He is Risen! and a word about “The Shack”

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

This morning myself and a few teammates ventured off to Kentucky, just a 5 min drive across a bridge, with blankets and a guitar in tow to worship in Easter. Although it’s a little strange not having Easter following the actual passover, I suppose everyday, really is Easter when you know Jesus. Hallelujah for a living God!

We journeyed up to this giant cross that stands high above the Mississippi and Ohio river and watched the sunrise as we sang “Amazing Grace”. It was cold, but beautiful and a good vantage point to see the great flooding that is taking place in our region. Cairo hasn’t been effected too much, we haven’t had much flooding in town, and we praise the Lord for that.

This photo shows a little bit of the flooding. In it you will see a slight line of trees seeming to jet out from the left and right side of the photo. Generally there is not water on the other side of these trees – the Mississippi should only be flowing in the front of the photo, not behind those trees. There is usually a small beach in front of the trees.

Join me in praying for the many in the midwest who are facing the worst of the flooding with loss of homes, family, and belongings.

After our impromtu sunrise service, we headed to our respective houses and at ours enjoyed some yummy pancakes. One of our teammates, Heather C. had passed on a book to us, “The Shack”. It’s a fictional novel about a man who’s youngest daughter is abducted on a family camping trip. There is evidence that she may have been brutally murdered at a shack out in the woods. She is presumed dead and four years later the father gets a letter in the mailbox that seems to be from God, asking this man to meet God at the shack. What he encounters there changes his life forevever…and maybe mine too. We read the book outloud to each other all day and finished it around 5pm this evening. It is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend it. If you liked “Redeeming Love” this book is probably even more impactful that that one was, and that one still remains one of my favorites. I walked away from the book with a renewed sense of the goodness and joy of God. I will warn you though, we sobbed a bit through some of the chapters (in a good way). I think I will read it again before the weeks over.

God is moving.

I have not been too good at writing down stories from the past couple of weeks. God has been loving on people left and right and allowing us to see His goodness around us. I’m going to put a link to some of my teammates stories as she has been very faithful to keep track of these testimonies. I pray they will encourage you as much as they have me!

Prayers for “V”
Men’s Bible study welcomes newest member, grandma!
Our alcoholic friend returns to our worship time, sober, and with many family members…his life is transforming in front of our eyes!

I have been meditating on the power of God’s love lately. I think, my biggest desire for my life is that I would love God more and more as the days go on and learn to love others more and more like Him as the days go on. Seems like simple plan, you know? But I’ve found it to be not really the easiest task for me. As I began this past week I had time in the prayer room with Heather C. and my one real prayer request was “I want to love God more.” I didn’t even really know what that meant or how exactly I could practically go about doing that. But the remarkable thing was, after we prayed I had this increase in love for those around me, almost immediately. I began to identify so many things in my teammates that I was thankful for – reasons they were so precious to our team and so purposeful to my life and this ministry for this season. Not one was called her unintentionally. All great gifts.

I began to have a greater love for this community with sweet moments to pray for people all over town and worship on the streets for my audience of One. Inside me grew such a delight to begin to tell others how they were so loved by God. I had the great privilege of sharing the gospel again to a group of kids at the projects and throughout the week I just found myself so thankful for opportunities to be a mouthpiece of God’s love towards others. As I funneled His love through my little life, it was easy to funnel it back to Him, and I began to see this wonderful mystery of loving my God more, by loving those He loves, more.

I pray that God would continue to give me boldness to step out to speak of His love and to demonstrated it with extravagance to His people.

I adopted a Who!

This weekend our team went and saw “Horton Hears a Who!” which had us in stiches the whole time. Great movie in my book and uber funny. It was a delightful film that spoke to me of the significance of LIFE! A person IS a person no matter how small, and the faith of one who would stand for those who had no voice. There were also a lot of other powerful images and messages nicely tucked in for eyes and ears that were able to catch them. Someone must have been praying over this one ;o).

I adopted a Who!

