursue reconciliation with a brother.

He talked about how the house church he'd tried to create "blew up in my face." Then he said that he no longer believes God speaks to him anymore, that there's so many ways to interpret the Bible--so who's to say who is right? That he hasn't prayed to God in 8 months, and he feels just great. He said that he's found his "freedom in Christ."

He said that the likelihood of him ever going to a church again is next to nil. He sees that God is sovereign and does whatever He likes. This young man believes he can make whatever decisions he would like, and God will achieve the result He wants anyhow.

I asked him--when do you want God to be your Lord? After you die, or right now? He sees that God is His Lord now--working everything however He wants, no matter what he may choose to do. Go to church, or not. I asked him if he sees benefits to obedience, and he agreed that he makes some correct choices that both God and his wife would approve of, but still, he maintained that, whatever choices he might make, God is sovereign and will do whatever He wants--so why pray?

Will you pray for my brother--that God will open his eyes to fear Him and forgive those who have wronged him? And will you let me know how you would answer this man?

News from Ground Zero

From my friend who recently journeyed into the Himalayas to bless Muslims with Christ...

Thank you so much for all your prayers and emails. We have been blessed to know of the concern so many people back home have for us and for Kashmiris.
On Sunday I went with some of our co-workers to survey the areas outside our city which suffered the most damage in Kashmir. We quickly discovered that there was little or no relief coming yet to the mountain villages. A policeman escorted us to his village where no one had been. Thankfully no one there had died, but every house and building had been damaged badly and were no longer safe for people to stay in. We asked the village leaders what type of help they needed most. They replied that they needed tents/shelter more than anything else.
Since then our tour company has been partnering with other organizations to find ways to provide tents to villages like this one which are remote and not likely to receive relief very soon. The winter is fast approaching here and there is already snowfall on the high mountains. These villagers are now sleeping outside with no shelter from the cold.
Tomorrow (Wednesday our time) I am going with a group of co-workers to survey more villages. Please pray that this trip will be effective in finding out needs of specific villages. Pray for God to protect us as we travel to these areas.
The most important thing you can do right now is pray. Here are some ways to pray:
1. Wisdom - we need a lot of wisdom from God right now to know the best ways to provide help. Getting tents to some villages may sound simple, but it is rather complicated as we need to do it in a right way.
2. Tents - pray that we can obtain tents to provide to the villages we survey.
3. Unity and good cooperation - there are a lot of people working together on this project.
4. Kashmiris - no one knows how many people are without shelter. Pray for God to comfort these people and to provide for their basic needs.
5. Good weather - it has been raining which only makes the situation worse. Pray that God will bring us good weather to aid our relief efforts and to comfort the homeless.
6. Good rest - all of us are tired. We can only imagine what it must be like for the Kashmiris sleeping outside tonight.
7. God's glory - while we see and read reports of the devastation here and in Pakistan, we acknowledge that God is in control and sovereign over this world. We desire to see him glorified through an event as tragic as this earthquake. Pray that we would be good witnesses of his glory to the people we help and serve.

King Jeroboam

Today, as I was reading 1 Kings, I was struck by the way Jeroboam's actions led directly to His failure in God's sight. It was not always this way. The Lord had chosen him, like David previously, out of relative obscurity, and seemingly gave to him 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel to govern. God promised Jereboam amazing blessing if he would merely follow the Lord and His statutes. Jeroboam proved himself unworthy of such a gift/responsibility, but the Lord didn't yank everything away from him as soon as Jeroboam began setting up golden calves for the people to worship. The Lord sent a prophet to warn him, and, after Jeroboam rejected the prophecy and tried to rid himself of God's messenger, God demonstrated His power to Jeroboam by afflicting his hand and then immediately healing him.

Still, Jeroboam went back to his old ways--seemingly undaunted.

The Lord afflicted Jeroboam's son, and still Jeroboam did not repent--his son died, mercifully, because Scripture says that this young man had found favor with God. The Lord did not wish for Jeroboam's son to suffer the same fate that Jeroboam's descendants would face later--being utterly destroyed and eaten by dogs and birds--depending on whether they were in Jerusalem.

It's interesting and terrifying to me that Jeroboam himself suffered so little, while his family and people suffered greatly because of his sin. Maybe that proved even worse for him?

I look at my own life and see ways that I fall short of God's mark, anger and bitterness that I struggle with, and evil thoughts--and I fear the Lord, who would be righteous in granting me the same fate as Jeroboam. But I'm thankful that He has imparted the righteousness of His Son to me, giving me new hope every morning that He will complete the good work of transformation that He has begun in me. If you have been given much and are now squandering God's gift, stop now, turn around, and give your life back to the Lord.

Earthquake Response

One of the incredible things about working with Firestone is that we have workers in many of the places in the Muslim world where disasters (like tsunamis and earthquakes) are happening, and they are in a position to help immediately. This has happened once again--thankfully, none of our workers have been killed by the recent earthquake in South Asia.

Below are a few of the email reports we have received:

First, from a worker in the Arab Gulf, who writes:
"Pray for the many thousands of Muslims who have been devastated by the recent earthquake in Asia. There are many expatriates in the Gulf including a school friend of Zachary's, who have lost relatives. The newspaper quoted a restaurant worker in town: "I had a mother, father, wife and two kids...I didn't believe it at first. How come Allah can deprive me of all his blessings? But that's what happened to me, I have lost everything and life has suddenly become totally meaningless for me." "

This just in from some personal friends of ours who just arrived on the field a few days ago:
This morning as we were unpacking some of our clothes, we felt a strange sensation. The entire room started rocking gently back and forth! After being puzzled for a few seconds, it dawned on us that this was an earthquake, so we snatched up the baby and ran outside, along with the other guests staying in the house. Apparently, [our city] experiences earthquakes every six months or so, but they have never been devastating to the city, as the epicenter is usually up in the mountain ranges. It was an unusual way to start the morning, to say the least. Later in the day we found out the earthquake we felt was actually a magnitude 7.6 quake centered in Pakistan, nearly 400 miles away. Whole villages have been wiped out in that region as well as several apartment complexes in neighboring cities. Here in [our country] there is only one reported death- a girl who was killed by falling debris. Please pray for those affected by the quake.

