Magandang hapon. Want to take a stab at what language that is? It
means “good afternoon”. It is a good afternoon, in fact. A good
afternoon to write about something that has been sitting inside me a long time, waiting to make an appearence.
I believe in miracles. I don’t believe in chance, or dumb luck, or
utter coincidences. I believe in purpose. The craziest part of those
statements is that, because I do believe that everthing happens for a
reason, I have to admit to a higher power controlling the stream of my
life. Sometimes I have to raise the anchor, depart, and let Him steer me
towards a different shore.
A lot of people probobly think that I am a control freak. In high
school, my sophomore year, I had a party at my house after the first
football game of the season. My mom made popcorn and carmel apples and
hot cider, and we played poker and hung out on my back porch. But I
didn’t have any fun, because the whole time I was concerned with making
sure everyone else was having a good time. That and making sure my
friends weren’t making a mess or waking up the neighbors. I wanted to make sure things didn’t get out of control. (From this, I learned it is
far more fun to go to parties than to host them.)
I guess I live my life this way. Despite being a relatively flexible
person, I want control of my life. I want to know where I am going, to
learn from where I have been, and to make decisions that will affect the
rest of my life with a clear and level head. It scares me, everyday,
waking up not knowing totally what is going to happen to me next. It’s
been one of the hardest things I have ever done, and am still doing,
learning how to let God have the steering wheel.
He could press the gas, or drop the anchor, at any point in time.
I guess you could say that I am becoming a sail boat. I can no longer
be a canoe, trying to cross a vast ocean with my own paddles. But I do
not want to be a speed boat, either, crashing into waves so quickly that
I miss the beauty of the water lapping against the wood. I want God to
be my wind, and Him to fill my sails, and carry me to where he wants me
to be.
Three or four months ago, if you told me I was going to the
Philippines for a week and a half in June, I would have called you
crazy. I would have told you there was no way I would have time to do
that. Yet, here I am, starting to become a sailboat.
June 3rd until June 16th, I will be wrapped up in one of the most
impactful and amazing journeys of my short life so far. Hiking up into
the mountains to deliver medical supplies, Bibles, and the gospel to
small villages on the main island of the Philippines, north of Manilla,
there will be lush green hills, waterfalls, and smiling locals. I feel
so incredibly blessed to get to spend even just a small pinch of my time
with these people. Or more importantly, that I get a chance to be a
piece to the puzzle of these people’s lives.
I would use the word blessed, not lucky. I’m blessed with words, not
lucky to have them. I’m blessed to go on a mission, not lucky that I
just happened upon it.
I’m in a tapestry, see. My life is a thread that is meant to
intertwine with others, here in Colorado, and soon enough, the
Philippines. I don’t know if in that moment, when I set off on this
grand adventure/quest if the thread will be gold, or if it will be
black, or if it will be red. I don’t know if I will have a blast, or if I
will be shaken, or if I will come back a very different person.
I do think, though, that the thread will be green. Green, for growth.
No matter what happens, whether I am able to change someone’s life or
help heal someone who is sick or love on a needy child, or even if I
just get to sit and talk to someone, just to tell them they are
important and that God loves them, then this will be a success.
Then all of this striving, and searching, will be worth it.
I wish I could tell you more what the ocean is going to look like,
for me. I wish that I could say what is going to happen. But like I
said, I don’t know if the waters are going to be rough or if they are going to be smooth. I have to sail, anyways.
I think I am starting to feel free, knowing tomorrow is unknown. What could happen?
This I know:
1) I am listening to this fabulous song called “Keep Your Head Up” by Ben Howard.
2) God is in control. I am not.
3) You cannot hope to discover new lands unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
4) In two months, I will be on a 14 hour flight to Manilla, Philippines, more excited than I have ever been before.
5) I love. I am loved. Do I even need anything else?
6) There are endings, and beginnings. They go hand in hand.
7) I am a sailboat and a green thread.
Things I do not know:
1) What is going to happen tomorrow.
2) What my favorite book is.
I think I am ok with that. It’s scary. But someone once said, “If
your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.” I think they are
big enough to scare me.
The ocean is big. God is bigger.
And I’m just a little green sailboat, on my way to the islands.
(P.S. Mangadang hapon is Filipino. Good afternoon!)
