of

Sid and Vilda Collison
1826 14TH Ave. S.W.
Vero Beach, FL 32962
(772) 569-5791   
 sidcollison@earthlink.net or vilda@mpinet.net 
www.foreverfamily.org

JUNE & JULY, 2004

Dear Family and Friends,    
	
	We had our June letter nearly ready to go out around the middle of June, but due to unforeseen events and also not having peace about what we had chosen as the topic for our Little Words Bible study, we decided to send a combined letter in July. We believed God was leading us to do a study on the word fear, but He has shown us that we are to do a series on it, so more preparation and study are needed. We continued praying about what He would have us do the study on, and it was amazing to see how God used a particular situation to prepare our hearts to see what topic He wanted us to share. Before we share this situation, let us say that our hearts are full of gratitude to all of you who are supporting us with your monetary gifts and/or prayers as we continue doing day by day what God is showing us to do to build and firmly establish the Forever Family Ministries. 
 	One of the things we have discovered over the years is that God has repeatedly given me the vision of what He wants us to do but without the details of accomplishing it. He has taught (and still is teaching) me to let His patience be mine as he reveals to my dear, detailed wife that the vision really is His leading. During the past several months, I have struggled to give clear answers to Vilda’s questions about details and specifics about aspects of the ministry. This struggle has sent me to the Lord over and over again asking fervently for clarity. But clarity hasn’t come. 
	This situation laid the groundwork for the Lord to show us and confirm to us what He wanted us to share in the Little Words study through a letter from our friend, Steve Knoblock. In his letter, Steve shared the following story from Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning: “When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at “the house of the dying” in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, “And what can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. She asked, “What do you want me to pray for?” He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: “Pray that I have clarity.” She said firmly, “No, I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”
Trust! This is exactly where I have come to! I haven’t yet gotten clarity about all the aspects of the ministry, but I am clinging to the promise in Proverbs 3:5-6. These verses have become a strong anchor in my life: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths (emphasis mine).”  We pray that the study this month will help each of you to trust our faithful Heavenly Father more and more each day.
			
L

ittle Words:           “TRUST”
	
	The dictionary definition of trust (as a verb) is to place confidence; depend; to be confident in; hope; to rely on or on the truth of; believe. A thesaurus gives faith, belief, confidence, reliance, dependence and more synonyms for the word trust (as a noun). All of these words, with the depth of their meanings, come into play when we discuss what it means to trust God, especially when we are commanded to do so with all our heart. 
In the Amplified Bible, Proverbs 3:5-6 reads this way: “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.”  Now I have a question for you: “Would you “lean on, trust in, and be confident in” someone you don’t know? Of course, you wouldn’t. Neither would I. How about someone you have known just a short time but know just a little about their character? Not likely, right? My point is that in order to put our trust in someone with all our heart, we must know them well. We must know that they are trustworthy. This kind of knowledge generally comes from actual experience with the person and can include information gained from other people’s experience with the person. In order to experientially know a person, it stands to reason that we must spend much time with them. 	
Because this is true, God continually urges, encourages, and even woos us to “seek His face.”  In Psalm 119:2 (Amp. Bible), we get a better understanding of what it means to seek His face as well as the benefits of doing so: “Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies and who seek, inquire for and crave Him with the whole heart.”  In Jeremiah 29:13, the Lord says, “Then you will seek Me, inquire for and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”  This is a precious promise from our faithful Father—we will find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.” This simply means that He takes the responsibility of revealing Himself to us when we earnestly crave and desire to know Him. As we regularly and diligently “seek His face”, we grow in our knowledge of Him and in trusting Him. 
The Old Testament is replete with examples of people who earnestly sought the Lord and trusted Him to meet their needs. It is also very honest in revealing their lapses in trusting Him. (I guess that is why I can relate so well with some of them.)  The story of Asa, King of Judah, is good example of seeking/trusting. When he became King, he did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord. He destroyed the altars of the foreign gods, the high places, the idol pillars and cut down the symbols of the goddess Asherah. According to II Chronicles 14:4 (Amp.Bible), “Asa commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers [to inquire of and for Him and crave Him as a vital necessity], and to obey the law and the commandment.”  
Sometime later in his reign, Zerah the Ethiopian came out with an army too large to be numbered to do battle against Judah. Before Asa entered into battle, he “. . . Cried out to the Lord his God, O Lord, there is none besides You to help, and it makes no difference to You whether the one You help is mighty or powerless. Help us, O Lord our God! For we rely on You, and we go against this multitude in Your name. O Lord, You are our God; let no man prevail against You!”  The result?  Verse 12 simply states, “So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.”  Asa’s and Judah’s trust (reliance upon) the Lord brought great blessing to the people of Judah for their faith, trust, reliance upon the Lord was rewarded with a great victory, and they “carried away very much booty”  (v. 13).
It is very interesting that following this battle, the prophet Azariah went out to meet Asa to give him a message from the Lord. Part of that message was, “If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him, craving Him as your soul’s first necessity], He will be found by you” (II Chron. 15:2).  I believe he was reminding him of the key factor in being able to trust the Lord at all times—knowing Him by seeking His face.  
When we truly know the Lord intimately and are deeply acquainted with His character, we will trust Him to be the One to turn to for everything we need in life. In Proverbs 3:5-6, we are promised that if we trust in Him with all our heart, don’t depend on our own understanding, and acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will direct and make straight and plain our paths! (Emphasis mine.)  And that is clarity—one of the rewards of trust.  
Feedback from the Family

PRAISES:

•	On June 29th at 2:28 PM, God answered the many prayers for a safe delivery of little Sydney Charlize Hall. Eve gave birth to our 7 lb. 4 oz., 20½ in. 18th grandchild. Mother, as well as baby, is doing fine. 
•	God has given me (Sid) the opportunity to be the “permanent pulpit supply” for a church which is without a pastor while they seek God’s man. 
•	Praise Father that one of my counselee’s led her ill husband to faith in Jesus before he passed away. He gave beautiful testimony of his faith to several in his hospital room before going to be with the Lord.
•	We praise the Lord for the good report from most of the tests done during my annual cancer checkup in Sarasota this past weekend, and from the annual checkup today for my hips. (Still awaiting results of lab work.)