From another region:
As you by now have heard all over the news there was a 7.6 earthquake that hit [near] us on the Pakistan occupied side of Kashmir. The quake was so large that when it reached us here...it was about 5.0 earthquake here and was felt all the way down to Delhi. Currently some members of our team have gone to survey the damage and find out any way that we can help. Since we don't know the language it may be difficult to help very much directly. Pray that God would provide us specific opportunities to be a blessing during this time of response.
On the Indian side ...more specifically the Uri sector, there was much devastation. Some friends of ours are from this area...so this may be the place that God will bring us to. Please keep everything in prayer!
And from the center of it all, one of our team leaders writes:
"One friend of mine, working with the national airline said to me an hour after the quake: 'Its good that it happened, because we are bad people and need to repent here'! May it lead to the cross....!
"We as (NGO) can help with Disaster Relief along the KKH, where Kohistan and the Batagram (Gujar/Pushtu/Hazara) area are most hit and whole villages have been wiped out. We can help with your donations for (NGO) to bring relief as well as rebuild villages along the KKH down the Indus, and beyond among the 5 unreached peoples we are working and the other smaller groups in Kohistan..."
"We have the set up, office to work all over Pakistan...but are appealing for funds as well as short term personel to manage disaster Relief efforts under (NGO)."

Please pray and consider giving generously.

Last night's Ramadan meeting and misc.

Yesterday, I received a call from some friends and supporters who offered their home for a Ramadan prayer meeting last night. I jumped at the chance and sent out some mass emails to prospective field workers, church leaders, and supporters. From 6:30 to 8pm Katherine and I gathered with our hostess, her two little boys, and three others to intercede on behalf of Muslims--particularly the Malay people and women from Yemen. We also lifted up the American church and its needs--for repentance, in some quarters. Also , the international community God has placed in Phoenix for now.

A few nights ago, I was able to meet with a group from my church interested in serving somewhere overseas, though they don't know where yet. Our pastor led the way and challenged us to begin praying together, along with our elders, regarding the target God has on His heart for our church. I think God was there, and that He has some incredible plans for us in the near future.

I want to share something about my past that has caused me some regret lately. I have/had this friend who invited me to live with him when I was first coming back to Christ in 1996. Later, he said that he invited me to live with him so that he could serve as my "spiritual drill sergeant," which he did. I both resented and respected him for doing this--but, in the end, I think I benefitted greatly from his prayers, exhortations, and friendship. Throught the 1.5 years we lived together, I always sensed that he saw himself as my superior, and that was hard. I also got the impression that he felt I was indebted to him--and maybe I was, but that was hard to live with. Eventually, after he quit working for the church, I wanted him to leave, which he took a lot of offense to.

Through the years, we stayed in touch, and I managed to offend him in various ways--to the point where we're barely on speaking terms now. Knowing that my actions have helped cause this rift humbles me and causes me to desire peace however possible. But I don't know what else to do for reconciliation, other than what I've already done. He's getting married this month, and he did ask me to pray for him and his new bride. So there's that.

May God bless this man and his marriage, granting them every spiritual blessing, so they may be a light to the nations.

If there are people in your life who have something against you, I pray that you'll do all that is within your power to make peace today.

New from the field

I figure you've learned enough about me for a while--so what's new on the field?

Here's a few snapshots from our workers, as many of them take part in Ramadan with local Muslims:

Today is the first day of Ramadan, the fasting month. It's even more prominent here because 95% of the people are Muslim. It's hard to find any food stalls open during the daylight hours. Many families will probably break fast together in their homes for the first few days, around 7pm each evening. Then for the rest of the month, a lot of the restaurants will be full of people enjoying buffet dinners.
If you are interested to know more about this important month in the lives of Muslims, and also how to pray for them, here are a couple of good weblinks you can go to:[1] http://www.30-days.net/islam/ramadan.htm[2] http://www.30-days.net/content/index.htm

Early every Tuesday morning, at least 2 or 3 of us have been attending a prayer meeting, together with about 6-8 local believers. The meeting is led by one pastor ("K") whom I've known since almost the beginning of my time here in SE Asia. They started this meeting when we moved to this city, to focus on the majority people around us. Pastor K says that God is doing something, because 3-4 years ago he could have never convinced even that many people to pray for the majority people. I am believing that soon they will want to do even more than pray.

Dear Intercessors,

RAMADAN HAS BEGUN! We have a sense that this year will be a war, yet we believe we will be gaining ground and the Kingdom will come! Please stand with us this month for the following breakthroughs--
+grace and strength for our western and national teammates who are all joining the 30-day fast, and covering 24-hour shifts in the HOPE prayer room
+fast-breaking parties we will be hosting throughout the month reaching out to many people
+distribution of stickers and cards announcing our new 24-hour prayer hotline--and that many would call
+meetings with people off-island to advance new literature publishing, public speaking events, and FM radio team formation
+new open doors into college campuses
+breakthroughs with key individuals: Fool, Nadia, Sally, and our many other friends
+unity and healed relationships within our national CP team
+a visitation from heaven for our city!

