Listening

 I have always received the most relaxation and most physical grasp of The Lord outside in nature.  But there is one sound and site that fills me up more than any other location or audio - even more than my deck - waves!

I pay very close attention to sound - I love listening to voices often choosing someone for an audio recording just overhearing a conversation some where.  I love electronic music because I'm fascinated by the sounds I hear that I've never heard in my life before.  I love my families' noise - it's mostly the sound of laughing!  But the sound of waves has no comparison in the instant therapy-like affect it has on me!

God's genius is displayed in the waves - the consistency of tides, the rhythm and lapping they produce and the breathtaking life they conceal is simply a stroke of brilliance in it's self-sustaining ability and reproductive capabilities.  

 I'm convinced however, one of the main reasons He created it was for the therapeutic value it processes for us. 

Go somewhere and listen to the waves and you'll offer Him praise and thankfulness!

islands are for friends and family

Today we went to the beautiful island of Put-in-Bay with our friends!

We were in capable hands with Mark and Ken bringing us back to dock!

Ken giving Mark the ok sign - my mom loved the day!

These 2 are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside.
So proud of my daughter and daughter-in-law

In most situations these two would be questionable (ornery) -
but they were so gracious to us today!

The precious one!

Poor baby was so captive in this vest!

My dad, my son and my hubby - fishing off another boat !

Aunt Joci allowing Oliver to steer the boat

the town of Put-in-Bay filled with family

To have the kind of friends - two boat loads that would take a day off work, take a day away from their own families and come to take us out fishing and site seeing...well, there are no words to describe how blessed we all feel today!

The Lord blesses our lives with a few handfuls of special friends and today we spent the day with Chris, Ken, Mark and Clayton.  Thankful beyond words!

you realize you're empty

There are several things that getting away does.

One of those things is it allows you to realize you're empty.

I have enjoyed this time away more than most I've had in recent years and it's because it's so simple.  No decisions more serious then 'where should we eat' ?

When your life gets too full, everything feels like a major decision or event.  Every nook and cranny of thinking space gets clogged.

And when something is full it means there isn't room for something else.   And the something could be the greatest thing, and you miss it.

God's greatest teaching times often happened when the rest of the world was shut out - when someone was forced out or forced in..

Blindness, belly of a whale, wilderness, the center of a storm, on a fish-less boat...

I'm listening...I'm alone...I'm resting in Him and praying to simplify

a day away

It's been a beautiful day away.

It's weird how you can just be a relatively short distance from home and yet it feels far away.  It feels good.

reading time

We saved Aaron and Joci's Christmas stockings and a few Christmas presents until they came
home from Cambodia Christmas in August.

We've had such a great day ending in fresh peach sundays and tons of talking and laughs…perfect.

weekend report

We had a great weekend at Crossroads worshipping and learning and fellowshipping - I loved all the sounds.   As I left the auditorium following worship I could hear the Student Ministry worshipping and the pre-teen room being excited about the Lord!

Our setlist:

Instrumental - Blessed Be The Name

Blessed Be The Name
Great Are You Lord
In Christ Alone
All My Fountains
Message:  Beyond Immaturity - Brian Boone
Exit Song:  Great Are You Lord

To watch our services go to crossroadswired.com

To see what other ministries used in their services go to theworshipcommunity.com

the day goes by

It doesn't take long for the euphoria of ministering to children who love you unconditionally to give-way to the rapid pace of moving forward.

I've lost the wonder of those eyes somewhere deep within the pile of my papers and folders…  I need them back again.

They've been replaced by many emergencies and plans and amazing things, it's just that I'm moving too fast to really see them.  I must slow the day…


Therein lies the battle - should I celebrate when the first time I look at the clock it's 4:40 p.m. - another day closer to eternity?

Or do I mourn the loss of yet another day.   It all depends on the content.

Today's frantic-ness was composed of mostly unschedule meetings, but they were meetings with people I value and people I do life with and people I respect.  These impromptu meetings lead to care for people, plans in place, and a few tears.  Things and people that make up my life.