*Meagan is one of our FCA student-athletes. She plays basketball for Fort Lewis College and is currently finishing up her freshman year in Durango. This post came from http://wordblessed.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/a-sailboat-to-the-islands/ where Meagan's blog can be found.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Losing our Foundation
We were talking at FCA the other night about how important it is to have the Bible in our lives and the Bible in our churches. It is our foundation...or at least it should be. We talked about what life and church would look like without the Bible. Well, it would be a life and church without a solid foundation.
One of our students equated it to playing Telephone as a little kid. He was right. In college ministry, we take Telephone a step further nowadays. We add Pictionary to it as well and call it, of course, Telephone Pictionary. Very original, I know. We still play it with our students. It's a fantastically hilarious game. You start out by writing a sentence. You pass your stack of small papers with your sentence on the top one to the right. Those on the right are then supposed to draw the sentence. After that, you pass to the right again where the next person writes a sentence about what they see in the pictures. The stack of papers go around the circle until they are back with their original owner. It's pretty funny how different the pictures are at the end compared to the first sentence. You can look through the steps it took to get to the final product and it will give you a really good laugh.
This is so true as people move further and further away from the Bible, though the results are not comical. The further lives and churches get away from their foundation, their sense of truth crumbles. It gets twisted and distorted until one day, the final product resembles nothing like the original. You can barely even tell that the original existed at all. In some cases, there is simply no trace of the original. And in that, it has lost it's power to change and transform lives. It's lost all power to make an impact.
I've been reading a book recently called, Eternity in their Hearts. It's been a really eye opening book so far. I'm not through the whole thing so I can't recommend it yet, but so far, so good. In it, the author talks about the fingerprints God has left on cultures all around the world. In many of his examples, he searched out the beliefs from cultures worldwide to find a belief in a great creator who created all things. He then would look at the culture's creation story. In so many cases, the creation story was almost exactly the same as that of the book of Genesis. Now, it wasn't ever word for word but a lot of times, it was pretty close. One of the cultures he studied was that of the Karen people.
According to the author of the book, the Karen were a people who lived in Burma. They didn't consider themselves Burmese though. They were a minority living in that country. They were persecuted by the Burmese for different reasons, one of them being that they clung to their folk religion and wouldn't convert to Buddhism. As more was gathered about these people, they found a people who believed in a supreme being and creator named Y'wa. It doesn't take a huge jump to see the resemblance to Yahweh, another name for the Jewish and Christian God. It immediately jumped out at me when I read over it. The author doesn't stop there, though.
He goes on to tell the Karen creation story. The people believed that Y'wa created two people in the beginning. They were given all the food and drink they needed. There was a "tree of trial" they were not supposed to eat from. It was a command from Y'wa. But they were deceived by an evil spirit lurking in the garden. They ate the fruit, and sickness and death entered into the world because of it. Due to the act of them eating from the tree of trial, they were separated from Y'wa for generations to come. With that separation, they turned to evil spirits to worship. Still, they believed that one day, they would be reconciled with Y'wa. There was even a prophecy in the culture that one day, a white foreigner would bring a book that would teach them how to reunite with their creator.
Yeah, that's pretty crazy stuff. It really blew my mind, the similarities between their creation story and that of the Bible. And while that story survived, they had still walked away from their foundation and served evil spirits. Without a foundation, they believed that they could only serve the evil spirit that deceived the first two humans.
In my mind, these people at one point once had the full Truth of God. Maybe, they took off from the source either before it was ever written down, or they took off and didn't bring the written Word of God with them. Maybe, they had the Word written down and lost it. Another possibility was that it was just passed on by a traveler passing through. Whichever way it came to them, they had to rely on oral tradition to pass it on from there. They basically played Telephone over the generations with their spiritual beliefs and truths. Some things survived but most didn't. Most was left behind, forgotten, or changed.
They didn't have most of the Old Testament. (They certainly didn't have the New Testament either.) Think of all they lost in that. King David wrote about how he delighted in dwelling and meditating on the law and commands of the Lord day and night. The Karen had lost those commands on how to live and how to stay close to God. All they were left with was a creation story and a small glimmer of hope that one day, they might be able to reconnect with their creator. They had long lost how to connect with him in their day to day lives. They had lost the power and impact that connecting daily with God, brings into a life.
