Criticisms

Well, I just got an Amazon giftcard and I was browsing on Amazon.com looking for interesting books, and as I was browsing, I found some things that really upset me. I found entire books written criticizing God's movements around the world, written by people who are supposedly Christian. I am upset because some people are devoting their entire lives to tearing down others, instead of building their brothers and sisters in Christ up in love. I also found reviews of some of the books that I have to read for Mozambique, and some were rather inflammatory. I laugh because there were no bad reviews of Heidi's books, -- how can anyone criticize someone who has given up their life for thousands of poor orphans in Africa? if you criticize that, you might have some compassion problems.
Anyhow, one guy has this whole huge website devoted to his version of Christianity and makes statements on there that various leaders in churches are in fact NOT Christians. WOW!! Judge not. God have mercy on us, if this is what the church is coming to. I guess I knew this stuff was out there somewhere, but I didn't see it before.
Where is God moving? God moves where people are open to it. And sometimes, like in Mel Tari's "Like a Mighty Wind" God came and invaded a rigid Presbyterian church in Indonesia!! That's amazing!
So, anyhow... I guess some people are hardened to the things of God. They preach and talk against miracles and say that people are "falsely healed." Hmm... if someone was dead and comes back to life, that isn't falsely healed! They weren't breathing, now they are, what more evidence do you want? God still works in crazy ways and makes blind people see, lame walk, and hungry get fed, especially when there is no physical way to help them!

Counting Down...

Counting down... 3 more days in GA. Then a week and a half with family in CT...
And I'm also getting those books read that I need to get read for the school. I've got 4 books left to read! That's it!! (out of 11...)
I think my favorite ones would be "The Hungry Always Get Fed" by Heidi and Rolland Baker. They run Iris in Mozambique. Their stories are absolutely amazing! I liked reading about how all the street kids would end up at Iris and then they would get healed and start worshiping God and now they are reaching out to others. That is so amazing because, from my experience in Brazil, the street kids usually take a long time to get adjusted to a home and they often run away (mulitple times) and I only knew of a very few success stories in rehabilitating street kids. Though Iris does have some kids leave, I think they see more success stories than I saw in Brazil.
I also really loved "Peace Child" by Don Richardson. I thought it was going to be a typical story about a missionary who went to some "heathen" tribe and tried to change their culture without giving them the gospel in its power. But! This was not! Don went there and learned how to interact with the people, learned the language, raised his little kids there, and was like "Ok, God, since you brought us here, I'm trusting you'll keep them safe". And they were! Their canoe capsized at one point with his infant and toddler sons and his wife, and somehow they were all saved! The people in the tribe saw that and some of them believed God because of that. I really liked how he had tried to explain the Bible to them, and when he told about Judas, the people thought Judas was the hero, not Jesus, because their society was based upon treachery and betrayal of "friends". He later found out that an analogy of God sending his son had been built into the culture from the beginning.
He wanted the few villages that had set up camp around him to see the white man to make peace once and for all. This required an exchange of a "peace child" in which one father would give up his baby to the other tribe, and vice versa, and then as long as that peace child lived, there would be peace. But if the peace child died, the tribe who had given up the child that died would be able to attack.
Don used this as an analogy to show how God sent his own son, his only son, as the Perfect Peace Child to the earth, to the people who had made war against God. The people on earth killed the Peace Child, and God, rather than fighting back with them, still made peace with them, and then Jesus was brought back to life, as the everlasting Peace Child! It was just this amazing story and completely blew my mind away how perfectly that analogy is to scripture!
I'm excited to find what analogies like that I will find in other culture I will work in! Who knows what might be out there!

Africa- Get Ready!

Well, its official. I'm going to Africa in 3 weeks! I've got about 10 days left in the lovely south, the red hills of Georgia, and the mess of kudzu vines where you never know what you will find. I'll miss the area, and if I ever get a chance to live in the US again wherever I want, I'd pick Georgia.
I'll miss the kids, but I'm also gonna meet alot of neat people, including lots of kids! I'm excited! My portuguese is gonna be completely in God's hands, though, since I haven't really practised it in well over a year.

I'm working on reading 8 books in 3 weeks. I've got 1 1/2 down... The first one was really good, and the second is a bit drier, but still really good.

I've changed the lyrics to the Caedmon's Call song "Two Weeks in Africa" to "Two months in Africa" and am listening to that now. Along with Portuguese worship songs, so much that I have trouble singing the songs in English. "Deus pode salvar, meu Deus pode salvar!"

And in addition to getting stuff ready for Africa, I'm also packing up my life again and schlepping all my stuff back to CT to be stored for a few months until I get back and figure out where I'm going after Africa.

Africa-Bound

Well, if I get the visa to go, I'm going to be heading out to Africa this fall! Two months in Africa! I'm excited!! I'll be going there for a missions training program and its gonna be awesome! I can't wait to see what God is gonna do!

