God is not Goldilocks

Here it is, New Years Eve Day and a Sunday. I am home from church today with a terrible sinus cold. It is beginning to feel like an infirmary around here. After Shannon and I were sick last weekend I went directly into this yucky cold and Molly ended up with a stomache virus this past week too.

Since I am home, I found myself thinking about last weeks sermon at church. Last week, all 5 of our pastors gave the sermon with each of them talking about a diferent part of the Christmas story. For example, Pastor Bruce spoke on Zacharias and Elizabeth, Pastor Jon spoke about Mary and another pastor on Joseph, the wisemen, ect. One thing that has really stuck in my mind this week came from Pastor Jon's portion of the sermon but applies to all of the portions of it. His mini-message that God is not Goldilocks. What does that mean you say? Well, unlike Goldilocks, God does not look at a person and say, "too small, too uneducated, too poor or too insignificant." God looks at a person, any person that is willing to do His will, no matter their age, education, finances or geographical position, and He says, "Just right!" If we are willing to do His will and follow Him, we too can be "just right." I find that thought very comforting as Shannon and I have fretted over our lack of education and finances, as well as all of the other seemingly impossible things that need to be overcome to go to Tanzania long-term.

Tonight we will go to my(Christine's) parents home for a New Years Eve celebration, joining other friends and relatives to eat yummy food and play games and visit. We will drive there on a brand new fresh coat of bright white snow, really the first significant snow of the winter. We want to wish you who are reading here a very Happy New Year and may all of your New Years goals for Christ be reached.

Merry Belated Christmas!

Oops! I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas on the day and planned to do so but our weekend didn't go completely as planned. Saturday I worked as expected and Shannon got some electrical work done in the basement. On Sunday, Christmas Eve, we went to the 9AM church service where I sang for choir and Collin worked in Kids Church. Then we drove out to my(Christine's) parents home to celebrate Christmas with them. We had our traditional Christmas meal of hot oil fondue. This has been a family tradition since I was a child in the early 70's so I don't remember ever not having it. We cooked steak, marinated steak, meatballs with cheese in them and smokies dipped in a breading batter. Everything was yummy. We also had salad, baked potatoes and french bread cubes dipped in a chipped beef dip. After clean up we had fun opening gifts with mom and dad and my sister and her boyfriend. We all thought it was funny as we opened gifts we asked if we'd say, "Can I borrow that when you're done with it?" We gave my dad a DVD we wanted to borrow and I got several books from my mom and sister that they wanted to read. Shortly after opening gifts I got very sharp stomache pains and ended up spending the rest of the day off and on the toilet. That evening, my sister ended up sick with vomiting. Then Christmas Day I was still fighting the bug when it kicked in on Shannon. He ended up home from work today too with it. Needless to say, I didn't get here to post due to how I was feeling.

I hope everyone reading this was able to havea good Christmas visiting with family and friends and enjoying each other while remembering Jesus' birthday. Collin was again a shepherd but this time in our church Christmas Eve service. Unfortunately I missed it as I was home sick.

I still don't have my Christmas letter sent out. It is looking like it will be a New Year letter. I hope it doesn't become a Presidents Day letter. We did send email greetings to some of our overseas friends and heard back from one today. Alex is the nephew of Pastor Richard in Tanzania. He was Pastor Richard's "right hand man" while Shannon, Collin and the team were there in September. We believe he will be pretty involved in the ministry when we get over there and look forward to spending time with him. I want to share with you a bit of what he wrote as he talks about Christmas preparations. He also speaks of flooding. Tanzania has two rainy seasons. When it is rainy, it is really rainy and the rest of the year it is a drought. I have left his writing in his original self-taught English spelling.
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may this CHRISTMAS SEASON be filled with precious moment of of joy and happiness to your family as you are celebrating the precious memory of the coming of our Lord Jesus the savior to save the world.as what says in luke 2:11and wish all the best success and cheerish love in saving the Lord inthe coming new year 2007.

here in mwanza everybody was busy since 20th of december,buying new cloth for kids and women for christmas as well as cards,flowers,some food etc, even though it has been a defficult season with much rainfall to extend that some of the areas here in tanzania has been affected with floods,some roads and brigdes has been destroyed.but we thank God at least on 24th,25th and 26th the rain has hold on for a while atleast to give a chance to people to celebrate in good harmony.

Again here in mwanza everybody is doing fine pasor Richard and Getrude are moving forward with the ministry and the church is growing well.

that's all for today but i will be intouch with often.
love to you'

Alex
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Please pray for the people of Tanzania, especially the children on the streets as they weather the current rainy season. Shannon and I wish you a joyous and blessed New Year and we look forward to another year of living for Jesus.

Now it's time to get ready for Christmas...3 days before it!

....Big long drawn out sigh...After 7 choir musical performances in 10 days at church I am now beginning to get ready for Christmas. I have spent this week frantically baking, wrapping and shopping in addition to homeschooling and trying to get the house picked up and laundry clean again. I still haven't written our Christmas letter although I have started it and have all of the envelopes stamped and adressed. It is looking like our letter will not arrive at most destinations until after Christmas this year. I figure everyone will have more time to read it then anyway. Through all of the hoopla though, I must say though that both Collin and I had a blast participating in the musical even though it took up a lot of our time. Every performance was a full house meaning over 7,000 people attended.