Many people in America are in the same position as the Karen people were. They have lost their foundation. Churches and people alike have lost the daily impact that only God's Truth can bring. The saddest thing is that in this nation, the Bible is right at our fingertips but we instead choose to let it gain dust on our bookshelves. That's if we even keep it there. Might be safer to keep it in a box in storage. Wouldn't want anyone to see it on our bookshelf. I find more and more "mature" Christians that don't even know what the Bible teaches. They rely on word of mouth, Telephone spirituality. We have no idea what the Bible says because we don't read it in our homes and we don't preach it in our churches.
Some might say it's because people are lazy. Some might say it's because people don't care. Some might even say that people don't want to know what it has to say because they want to keep doing what they want. In reality, it's probably a bit of all of those.
Surely, it's no wonder that Christianity is on the ropes and heading toward life support in this nation at an alarming rate. When we don't know what it says, we lose our moral compass. We become duped by whatever spiritual snake oil salesman catches our ear. Over the years, we have walked further and further away from our spiritual foundation, the Word of God. It has become about not what God wants but what we want. If what God wants doesn't fit with what we want, we just throw it out. We want our own truth, not God's. In that, we make ourselves a god. Sadly, our truths are empty and powerless.
We have left a Truth that was spoken by a being powerful enough to create us and our universe, a Truth that says and shows He loves us with that same backing and power. Think about that. God spoke the universe into being. Think of how much power and strength one must have behind their words to do that. When He says he loves us, His words carry that same power and enthusiasm. Yet, with our words and our actions, we have told Him, "You don't know what you're talking about. I have a better understanding on right and wrong than you do. I don't need your foundation and guidance."
When I first started writing this blog post, my thought process was pondering something I thought was hypothetical. I wanted to talk about how blessed we were to have the Word of God at our fingertips. Well, we are blessed to have the Bible, unlike many other cultures and nations. As I thought about it though, I saw that the question we were asking was not hypothetical...a life, a church, a nation without the Bible.
The truth is, that is where many of us who call ourselves Christians are at. We have the Word but we don't use it, and we don't apply it to our lives. So often, we pick and choose what we like or what is easy from the Bible and throw away what is hard. We are good with just having knowledge. Francis Chan uses the illustration of telling his daughter to clean her room. When he tells her that, he doesn't want her to come back and tell him that she memorized what he told her to do. He doesn't want her to get her friends together and study what it would look like if she cleaned her room. He doesn't want her to learn how to say what he told her to do in Greek. Those things aren't terrible. They actually could be a good things but they are useless if they she never actually cleans her room. It's the same way with the Bible. Our knowledge and understanding of it is useless if we don't attempt to put it into practice.
In so many instances across this nation, we don't apply it to our churches or communities. We find our churches weak or even dead; not strong, vibrant, and alive. There is no impact on the community around us. All this because we have left or ignored our foundation. We have disconnected ourselves from God. But just like the Karen, there is a glimmer of hope that one day, our so-called Christian nation might reconnect with God...only we don't have to wait for a foreigner to bring us the Truth. We are blessed enough to already have it sitting on most of our bookshelves at home.
One of our students equated it to playing Telephone as a little kid. He was right. In college ministry, we take Telephone a step further nowadays. We add Pictionary to it as well and call it, of course, Telephone Pictionary. Very original, I know. We still play it with our students. It's a fantastically hilarious game. You start out by writing a sentence. You pass your stack of small papers with your sentence on the top one to the right. Those on the right are then supposed to draw the sentence. After that, you pass to the right again where the next person writes a sentence about what they see in the pictures. The stack of papers go around the circle until they are back with their original owner. It's pretty funny how different the pictures are at the end compared to the first sentence. You can look through the steps it took to get to the final product and it will give you a really good laugh.
This is so true as people move further and further away from the Bible, though the results are not comical. The further lives and churches get away from their foundation, their sense of truth crumbles. It gets twisted and distorted until one day, the final product resembles nothing like the original. You can barely even tell that the original existed at all. In some cases, there is simply no trace of the original. And in that, it has lost it's power to change and transform lives. It's lost all power to make an impact.
I've been reading a book recently called, Eternity in their Hearts. It's been a really eye opening book so far. I'm not through the whole thing so I can't recommend it yet, but so far, so good. In it, the author talks about the fingerprints God has left on cultures all around the world. In many of his examples, he searched out the beliefs from cultures worldwide to find a belief in a great creator who created all things. He then would look at the culture's creation story. In so many cases, the creation story was almost exactly the same as that of the book of Genesis. Now, it wasn't ever word for word but a lot of times, it was pretty close. One of the cultures he studied was that of the Karen people.
