Vision beyond borders - Seeds!

If you didn't already watch the YouTube video I posted yesterday, I hope you will go back and do that. It is about Vision Beyond Borders, a remarkable organization.

Our congregation has become increasingly active this year and many of the things we do, we do as a group of all ages. It has been really quite wonderful! I love it most when we are doing something for the good of others. Our congregation helps many organizations and our last project was to help Vision Beyond Borders.

Vision Beyond Border's main mission  is to deliver Bibles to countries around the world where people do not have access to Bibles. They deliver Bibles in the native language and in some instances that means hand-wind tape players to deliver the Gospel message to those who can not read.  They are often putting themselves in danger in order to do this! They have already delivered over 1 million Bibles!

They are often witness to many great needs and because of this, they have taken on other tasks as well. They partner along side Christians in other countries to accomplish many goals. One is to help women and children escape from the slave trade. Patrick Klein, founder, was telling me yesterday about an owner of a large brothel becoming a Christian and freeing those enslaved under her. They help provide safe houses as well as training for other ways to earn money.

One of their projects that we were able to be a part of this week-end is their seed project.

They have found that many are in need of seeds to use to grow things for their own food as well as to sell. When I went to church Saturday to package seeds, I really didn't understand what a big deal this is. Our church had stacks and stacks of boxes (54 of them) and each box was loaded with unsold seeds donated by seed companies.  Each box was stuffed with seed packets...80,000 of them!  Due to customs restrictions they are not able to take those packets into all countries. Our seeds were bound for Cuba. So, we had to repackage them into baggies.

Here's how that is accomplished...

We each had a cup and we'd line it with a baggie. We'd then open 10 matching seed packets and cut out the label from one of those packets to include in the baggie, seal and repeat. They were then grouped with like seeds and boxed up for delivery to Cubans in need. A large group of us worked on that all day Saturday and still did not quite complete our task!

Sunday after church Patrick Klein was telling me a story
about visiting a man some time after he'd received seeds
from Vision Beyond Borders. The man was standing proudly by his rows of carrots that were just coming up and he was
so happy, he was crying.

I can go to the store and buy seeds anytime I want.  It was
a good reminder to appreciate all that we have.

Vision Beyond Borders is an amazing organization. If you are interested in learning more, maybe even want to be a small part of it, please click here.

God's Not Dead

Mike and I just returned from the movie, God's Not Dead. We had a lot of people recommend to us that we go see it and I'm very glad that we did. I really enjoyed myself!

This movie certainly isn't the run-of-the-mill Hollywood production.  Let's be honest, Hollywood isn't much enamored with the Christian Faith. In fact, my experience has been many people are ok with a person being a Christian but they don't want us to much talk about it.

I'm not going to tell you much about the movie but at the end, everyone is encouraged to text everyone they know with these words, "God's Not Dead".  Have any of you received such a text?  Or maybe seen it on Facebook? Now you know where that came from. It's Christians letting you know they have faith in God the Father.

I am sure everyone who goes to this movie is not a Christian. If you are not a Christian, I'd encourage you to see it. I don't know that seeing the movie is going to convert a non-believer, but it may help them better understand the Christians in their life.

I really enjoyed Kevin Sorbo in this movie. Remember him, Hercules? I'm currently reading a book written by Kevin Sorbo. I'll do a book report later...stay tuned.

Newsboys are featured in this movie as well.  In honor of their part in the movie, I'm going to leave you with this...

Francis Chan interviewed by Kirk Cameron

This is worth the few minutes it takes to listen.

Maundy Thursday for Dummies

Well, I just learned something new. You've seen all the Dummies books, right? There's Personal Finance for Dummies, Excel for Dummies, Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies,  Digital Photography for Dummies and just about everything else for Dummies. While the titles are kind of rude, they are often very useful books. I just learned that there is also Christianity for Dummies. I've not read the book and am not endorsing it or anything but I was intrigued that there was such a thing.

The part of the book I did read was about Maundy Thursday. You see, today is Maundy Thursday. It is a commemoration of a really important day in Christian History. Here's what Richard Wagner says in Christianity For Dummies...

"Within the midst of the Easter season, Maundy Thursday — the Thursday before Easter — is one Christian holy day that many Christians and even many churches often overlook, yet it symbolizes a critically important truth of the Christian faith: Jesus as a suffering servant and the call for his followers to do the same. It also draws a connection between the Passover sacrifice, a Jewish tradition, and Jesus Christ’s sacrificial role on the cross."

As I mentioned before, this week is called Holy Week for many Christians. It starts with Palm Sunday when we are talking about Jesus returning to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, a Jewish day celebrating God's freeing of the Israelites (aka Jewish or Hebrew people) from slavery from the Egyptians. That event took place generations before, during Old Testament/Torah times. So, Jesus is in Jerusalem and he and his disciples had a Passover Supper together. They had probably each done this with their own families every year prior. This year it was to be much more than that, though they didn't really quite get it yet. You see, this event took place just the night before Jesus was to be crucified.

Jesus used this last night to give instructions to his disciples. He was preparing them for his death. I expect much of what he taught them didn't fully make sense until after the horror of his crucifixion took place. He told them more about his purpose and he prepared them for the Holy Spirit that would be with them when Jesus returned to heaven. He showed them how to become as servants to one another; he himself washed their feet. That takes real humility.

Tonight there will be many Christian Churches around the world who will be having foot washing ceremonies. It isn't really pretty. Humility isn't always pretty. 