Last night Shannon got an email from his prophetic emai list called The Elijah List that really struck home with both of us. I want to share it with you, in its entirity. My hope is that there are others here readinng this that will be encouraged to make their own life changing decisions.
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John Paul Jackson: "NAVIGATING THE CROSSROADS--WHICH WAY IS GOD'S CHOICE?"

"Every choice we make will either lead us toward God or away from Him."

Life Changing Decisions

Many, many people in the Body of Christ are right now struggling with important decisions that will directly or indirectly affect every step they take after this. They aren't little, general decisions about which in-laws should be visited this Christmas. They are the "to-move-or-not-to-move" decisions--occupation decisions; they are life decisions.
A whole host of questions come up in the process at the cliff's edge--do I run or take the plunge? Is this even the right cliff? Is there a "correct" way in this? What if I get it wrong? If I go right, will I be in sin? If I go left, will I successfully cut off my destiny forever?

Have you ever asked yourself questions like these before? I have. We make choices every day. We make them for the dark, and we make them for the light. We choose God, and we choose our soul which is darkness.

Sometimes we choose the soul thinking it's spirit, and we reject the spirit because we think it's soul. But the more we mature in Him, the more time we will spend in the light, and the choices we make will be the light and life of the world!

Said a little differently, every choice we make will either lead us toward God or away from Him. That is how He set up our world to work and function. This is why the littlest choice we make, even just a teeny one, can open the floodgates of Heaven in our life. He takes the little we give Him and makes it a great thing.

A Deep Abiding Confidence

"Even if things didn't turn out the way we'd anticipated, we would know that they happened the way they did for a reason."

That being said, how many of us live a life that oozes a deep, abiding confidence that God really is all-powerful and, therefore, really in control of everything? If we truly believed this, we would never worry about the questions in the first paragraph. It wouldn't be that we'd suddenly have all the right answers or know, without a doubt, one thing from the next, but we would trust completely. Even if things didn't turn out the way we'd anticipated, we would know that they happened the way they did for a reason.

This type of thinking evidences deep spirituality that comes only from the Holy Spirit of the Living God. All you have to do is make the right choice--one choice at a time, and it starts with choosing Jesus.

There is no enlightened thinking outside of choosing Him! There is no true knowledge outside of the knowledge that comes from Him. There is no holiness; there is no righteousness; there is no lasting power of any kind outside of Him. The problem is that we have limited what He can do for us because of our unbelief. That has to change!

How many of us have a deep, underlying faith that the decision we make today is really God's choice for us? In making it, we simply discovered God's choice. Even if it doesn't turn out as we wanted it to, God still chose it because He wanted us to learn something we did not know.
Don't worry about the questions you have. Is your Father able to take care of you? Yes! Take what you know and rest in Him.

He is more powerful than you could ever know, and He really is in complete control of your world.

John Paul Jackson
Streams Ministries International
www.streamsministries.com

Permission is granted (and you are also encouraged) to reprint these articles in hard copy form, as well as sending them to your own email lists and posting them on your own websites. We ask only that you keep Elijah List website, email contact info, and author contact information intact.

Elijah List Ministries
Email: elministries@elijahlist.net
Phone: 1-866-967-3665 or (541) 967-3665

A Very Busy but Proud Mommy

I know "pride goeth before a fall" but it is ok for a mom to be proud of her kids at times, isn't it? Tis the season for busyness and having children adds to the activity level. In the past week---
-Collin has been a shepherd at our Nights of Music at church for three performances, a dad in a skit with the children's pastor in kid's church and sang a beautiful solo in his school choir Christmas concert in his rich, low, bass voice. Many of us were surprised at how low he can sing at his age.
-Molly performed in Kid's church as a part of the "stix" ministry. In stix the performers use white dowel type sticks to act out a song. It is a really neat performance. She was also in a kids choir performance for two church services where they sang several songs to the congregation.
-Evan was involved in the puppet show during kid's church. His puppet was one of the kings and had blue hair and an orange face. The puppets "sang" A King is Born. It was very cute. He was in the kids choir performance for two services along with Molly. He also rang bells for the Salvation Army at the mall one evening with his church group.
-Star had a part and sang in her school Christmas program. She spoke her lines as clearly as any of the kids and did very well. She was also in the same kids choir performance with Molly and Evan at church twice.
-Brandon was tremendously busy at his group home where he goes each weekend. He went bowling, saw the Santa semi, and visited the YMCA to play basketball twice. The school as well as us noticed that he was tired early this week as he rcovered from the activity level there.
-I was in the choir at our church singing in three performances of the Nights of Music. This year we are doing the play, The Christmas Shoes and we are already hearing testimonies of how it is affecting people's lives. Each night we have had a full house of well over 1,000 in attendance with people sitting in the aisles and stairways. It has been tremendously fun and I find it a real honor to perform for my Lord.
-Shannon, well he has been working full-time+ as normal and beeen driving to and from all of these things every evening except one this past week.
-It looks like next week will be busy too as Collin and I have 4 more Nights of Music performances, our family has a choir dinner to attend, Shannon's parents are finishing up their business auction on Friday and there are a few other things to wrap up(no pun intended) before Christmas.