PRAYER REQUESTS:  
	
•	Continue to pray for my counselee who has been estranged from her children. It was her husband who recently went to be with the Lord. 
•	Continue to pray for the couple who had been in the beginning of a divorce but who had decided to really work on making their marriage work. They are having great difficulty. Please pray that God will open their understanding of the problems.
•	Continue to pray for our daughter-in-law, Teresa, and our son, Michael, as they have met with the surgeon regarding the polyps on Teresa’s gall bladder, but have not yet reached a decision as to whether to have the surgery. It is a rather difficult decision to make with the information they were given.
•	Continue praying that our friend’s home will soon sell so the family can be reunited. 
•	A very special prayer request is for our dear friends and “children in the Lord”, Melissa and Robert Justice. Melissa recently learned that the renal cancer which caused the surgical removal of her right kidney has reoccurred in a section of her spine and ribs and in her lungs. They have a miracle baby who will be 2 yrs. old in August and a teenager. They, and many others who are praying, are believing God for a miracle.
•	Please pray for Judy, our niece, that the doctors will receive the needed information from a recent test to know what is causing her inability to eat solid foods. Pray that the doctors will also have wisdom from the Lord to know how to cure the problem.
•	Please pray for God’s comfort and guidance for the wife of a well-known evangelist who has recently been abandoned and divorced by him, and for him to be brought to repentance. 
•	Please pray for our beloved friends, the Don Jacobson family, in their temporary separation through physical death from their wife and mother. Praise God that their family circle will never  be broken.
•	Please keep LEM and Don Burzynski in your prayers. Don seems to be coming down with something similar to the respiratory infection I had recently. He has an enormous responsibility in leading LEM.
•	Please pray for a dear friend and former counselee who called and asked that we pray for wisdom in dealing with situations within the family business such as handling the money God has provided. Also pray that all the family will have the understanding of the importance of walking in God’s ways.

PERSONAL NEWS

	How wonderful it is to meet family members as I travel! I know that this happens to you, too. During the months of May and June, I did a good deal of traveling. Because of health issues with our two daughters who live in the area, Vilda had to stay at home and care for baby Jonathon and mother, and be available for daughter Eve, who was having many problems with her pregnancy. After discussing and praying about the situation, we had decided that I should go without her. I truly missed having her with me.
The first leg of the trip was to Denver to visit with daughter Cindy and son-in-law Eric. I was privileged to attend the college graduation of our granddaughter, Jenny, in Boulder, CO. I will simply say it was a wonderful occasion as I watched this special young woman receive her diploma with honors. Jenny graduated summa cum laude. She is a very intelligent and lovely lady. We are anticipating a visit from her this summer.
From Cindy’s and Eric’s house, I drove to Gill to daughter Laura’s and son-in-law Brian’s home for a wonderful visit. During my stay, we drove to Ft. Collins so I could see our granddaughters, Liz and Emily.   They, too, are exceptional young women. (Am I beginning to sound like a proud grandpa? I’m guilty!) They openly love the Lord and are great witnesses for Him. Liz will be receiving missionary training soon in view of fulltime service. After a fond farewell from Laura, Brian, Liz and Emily, it was back to Denver, an overnight stay with Cindy and Eric, and an early morning departure from Denver International Airport.
The last leg of trip was Denver to California, where I spent four wonderful days with my brother Harold, his wife Betsy, and my father Cecil. I had not seen my brother and his wife for ten years. We had decided to bring our dad from Phoenix, Arizona, to Harold’s for a long overdue reunion. And that we had! We talked and talked, sharing past memories and catching up on one another’s lives. Harold took us on a road trip to see many of the beautiful sites around his lovely home in Laguna Niguel. With the visit coming to a close all too soon, we vowed that we will make it a priority to get together more often in the next ten years. With more farewells, it was back to home and family in Vero Beach. 
On June 10th, Vilda and I were on our way to Charlotte, North Carolina, to share with daughter Debbie and son-in-law Tim in the high school graduation of our granddaughter Rachel.  We are so proud of Rachel, her beautiful testimony and academic achievements. She has received a scholarship to Erskine College in South Carolina. After saying our good-byes, we began the long trip home. We made this trip in our trusty van, and we really enjoyed this time together. 
It was such a blessing to spend time with many of our children and grandchildren in May and June. On top of all the joy of those blessings, God gave me an extra blessing of meeting a lady at Jenny’s graduation who briefly shared her testimony with me, as well as the relationship she had with Jenny. She expressed appreciation for the opportunity God had given her to be used in Jenny’s life. What a bonus God gives us as we immediately know and feel the kinship of the Forever Family wherever we meet them! 
	In closing, let us remind you that we love and appreciate each of you and keep you in our prayers. Thank you for all you do to help us and encourage us in the work God has called us to do. Just remember that “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are blameless toward Him” (II Chron. 16:9). Because this is true, we pray that we will all desire to “. . . enter into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of [our] fathers, and to yearn for Him with all [our] heart’s desire and with all [our] soul” (II Chron. 15:12).

With our love,