From the Arab Gulf:
RAMADAN 2005-----Week 1


As we've entered the supermarket during the past week or so we've been reminded that the month of Ramadan is coming up soon. Huge sacks of rice, flour and sugar are on sale. There are special offers on things like cake mixes, jello packets and Tang. Displays of dates, nuts and dried fruit are prominent. People leave with carts loaded!Once again, we want to invite you to pray with us during this month which is extremely significant not only to our friends, but to over a billion Muslims around the world possibly including some of your neigbours. To give you one perspective on Ramadan the following is part of something the university sent out.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic Lunar calendar and the holiest of the four holy months. It begins with the sighting of the new moon after which all physically mature and healthy Muslims are obliged to abstain from all food, drink, gum chewing, any kind of tobacco use, and any kind of sexual contact between dawn and sunset. However, that is merely the physical component of the fast; the spiritual aspects of the fast include refraining from gossiping, lying, slandering and all traits of bad character. All obscene and irreligious sights and sounds are to be avoided. Purity of thought and action is paramount. Ordained in the Quran, the fast is an exacting act of deeply personal worship in which Muslims seek a raised level of God-consciousness. The act of fasting redirects the hearts away from worldly activities, towards The Divine.
The month of Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, prayer, doing good deeds and spending time with family and friends. The fasting is intended to help teach Muslims self-discipline, self-restraint and generosity. It also reminds them of the suffering of the poor, who may rarely get to eat well. It is common to have one meal (known as the Suhoor), just before sunrise and another (known as the Iftar), directly after sunset. This meal will commonly consist of dates, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him. Because Ramadan is a time to spend with friends and family, the fast will often be broken by different Muslim families coming together to share in an evening meal.
Ramadan derives from the Arabic root: ramida or ar-ramad, meaning scorching heat or dryness. Since Muslims are commanded to fast during the month of Ramadan, it is believed that the month's name may refer to the heat of thirst and hunger, or because fasting burns away one's past sins. Muslims believe that God began revealing the Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan.

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Tuesday, October 4: Muslims take dreams seriously. Pray that God would reveal Himself through dreams, visions and other unmistakable ways this month to those who are seeking Him.

Wednesday, October 5: Our team will be spending this evening and the next two days in a city about four hours away for a weekend of training on intercession and prayer ministry. Pray that we receive everything the Spirit has for us.

Thursday, October 6: We want to make this a month of daily times of worship together, weekly prayer walks, and asking God for opportunities to pray for healing and to share our faith. Pray that we be diligent and expectant.

Friday, October 7: Pray for the many Christian maids (from countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia) who work in local families throughout the Gulf. Many are isolated or in difficult situations, but they have incredible opportunities to share Jesus with their employers and especially the children in these homes.

Saturday, October 8: Pray for ""Fatima." We had an interesting conversation about miracles, prayer and faith last week. She asked me to pray for something after that. Pray that God answers and that salvation would come to her and her family.

Sunday, October 9: "Elsa"is one of our team-mates. She's with us for a year from another team in the Gulf as she attends language school here. Pray that she makes great progress in Arabic and that her stay with us will be mutually beneficial. We love her passion to be out sharing with people.

Monday, October 10: There are many Gulf Arabs studying abroad and they are often more open to spiritual things away from the pressures of their own societies. Because of current world events many of them are asking questions, but many more are fearful, expecting rejection. Pray that believers reach out to them with the love of Jesus.

Testifying to God's grace

Does God care whether I'm single or married? This was something I wondered for many years. I questioned whether the Lord desired to grant me a life partner, or did He want me all for Himself and His interests? If He did desire for me to have a wife, she would probably be ugly, so that I wouldn't be too distracted from what God really cared about: ministry...right?

In American Christian culture, it often seemed to me that married persons didn't have time for us lowly singles. Or worse, they secretly looked down on me with a certain look on their face or tone of voice, implying that they had reached a level of spirituality that was beyond me right now. Now that I'm married, I try to watch out for this attitude in myself, while I still recognize that not all singles are content singles...and I don't look down on them for this because I was there for a good long while. I wanted to be married. I knew that God had called me to singleness for the moment, but I wasn't going to keep trying to ignore my desires, pretending they didn't exist. I also recognize it's not like this for everyone, and I should never assume that all singles hope to get married someday.

The question that God did seem to ask me often was: Am I enough? Will you find your joy in Me even if I decide not to give you this gift? WIll you believe true things about Me and cease your complaining, as I have called you to wait for now--and have not revealed to you how long you will have to wait.? Will you cease to envy and bring glory to Me in your singleness? Do you love Me enough to receive this gift from Me and not try to snatch at it with selfish ambition? Will you believe that the woman I have planned for you is better than anyone you could find in your own strength and charisma?

My answers to these questions finally had to be yes. God used an unlikely source to help me see the truth. For almost 2 years, I worked regularly in my church's nursery with newborns to 2-year-olds. As I looked at them and saw how God provided for their every need, I saw little worry in them about who their future spouse would be. In fact, I would have thought it hilarious if they did. I began to imagine God's perspective of me, as I worried. He knew how long He would need to prepare and mature me, and He knew how long it would take to prepare Katherine (my future wife, unbeknownst to me--and she's absolutely beautiful, I might add), and nothing I did was going to speed up His process in our lives. My worry did not help things one bit, and I needed to see myself as His child, friend, and slave--appropriately.

Hope this helps someone today.

Struggling Through--part 3

One of the huge ways God showed His faithfulness to me after I began following Him in 1996 was in the area of work. For several years, I had worked at various video stores around town, and most of them carried porn. After coming to Christ, I no longer wanted to go into the back room where this stuff was located, but sometimes it was necessary. Like when my manager wanted me to go dust the shelves--pretty hard to do this when you've got your eyes closed to keep from seeing all the boxes.

I didn't believe God wanted me to do this job anymore, but I didn't know where else I might work. I took a walk and ended up at a Blockbuster Video store, where they didn't carry porn. I ran into an old friend whom I had worked with years before, and that same night, as I was praying, I was basically offered a job. Wow.

A year later, when I really felt like I needed to get out of the video store business, I listened to an African-American customer come in and basically prophesy over me that I wouldn't be doing this work for more than another month. Soon after, my church received a fax from a local voice mail business, looking for a person to work for them. I followed it up and received the job.