According to the author of the book, the Karen were a people who lived in Burma. They didn't consider themselves Burmese though. They were a minority living in that country. They were persecuted by the Burmese for different reasons, one of them being that they clung to their folk religion and wouldn't convert to Buddhism. As more was gathered about these people, they found a people who believed in a supreme being and creator named Y'wa. It doesn't take a huge jump to see the resemblance to Yahweh, another name for the Jewish and Christian God. It immediately jumped out at me when I read over it. The author doesn't stop there, though.
He goes on to tell the Karen creation story. The people believed that Y'wa created two people in the beginning. They were given all the food and drink they needed. There was a "tree of trial" they were not supposed to eat from. It was a command from Y'wa. But they were deceived by an evil spirit lurking in the garden. They ate the fruit, and sickness and death entered into the world because of it. Due to the act of them eating from the tree of trial, they were separated from Y'wa for generations to come. With that separation, they turned to evil spirits to worship. Still, they believed that one day, they would be reconciled with Y'wa. There was even a prophecy in the culture that one day, a white foreigner would bring a book that would teach them how to reunite with their creator.
Yeah, that's pretty crazy stuff. It really blew my mind, the similarities between their creation story and that of the Bible. And while that story survived, they had still walked away from their foundation and served evil spirits. Without a foundation, they believed that they could only serve the evil spirit that deceived the first two humans.
In my mind, these people at one point once had the full Truth of God. Maybe, they took off from the source either before it was ever written down, or they took off and didn't bring the written Word of God with them. Maybe, they had the Word written down and lost it. Another possibility was that it was just passed on by a traveler passing through. Whichever way it came to them, they had to rely on oral tradition to pass it on from there. They basically played Telephone over the generations with their spiritual beliefs and truths. Some things survived but most didn't. Most was left behind, forgotten, or changed.
They didn't have most of the Old Testament. (They certainly didn't have the New Testament either.) Think of all they lost in that. King David wrote about how he delighted in dwelling and meditating on the law and commands of the Lord day and night. The Karen had lost those commands on how to live and how to stay close to God. All they were left with was a creation story and a small glimmer of hope that one day, they might be able to reconnect with their creator. They had long lost how to connect with him in their day to day lives. They had lost the power and impact that connecting daily with God, brings into a life.
Many people in America are in the same position as the Karen people were. They have lost their foundation. Churches and people alike have lost the daily impact that only God's Truth can bring. The saddest thing is that in this nation, the Bible is right at our fingertips but we instead choose to let it gain dust on our bookshelves. That's if we even keep it there. Might be safer to keep it in a box in storage. Wouldn't want anyone to see it on our bookshelf. I find more and more "mature" Christians that don't even know what the Bible teaches. They rely on word of mouth, Telephone spirituality. We have no idea what the Bible says because we don't read it in our homes and we don't preach it in our churches.
Some might say it's because people are lazy. Some might say it's because people don't care. Some might even say that people don't want to know what it has to say because they want to keep doing what they want. In reality, it's probably a bit of all of those.
Surely, it's no wonder that Christianity is on the ropes and heading toward life support in this nation at an alarming rate. When we don't know what it says, we lose our moral compass. We become duped by whatever spiritual snake oil salesman catches our ear. Over the years, we have walked further and further away from our spiritual foundation, the Word of God. It has become about not what God wants but what we want. If what God wants doesn't fit with what we want, we just throw it out. We want our own truth, not God's. In that, we make ourselves a god. Sadly, our truths are empty and powerless.
We have left a Truth that was spoken by a being powerful enough to create us and our universe, a Truth that says and shows He loves us with that same backing and power. Think about that. God spoke the universe into being. Think of how much power and strength one must have behind their words to do that. When He says he loves us, His words carry that same power and enthusiasm. Yet, with our words and our actions, we have told Him, "You don't know what you're talking about. I have a better understanding on right and wrong than you do. I don't need your foundation and guidance."
