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Thoughts late at night in considering today:
Following the person of Jesus is the only point to anything. Everything else is just peripheral and an add on. I have come to the point where even the way that life is lived and my concept of �living as a follower of Christ� should be played out has put the same constraints on others and on myself (I judge and that leads me into sin because of my judgment and pride) as any other add on to the gospel. The point isn�t the adventure, the point isn�t to live a fulfilling life, the point isn�t to �spread the gospel�. The point is purely to love God with everything in you and secondary to that is to love your neighbour. There�s no 5 point spread to that, there�s not secret formula, there�s no specific kind of church or established correct way of worshipping, the point isn�t to make people love Him, the point isn�t to get people out of their comfort zones or change them or make them into different individuals. It isn�t self-help, it isn�t prosperity, it isn�t self-realization, it isn�t bringing about the Kingdom of God. I have had people say in the past that I should write a book. I've had this thought myself, and several people say it to me as well to encourage me. This is my thought on that now...I don�t want to write a book because it feels like it falls into the same category of what the purpose of it would be trying to speak against and move away from. So how can I presume to write something for the Christian world to tell them to not follow all the self-help books and the crap that they feel is �godly� and is necessary for their growth as a person and as a follower of Jesus...it would look exactly like a self-help book. It would play right into the same thing. I�m going to tell you how not to follow all those books and teachers who tell you what to do, and here�s how you do that. It�s exactly the same thing. And irony, I believe would be completely lost on the majority of people, particularly those who, in my limited opinion (and probably incorrect opinion), need most to be reached. They buy into the process of consuming more on the basis of it being �godly�, and so would just consume the satire in the same way. It just doesn�t make sense as to how it would be done, and so I have to leave it to God that if He wants to voice something through me then it�s going to have to be all Him and in His timing and His words, not my own personally justifiable tirade against some complacency that isn�t mine to judge in the first place. It should never be about trying to prove people wrong and to control their correction. up |
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We all went and saw Amazing Grace today at the theatre. I�m completely inspired. A few thoughts from it. One is that he couldn�t go at it all alone, he needed a support team where everyone gave and no one was less, he was just the voice in the parliament for the group. Two is that the child sex industry is the modern day slavery that everyone is blind to the effects of. In Britain at the time of legal slavery they were all up in arms about the economy and that it was no big deal. We now look at it and think, how could they have been so blind and not seen what was right in front of them and that their actions were having such a huge effect on the planet, or the lack of action as the case may be. This is exactly the same thing in my mind. People are now vaguely aware that it exists and yet no one seems to be willing to act on it, could it be mostly because they are too preoccupied with their own realities and comfortable lives to act? It really seems to me to be such a natural need to give up all comfort and thoughts of my own life in this world in order to carry out what needs to be done, even at the expense of my own life. What is my life? What does it matter if I have a nice small home, or get to see my family, or have a family of my own? What is my life, my one life, worth if I can make 100 lives better than they were. It�s simply math, or economics, or investing. You give one dollar and you get 100 in return. If you�re promised the 100, and then you only make 50, well heck, those are still some pretty good odds. Even if you only make 5 back, you still risked only 1 so you still profited. So what is the comfort of one life if giving up that comfort can yield even just 5 lives. If I could take 5 young girls out of the sex trade by giving up something of my life, seeing my family for a year, thoughts of a comfortable job, a year�s wage (if I made a wage), I would do it in an instant. So if I could take my entire life and do get a greater yield then I would. Why should I be able to live in comfort if it is at the expense (if for no other reason than the lack of action that it would take to remain in that comfort) of those 5 lives. I guess it�s the socialist view that I still hold, principally at least, working its way out in many ways. Why can�t we all do the job required of us and then all share in the harvest. What makes one person�s work more valuable than another. In this case, what makes one person�s life more valuable to be comfortable and live in prosperity (I use this in comparative terms) and have a nice life, over another person�s life that they live in squalor or mundanity.
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I got to work with Kelly and Betsy tonight on dinner at the Cedars. We kicked out a formal dinner for 4 in an hour and a half. Felt good to do. It was for the former Prime Minister of Norway, at least I believe it was Norway, and an associate of his who were meeting with two men from here. It was fun to do although I have to admit that I still don�t have my ease about me while serving in this place. There�s still so many things that I�m used to doing, that I�m sure that if I were to do them it would be no biggey, but that the girls are appalled as I do them (quietly, in front of people) and then try to correct me (nicely, behind the scenes). I just need to get an idea of a flow of things so that I can just do it and it be second nature but I still haven't done everything yet so I don't have the full vision.