When that business switched its location to Spokane, they offered to pay my moving expenses to come with them or pay some severance money. I took the latter, believing that God still had work for me at my church and something else planned. I went on my first short-term mission trip with Teen Mania (though I was 24) to Alaska for a month, where I did drama ministry with a large group to help Alaskans come to Christ. The trip changed my life (or God did, rather), and I came back knowing that I wanted to dedicate my life to making Christ known, rather than trying to sell anything else.

But how? I knew that I didn't want to raise support again, after having just raised short-term support from my church. I had no idea what I could do to position myself for ministry with missions, except pray. For more than 3 months, I was basically unemplyed, looking for anything. With my funds dwindling, one afternoon I got on my face and just begged the Lord to help me. The phone rang just then, while praying, and my pastor offered me some temporary work, filling in for a secretary who was sick. That same secretary had recommended that I call a radio station's job hotline, which then led to the first of 3 interviews with Firestone. After I was hired by them a few weeks later, I learned that it was my phone skills (learned at the voice mail company) that helped push me over the finish line to get the job. They heard these phone skills because I was filling in as the secretary at the church when they called to check with my pastor as a reference.

I thank God for having been able to work with this org for 7 years now. Hope some of you reading this will consider joining our work to bless Muslims with Christ.

It's been a long day...

And I promised to blog more today about my testimony...so I'll just say that soon after I got baptized, with my divorced parents in attendance, I started videotaping church services and broadcasting an hour-long show on Phoenix public access. It was very convenient to have the television station just two miles away, since I didn't own a car. I would bike there and sit in an editing suite for hours, using the footage I'd collected on a previous Sunday. For years, I had wanted to be a filmmaker, and it finally seemed that my dream was being realized--but I was no longer attempting to fulfill artistic ambition...I was working for Jesus, through my small Baptist church, and having a real blast.

My testimony of God's grace--part 1

I'm reading Cultivating a Life for God, by Neil Cole, and I was encouraged by the passage I read this morning to share my testimony of God's grace in my life.

I knew about Jesus from an early age, went to church, read the Bible, and even asked Him to come into my heart at a church camp. Thereafter, I kept asking Him to come back into my heart, because I thought He was making some quick exits each time I committed sin. My life in Christ eventually became limited to some halfhearted prayers muttered before drifting to sleep.

At the age of 21, September 1995 (10 years from right now, as a matter of fact), I felt on the edge of a nightmare, as I prepared to graduate from Grand Canyon University in a few months. I didn't know where I would go next, what kind of career I would have, or how to do much of anything besides watch movies, go to school, use my cameras, and work at a video store. I would not have said then that I hungered for God, but I did know that my heart longed for unconditional love--wherever I could get it. I had watched my dad end/begin 4 marriages in 3 years, and I now know that I inherited much of his grasping after love.

When a girl I liked from one of my classes agreed to let me treat her for dinner after she helped me with a school project, I did whatever I could to get her to love me, including going to church with her. Even started reading the Bible again. It took me a long time to get over the fact that she would never love me in the way I wanted--about 6.5 years in fact. But she did help me see that what I was looking for could not be found in a human relationship--that I needed to seek after God for the kind of love my heart needed. And I did--I tried it. And He did--He met with me and showed me His power over my sin, over my career, my finances, friendships, and everything else--when I put my life in His hands and invited Him to do whatever He wanted with it.

I really started growing right after graduation, when another friend, who worked at a small Baptist church, invited me to live with him and work for the church part-time. This was the first time I ever lived in real community with other believers, and God completely changed my world view.

More tomorrow...

Please pray

I have some friends in Central Asia who are undergoing some intense pressure. If you will read their email excerpts below and pray, I believe God will hear and allow them to stay longer than the government would normally allow. Thanks for your partnership.

"We would like to make you aware that we are currently in a fairly serious situation regarding our ability to stay here. To keep the story short, suffice it to say that the president of this country appears to believe that the U.S. and western governments are actively involved in trying to have him removed from office via encourging revolutions like what has occurred in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. He seems to believe that the mechanism used in these other countries (this has some truth to it) and the mechanism being used in here is via western and western-funded, non-governmental organization (NGOs). We work for a western NGO--a humanitarian aid organization.

Therefore, our NGO, like all others is being watched closely and has recently been audited by the government here. As is typical with audits, deficiencies were found and the government wants to have these addressed plus they are requesting information that we would rather not provide regarding how we are financed (who our donors are, etc.) and they want to have a say in our project plans.

In the past, we would have politely refused to provide certain information that the U.S. government here is telling us we shouldn't provide (not because we are trying to hide political agenda--we just would rather not give out names of donors--this includes some of you reading this) . However, a number of NGOs have been forced to leave as has the Peace Corps (they left several months ago) and this past week one had its operations suspended for 6 months (we aren't sure what that means) for refusing to provide the information that we also do not want to provide. In fact, it seems that the approach our NGO normally would take is what that organization did and has been suspended for it.

We now need to respond to the government in the next several weeks on this and need wisdom on how to do so as no matter what approach is taken, it seems to have high potential for problems. We want to state clearly here that in fact our NGO is NOT a political organization and we are NOT involved in activities encouraging political directions. It may very well be that the government recognizes this and is requiring a lot of information to verify that or it may be the case that they are making a case to have us removed. We don't know but we can put our trust in the Almighty God who does know.

