Jonah and the Whale

No, no, no, no my friends. It is not Jonah and the Whale. The story is about Jonah and God. The whale takes up 2 verses out of 4 chapters. Dr. David Kemp, my college Bible teacher made sure we learned that. I think we Christians like to have our two verses though. We like to pick out things from the Bible and make them the whole Bible. We like to take little themes and make them big.
But what are the big themes in the Bible. The Bible is a story afterall and stories have to have main themes. What are those in the Bible (I have my thoughts, but I want to hear from you guys first).

Asking for Support

I have always wanted to be like Hudson Taylor who trusted God for every penny and never asked others for a penny. As a missionary, you pretty much start out your career asking for money full time by presenting your ministry. So now that we are here, if we lack money, do we ask men or God? I was talking to a friend about this and said that I did not think that I had the faith to just trust God as Taylor did. He was in situations where he gave away his last coin. I have never been in a situation like that. God has always provided beforehand for me.
So the question I pose to you all is: at what point do you ask others for help, or should that point never happen because we are just supposed to trust God?

God's Will

This Sunday morning, our Sunday school class got into a discussion about God's will. It was kind of random, but it was good. On Wednesday, I am actually doing a Bible study on Living God's Will with at least one other guy. When it comes to knowing God's will, our feelings can get complicated. Ideas about knowing how to tell God's will are all over the place. I have always followed Psalm 37:4, Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." I think that is saying that if we are walking with God and following what the Bible tells us to do, we will be able to do whatever we want to do! It sounds much simpler than it plays out, but God wants us to work on our relationship with Him and the rest will play out. There are so many verses in the Bible that talk about what God's will in our lives is. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. That is enough to keep you busy for a while.
As we work on our relationship with Christ, God will guide us in those major "will of God" decisions that we must go through (like school, career, marriage and if you should just stop rooting for the Detroit Lions all together). God sends godly counselors our way to help us out with those decisions and He promises us wisdom if we ask for it (James 1:5).
God has called all of us to serve Him. I was going to say some part time and some full time, but really, we are all full time. At work we should be constantly serving Him, no matter if you are a Pastor, secretary, construction worker, painter, plumber or whatever. We are all to be a full time Christian. I count myself extremely blessed to serve Him and get paid for it! So if you are faced with a tough decision, be sure to be seeking God through prayer and Bible reading, seek godly counsel and then trust God to lead you to the right decision.

First born

So I have long been a fan of studying birth order. It really intrigues me. Since there is a seven year gap between my older brother and me, I am considered by birth order specialists to be a first born (in my characteristics). I read Lehman's book a few years ago and really felt he was talking about me.
The last couple of days I have wondered if there is a correlation between a couple of observations. Firstborns are generally perfectionists and more responsible amongst other things. Then when you look at new parents; they are generally really careful with their first child. They don't want to do anything wrong and take all the precautions like boiling pacifiers, getting the right schedule down and making sure everything is done by the books. After the first child I have heard that these precautions ease up as they realize the baby will live without all these tedious tasks.
What do you guys think; is there a link between these two observations?

New Baby!