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I had a great day today. I have moments of randomness where I don�t feel like myself and like I�m living in some sort of fish bowl, and when I�m let out of the fish bowl I don�t realize it and then the rest of the world that I�m experiencing feels surreal and like it�s all a part of the bowl. Angela, Ana Yamel and I went out to DC this afternoon. I slept till like 12:30 which was awesome, and we left the house around 2:30 or 3:00 or so, so it meant that we didn�t have a tonne of time to actually accomplish anything in DC, except have a really great time. We took the metro in and walked down Pennsylvania on our way to the National Gallery of Art. We took photos all along the way and had a great time. I found the Canadian Embassy, but we didn�t go there until after dark. We had like an hour in the gallery, no where near long enough, and it was tough walking through the exhibit rooms of Rodin and Degas and to not stop but we had a mission to get to an exhibit of Paris in photography in the late 1800 and into the new century. It was pretty great. We had just under an hour to enjoy it all and then had to go cause the museum closed at 5:00. We stopped for Popsicles along the way and then went to the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art that was across the road. It was supposed to be closed, but there�s a side entrance for those who want to go skating on the ice rink they have there during the winter, so we went and sat and watched people ice skate and talked for quite some time. I love that Angela is really intentional with her topics of conversation in a really natural way. It�s all stuff that she�s actually thinking, not superimposed because we�re �supposed to be� thinking about this or that. It was wonderful to sit there as it was getting dark and be surrounded by people who we were watching and to talk about stuff at the house and talk about ourselves and I really appreciated the opportunity she gave me to talk about my independence and when it�s good and when it�s bad. We walked back towards the Capitol and took more pictures there in the dark. From there we caught the Metro back and walked home from Clarendon. I really like being out with those two. There really is considerably less drama with them. Tonight, after everyone else had gone to bed after Waiting for Guffman, I found Angela in the office room and went in to talk to her. We started to talk about what she was reading, Ephesians 4 and she came across the list of gifts that the Lord gives (apostles, pastors, evangelists, teachers, etc) for the equipping of His body for works of service. And she came across teachers she thought of me as she had just found out a few days ago that I had been a teacher in Japan, and it dawned on her that I have different giftings from her. We then went on to look at the rest of that scripture and it�s a cool little passage. I love that it goes from having these different �canals� (that�s Angela�s word) that still flow to the center which is Christ, which is Love, and talks about being mature and not tossed by winds and waves, and then it talks of unity within them, which is the body, and then it talks about the body being under the head of Christ and doing all that that parts are meant to do. So the picture I get is of the body as a whole in all its parts doing what they�re supposed to as an expression of service, as a canal to the center which is what unites all of us. I loved that it was �as each part does it work�, and not �as each pastor tries to figure out how to be an evangelist�. She liked that thought too. So then we started talking about what an Apostle is as opposed to a Disciple, cause I always thought that an Apostle was just one of the twelve. Well, then I introduced her to Wikipedia and changed her world forever. She had never seen it before and was quite taken right away. We discovered that a Disciple is a follower or a learner of someone or a school of thought, and an Apostle is a messenger or someone who is sent out. Interesting. Still not sure of what that means in the great realm, but it spoke to us of being a missionary, but without the ugly connotation of one who goes to another culture to convert to a religion steeped in a pre-existing (foreign to the new culture) sin-soaked culture. Where does the need to �be a part of the group� come from and is it cultural? Is it from the Lord, where is the scripture that supports it? Or is that a cultural construct that has been put on it by a society. And if it is, then how does that work in a society that gives lip service to the individual right to everything and values the individual above society as a whole. It is �our right� to eat what we want, even though we are going to cause massive taxation for the health care we are going to require because we make ourselves obese and sick. I haven�t figured out all the crap of individuality and group mentality and independence and community all in my head. It all seems like I try to stick with something it�s just self-contradictory. There�s no figuring it out. There�s reliance of God and everything else can �go home and bite my pillow�. Waiting for Guffman, by the way. up |