It never fails when I take 2 steps forward in leadership - learning and striving for more excellence, I feel the push back from the enemy.  What is the Lord trying to teach me - I think I'm open - I don't think anything is in the way that He needs to remove?  But, I must be wrong because the push is hard.

And so tonight I lay my life in His hands, I ask for continued leading and direction on my life and this leads to praise I cannot stop.  How much, very much I have to be grateful for, I become overwhelmed by Him - covered by Him - and now I sleep in Him.


the day goes by...

weekend report

It's difficult to believe that another weekend has come and gone.

As I looked at our team this weekend I was once again struck by how dedicated all the volunteers are as well as our staff.  The hours that go into a single service is more than I can calculate!  My appreciation for both the Praise Team as well as our Tech teams just can't adequately be expressed.  I am thankful, very thankful!

It was good to be in the House of the Lord!

Our setlist:

Instrumental of Lord I Need You - scripture reading with Baptism EP video
Lord I Need You
My Heart is Yours
We Believe
Man of Sorrows
Message:  Our Mission:   Our Part/God's Part - Wendell Anderson
Exit Song: We Believe

To watch our services go to www.crossroadswired.com

To see what other ministries used in their services go to www.theworshipcommunity.com

Have a blessed week!

weekend report

I'm FINALLY posting our weekend report!    IT WAS AMAZING!!!

I walked around the ministry listening to Eric lead worship  rehearsal for the Student Ministry - and saw all the children's areas preparing for their services too!  In the main auditorium we worshipped with Aaron and Jocelyn Nicolas - our missionaries returning home from Cambodia!   

And if that wasn't enough we baptized 46 people on Sunday afternoon!   God is so very Good!

Our setlist:

Aaron and Jocelyn Nicolas - our first missionaries are back home

Missions Trip update:  Jocelyn and Aaron Nicolas

One Thing Remains  (video from Cambodia)

Hands to the Heavens

Oceans - (video from our trip to the beach - the first time many of the children ever saw the ocean)

Revelation Song 

Message:  Beyond "I Do"

Exit Song:  Hands to the Heavens

These are all the people moving into place at the baptism

Eric preparing Student Ministry worship

to watch our services go to www.crossroadswired.com

to see what other ministries are using in their services go to www.theworshipcommunity.com

is there more I should do

This morning was the first morning I've had a morning fully at home since returning from Cambodia.

It was a little piece of heaven!   Moving slowly around the house - cooking fresh eggs and toast - doing laundry and hanging it out in the beautiful sunshine and of course brewing the best coffee in the world - Lousantiville which is grown by the Guatemalan farmers we support at Crossroads and available by the pound at Crossroads!

While I worked on these things I became overwhelmed with a desire to spend time in the Word and with my heavenly Father…this desire was very very strong and it made me excited to feel like I was growing in Him and longing to spend time in study and prayer.

One contributing factor to this desire is also the grieving my heart is feeling regarding the atrocities going on around the world right now toward believers.  I pray the Lord will choose to intervene especially on behalf of the women and children that are so helpless to defend themselves.

The men committing these heinous acts are impossible for me to figure out at all.  Do they not have children themselves, or nephews and nieces they care about?  The only way I can justify the crimes they are committing is to assume they are driven and possessed by satan himself.  Could the human mind itself without evil influence think up such things?

I'm sitting here asking the Lord what my part to play in ending these injustices are.  It's not like I can fly over to Iraq and march in and physically help anything - what can I do?  Is prayer the only option?

I am certainly determined to continue in prayer over this horrifying mess - but, Father is there indeed more I should be doing?

To pass the time

On these long flights bringing us home from Cambodia - I have watched movies to pass the time.

One old movie I had never seen before was The Last Emperor. 

It caused me to sit afterward and marvel again at how mankind makes the same errors over and over again.

From the beginning of time every sin and problem has been caused by man himself.  Usually over a struggle to be in charge or out of a desire to make his own decisions instead of yielding to the only true God - the only one who can offer us satisfaction and eternal fulfillment.