I am nearly done with our Christmas shopping but have a couple of online orders to place today. Most of the presents are wrapped and under the tree and the shaking, squeezing and attempts at peeking have begun.

It makes a difference to this one

As I've thought the past couple of days about the last paragraph of my most recent post, I've had a lot of sadness about the orphans we will not be able to help. According to the United Nations, there are 143 million orphans in the world. That looks like this- 143,000,000! Over 43 million of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa with that number growing daily due to the huge HIV/AIDS crisis there.

I have had to remind myself of a story I heard many years ago, called The Starfish Story. This tale becomes more and more meaningful to me as I think on it more in regards to our upcoming ministry. I'd like to share it with you. If you have heard it before, I hope you can agree with me it applies well here.

As the old man walked along the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them back into the sea. Finally catching up to the youth, he asked why he was doing this. The answer was that the starfish would die if left until the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," said the old man. "How can your efforts make any difference?" The young man looked up the endlessly stretching starfish covered beach and then at the starfish in his hand. Then he threw it safely in the waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said.

Christmas decorating

As we enter the Christmas season I can't help but wonder if this will be our last Christmas in Minnesota for awhile. Only God knows for sure if we will be in Tanzania this time next year but it is fair to say that at this point, we are hoping to be there by then. It grieves me to think of being away from extended family and church family, snowy Minnesota(well usually we have some by Christmas) and "home." I remember well when Shannon and I were in the military and stationed in California, away from everyone and everything we knew, how sad we were to be away. I can't imagine how much more diferent it will be to be in a completely diferent culture with diferent foods as well.

All of the missionaries I know recommend taking some of your holiday decorations(any holiday) along to your new home to help it feel more like home during those seasons. I suppose when I pack the decorations away in January I will need to sort them into "get rid", "storage" and "take-along" boxes. I have already found a few things I am going to put on eBay now, knowing they will be worth more now than next summer. Then there are those things like our huge 6-pointed Star of David that Shannon welded and we hang each year from our TV antenae. Obviously, we wont bring it along but if we leave it here with the house will the new owner use it and apreciate it?

As sad as it all makes me, the idea of spending Christmas next year with orphans that maybe would have nowhere else to sleep or eat is tremendously exciting to me. As we read the Christmas story to them, will it be the first time they have ever heard it? As we feed them Christmas dinner will it be thier first Christmas with a full tummy? As we cuddle and hug and put them to bed, wil it be the first time they have felt loved? These thoughts are what help me realize that even in Tanzania, we will still be home for Christmas.

Continuing on towards the goal

A post I wrote a couple of weeks ago talked about the waiting game. We were having a hard time connecting with people and things seemed to be moving slowly. Since that time not a lot has happened but we have found out a few things. In regards to the meeting Pastor Richard had planned with the city about the land, he did meet with them. They discussed the land and our vision and a member of the city council will be meeting with him, likely this week, to go out and see the land and talk in more detail about it. Please continue to pray for favor in regrds to the land.

We have also been trying for several weeks to get in touch with the couple that has a well drilling rig somewhere in Tanzania. We found out about this couple through another couple at our church. Their parents know these people that brought a well-drilling rig to Africa to drill wells for needy villages as a missions work. At the time, Shannon and I thought that it was very unlikely this rig would be anywhere near where we needed it, but were surprised to find later that it is in Tanzania. Anyway, our efforts to reach these people had been in vain but we recently found out that it is because they are currently there, in Tanzania, drilling wells right now. They are in a village somewhere near Arusha which is not terribly far from Mwanza. They are supposed to return home in the next week or so, so we will catch them later.

Just this past week, we had a meeting with Wayne and Debra. We discussed in more detail our hopes for the ministry. We talked about the ages of children we would care for(birth and up, we do not want to turn any away), buildings(possibly smaller homes with a widow in each one raising a group of children like a family, or dorm-like settings), timelines, budgets, fundraising and other things. Shannon and I are going to be contacting some ministries we are already aware of and getting suggestions. We are also going to be looking into things like international health insurance for our family and ways we can possibly get some grants to hep with the bulidings.

It amazes me how on a nearly daily basis, Shannon and I are reminded that we are headed in the right direction. Whether it is a bible verse or passage in our daily devotions or bible classes, something someone says in passing, sometimes even from a stranger completely unaware of our plans, a magazine article, a church sermon or radio program or any number of other ways, God just keeps nudging us and our hearts towards the orphans of Africa. We are both so confident that at this point there is no turning back, that neither of us would ever have a peace if we didn't go.

We will continue on towards Mwanza, not sure of the exact timeline but hoping it is soon. We just want it to be God's timeline and His plan, knowing that if it isn't, it will never work out.