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The thought for the day is this. How much are we missing out on God�s blessings and greatness in this world (in a godly way) because we cannot give up our own control or have not grown into the gifts that we have already been given? So here�s the idea. God would like some person to have a massive calling to rock the world, but the person is unable to see the training ground that they�re on at the time and doesn�t work on the gifts given, so they never fully achieve the greatness that the Lord had dreamt for them. Think of the parable of the coins, or talents. A man gets ten and returns with interest 20 of them. A man gets one and returns the one, he can�t do anything with even the small thing he�s been given. So the man with ten gets his one, because he�ll be able to do something with the one. We are given gifts, if we can�t be trusted with the small stuff to return a profit, then what makes us think that He�ll give us more to work with. If I can�t even love the 8 girls in this house, what makes me think that I can go out into the world and dream for greatness. I can�t be trusted with the 8 so why dream for the 50. Our hearts cry out for places of service, �Lord send me, send me out, work great things in me to Your Glory and not mine�, but as we�re crying out for that, we�re missing the opportunities in front of us. We�re too focused on the future and the dreams to use the moment now that will prove that we can take on another step. I went into Georgetown with Yamel and Angela today. We had a great time together. I really like those girls. up |
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We played tennis today. It was a great day. The sun is out and since Sunday it has gotten really warm. It scares me that it�s getting warm. I�m going to have to stop eating so much so that I can remove more clothing for the warmer months. I loved running around and hitting stuff and having a great time and just being random. It felt good. Then Ivanwald came and politely kicked us off the tennis courts to play soccer tennis. It was fun to overlap with them some and just hang out all together. I like their house and wish it wasn�t so taboo to hang with them. I�ve decided that I�ve taken up a new sport. I want to play tennis. It�s great. You get to hit stuff. Cool.
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I went for a nap yesterday afternoon at 4 pm. Some screaming downstairs woke me up around 10 pm. I got up, went to the washroom, put in earplugs, took a melatonin and went back to bed. I woke up this morning at 9 and then laid in bed till 10 am, not wanting to move or open my eyes or interact with anyone. Man, it was good. Without going into detail, I've had an interesting thought about respecting what's been given us. It�s like what I was talking about a few days ago with the Lord giving us gifts. He gives us small things first to see what we�re going to do with it and if we can be trusted with the small things before He will give us bigger things. If we're talking about human relationships, I feel like if people can�t be trusted to treat the small things that we show them of ourselves then how can we be expected to just hand over the things in our hearts that are huge, that are hurt, that need to be treated with respect and handled with care. It�s just not going to happen!! Sometimes they haven�t proven themselves trust worthy with the small things yet. Just a thought for all to ponder on how we treat everyone. I know that I need to take some people more to heart and cherish what they give me as the gift that it is. Woke up to snow this morning. That�s quite the change from the 28 C it was on Wednesday. It�s tough living where there is no quiet. There�s always noise. There�s always something going on. Even at night, there�s my roommate that is making noise. It�s only when everyone is asleep and I�m awake and I go to another room like the living room or the prayer room, that I can actually just be in silence. Oh, that and when we have our prayer hour. Sometimes there�s noise, like someone coming in to make lunch, or the phone ringing, but generally it�s nice and quiet. I�m reading Richard Twiss� book, One Church Many Tribes. I�ve been thinking of Duncan and the Native population there for awhile. I truly believe that if we, as believers of Jesus, come to Him on our knees and treat those in the area with the love and respect that they deserve and not in a programme way as so many have done and failed at, then Duncan will be a beacon of light and hope for Native communities the world over. The Native people are not a programme. They are not something to be overcome as so many groups and governments have thought before, usually resulting in assimilation (cultural genocide) or genocide (physical). There isn�t a plan of attack. There isn�t a board or committee needed. There isn�t a building or funding needed. There is only prayer and love