When I first started writing this blog post, my thought process was pondering something I thought was hypothetical. I wanted to talk about how blessed we were to have the Word of God at our fingertips. Well, we are blessed to have the Bible, unlike many other cultures and nations. As I thought about it though, I saw that the question we were asking was not hypothetical...a life, a church, a nation without the Bible.
The truth is, that is where many of us who call ourselves Christians are at. We have the Word but we don't use it, and we don't apply it to our lives. So often, we pick and choose what we like or what is easy from the Bible and throw away what is hard. We are good with just having knowledge. Francis Chan uses the illustration of telling his daughter to clean her room. When he tells her that, he doesn't want her to come back and tell him that she memorized what he told her to do. He doesn't want her to get her friends together and study what it would look like if she cleaned her room. He doesn't want her to learn how to say what he told her to do in Greek. Those things aren't terrible. They actually could be a good things but they are useless if they she never actually cleans her room. It's the same way with the Bible. Our knowledge and understanding of it is useless if we don't attempt to put it into practice.
In so many instances across this nation, we don't apply it to our churches or communities. We find our churches weak or even dead; not strong, vibrant, and alive. There is no impact on the community around us. All this because we have left or ignored our foundation. We have disconnected ourselves from God. But just like the Karen, there is a glimmer of hope that one day, our so-called Christian nation might reconnect with God...only we don't have to wait for a foreigner to bring us the Truth. We are blessed enough to already have it sitting on most of our bookshelves at home.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Christian Challenge Spring Break Mission Trip 2013
Hey, just wanted to put up a video Josh put together of Christian Challenge's mission trip to Texas. Check it out!
Friday, March 1, 2013
Mission: Philippines...a first look.
Dear friends & family,
How’s it going? We hope this letter finds you well. We wanted to give an update on our June mission trip. When Rachel and I began doing collegiate ministry full-time with Christian Challenge, a goal of ours was to do summer mission trips with our students, to provide an opportunity for students to put their faith into action across the world.
The Lord has opened the door for us to take students to the Philippines this summer with Climbing for Christ. The trip is June 3rd-16th. We will set out to backpack/hike from mountainous village to mountainous village. There are no roads to these villages, only foot-paths. With us, we will bring Bibles in the local language, discipleship materials, medical supplies, and school supplies.
Our team will be teaching on the importance of the Bible, and sharing the Gospel with those who have not yet heard. We will be holding VBS for the children and holding medical clinics for the community.
The coolest part of this mission is that Climbing for Christ has a very big chapter already in the Philippines. So wherever we go, we know that local Filipino believers will be following up and discipling. Between 4-7 of our team members will be from the United States, the other 8-11 will be Filipino.
The Philippines is considered the only Christian nation in Asia. But when you visit its many islands and provinces, you find there are still many Filipinos who have yet to come to know Christ.
“In Luzon, in the mountains of the north where tribal people still live with no electricity and farm the mountain slopes, animism and the worship of animals, elements of nature and their ancestor’s spirits are still practiced. The lack of spiritual guidance and growth has caused many tribal people to get involved in crime and illegal activities. This has resulted in more poverty and lawlessness that affects the progress of mountain communities.
Despite the efforts of many Christian missionaries through the years, the Philippines still have many tribal communities that are considered unreached or have never heard the name of Christ. Sharing God’s love has been made difficult by deeply rooted traditions, culture, beliefs, and the many religions that are preached. There is a great need for more people to pray for more doors of opportunity to open to share the Gospel to many more Filipinos because we are not yet the Christian Nation that we are named to be. We are a nation that is still in need of Christ.” -Ace Concordia, C4C Philippines Coordinator
We will keep you up-to-date as the trip gets closer. Thank you for teaming up and partnering with us! We love you guys!
Overall cost per person: ~ $1950
$100: for food, transportation & lodging in-country
$150: for Bibles in local language
$1500: for airfare
$200: for shots and medications
We have $2600 already raised and are picking up random odd jobs here and there outside of ministry to bring in cash to pay for the trip. Would you prayerfully consider partnering with us? All donations are tax deductible through Climbing for Christ and/or North American Mission Board.
How to partner with us:
If you feel led to team up with us financially on the trip, you can make a check out to Climbing for Christ, Inc. Make sure you put “Mike and Rachel Wall” in the memo line. Checks can be sent to:
Climbing for Christ, Inc.