Another very important thing he did, then, was to share the bread and wine with his disciples in a new way. This is where Christians get what we now refer to as communion. It is all about Jesus' sacrifice for us with the bread being his body and the wine being his blood. I know it sounds a bit ghoulish but it is really quite beautiful, a physical way to remember we have taken Jesus into ourselves. We refer to that event as the Last Supper. Christian churches around the world will also be serving communion tonight, as well as any given Sunday of the year.

It was also that night that Jesus gave a command (the word Maunday comes from the Latin word for command, mandatum) that is both beautiful and difficult to follow:

John 13:34-35

New International Version (NIV)

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

I can't quite imagine what that night was like for Jesus. He loved these friends and he knew that they were going to have some rough times ahead of them, to say the least. He also knew that one of them was about to betray him. He knew that he was about to suffer a lot of physical and emotional pain. From the Bible we know that he didn't want to have to go through that. He did it out of obedience to God and out of love for us. That is such a great lesson to us for how we are to behave, basing our actions always out of obedience to God and love for one another. Easier to say than to do.

So you see, Maunday Thursday represents something very basic to Christianity. It ties together events from the Old Testament and the New Testament. It sets into motion changes that have a powerful impact on Christians now, all these years later. I've just barely touched on the main points. There is so much depth to the teaching from that night, I hope you will want to know more.

To read more about that Thursday, Jesus Last Supper and his instructions for his disciples and us, please click here, here, here or here. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each wrote about that night.

photos from freedigitalphotos.net by Stuart Miles, Evgeni Dinev, Dan and Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee

Celebrating One of God's Surprises

Yesterday at our church we celebrated 3 years in our current building.  A new building for a church is a big thing, no doubt, but we acquired this new and lovely building quite by accident.  Let me tell you about it.

Our congregation was meeting in a much-loved but way-too-small building. Our congregation supported a preschool so our space was shared.  What that meant was that every Sunday the preschool chairs, tables, toys, etc. had to be moved back in our fellowship hall so that grown-up sized tables could be set up.  This switcheroo happened after every meeting, wedding or any gathering. We had 4 small classrooms - not enough. Our junior high class met behind  a divider rolled out to give the feeling of a room just outside the bathroom doors.  It was noisy and keeping the kids' attention was difficult. Other classes had to make do as well.  I remember one creative teacher using a pop-up tent in the entryway for her little preschool class!  Again, noisy and awkward...but creative for sure!

 We were fundraising to add on to the building.  Those in charge were working hard to plan this addition as there were some big challenges.  The main challenge was space.  Our parking lot was already too small and we were rather land-locked with other nearby buildings.  Adding onto our existing building without sacrificing parking was going to be tough.

One day my pastor/husband called me at work to tell me of a very weird occurrence.  The pastor of another congregation of another denomination had asked my husband to come up to meet with him.  Mike had no idea what to expect and not for a second did he guess what was coming.  The other pastor's congregation met in a very large building just a few blocks from our's.  Their property was beautiful!  The problem was, their congregation had suffered a split and was greatly diminished in numbers.  They no longer used their big sanctuary as it was too expensive for them to heat the entire building.  They met in their fellowship hall.  Downstairs they had a wonderful place made especially for Sunday School AND preschool.   The other pastor had an idea... swap buildings.

When my husband called me, I must say, I instantly thought it was a God-thing.  Of course, it couldn't be a straight across swap.  Our congregation would need to take out a loan for the difference.  We'd then face larger heating and cooling bills ourselves.  The property was so over-the-top lovely to us.  Could it be possible?  It would be like someone offering you a mansion to live in.  How could we make it happen?

When this idea came before our congregation, there were differing opinions.  The money concern was of course the biggest obstacle.  Also, there was a lot of sentimental attachment to the old building.  For instance, people had used memorial money, honoring loved ones, toward the stained glass windows.  It hurt them to think of leaving those behind.

The new building was so much bigger than what we actually needed at that time.  Was it reasonable to consider such a big leap of faith?  If we acquired it, would our congregation grow enough to fill it up or would we just rattle around in it?

Well, we took the leap.  About 6 months after that pastor called Mike for the first meeting, we were moving in.  It was a weird move as well.  The two congregations had to move at the same time.  We'd pass each other hauling things out while they were hauling things in.  We helped each other.  The two groups made friends and worked together.  It was a lot of hard work but also kind of fun.  Even now, 3 years later, we still feel "related" to that other congregation.

Yesterday's gathering was fun.  I did not ask permission to show faces so I won't.  Trust me, though, people were smiling.  We'd invited people from the neighborhood as our guests so it was a fun mix of people we knew and some we were just meeting.  After our worship service and Sunday School we enjoyed a lovely picnic.

After all the fun I was wandering around in the building, waiting for Mike.  I took photos of two things that held special significance for that celebration.  The first is this cross.  It used to hang from the ceiling over the alter at our old building.  It was kind of the focal point of our previous worship space.  The other congregation, planning their remodel, did not plan to use it.  When we moved, the cross came with us and now one of the first things seen upon entering our new building.

Another cool thing are these photos.  They hang in our prayer room.  A member of our congregation took these photos of the stained glass windows we had to leave behind.  What a fine idea!

The best part of this whole story is of course, the people.  When the idea was first proposed, there were people who spoke against it.  Their reasons were solid, including worrying about finances.  However, when the congregation voted to go ahead with the plan, those who were once opposed became some of the hardest workers to make it come to fruition.  I thought that was absolutely beautiful to see!

There have been things to work out and issues to resolve.  Our congregation has gone through some trials along the way.  After three years, though, we are still celebrating this cool God thing that happened to us!