and that�s it. I think of the paralytic man (one that we have been talking about around here a lot lately) and that it was the Faith of his friends that made him well. Whether we know them or not, the Natives in our area are our friends, and our faith as we present them before Jesus will make them well. It won�t make them white, it won�t make them come to our churches, it won�t even make them Christians. The Lord will heal their hurts, He will tell them who He made them to be, and they may come to follow Jesus. Change isn't the point, love is the point, but I believe that we will see a change as we come to our knees. We will see a change in their countenances and their knowledge of their self-worth as we treat all those (poor, rich, Native, Asian, Eastern, White, marginalized, drunk, high, pierced, broken) we come in contact with, with the love and respect that we would give to our own children or friends, seeing them as the humans and the souls that they are. Not as the demonized individuals that our culture has told us they are. The point isn�t to change people. And the point certainly isn�t to change others into looking like us. Like Mr Twiss said at the National Prayer Breakfast, �The Lord didn�t save me from a sin-soaked culture to take on another sin-soaked culture�. I hope I haven�t misquoted him. I can�t remember the exact wording he used. I just looked it up and I got it wrong, �He didn�t save me in a sin-soaked culture to join another sin-soaked culture.� I like that even better! up |
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I had a lot going on today. It was a good day at the Cedars, I felt like we got a lot done. Washed some baseboards, ironed some napkins, cleaned some toilets and polished some wood floors in the Carriage House on my hands and knees. So then we did the grocery shop thing, and here�s the thing with the grocery shop...I hate doing it. I really don�t like being the one who�s responsible for the money and staying on budget and getting everything that all the picky people in the house want to eat. If there�s rice and veggies then I�m good to go, but there needs to be low fat cottage cheese, but not the no fat because that�s just ridiculous because then what�s the point in eating cottage cheese...precisely my point with the low fat or any other form or variation with fat, sodium, carbs or sugar...but what do I know, I can�t eat any of it anyway. So I don�t like doing the shopping. Good decision number one for today, go only to Safeway and forego the Costco run. Good because then we aren�t blowing mass amounts of money on one item that although we get a large quantity of it, it is only one item. Good because then we aren�t getting lost from the store to home. Good because it takes a good hour and a half to two hours of our time for the evening. Good because then we get to say hi to cute little Ahmed who is working almost every single time we come into the Safeway. So the rest of the story really should be told in Adventurer form and maybe one day I will get it done, but I�ve said that about a few stories so far and I haven�t gotten to even one of them. So what happened is that it was chaotic so I didn�t keep track of what we were buying and I just kept praying that he would multiply what we were getting without much money, and then we would add more, and I would get worried and then I would pray and give it up to the Lord. So we got to the check out and I put a ream of paper at the end, not believing that we would have money for it, but also believing that we would run out of money far before that item came up. We had budget for the 8 of us in the house. The total bill came to 1.80$ over our budget. I kid you not. We came to within two dollars. Hallelujah. He cares about our hair (Kelly�s hair gel from Chicago), our makeup (my Lancome fiesta), and our food (the Safeway loaves and fishes). I found out some stuff tonight about an old friend that really disturbed me. I know that I�m not perfect but with what I saw I came to see the tension that the pastor was talking about yesterday, the tension between sinfulness and holiness. It was tense and it was really evident. So I went downstairs and Angela wanted me to make them all Rice Krispie treats from my own stuff, something that I first took offence too and then just let go of and it was fun to teach them. I told her then that I was sad because of what I found out. Later we were upstairs and I grabbed her and she just held me for a while as we stood in the doorway to her bedroom and she told me I was doing the right thing, that I am where I should be, and that the Lord sees my heart that wants to serve Him and listen to Him and that He has and will continue to reward me greatly for it. It was good to hear. We prayed and she really opened up the door for me to start and then I felt open, after her affirmation and protective covering, to really let loose and I confessed my worry and my pride and me wanting to control what someone else is deciding for themselves and my judgment and all sorts of stuff. Then I just unleashed on the