HW Widget – Girl – Live

from the mouth of babes

Every Tuesday a few of our staff venture over to Elmwood projects and run something we call “Clubhouse”. We do a Bible study followed by activities (such as crafts, physical fitness, knitting, board games, etc.) for a small group of elementary school kids.

I really love hanging out with the kids, they crack me up and I love watching them discover God a little bit more each week.

One of the little tikes in particular is a constant source of glee. He is a VERY bright second grader with matter-of-fact comments, a child like innocence, and dimples to die for. The kid kills me every week with at least one good liner. But this past week was a feast. We walked through the Gospel this week trying to plant some more seeds. Here were the best lines from my favorite little “M”.

After watching a short video on the gospel, I asked the kids what they remembered from the video. There were several verses that had come up on the screen and M replied. “I remember it said that Jesus died to give us INTERNATIONAL life.” I agreed that God may in fact take them around the globe ;o) but I think it said “eternal”. hee hee.

On sin. “Sin is like a little black ball inside of you and the more you sin the bigger it gets until finally it takes over you and sends you to hell.”

On Heaven. “No one knows exactly what it looks like, but if you close your eyes and ask Jesus, He’ll give you a picture.”

On the necessity of Christ’s death. “If Christ didn’t die, we’d still have a sin problem.” little theologian.

Prior to Bible study he shared a story. “Yeah, last week I went outside with my little brother and it was cold, so I took off my coat and put it on him because momma always said to look after the little ones.”

From a few weeks ago…to the question what was Jesus’ body like after he rose from the dead. “It was a real body, and that guy came and touched the screws in his hands, and then Jesus went and ate a tuna fish sandwich.”

Next week, I may let “M” teach, and I’ll just sit and learn from him.

More than I could hope for or imagine…

This week our staff along with some friends in the region are entering into an intense time of prayer for raising up 24/7 prayer in the region as well as preparation for 50 days of 24 hour prayer here in Cairo this summer! We have seen God’s faithfulness so much in this place of prayer and He continues to lead us into new seasons of obedience in this. Please keep us in your prayers this week especially for wisdom and guidance for the Lord in these new endeavors, for opportunities to love on people in this community in Christ, and to hear from the Lord.

Today was quite a day. My supporter from Colfax was back in Cairo today to deliver us a cow ). See “leap year” entry below. We now have two freezers stuffed with over 650 pounds of beef!! Including steak and prime rib, what?!! Amazing. He even tossed in some pork. What a blessing!! I know we will enjoy feasting on such delicacies, but I’m also so excited to be able to bless others in the community with this precious gift! (Addendum: I think it’s quite funny that in my “vision” from my “leap year” entry when I called the cows, I actually used a pig call, “sou-ee”, and then we ended up getting some pork with our beef ;o) hee hee.)

In addition to bringing us a fresh cow, Harlen also felt led to support me for the entire year!!!! That’s right, folks, I am now FULLY supported for this year of ministry, and on top of that, he gave me a raise ;o), more than I was asking for each month. AND it doesn’t stop there….Harlen also felt led to support some of the other staff here at Two Rivers too. Blessings all around!

Kristy pointed out during our staff meeting today that since the beginning of the year, the Lord has raised over $50,000 for our ministry, if you count support raising and other gifts – all without a grant. This is greatly freeing for any ministry! So, praise the LORD!!!

Thank you all again for your prayers, I can certainly tell that people are praying for me and this ministry. God is faithful to listen to hear our prayers.

Grab your sleds…

We had a lovely snow fall on Friday which blessed all the kids with a half day of school and our whole town with about 3 to 6 inches of snow. We woke up Saturday to a beautiful sunny sky, and grabbed “sleds”, some local kiddos, and headed for the levy. Probably one of the funniest days I’ve had in Cairo. Excellent. I particularly loved watching the kids really get into it, as many had never sledded before – watching them try and surf down the hill, have snow ball fights, sled races. I also loved Daisy in her parka, and letting Annabelle run free for a while. I throughly enjoyed using the lunch tray as a sledding apparatus. Good times. Nothing like a day out in the snow!