-We really want God to strengthen the believers and help them to be ready to stand if we have to leave. Pray that God would help them to stand on their own, or help them to trust another group enough to join with them.
-Pray for the leader that he would persevere through some disappointments in his family which have really got him down.
-Those disappointments are continuing division among the women in his extended family. Yesterday at the little Bible study I do with them we read I Corin 13 and I didn't say anything. I told them to meditate and pray over it this week and we'll talk about it next week. Pray that the Holy Spirit will convict them and grant them repentance. It is this issue probably more than anything that is making it impossible for them to become a proper church. We need a Holy Spirit fired break through~!
-Another disappointment has been baptized friends and relatives in a neighboring village have wiped out, partly because we (for security and other reasons) can't go out there on a regular basis and meet with them and there is no fellowship of any kind out there. They understand so little and are so messed up. How can we help them grow? How can God establish them out there?
-A still can't get off the steroids, tried to drop his dose but had to go back up. That alone may knock us out.
-We would love to see God move among all the people we've shared with, showed the film to, or done seekers groups with. Also pray for repentence for people who have come to faith and then fallen away.
-The kids are doing great and absolutely love it here. Pray that God would give them grace-I know they sense some uncertainty.
-Pray for dear C. as she's busy filling out college application forms and taking SAT's etc on top of a very full academic load, she too would love to see some of her friends come to faith before she leaves.
-God may be calling us on to something else. Pray that A will have time to write you about it, and that we would know what He wants us to do.
-If we are to have to go, pray that God would help a poor ADHD housewife who's homeschooling 4 kids know what in the world to do with a house full of stuff! and that we wouldn't have to go on short notice, and for good closure.
-Our house in the states needs a renter. That can't help our debt situation which results from a crazy summer of travel and reequipping our family.
We are in need of God's help right now. Thank you for being such good friends to us.

PS Two women who used to go to our little women's group but I haven't seen in a long time asked the host women if we'd be reading the scripture again this fall - they want to meet with us again! Pray that God would establish them and their families in Him. See I ended on a positive note!
THIS ONE FROM ANOTHER WORKER IN THE SAME COUNTRY
Please continue to pray.
2 other non-government organizations (the type that we are under) were closed down over the weekend. They are both more politically connected to the west than we are but it is still not a good sign. Please pray that we will be able to stay. If we weather this storm for the next 4-6 months we may be through the worst for a while. Also pray as myself and two other guys on our tm work through contingencies. We asking questions about what we would do as families and as a tm if we found ourselves without an organization. These require real leading from the Lord on it all.
We're still hopeful and continue to dive in to whatever He gives our hands to do. And good things are still happening. Please also pray for a possible leadership forum that I'm working through it's conceptual stages. This would be a place for local leaders to come and gather and share ideas and encourage one another as a body.

AND ANOTHER...
We need your prayers right now. We need the Lord to intervene. We are not in danger, but our Non-Government Organization (NGO), the organization for which we work here doing education, community, and health projects throughout our region is under scrutiny. They have done an "audit" of our organization (in the main office in the capital city) and have found many errors, most of which are questionable (did not sign on the right line, translation not notarized,...). Now let me be clear that we are doing our best to be above reproach and obey the law, but they can always find fault or make something up if need be. The so-called "errors" are not what is important at this time. Our main office staff can fix and/or deal with most of them relatively easily. The issue, however, is whether they will let us do that. The atmosphere among government officials here currently is one of distrust of most things foreign. They have already shut down a few NGO's and have denied visas to people. They may just be checking us to make sure we are not doing the "wrong" things (by their definition) and once they are convinced, then we will be in the clear. Or they may have already decided that our time has come and nothing we can do will matter. We honestly do not know.

But what we do know is that God is the One who is truly in control. He has given authority to these men and women. Also, this battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers of darkness. In the end, what decisions are made are up to God, and He listens to the prayers of His people.

Please pray that He would grant us favor with the authorities here, and that we could come to an understanding. Please make this a daily prayer until you hear from us.

They are expecting a report by the end of September so we will keep you informed.

How do you wake up?

When you open your eyes every morning (I'm assuming you open your eyes in the morning), is your first thought: Get me to the coffeemaker.
Or maybe: Am I late?
Or: I have a million things to do today, and I'm already behind.
Or: Five more minutes--where's the snooze button?
Or maybe it's a simple: Thank you--I'm alive, the sun is shining, my God loves me, today holds limitless possibilities, how can I best bring You glory, Lord?

I think God cares a lot about how we begin things...it sets the tone for the rest of whatever it is that we do, whether it's living out a day of vacation, pursuing an education, a marriage, or a ministry. Look at the way you begin things and compare the results of a day begun poorly with the results of a day begun meditating on God's Word, enjoying His beauty, and humbly submitting yourself to whatever He wants you to do (or not do).

God bless you today as You listen for His voice.

Blessed are the cheesemakers

My title comes from one of my favorite lines from film, in which a British-sounding Israelite stands at the back of a crowd, trying to listen to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, when the confused man believes that he hears 'Blessed are the Cheesemakers" and wonders aloud, "What's so special about them?"

Of course, most people know that what the man might have heard, if he'd only been standing closer, was "Blessed are the Peacemakers"

So what is a peacemaker anyway, and how does one become one of them?

Glad you asked, because I've just been learning about it the last couple days, along with nearly all of the Firestone U.S. staff. We're meeting at a church nearby and being led by one of our long-term, mature team leaders. He surprised me yesterday by saying the only thing he and his wife have learned after their 2 decades church planting overseas: is that all of their ministry can be summed up in the one word: peacemaking.

It's been a very enlightening set of seminars, and, each afternoon, we're doing role plays to try resolving real-life examples of conflict, using the info. we've been receiving. Today, we received a lesson on contrition--what constitutes real contrition as opposed to a halfhearted/fake apology (such as "I was wrong...please forgive me for..." rather than "I'm sorry if my actions led you to take offense")

From the teacher's experience on the field, he shared a story of a Muslim he knows who came to Christ, having nothing to his name, basically dressed in rags, and living hand-to-mouth in someone's flower shop. He also had tuberculosis. The Firestone leader was a bit skeptical of the man's faith, but, after probing further, found the man's faith to be genuine. The leader was concerned that he would need to start caring for all of this man's needs, but he was prepared to do whatever God wanted. Soon after the meeting, the new believer was sent by the government to a hospital, where his illness could be treated. While there, Firestone workers visited with him to study Scripture. When they asked the man if he had a job lined up or a place to stay after his eventual release from the hospital, his answer was "No" Then they studied Jesus' words about forgiving others, so that God will also forgive you. The following week, when they asked the man if he had a job or a place to live, his answer was "Yes"

They were surprised and asked him what happened. The new believer reminded them of the Scripture and told them he had obeyed it, going to the brother he had not spoken with in 7 years. They were reconciled, and the brother offered him a place to live and a job.