underworld and I saw angels surrounding them with wings enveloping them. I saw tentacles from the evil one try to get in so I cut them off, and barbed hooks to pull at the strings still attached through the wings, and I cut them off. I really wanted to stand in the gap for this old friend to release them from the bondage that resentment and rejection and pride have created. They are a child of God. They have proclaimed Him as Lord before and will shout it from the roof tops again. I went to town. I�m going to need protection all this week because I know that Satan isn�t going to like me cutting stuff off someone who he had his fingers into. I asked the Lord to bring forth praise from their lips again. That the Holy Spirit would blow on them again as He had before. That He would speak to them so that he can�t ignore the Lord, can�t rationalize it away. It was intense and I loved it. I felt like I was in my element. Makes me want to learn more. Then I was going to pray with one girl here, and another came and joined us and we got into it with her as well. Again, I wanted to know more, to have a better understanding from the Lord of what to be praying for, of what to recognize quickly. I know that so much of it needs to be a working of the Spirit. I found that I was at a loss for words much of the time and I doubted myself. But the Lord did a great work in them tonight, a work that will continue in healing for these beautiful girls, that they will see themselves through the Father�s eyes and not through their own distorted self-image. I totally just pulled the plug on the comp and I lost a whole paragraph, and it�s one in the morning so I don�t want to go into the full monologue about the topic again, but the general gist of the whole thing was that Rachel and I were thinking about how odd it is that we could have not come to this place and the sort of transcendental nature of our realities all together. It�s possible that I wouldn�t have ever met her and I just cannot fathom that as a possible reality in my world because she�s such a fixture that she has to be in my reality and anything as a possibility just can�t be what could have been had I chosen differently at some point, even many years ago. Having lost the paragraph though, that�s all I have to say about that at this current time. up |
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I am feeling really good. I got blown away by the Spirit this afternoon while Christin was praying for Julia. Serious heat coming out of my insides and joy radiating out of every crevice and I just wanted to shout at the top of my lungs, �Hallelujah�. So good. And then I went into my prayer hour where I sat outside and sang praises to Him on the deck out front and then prayed for Joy to come on all the women of Potomac Point. After work a few of us went and played tennis at the Cedars, while I was standing back and watching Betsy and Angela play, I was struck by the beauty of the day and the relaxing fun time that we were having, and that we have been having here. I have forgotten how to have fun. I just realized that today. And it�s not that I don�t have fun, I have a lot of it, but I have gotten so wrapped up in doing and going and serving and it�s become so much of my focus that I�ve forgotten what it�s like to just be pastoral and frivolous. Life isn�t meant to be a stress and a struggle. I believe that the Lord wants it to be good for those who it can be good for. What a dichotomy exists in this world! Why am I privileged enough that I can sit in the sun and play tennis while others have nothing to eat and must fight for mere survival. Maybe it�s that tension that has driven me for so long that I�ve forgotten to enjoy the blessings that have been put in front of me. It�s like I�m making myself the constant living martyr, never enjoying for the sake of those who don�t get to enjoy. It just really struck me today out there on the court and it seemed so clear and yet so odd at the same time. I certainly can�t reconcile that tension at all. But it does speak of a joyful spirit that is in the house right now. I feel lifted, I feel supported, I feel loved and I�m getting the idea that it�s okay to just be here and have fun. I keep trying to figure out what I�m supposed to be doing, and kept chalking up their lifestyle here to privileged moral hedonism, like everything they do has a focus of fun and relaxation. I was coming at it from a place where I think, �Life is hard and people scrap just to survive, what gives you the right to sit back and enjoy the world that has been created on their backs�. It�s hard to balance that tension in me. Everything in me cries out for equality, I want everyone to know the joy of a sunny day with good friends playing some game, and I don�t want to enjoy it unless everyone can. Apart from the negative, I feel so privileged to be here with these girls. I feel like I can�t imagine life without these sisters around me, not hearing Angela�s laugh, not hearing Yamel sing, not seeing Kelly bounce around, not seeing Betsy�s ever-graceful arm gestures.