P.O. Box 16290
Rochester, NY 14616-0290
You can also give online by looking on the right side of this page. You may have to scroll up or down a bit. Click the link “Giving Online” on the right side of the page. Then click, “Give Now!” on the next page. Follow the directions on the page from there. Thanks for your support!
Prayer Needs:
-Pray that the Holy Spirit would be preparing the hearts of the Filipino people in the mountain villages for the Gospel.
-Pray for our team’s safety.
-Pray for our students as they prepare for the trip and raise support for it.
-Pray that our funding for the trip would come in as well. We are close but still have a bit of ground to cover.
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
A Past Update Overdue
Something that we haven't addressed with many of you but many of you may be wondering... Why did our plans change this past summer for the month of July? Originally we were supposed to be overseas for a bit this past summer. Well, that didn't happen. We were thrown quite the curveball.
Due us planning a trip to a new location this summer, it's been on my heart to address the circumstances of us staying home in the States this past summer. With the sensitive nature of our past project, I can only give a few vague details online. Feel free to talk to us in person if you have any questions.
Now, the location we had been visiting had never been "safe" so to speak but leading up to last summer, the area we were going to became even more dangerous due to rioting and crackdowns.
I apologize for not getting this out sooner online to many of you but with the nature of what we are dealing with, it was hard to know what to say or how much to say. There is much I hold back even now.
We will try and keep everyone updated on here as much as possible but may still hold off on snail mail about this subject as pretty much all of our resources have gone into support raising for the collegiate work we are doing. Unfortunately, we are still at a point in our support raising efforts where money is pretty tight...especially when it comes to sending out mail with stamps always going up in price. Still, we will try and do our best to keep everyone updated on the situation. Just keep lifting it all up if you would.
With that trip postponed indefinitely, we have found another area to work in this summer. We are extremely excited and looking forward to what the future holds. We will have more info on the new trip soon.
With that trip postponed indefinitely, we have found another area to work in this summer. We are extremely excited and looking forward to what the future holds. We will have more info on the new trip soon.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
February Christian Challenge Update 2013!
Hello Team! It’s been a busy month or two for us. Rachel and I have been running the ministry as Josh recovers. He will actually be taking students on a mission trip at the beginning of March for spring break to inner-city Dallas. Josh will be back on campus full-time starting March 11. Praise God for his fast recovery! Definitely some big answered prayers!
Christian Challenge has been going great this past month. We have been able to pour into students who are really committed to learning more about Christ. We have covered discussion topics like abortion, Colorado legalizing marijuana, and relationships. We had one of our biggest groups of the semester just this week! And that was with a lot of our students staying home to study for mid- terms. It’s encouraging to see that even at this time of the year, God can still grow the ministry.
FCA has been going great as well. It’s a much smaller group than Christian Challenge but we have a really solid core group that shows up faithfully almost every Monday night. We have been going through the Francis Chan DVD series, “Basic.” Our student-athletes really like it.
Our conversational English class has continued also. It’s been awesome to pour into our international students. Many have even come to church with us. They really like the singing and worship.
Rachel and I continue to disciple 7-8 students a piece. Man, so many cool stories that come from that! One of them is about a guy named, "N", who has been thirsty for God but somewhat fell through the cracks. Due to his work schedule, he never actually plugged in anywhere or even knew how to get plugged in. It was truly a God thing how we met. Just through asking "N" to unplug my laptop cord for me as the plug-in was near him, we struck up a conversation, started meeting weekly, and now he is sharing the stuff we go over with his coworkers. It’s so awesome to see God working in the lives of our students!
Prayer Requests:
--We have some exciting, big news...and no, we’re not pregnant. Lord willing, we will be taking students on a mission trip to the Philippines in June. Pray that God would provide financially for the trip for the students who have committed to going and serving. We’ll have more info on the trip for you soon.
--Pray for our international students that the seeds that we have planted would start producing fruit.
--Pray for Jennifer, Josh's wife, as her brother has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Keep her, her brother, and their family in your prayers. Pray for a miracle.
--For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis.
--That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.
Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel
Christian Challenge has been going great this past month. We have been able to pour into students who are really committed to learning more about Christ. We have covered discussion topics like abortion, Colorado legalizing marijuana, and relationships. We had one of our biggest groups of the semester just this week! And that was with a lot of our students staying home to study for mid- terms. It’s encouraging to see that even at this time of the year, God can still grow the ministry.