Using stories like this, our leader explained to us why all of his ministry was actually peacemaking--that bringing reconciliation between men and God also required reconciliation taking place between beings, where relationships needed to be repaired.

More to come...

No Perfection Please

Many people might think that I, having worked for a Christian org. like Firestone for nearly seven years, have a job where people are kind to one another, considering others more important than themselves, and full of Christ's love...and, in many cases, they'd be right. I work for a non-profit with high goals and solid leadership. But we continue to sin, as in all human endeavors. That is part of the reason why, now that I have Internet access at home, I'm required to use Covenant Eyes on my computer, showing another person which websites I'm accessing on a monthly basis. It's the reason why we have auditors come each year to examine our financial accounting. And it's why, next week, we're going to take 3 days out of our normal routine to attend a Peacemaking seminar led by a longtime Firestone leader and his wife. We need to learn how to handle conflict in godly ways, along with our field workers. Most people are surprised to learn that the #1 reason people end up leaving the field is because they can't /won't get along with their fellow team members or leader. This should not be so, but...

It's also been said that if a person has habitual sin and marriage conflict or health issues while in the U.S., those problems can and do usually become more intense serving on the field. But I also believe there are distinct advantages to abandoning an American lifestyle and committing oneself to a team's approach for living the life of Christ on earth, as His body. In some cases, being on the field, away from fleshly comforts, can actually lead you to truly rely on Christ, who laid down His life for us and calls us to do the same.

The last few weeks have been intense for us personally. Trying to consider all things as rubbish compared to knowing Christ...not the easiest thing to do when you're looking at your circumstances and wondering how to make it through one more day without giving up. Last night, President Bush was talking about the "whims of nature" and, alomost in the same breath, referring to a God who cares for us. Whose whims could he be talking about then, if not the Lord's? And I don't think He has whims--just purposes and plans that are being carried out with Divine perfection. He really is in control, though we don't undestand why He allows different conflicts to intrude within our perfect circles of "safety". More later...

Named after Jim Ryun

My father is a life-long runner. I think he began cross-country and track-and-field during high school, and it quickly became his big thing. Throughout college, he was running and attending cross-country meets. After he married my mom, he kept running. When I was born, he named me after one of his favorite runners, Jim Ryun (Ryun is my middle name), who was one of the first men to run a mile in less than 4 minutes--now, he's in Congress. Once a year, Dad would take my brother and me to a track, so he could time us in running the quarter-mile and compare year-by-year. He was a running coach for as long as I can remember, too. He helped start the Mon-Dak (stands for Montana-Dakota) races--which are still being held to this day. I remember eating leftover McDonalds chesseburgers, drinking orange soda out of the extra track meet giveaway mugs--for weeks afterwards.

Dad always wanted me to be a runner, like him. In 7th grade, he talked me into joining my school's cross-country team and offered a signing bonus of $5/week--double my allowance! It was a miserable experience, but one that I'm glad I submitted to now. Better than sitting in front of the television...which I did for probably 2-3 years of my 18 years growing up ( a rough estimate).

But even though I very rarely put on my jogging shorts and sprint around in this Arizona heat, I do know that I'm in a race...some days, I feel like I'm winning and just about to see a finish line. Other days, I let the pack pass me by, and I slow to a crawl, stopping to see the scenery around me. The trick is to know where you are at all times--to know the course, so that you can pace yourself and know when it's necessary to put on some extra speed.

You can't ignore the fact that you're in a race either--being timed and penalized if you travel outside the racing area. Hmmm...How far can I carry this analogy?

If you're reading this, I encourage to run the race God has placed you in with perseverance and faith, not allowing any sin to get in your way today--because your race will end, there will be an accounting, and lives hang in the balance.

It's been too long

What can I rejoice to God about?

How about a humble overseas worker--check this out from my friend "TJ" whom I trained under this past summer in SE Asia (and please pray for him, too):

The Competitor

I was born into this earth already a winner. I was one of 270 million people that called themselves American. The majority of the 6 billion residents of this planet scrape by from day to day. I was privileged to move into a new home as a child and was never denied any of my needs. No, I wasn’t born into the richest family on earth, but I can say in retrospect that I had things very good.

Was this enough for me? No. I began to judge myself by those around me. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I could work the system, in my head, to make me superior to virtually anyone. They may be smarter than me, but I was a better athlete than them. Maybe they were a better athlete, but I was smarter than them. When did I start to learn this system? I don’t know…I do remember that only half the class in kindergarten learned to read, and I was one of those who learned to read, a fact that my friend reminds me of still. But I really think this idea was embedded in my psyche in high school when it came time to vote for “class favorites” and “most likely to succeed”. That was when this economy became a part of me. It was vital to be talented, to value people based on who they were, and what they could do and above all to try to be better than they were at something.

Somewhere along the road, I became a Christian. No problem, because this economy dovetails nicely with much of contemporary Christian thinking. Therefore, since I could quote all the books of the Bible, the 23rd Psalm and lots of other verses from memory it merely fit nicely into this idea that I was somehow better than most everyone. Little did I understand that this belief was quite extra-Biblical. Would I have ever confessed to holding to this economy of value? No, not in a million years, but it secretly drove almost everything that I did.

Fast forward to today. I still have a tendency to operate under this same skewed belief. I love the local food, while others don’t, therefore I must be better. I always measure my command of the local language by my co-labourers. If it is better than theirs, I must be better than them. If it isn’t better, I am better in a different area, maybe local slang or pronunciation or vocabulary.