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We went to the Southeast White House today. It�s a house in the same �family� as us, just over the river in southern DC. In the area there are 140,000 people on the east side of the river from DC. There�s one grocery store. A few more are being built, but there�s just been one for quite some time. As Scott put it when he was giving us a tour of the house, the area is severely under serviced. So they want to be in the area to serve the people. It isn't a shelter or a halfway house or anything. They have stuff for kids after school everyday, just hang out stuff and homework clubs and people who are just there and around at all times and mentors for the people who come around more often. There�s like 4 Interns who live upstairs in the attic space. Everything in the house is a gift. They trust the Lord for everything. Scott was telling us stories of all the items in the house as we went along, a piece of furniture, the power for the lights paid for by an artist who uses an upstairs room as a studio, stained glass for the light fixture on the outside of the house coming from a man from somewhere north (New York?) who gave it as a gift to God for saving his life from a stroke, a dining room table (with beautiful inlay) from an elderly Jewish lady in Baltimore, paintings and pictures. It was very cool and spoke of the generosity and complete provision of the Lord when He is allowed to provide everything and we don�t take control out of fear. They have a lunch every Wednesday that�s open to whoever to come each week. Sort of like the Ambassador�s breakfast that we have at the Cedars, only it�s for anyone and everyone, so there may be some homeless people who come by, or people from the neighbourhood or a Senator or a businessman. Today we had a few people from the area, a few who are mentors in the house (one guy James who is a movie maker and ran for mayor last year, he�s in his 20�s), one guy who is a playwright, a police commander (she�s really cool, she looks like she�s about 40, but her oldest child is 40, so she must be a little older than that), a family with three generations came by with a 2 week old baby. It was a great lunch. It's been a year since I left Japan. up |
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I know they will come back safe because the Lord is good. Deitrich (to the left here) and a few other guys, from around here who I don't know, are stuck in a hotel in the Congo as fighting has errupted around them. I'm excited to hear of the victorious adventure that the Lord has in store for bringing them out of danger and still accomplishing what He sent them there to do. I know they will be safe because they are in bigger hands than what our worry can provide. Peace on their families that they would have a greater sense of faith and confidence. |
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Whoa, what a day. I don�t think I can capture everything that happened today nor can I do all that�s in my head justice. The biggest thing for today is right in front of me still. I�m trying to just be here in the room for Ana Yamel as she talks to her Mum for the first time since finding out that her uncle passed away. She came home from dinner tonight positively sobbing. I held her, and practically held her up as she wasn�t standing on her own two feet and she wailed and mourned on my shoulder. It was heart wrenching. I stayed with her in the room, and then we ended up back downstairs where everyone gathered around her. It was powerful to watch this beautiful thing just cry out in pain and sob and wail as we all stood around her with hands and arms around her and cried with her. This is the meaning of sisterhood, those who will sit with you for hours. Her uncle has had difficulties most of his life and gets into drugs and alcohol and abused his body so far so that it couldn�t sustain itself anymore. He was drunk from �honouring� the anniversary of his father�s death 2 years previous, walking along the road when he had a heart attack. The ambulance came and then I�m unclear as to why, but then the ambulance left. His mother found out (someone called her, maybe him) and went with a servant from the house and found him on the street, alone and dead. At which point we all just cried, and not some nice sympathy tears either, most were bawling their eyes out alongside her. After Liz and Justin came, we prayed and then Liz asked her what her favourite praise song is, so Yamel sang it for us in Spanish. How amazing to sit with this beautiful young thing as her heart breaks for the broken and lost life of her uncle that ended all alone on a street in Mexico, and then to hear her lift her beautiful voice in praise to the Father in her tongue. Nothing was contrite or full of empty feel-good sentimentality. It was, we are broken, we hurt, it�s horrible and awful and painful and not fair and we hate it, and God is still good just because He is. Okay, so some of the rest of the day, that was much more joyful. This morning we got to spend some time with these gentlemen who were staying at the Cedars last night. They work in Benin. John is a former NBA player and coach. On the day that he lost his coaching job, he called his friend here who walked into the room upon getting off the phone with John as Doug Coe was getting off the phone. Doug turned to the friend and said, �So do you know someone who could go to Benin? We need a basketball player who has coaching experience who could go to Benin to work with the President of the country to set up a basketball programme for the country�. Perfect timing. His friend Greg was super cool. It�s this old guy from Australia. He�s brilliant. He talked about our culture killing itself through its music. The music that the masses consume has nothing to do with art or feeling or anything of any intrisic value to humanity, but about the money and it plays out in the mental state of the culture that it speaks to. He does economics stuff with countries to turn themselves around. How the bible is a blueprint for everything in life. And he�s this short unassuming guy in beat up tenney�s and a white bad cruise-ship-passenger type visor hat and a windbreaker, with a strong accent and a lisp. John asked him to play us some piano, to which he said that he doesn�t play, not really. His son had been known as one of the top 10 classical piano players in the world, until he passed away 10 years ago. So he sits down and plunks a few notes, and then this torrent of notes and sound comes out of the piano and he�s just sitting there in his little white hat and poncho playing us a hymn and we�re all blown away. He played two pieces and is really humble about it, but it isn�t a contrived sort of a humble, it was real. I loved D-Ave�s reaction to it. He walked up to me and was like, �No, I don�t play the piano. No. Not at all.