At around 3:30 on Sunday morning Sarah and I had both woken up, which had been the norm the last couple of months. Sarah had some back pains and then decided to go to the bathroom. She thought that her water broke, but was not for sure until she laid back down and started to have contractions. We both took a shower and prepared everything to leave. Sarah said that it was like getting ready for going to Six flags because of getting up early and being so excited. Sarah even did her hair, which she claimed was not as far fetched to do while in labor as her aunt who also did her make-up. Southerners, unbelievable. We grabbed everything (except Sarah’s purse that had all her ID’s in it) and our friend Monica met us at our apartment to go with us. Being that it was 4:30 in the morning, traffic was fortunately light. Upon arriving, we sent Monica back the 40 minute drive to get Sarah’s ID (thanks Monica) and I dealt with the payment stuff while Sarah got checked out upstairs. Unfortunately, insurance proved to be a pain again, but the staff here was very kind. In our tour of the hospital, we were shown the five rooms Sarah would be switched to through labor and her stay in the hospital. But after the first check up room, they moved her straight to the labor room because she was having a quick labor. After the contractions got worse and worse, we had the anesthesiologist come and give her some shots (not an epidural) and that relieved the pain enough for her to really be able to push more. For a while Evelyn would pop back up every time Sarah pushed her down, but after the doctor told Sarah she would have to have a C-section if Evelyn did not come out soon, she came out on the next contraction. I have never seen Sarah so relieved, excited and happy all at the same time in my life. I have also never been more proud of her. She did a great job and we were so excited. It took Evelyn a while to warm up after her bath, but it did not seem to worry any of the nurses. Soon after weighing, measuring, footprinting, bathing and warming her she arrived in her mother’s arms again.
We praise God for this little miracle He has entrusted us with for this passing moment. We had wanted Sarah’s mom and sister to be here to witness the birth, but once we arrived at the hospital, we found out that they would only have been able to come in once, one on one day, and the other on the next from 3-5 in the afternoon. The swine flu has scared people down here into making some crazy little rules. So the actual date of their arrival, Tuesday, will actually work out perfect because it will be our first day at home. So it has been neat to see God’s sovereignty in even the little things in life!

Truths about child birth

Here are some facts about child birth:
1. The birth is a painful process. Everyone knows that one.
2. The baby is born ugly. When the doctor pulled Evelyn out it looked like she was holding a cat by its back. She just kind of threw this blue and red bulge onto Sarah’s lap while my thoughts drifted to the books that said they weren’t pretty when they came out. I thought I was prepared for that, but I didn’t know she would look that bad. Even after a bath she still had spots over her and was a little discolored.
3. The baby poops tar for a couple of days. It looks disgusting and the baby actually loses weight the first day. I think Evelyn lost like half a pound.
4. Realization that you have a huge responsibility in caring for a child occurs shortly after the birth, or at least it should. I tried to pray about it, but my eyes kept tearing up thinking about that responsibility.
5. Nurses and doctors are great. I know that generally they are helping people and make good money, but they do so many “dirty” jobs with so much grace.

Missionary Interviews #1- Niles in Togo

I recently emailed several missionaries about sharing some of their experience on the field. I wrote down several questions for them to answer. The first missionaries to respond were Alain and Katherine Niles. We got to know them during Field Prep Seminar last April and they were a big blessing. They have a great heart for the people and here is what they had to say:

1. In a short paragraph, can you sum up what your ministry is all about:
We are living in Mango, Togo. Our ministry is to empower the Tchokossi people to follow God in all aspects of life. One of our main objectives is to see this Hospital project completed here in our town.

2. What inspired you to be involved in missionary work?
We both grew up on the mission field and have a desire to work with Muslims

3. How has your adaptation to the culture gone?
Still adapting I suppose...The most difficult is knowing we will never really fit in because of our skin color. One other difficulty is the heat...it's a killer

4. And the language, how has that been?
Language is tricky, it is a tonal language which means the change of tone in my voice can change the meaning of the word. Since Katherine is pregnant we have learned to tell people she is expecting, in their language they say "she is holding her stomach" or "she tripped on a rock" or "she is carrying luggage" the list just keeps going...

5. Any good stories from you messing up the language?
Katherine was teaching some students and mispronounced the name of one young man which was suppose to be Koku, instead she said Kodu which means banana. It was fun to see his expression as she continued to call him Banana throughout the whole morning. We just hope he wasn't too insulted.

6. What are the main ministry opportunities you have?
we are simply building relationships and living out our walk with God for others to see.

7. Are there any out of the box ideas you are thinking about doing for ministry?
Going back to taking time to invest in the lives of people. Walking through their difficulties and joys with them.

8. Put a plug in here for recruitment: what opportunities are available on your field?
many opportunities for medical staff to get this hospital going. You don't want us to be involved in the medical work...

Let me know if you would like to hear more from Alain and Katherine's work. I love receiving their update emails. I always think of them as real missionaries with the tough language they have to learn, heat to fight and real pioneer work that they are doing.