Our conversational English class has continued also. It’s been awesome to pour into our international students. Many have even come to church with us. They really like the singing and worship.
Rachel and I continue to disciple 7-8 students a piece. Man, so many cool stories that come from that! One of them is about a guy named, "N", who has been thirsty for God but somewhat fell through the cracks. Due to his work schedule, he never actually plugged in anywhere or even knew how to get plugged in. It was truly a God thing how we met. Just through asking "N" to unplug my laptop cord for me as the plug-in was near him, we struck up a conversation, started meeting weekly, and now he is sharing the stuff we go over with his coworkers. It’s so awesome to see God working in the lives of our students!
Prayer Requests:
--We have some exciting, big news...and no, we’re not pregnant. Lord willing, we will be taking students on a mission trip to the Philippines in June. Pray that God would provide financially for the trip for the students who have committed to going and serving. We’ll have more info on the trip for you soon.
--Pray for our international students that the seeds that we have planted would start producing fruit.
--Pray for Jennifer, Josh's wife, as her brother has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Keep her, her brother, and their family in your prayers. Pray for a miracle.
--For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis.
--That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.
Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Christian Challenge January 2013 Update!
Hello Team! We trust your 2013 is starting off great! Our Christmas Break was special this year! We started the break off traveling through a snowstorm up to Dinosaur, CO, one of Colorado’s poorest areas. Our students had packed up thirty or so shoe boxes with toys and clothing for the kids of Dinosaur. The kids loved the presents! That night, we were able to spend some time with "K", one of our students, and her parents in Steamboat Springs.
From there, we headed to Denver to visit Josh after his surgery and check in on how he was doing. We were then able to spend some time down in Colorado Springs with Rachel’s family just before Christmas.
We arrived home just before Christmas. One of our Japanese students, "Y", spent Christmas Eve/Day with us. Christmas Eve, we went to service together at our church. This was his first time at church and first time hearing what Christmas is really about. In Japan they celebrate with Kentucky Fried Chicken and thought that is what everyone in America does. He also loved being a part of our Christmas tradition of making cookies together and taking them Christmas afternoon to the fire departments in the area.
The new semester has brought an exciting start. Anytime you have a ministry leader change, you tend to lose people. However, God has made it known that the students come because He has brought each and every one of them our way! They are hungry for God and community. Everyone came back from last semester as well as we have also been able to meet many new students. It has been an extremely busy start to the semester running three different ministries but God is doing amazing things through that!
Prayer Requests:
--For "H", "Y", "N", "K" and "R" as they do not know Christ but many seeds have been planted and they are very open and interested as we share with them. Some of them have even been able to attend church with us.
--Praise: Josh’s surgery went well! Thank you for praying. He is recovering much quicker than expected. In fact, Josh will be back on campus part time in the next two weeks. He’s hoping to be back full time after spring break in early March for a possible mission trip to Dallas over the break.
--For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis.
That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.
Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike & Rachel
From there, we headed to Denver to visit Josh after his surgery and check in on how he was doing. We were then able to spend some time down in Colorado Springs with Rachel’s family just before Christmas.
We arrived home just before Christmas. One of our Japanese students, "Y", spent Christmas Eve/Day with us. Christmas Eve, we went to service together at our church. This was his first time at church and first time hearing what Christmas is really about. In Japan they celebrate with Kentucky Fried Chicken and thought that is what everyone in America does. He also loved being a part of our Christmas tradition of making cookies together and taking them Christmas afternoon to the fire departments in the area.
The new semester has brought an exciting start. Anytime you have a ministry leader change, you tend to lose people. However, God has made it known that the students come because He has brought each and every one of them our way! They are hungry for God and community. Everyone came back from last semester as well as we have also been able to meet many new students. It has been an extremely busy start to the semester running three different ministries but God is doing amazing things through that!
Prayer Requests:
--For "H", "Y", "N", "K" and "R" as they do not know Christ but many seeds have been planted and they are very open and interested as we share with them. Some of them have even been able to attend church with us.
--Praise: Josh’s surgery went well! Thank you for praying. He is recovering much quicker than expected. In fact, Josh will be back on campus part time in the next two weeks. He’s hoping to be back full time after spring break in early March for a possible mission trip to Dallas over the break.
--For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis.
That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.
Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike & Rachel
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