This last month I have really been struggling with this economy, not because I wanted to, but because God was really putting his finger on this area of my life. I was quite happy to keep living exactly the way I had my whole life.

Galatians was a book written to a group of people who had come to faith in Jesus Christ. They had walked faithfully as long as Paul was around to guide them in their faith. But, after Paul left them, they began to combine their new faith with the legalism they had known under Judaism. This is observed in Galatians 4:9 & 10: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years.”

As I read and reread these verses and chapters, a solemn truth began to dawn in my soul. Galatians was written for ME. I had become a Christian early in my life, but I was just as guilty as the Galatians. I had returned to the way of life I knew, to the way of life I was comfortable with. This was to measure myself and others around me by their abilities or wealth or adherence to Christian disciplines.

The moment I was crucified with Christ, I was redeemed out of this value economy and into a different one. This economy is one of grace. God’s grace. Why am I important? Because God loves me! Am I more important than anyone? No, because God loves the world!! (cf. John 3:16) But I had for so long been operating in the old economy, and in turn missing the joy that comes from the new. Instead of being encouraged by my brother or sister’s faith, I was threatened by it, and missed the joy of loving them and rejoicing with them.

If you doubt the reality of this economy of grace, consider Galatians 3:27 &28:
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; you
are all one in Christ.

Then I continued on in my quiet times, reading into Ephesians. For some reason the Holy Spirit started to show me that at no time in Galatians or Ephesians does Paul tell the believers to preach to the pagans. The closest he comes to that is when he tells them to hold forth the Word of life. Paul is much more concerned that they understand who they are in Christ and how that breaks into their lives. Twice in Ephesians Paul writes extended prayers detailing how he wants their eyes to be opened to certain truths of Christ. (Ephesians 1:18-23 and 3:14-21) It seems that Paul was much more concerned about their identity in Christ and their identification with Christ than how many tracts they handed out.

Then I read in Philippians 2:1 &2:
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
And Philippians 1:27:
Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. (Emphasis mine)

My whole life I have been working in a value economy which rated myself and others on certain “value points”. It was not a Biblical idea, but something that entered humankind with the Fall. Cain killed Abel, because he too was a competitor like me and he wanted to get rid of the competition. When I took this value economy into my newfound faith, I was able to get it to ‘work’ but never realized the cost. In this economy, my outward actions counted ten times more than my inward walk. So, my inward communion and character were secondary to the things I did in front of others. And I secretly measured myself by them and their outward actions, never fully grasping or comprehending that we were all valuable because Christ chose to love us. (Sure, I could tell you Christ loved us equally in theory.) How does one develop community when one is secretly competing with all the other members? Very poorly.

Paul, on the other hand, said we should not continue to work in this value economy, but should realize we are equal in Christ. Wesley put it this way: “The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” Paul wanted Christians to not compare themselves with one another, but rather pursue Christ because he is the only thing worth pursuing. Secondly, Paul placed equal weight on the internal and external marks of the faith. Thirdly, Paul placed great stress on community, a community that could be built because its members were not fighting one another but were pursuing Christ in unison.

Francis Schaeffer remarks: “When we talk of the Christian life or true spirituality, when we talk about freedom from the bonds of sin, we must be wrestling with the inward problem of not coveting against God and men, of loving God and men, and not merely some set of externals.” (True Spirituality)

My escape from this value economy and into the economy of grace is LOVE. Perhaps this was in the mind of Paul when he wrote I Corinthians 13, the “love chapter”. Or perhaps it was on the heart of John the Evangelist when he penned I John, the “love book”. Actually, it can be traced back a bit further, to Christ himself.
Matthew 22:36-39:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment of the Law? And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”

I find it more than serendipity that I am having this revealed in me at the very time two new team members are arriving here. If I see them as a project, a set of goals to put in place or problems to be solved, I would be useless to them as a leader. And I could miss the true blessing it is to love someone and pursue Christ in community with them.

This also helps me understand why the world works the way it does. All of those outside the family of faith will naturally work in the value economy, so of course they will cut me off in traffic or complain about the way I do something. They are only doing what comes natural to them, and I have been redeemed from that economy.

2 Corinthians 5:16 & 17:
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has
gone, the new has come!

Wednesday-New Workers: By September 13th all the new interns will have arrived. Pray for them as they settle into this country and look for housing, eat new foods, and learn a new language. Pray for me as I interact with D and J, that my love for them will be evident to all, but especially them.

My bad

A couple nights ago, I was in a pretty poor mood, and I took things out on my poor blog. If you happened to open it during the 45 minutes that piece of now-disposed writing was actually posted, I apologize--still battling the flesh over here.

I've been amazed watching the news the last few nights, looking at a real live wrecked city. Why is God allowing this now? What do the nations think? Is this America's come-uppance? Will they be sending us foreign aid anytime soon?

Sometimes, my job seems to have nothing to do with bringing Muslims to Christ. Like today, I had a couple conversations with a young man who's trying to pass his nursing exam. He spent part of the summer in North Africa, and he wants to go back and use his nursing degree there one day soon. But for now, he's battling his way through college one exam at a time, and he needs all the encouragement he can get. He just called to rejoice in the passing grade he received in an online exam. Woo-hoo!

Katherine and I are heading out now to drop off some items at the city's main post office, then we'll be eating Israeli food (first time for me) with a couple of newlyweds seeking to plant churches among the poor. Thanks for your patience in waiting for this new blog.

Simply amazing

Yesterday, I had a phone conversation with my former pastor who was despairing over how slow some people he knows have taken to get overseas and begin working. He thinks that the pioneer church planting will be completed within the next 15 years. After that, every person will be forced to build on others' foundations...if the Lord doesn't return.

I don't know that I'd agree with his time assessment, but I did just finish viewing some reports from Firestone teams working in Central Asia, and my jaw drops in wonder as I read about hundreds and thousands of Ms coming to the Lord--some of them en masse.