Seek ye First the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these thing will be added unto you...

Read this verse.  Meditate on this verse...

 It solves ALL the world's problems, it brings everlasting peace, it puts us right in the middle of God's will and let's us abide there.

If every day, every hour we Seek First the Kingdom of God, then we'll spend our day abiding in Him - He will control our words and actions - He will be pleased with us and His Kingdom can be established through us.

In the movie The Last Emperor - the young boy at 3 was appointed emperor and over and over asked or stated that 'he could do whatever he wanted' - he could force people to do whatever he wanted - he had people waiting on him hand and foot- and yet the only thing he really wanted he could never have...freedom from it all.  When you have too much, material things, power, or wealth you are perhaps the biggest slave of all.

Later in his life his kingdom fell - he was imprisoned - he lost all material things.  And his title meant nothing to the new society in which he found himself.  Sadly this is the situation even the most powerful of our time will find themself in if they are outside The Lord.

God allows this creation He created, to rise up and fight and destroy one another over the desire to rule, or to Seek Him First...  

Funny how a secular movie can reveal a deep spiritual battle and just assume they're only telling a story.

Simplicity

Matthew 6:33English Standard Version (ESV)

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Yesterday we studied 'Simplicity' .

We talked about how we've made Christianity something completely different from what God intended in many cases.  We've made it way too difficult, empty of grace toward others, and continuous busyness.

"It's the wavering between the gods of things and THE God of everything, and that's what has us drowning in it all.  Every moment you live, you live bowed to something". This is a powerful quote from Ann Voskamp.

EVERY MOMENT I LIVE, I LIVE BOWED TO SOMETHNG...

The reason The Lord told us to Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and His righteousness - is because if we live that way everything else He has for us lines up, falls into place.  Is as He created us to be.

Simplicity ...this place Cambodia is simple yet even in their simpleness they bow to the wrong gods.  I believe the children of Asia's Hope raised up and nurtured in The Lord can be used by Him to change everything here!

Simple.

We all worship something

Whenever you sacrifice to go on a missions trip you will be confronted with many things.  

You'll feel overly blessed with what you have back home - almost guilty when you see how content the people you're ministering to are with so much less.

And you'll be tested with burdens or concerns that should be turned over to the Lord but fight to remove your focus from what God longs to teach you on your time away.

Being down to my last day in Battambang I realize what my self-examination must be.  It's to honestly answer - what do I worship?   As a believer the very reason I was created was to worship Him, and if I take my eyes off of Him - if they drift toward other things, then those things become the object of my worship!

In the most remote village I've ever been to, I found evidence of the need to worship.  In the midst of nothing -an idol existed.  

Remnants of little sacrifices were left behind by a god that cannot fill the emptiness or fear that exists in the hearts of these people.  

This challenged my heart to ask - what do I worship?  

 Is it honestly the Lord, based on how I fill my days?

Could it be my family?  My church?  My opinion?

What?

The very fact I'm asking indicates idols exist in my life - I can never criticize the physical idols I see in Cambodia because they are honest about them.  What's far more dangerous are the hidden idols that exist even in the lives of the children of the one true God... 

Far away

There are many places, hidden places far away from everything in Cambodia!  Today we found one of those places when we went with a local pastor to a place our bus could not go.

Some of these elderly people were here when the country was ravished by the ruthless Khmer Rouge soldiers.  We saw many without limbs and haunted eyes - and behind those eyes possibly stories of things that they witnessed long ago...stories we will never hear.

But, there is news - the good news of Jesus, salvation from the evil agenda of men!  The new soldiers in this country are the soldiers proclaiming His truth and providing escape from their past.

These are the images we saw as we gave each family money for rice, balls for the children and some clothing - among which were athletic jerseys from Lexington High School that we carried around the world to give away!

 

This is the path we hiked to a remote village.  

Before giving them out we prayed with the people and were given opportunity to tell them the news of Jesus by Greg through Samuth our amazing interpreter !  

We pray the love of Jesus Christ sinks deep into their souls and creates an insatiable desire to know more about Him!