Update on African Mission - They Have Arrived

The African Mission team has arrived safe & sound after a 19 hour flight! Susan says the ocean view is gorgeous where they are at!







"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“ Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” Isaiah 6:8

Sarah's Story ... Teenage Daughter's Pregnancy ... the Power of Christ in Crisis

My friend Sarah sent this to me last night ... I hope it encourages you as it has encouraged me!

"God uses crises in our lives to fulfill his purpose, if we only step outside ourselves to see it. Think about all of the "stumbling blocks" in our lives that are actually God's way of opening our eyes to his ever-redeeming love.

Several months ago, my teenage daughter came to me with the news most parents fear hearing "I'm pregnant". I always imagined how I would feel if I heard those words, but no amount of preconceived notions prepared me for reality. First I stood in disbelief.... then anger.... and then I was heartsick. The only words I was able to utter were "just leave me alone for a minute".

Before I became a Christ follower, I would have responded much differently, however my own sinfulness still made me think "what will people think of me as a parent?" Those few precious moments after the news, I got out my bible and sat quietly in reflection and prayer. I asked God to help me respond the way he wanted instead of the way I wanted. What came to me in those moments surprised me quite a bit. I was shown how, over the years, my own judgment on the parents of teenage moms was not very Christ-like. Or, that instead of looking on every pregnancy, and every infant... no matter what circumstances they were born under, was a gift from God. EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE! What was shown to me in those minutes after the news was that I was raised by my grandmother, because my mom was also a pregnant teen, and how alone my mom must have felt. As a walk along side my daughter, instead of feeling embarrassment... Jesus is walking along side us cradling my daughter in his arms. When we get "not so nice" stares from other people... I remember that it is not the opinion of others that makes us worthwhile, but the strength that Christ gives us through trials and life's circumstances, if we only turn to Him for guidance.

I thank God for being there for me after I heard the news of my daughters pregnancy. I know that He is with us no matter what mistakes we make in our lives, and no one is outside the realm of forgiveness. I ask and pray that we can all look on our brothers and sisters as made in God's image, and that any birth as a celebration.. no matter what the circumstances!!!!!!! We are anxiously awaiting the birth of our grandchild, as a creation of Christ and ask for your prayers that my daughter gets through her pregnancy with little stress and forever gratefulness!!!!!"

Sarah, you and your family are in my prayers, and each time you come to my mind I thank God for you!

Give It Up ... Give It Over

I was going to explain how our Father keeps giving me opportunities to give things over to Him. How He also allows me to witness friends in the same place, facing opportunities to surrender to Him. But everything I could think of to say has already been said by Paul and Keb Mo...

"I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!" Romans 7:24,25 - 8:17

So I suppose all there is left to do is give it up ... give it over ... What do you think?

Meet the South Africa Mission Team....

Small team, but mighty in the Lord! Meet the three saints that are going off to experience God in South Africa in just two weeks.

Glynn Smith, mission trip leader and SAMission Board Member, bringing AIDS education to Africa. Glynn is coordinating all aspects of this tactical effort to teach twelve schools again this year.





Mark Carey, long time friend and bible study partner for about eight or ten years of Glenn's. Mark lives in Long Beach California with wife Kathy. They have three children all married and there are at least a handful of grandchildren.




Susan O’Hara who Glenn met indirectly through attending the same International AIDS seminar at Saddleback church two years ago. Susan wanted to go with us last year but was not able to because of family circumstances.





The Good news . . . . . Initially a little disappointing that they only have a three-person team going from the USA this year, especially after the ten-adult and eight-teenager team from last year. Anyway they just accepted that this is God’s plan for this year and started to plan accordingly. The good news is that they are still going to teach twelve schools again this year even with our reduced contingent from America. This means that our local partners are starting to take this program over and make it their own. This is what needs to happen:

Support this trip . . . . With two and a half weeks left before we leave we are still a little short of their trip support goal. If you are able or feel led to support this trip, your contribution would be most helpful. God has never left us short and we know that whatever he provides will be sufficient.

Support an Orphan . . . . If you are not already sponsoring a child, we have two hundred children from Richards Bay on the sponsorship list with Horizon International. There are probably about a hundred and fifty of those kids that still need sponsors for $35 per month.

Be a Monthly donor . . . . Because of a handful of donors making monthly pledges to SAM we are now able to start helping some of our partners in Richards Bay. Some like Kenny just unselfishly working for the Lord and trusting that he will provide. Then there is Clement and Thuli that have taken on the responsibility of caring for all those kids in need.

For more information contact me.