If I shared everything, I might have you reading here much longer than you need to be sitting in front of a computer--so here's just a sampling. Keep in mind that the following stories are taking place in a war-torn country that most people, until recent years, would call "unreachable":

In one area of the country I have heard of 700 - 800 people having come to the Lord. Mainly _________... the most looked down upon ethnic group. One guy is being called John the Baptist because he has baptized so many local people here. Many of those folk are coming to _____for training and discipleship, so we know it really is going on.

Here we have witnessed about 15 baptisms. One was convinced that he really was going to die with Christ when he went under the water. He thought we had to drown him, then he would be resurrected. Still, he was willing to go ahead with it until the moment before he was put under the water and then suddenly lost his nerve. He started fighting and struggling to prevent being put under. When he finally understood we weren't actually going to drown him he went through with it!

A married couple were about to be baptized and an argument suddenly sprang up ... should she be baptized with her bra on or off !!!!!!! Our Bible studies hadn't quite prepared for that eventuality!

There was an incredible healing miracle that occurred the other day. A boy with a terrible liver problem and horribly distended belly ... was completely healed after prayer. The mother was calling us 'Mullahs (Muslim pastors) that pray in the name of Jesus! Some people went to the local governor complaining we were trying to convert people ... and giving Bibles. He had previously been very hostile to people like us. This time he merely said, "Well, give them a quran then"!

One of our brothers got arrested for his faith and then released after 2 hours. He is undaunted though and continues to witness.

That said, the work here is all very fragile and some are falling away ...none of those we are working with are over a year and half old in their faith. It is a messy business I am discovering and no matter what you read on how it should be done people just aren't fitting into our boxes! I have learned that someone may seem to be a fervent believer today but tomorrow it is a different story!! However, God is building his church and it is a privilege to see what is going here in these days ... unprecedented in this country I believe. Just the huge number of workers that are arriving here is a sure indication that something pretty big is afoot.

Hope you're as encouraged as I was.

My friend, "Danny"

Just saw my Firestone friend, Danny, while we were in England together at a conference. Before then, he had just arrived on the field, along with his visiting mother, in order to begin new work for Christ's kingdom in South Asia. The following email excerpts reflect some of the amazing things God is doing through this very young man, who is laying aside a lot of artistic ambitions to pursue Jesus' glory among people who have not yet heard.

"One night my mother was awakened from a deep sleep about 3:30am by loud noises in the attic followed by sharp knife like chest pains. She responded to this intrusion with Bible scripture and commanding any evil "spirits," to leave in the name of Jesus...And they were gone!

After not being able to sleep she later came downstairs to the kitchen to find that both the mother and daughter were awake and were having their special prayer time prior to daily chores. The daughter just finished her Koran lessons with an Islamic priest who comes over regularly. My mother shared what had happened in detail making them quite intrigued and saw her as "A brave woman!"

Informing them of the Holy Scriptures, which reveal truth about evil spirits showed them that with the power and authority of Jesus...the evil spirits must leave. Now around this time I had come downstairs to join in on the conversation and remembered hearing from a teammate that the daughter had a charm around her neck that was said to help her heart pains she was experiencing.

So I ask her, "Do you happen to have a charm around your neck?" she said, "Yes!" and pulled it out. (These charms are small peaces of cloth or metal with small bits of Koranic script inside. It is then"blessed" by an Islamic Shaman--like a medicine man) My mom and I began to explain how these charms not only demonstrate your dependence on something/someone other than God, but they invite evil spirits (Jinn) to enter into you, your home, and/or effect anyone around you. We provided Scripture to back up these facts and before we had finished the daughter ripped off the charm and asked what we should do? I suggested that she should burn the charm. So we proceeded to the attic where it all began...with the daughter's mom holding the charm on an old comb and the daughter lighting it with a lighter. We all prayed together and claimed the house as a place for God and no longer any spirits. The event concluded by the daughter telling the whole house hold when they woke up the entire happening in detail! She agreed that when God does something great..you are to tell everyone! Pray for my sister...that she would put her complete trust in her Creator. May she experience God's unmatchable power and taste His eternal glory!

Down the street to the local market area and then down a muddy road through rice fields and houses as big as some of our bedrooms lives my good friend, whom I will call the Dancer. Anyone who has met him or heard of him knows he is nineteen years old and full of energy that will blow you away. He always brings entertainment to any household with his songs and dance moves. He is even now a part of a local pop group that have become very popular around the valley. So the Dancer was over one day during my mother's stay and he was telling us a graphic story of him and his friend being attacked by spirits. He shared that they were walking toward his home one night and were confronted by an evil spirit in the bushes...He was making threats of attacking them for walking in this area at night. Quickly they ran home to escape, but the spirit followed them. In the front room this spirit began to pick them up in mid- air. My friend was pushed against the wall, while his buddy was slammed to the ground continuously. Then he tells that the "Good spirit" that lives in his attic came to him saying to recite verses of the Koran. He describes that there was so much pressure on him that he could barely say a word. Finally he doesn't know why, but both him and his friend were let go. After telling this story, both my roommate (an intern to our company) and my mother laid hands on Him and began to pray against any spirits...then he began to laugh and spin his head as though he was crazy until he began to cough extremely hard. There was no doubt that a spirit just came out of him!! The next day we saw him and he asked, "What happened last night? I cannot remember anything!" Since then I have seen him, but a few times...not long enough to get a new report other than that his friend is still having problems--frequent visits from the spirits. Please pray for the Dancer... That, like my sister, he would know the Truth of Jesus that it may set him free! Pray that he would not forget the truth we have told him about Jesus...and that if He does not ask the Spirit of God to fill that now empty spot...more evil spirits will return. Pray that between our schedules we would both be able to meet again to talk further. He is very receptive to new ideas, such as truth about Jesus and loves singing worship songs. Pray that the Dancer may be a young man of peace!

Thank you for your prayers on behalf of Danny and his new work.