JAM Week

JAM Week. Basically VBS, but not cheesy. The theme is "Toy Story" as in the disney movie. Its cool, they've got people playing all the characters on stage for the skits. And the songs are simple, normal worship songs, Friend of God, Undignified, like that. I'm helping out with crafts. I don't really have any huge insights from this week yet, except that 120 screaming kids in one room= I am very tired by the end of it.
I'm also crocheting like mad. I found out how to make "yarn" out of plastic bags (real simple) and am making a purse out of plastic bags. My mind is churning with how this can be used to teach people to clean up their area and recycle and make money all at the same time... I have way too many of these ideas where if I had some place to sell things that people in third world countries make, then I would be able to teach them all sorts of crafts to support themselves.

Human

Wash the darkness from their skin
They’re not human yet
So poor like dirt from the earth
To be a little more than a charity case.
Is the earth alive?
All the people, all over the world?
If yes, Julia, they are, then why
Why do we treat such pigs as human
And humans as such less than that?
If we played the same hunger games,
If we always remained the same,
Then we’d all be inhuman.
For what makes us human?
Ability to talk, to walk to reason?
For those who can’t, are they naught?
Are they really inhuman?
The dark, the mute, the deaf, the lame,
The slow, the blind, the old, the weak?
We are more than the words we know how to speak.
We are more than the angels we reason fly above us.
We are more than the gravel we walk
Whether dry or wet beneath.
We are.
We are.
With skin as dark as pavement
We walk.
Into the sun to bleach our hair
We walk.
Burn our faces,
All human.
As we move,
All human.
We can learn these truths.
From little ones we learn these truths.

This is one of my poems I wrote in the fall of 2007, probably in October. Julia sometimes asks things that we can't understand, she words questions odd. But this one "Is the Earth alive?" puzzled me and her dad. So we asked "You mean all the people?" and she goes "yes." So, yes, all the people are alive. As I am faced with the possibility of going to Africa for a few months, my mind goes back to this and to the painting I did, of two girls from the DRC. "Wash the darkness from their skin" goes Jars of Clay's song. That may be the only response some people have to the poverty that is so deep there. But its not about racism or skin color, its about justice and everyone all around the world being equally as human and alive.

Hear Him You Deaf

This week we found out that little David has a hearing problem for sure. That is probably why his speech is not so good. Its probably more his hearing than the CP that affects his speech. Poor lil guy, he has to see yet another doctor. However, the doctors say that they don't know what to do first, and hearing aids might help, might not. Cochlear implants might help, might not, they don't know what to do. I'm praying that God heals him. I know God can.
I've been reading "Red Moon Rising" about 24-7 prayer, and "Expecting Miracles" by Heidi Baker about their ministry in Mozambique. In both books, there are so many stories of God healing people, healing sick people, lame people, deaf people, blind people, mute people, even raising people from the dead! If all that is happening right now around the world, I want that. I want God's power right here so that little David can be healed! I want God's power in me as I pray for him, and as I work with him. He's come by leaps and bounds in so many other ways, just not speech.
"Hear him you deaf; his praise, you dumb, your loosened tongues employ. You blind, behold your Savior come, and leap you lame for joy!"

Fire burns up Stuff

As I sat outside this evening, with a small campfire blazing before me, I came to the realization that God is not a campfire. No, no. When we say he is a Consuming Fire, we are not saying He is a campfire that is pretty to look at and burns down kind of quickly. We are saying he is a HUGE wildfire that consumes everything in its path. Sometimes we see footage of huge blazes out in California on TV and the firefighters are helpless to put the fire out. This is the kind of fire God is. He is a huge fire that threatens to take over our whole life if we will let Him. He cannot be contained or put out, once the fire in us is started. The things we do for him will become crazier and crazier as time goes on and He consumes more of us.
Lately I have been wrestling with issues of materialism that creep up on me so easily. I moved to Georgia less than a year ago with 2 suitcases, albeit, one was a very large bag, plus a backpack. I now have a small moving truck of stuff here. I am working on paring it down, bit by bit, so that in a few months, I can take off, unburdened by all the stuff that keeps us tethered to one place. I intend to live life with just a few bags, not rooms of stuff. I will leave behind what I cannot take, because, I cannot take any of the stuff I "own" to my final destination.
When I was twelve, the first mission trip I went on was somewhat of a disaster. I went to Paterson New Jersey with a group of 10-13 year olds to lead a VBS for kids not much younger than us. We went with a bunch of other teams and had tent revival meetings every night. It was cool and we were in a pretty spiritually dark place. While on the way there, the bus carrying all our stuff burned up. We watched it go up in flames. No one was hurt, but it was a bit traumatic. What came out of the fire were Bibles, my cameras, hair things, some clothes, burnt puppets, just remains of what had been. All the "stuff" we had packed for this trip-- and the packing list was huge-- burnt up and we had nothing. We were the recipients of some churches' kindness and we all got sleeping bags, clothes, pillows, and toiletries from their generousity. A bunch of parents (including my Dad!) came and brought some clothes from home to last the 10 days.
I guess what I am saying is that God burns up what we don't need, literally, if we hold it too tight. He is a consuming fire, sometimes literally, and will burn up everything to get our focus back on Him. That trip was the worst ever, but in retrospect, it was the best ever, since it made me so much stronger. It made me realize that "only what's for Christ will last, and nothing else really matters."