� And then made this face and hand gesture like, �Are you kidding me?!!!� Perfect reaction, as Dave often does. Inspiring talk and I really wish that we could have heard more from them about themselves, and more thoughts from Greg on the world and life and scripture and culture, and more on the current situation in Benin. It was just altogether several days too short. Tonight, after meeting with Doug Burleigh where we talked about the Holy Spirit (here�s the gist, a toaster doesn�t work to make toast unless it�s plugged in to the power source, it may look good sitting there on the counter but it isn�t going to cook the bread or do what it�s supposed to until it�s plugged in, go with an extension of that analogy as may be necessary � and the other was the Philips translation of 1 Cor 3:16 But he who is spiritual has the very thoughts of Christ), Christin, Betsy and I headed off with the Burleigh�s for a fundraising dinner for the CS Lewis Institute. We had a nice dinner, where Christin ate the cheese off my salad in a selfless act of friendship. That�s a little sarcasm there. She adores cheese. She also took my mashed sweet potato in the same selfless spirit because it had milk in it. I sat by this nice man who knows the Burleighs and we talked about business and the family project back home. He does property assessment so it was cool to talk to him about that, and then we got talking about family and I told him all about the vision for the Foothills. He was really taken with it. The keynote speaker was really good. An English guy, Michael Ramsden, who is the European Director of the Ravi Zacharias Ministries and he lectures at Oxford on Apologetics. He was really funny, and talked really fast. We were surprised at how many Christianese phrases he used considering that he works with so many Muslims and that he himself grew up in the Middle East. I would think that someone with his background would be able to see the trees through the culture forest, but he used things like, �So [this Muslim country President] said, I can see now that Christianity is the only way for my country�, as opposed to using the name of Jesus. It�s so slight, but it can be such an alienating difference. It�s like saying Christianity with all it�s CCM and on time services in the English language is exactly what the First Nations in Duncan need to make their lives better (read: more like �us�), as opposed to saying that Jesus� teaching and a realization of His love is what the First Nations in Duncan need to be whole. Anyway, what he talked about was being salt and light. I loved that he went beyond the usual 3 point analogies made with the parables that Jesus shares using salt and light. He�s actually got 11 points, not 3, but in the interest of time he just took a handful and worked them together. One of the differences between salt and light and why Jesus needed to share both as relevant analogies is Distance. Light works at a distance and can reach to the end of the room. When the gospel is spoken, people come to know Jesus and lives are changed and restored. Salt cannot reach out to more than what it touches. If you just get salt near a steak and it doesn�t touch it then it doesn�t change the taste. Salt must make contact to have an effect. He was going to then say, �Just go and touch someone� but thought that it might not be so appropriate. The next difference between the two that makes them both relevant is Visibility. Light is obvious, it�s there, out for everyone to see and that is it�s warming effect. Salt is invisible, it cannot be seen in general terms anyway when it is working. It�s there and it�s not a secret, but it cannot be seen. There are some things that should remain private, such as relationships between people so that trust can be built. Another difference is a Constant State. Light, again, in general terms, can be relit. If a lamp goes out you get a match and relight it. Our passions can be relit as an encouragement when we�re taken out of the game. But Salt is salt, until it isn�t. The salt we use now is highly refined, but the salt in that time was taken from the waters in a different way. It�s is one of the most stable components in the world, but if salt (when harvested and not processed in our modern ways) reaches a level of impurity then it ceases to be salt. I know this is three, as opposed to the usual three at least. He then told a story about a woman in her late 20�s who was a governess for a very powerful family in the Middle East, who was able to talk to the family and then directed the father to speak with Michael when his questions were too much for her. Through that, the entire country was impacted and he was able to share the teachings of Jesus with the whole cabinet and most major power brokers (businessmen) in the country as well...because of a 20-something governess. She opened an entire country to the gospel. It was so good. As I said above, "Whoa, what a day". up |
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We had Bart and Linda Tarmin come and talk to us this morning at the Friday morning breakfast. What a story. The Lord works for the good of those who love Him. �If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. This is to my father�s Glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples�. This is the verse that we memorized a few weeks ago in discuss that a disciple of Jesus is a person who bears fruit, but what it spoke to me was prayer. The verse that the Tarmin�s shared as their heart passage is when Jesus uses some parables to describe the Kingdom of God, and what faith can do. It�s the faith like a mustard seed whole thing. A long story short, Bart was talking to Doug Coe, like 20 years or so ago, about whether prayer actually worked to bring about all these crazy stories of being able to go in and talk to world leaders all over, or whether it was just Doug�s connections working by themselves. So Doug encouraged Bart to choose a country that he knew nothing about, and each day to pray for it simply saying, �Lord, bless [this country] and bring up a leader within it� speaking in spiritual terms of a leader within the country that would make a difference. So Bart did. He started to pray for Ecuador, and then added Colombia and Peru as well. That year, he then met an Ecuadorian boy who was at the school where he was teaching. They went on a trip to Sri Lanka. The boy, as time went on, turned out to be the grandson of the newly elected President of Ecuador and his mother was a top advisor and cabinet woman (who I actually just saw today at the Cedars as well, nicely timed, she�s Yamel�s mentor). So not only did he meet someone from the country, but also someone in a certain sphere who was wanting to know how to give his life to Jesus so Jesus could work through it. So eventually Bart and Linda met all the family and continued to be friends with the family. They�ve now been to Ecuador 11 times and there is no part of the country, no village, no area, that is closed off to them. Later, the same kind of thing happened with Peru and Colombia. So encouraging! We all know the story, faith like a mustard seed then you can move mountains, right? But what a thing to hear it actually come to pass, in amazing and astounding, and yet very natural (or supernatural I should say) ways. There�s no explaining it away and it�s not so overly done that your mind has difficulty reconciling the reality with your logic, you know, it�s not one of those stories that defies logic and you just stand there and go, �How does this fit into my paradigm of reality?� And as fond of those stories as I am because I believe we need to have our minds blown at times, it is really nice to hear of a story that speaks of His greatness and His leading without man getting in the way and manipulating the situation to make God sound good. It is the power of prayer. How can we not just pick a place, or a country or a person and pray simply, with faith, and consistently for them? Will we not see the effects? It�s so encouraging and it makes my heart excited to see those on my heart all come into healing and reconciliation with the Lord. I know that He is working, I know that He will continue to do so, and I believe Him for it. I don�t feel like I need to plead and whine and come with trepidation to His throne. I got to go and be a prompter at Justin�s class� school play this afternoon and this evening. So much fun. They�re in Grade 6 and they�re all great and they did a great job of presenting Narnia. There were lines that were missed, and cues dropped and jumped, and Justin forgot the stone table, but it was wonderful and they all looked like they had a great time. So much fun to be among all those kids and to watch �Mr Corder� work his magic with them. They are truly loved in an all encompassing, realistic, fun loving way. After the show, some of the other boy students were coming up to him and getting him to sign them, like their arms, their shirts, it was awesome. up |
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We all piled into the suburban today to go into Maryland. UNC was playing the University of Maryland today in Lacrosse. Becky�s son, Sam, is on the team. He broke his foot a few weeks ago so it�s the end of his college career and didn�t play today, but we still went to support him and to be with her. It means a lot to her for us to show interest in her kids. She�s a great mom. She has all sorts of matching gear and pins and jackets of the school colour, which ever school she�s watching is what she matches to. Her and Ken were there watching, even though Sam wasn�t playing just to support their kid because it�s his team. As much as we laugh at people he get all dressed up for games and school colours and all that, particularly in my world, I have to say that it was really cool to see so many of the parents there, in a different state than the school, decked out in school colours, just to support their kids. It seemed right. After the game, which UNC lost by quite a bit actually, there was a huge tail-gate party that the parents put on in the parking lot. There was like 3 tables of food. It was really more like a giant potlatch after the game, rather than a tail-gate based on my understanding of a true tail-gate. There was no food consumed out of the back of any vehicles and there were just a few beers around that the odd parent or sibling was drinking. I think I saw 2. Not what I was expecting and a whole lot of fun. This evening we went over to Ivanwald to play some games with the guys. It was great fun to play 4 on a couch and signs. They�re such good little eggs, and now that a lot of us newer ones are getting more comfortable we�re loosening up and true characters are coming out. The Castro boys from Colombia are starting to really engage, especially David who is understanding more of what is going on and is getting in there with jokes and stuff. Even Thomas is starting to and he�s only been here for a few weeks. Did I mention that he was stabbed the day before coming here. I guess he got mugged the day he left Argentina and got stabbed in the arm in the process. I just thought I would mention that. Just a story up |
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