Week of Prayer 2012

It's the most wonderful time of the year! As the focus turns once again to the approaching Christmas holiday, it is time for something else that happens every year: the Week of Prayer for International Missions! This week we take time to stop and pray for the mission work going on around the world as a whole, and for specific ministries that are highlighted each day of the week. Prayer is vital to the success of the work that is ongoing across the globe and we are so thankful to those who are faithful to intercede on our behalf and on behalf of those who we are trying to reach. Thank you for your support. None of us could be here without you! 

Week of Prayer, Dec 2-9, 2012

Focus Scripture: Matthew 16:24-25, HCSB

Pastors brave threats and bombs in the Himalayas. In Central Asia, an IMB doctor’s greatest concern isn’t for safety but that his ministry will make a difference for the kingdom. A worker in war-torn Somalia of the ’90s knew he’d have to be willing to die for Jesus and spend years learning why believers in persecution grow unimaginably strong in the faith. 

Engaging people groups in the hard places comes with risk and sacrifice for all who obediently choose to be His heart, His hands, His voice. Most of us aren’t threatened because of our faith, but we need to be in prayer for those who are — not that persecution will end but that believers in persecution will stay courageous and bold.

Giving is also a call to obedience and sacrifice. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® enables IMB missionaries to live and work at the forefront of lostness and extend our witness through their full-time ministry.

Each of us and our churches are called continually to take the next step in our obedience so that Christ is glorified and to ask “What am I doing and what is my church doing to be obedient — to BE His heart, hands and voice, no matter the cost?”

Day 2:

Grace* shakes her head. Feathered earrings dance, framing her face with motion and color. She is a member of one of the indigenous tribes of South America and is talking about the future of her people.

There are outsiders who would keep them in something of a museum — as living history, she says — stuck in a time that has not been a reality for several generations. It’s not what she wants. Yet the identity of her people in the global community is not an easy issue. “A lot of our people don’t even know our [culture],” she says. “They say they do, but they hide behind it.”

She wants her people to move ahead — to “win.” She wants them to take advantage of all that is going on about them while retaining the best of their culture. That means having to change.

Grace and her tribe are among 3,400 unengaged, unreached peoples across the world. Nearly 400 are in South America. Isolated by language, culture, history and — in some cases, geography — they live mostly in small clusters of fewer than 3,000 people. Most will never have a missionary assigned to them. Yet the church is called to take the Gospel to all peoples.

Gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering allow IMB personnel to identify and understand these often forgotten people, offering Southern Baptist churches committed to embracing unengaged, unreached peoples a basis for beginning their work among them.

Pray that Grace’s people truly will “win” and have the opportunity to hear about their Savior.

Pray that your church will be one to embrace an unengaged, unreached people group that might not otherwise hear the Gospel. (Learn how at call2embrace.org.)

*Name changed.

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TWENTY TWELVE!

Here's a little more of what New Year's Eve in Lima looked like. I toasted with...what else...Dr. Pepper! Decided to craft some ridiculous headgear for skyping in the new year in a few different time zones. Also note that I am wearing a tank top with gold stripes because A) it's the only thing sparkly that I own in Lima, and B)...it was hot. Remember, it's summer here! Got up into the 80s today, and no A/C. 

You can also enjoy this video taste of the ridiculous unregulated fireworks going on across the city at all hours of the night. Keep in mind that you have to magnify the sound by a factor of about 20. And compared to Christmas eve, this was pretty tame:

I also really liked the Decemeber 31st entry in "My Utmost for His Highest," so I thought I would share.

"Security from Yesterday: "God requires that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders.  But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow: "For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our reward. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for Today. "For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the irreparable past in His hands, and step out into the irresistible future with Him." - Oswald Chambers


Bring it on, 2012! The God of Israel will go before us.

525,600 Minutes

It's something I've done pretty much every year since I was a kid, and maybe you do it to? At New Year's Eve I stop and reflect on the past year. I like to sit down and list out in my journal all the major events, or the things that stand out to me.  I think it's exceptionally interesting to look at a year in its entirety, see where it began, and where it ended, and to think of all the life that happened in just 525,600 minutes. Of course the small events of my life seem dwarfed when we look at the scale of world events in 2011:

 Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kim Jong Il are all dead. The space shuttle made its final flight. The middle east saw the upheaval of the "Arab Spring" uprisings. The horn of Africa suffered a devastating famine. Japan weathered the sudden tragedy of the major earthquake and tsunami and resulting nuclear disaster. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and forest fires seemed to touch every corner of the globe. Europe faced fiscal crisis while the U.S. struggled through its own economic woes and related protests. The world population surpassed 7 billion. U.S. troops finally left Iraq. Planes crashed, wars were fought, terrorists attacked, people murdered. 

In all, the world continued very much as it has since man first sinned. And those are the events by which the rest of the world will measure 2011. Of course we all have our own methods of weighing and measuring a year. What did I accomplish that I'm proud of? Did I achieve any goals? What were my favorite moments? What was fun? What was crazy and unexpected? What was difficult? Did I end up where I thought I would?

2011 was certainly not a dull year! Lots of change, lots of learning, lots of stretching, and some struggle along the way. I added Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela to my "Countries I've Visited" list. Learned a new language, made dozens of new friends who are scattered around the world, developed my abilities as a photographer, tried scuba diving, lazed on a Costa Rican beach, experienced a chilean rodeo, and made a new home in Lima. And we heard, saw, and shared lots of stories about how God is moving in Latin America. Lots of lots of blessings in 2011 for which to praise the Lord! 

Certainly there were sad and difficult parts of the year too, and I think it's important to reflect on those and praise the Lord for them as well. We appreciate the good times more when we have tasted of the bad. But also, looking back at the challenges that 2011 brought reminds me of the faithfulness of my Heavenly Father. He was there just as real and present in the tearful farewells and lonely moments as He was in times of rejoicing and laughing with friends. His faithfulness has never been contingent upon my circumstances. 

Of course, maybe boiling a year down to major events really isn't the best way to evaluate it. As I've been pondering, I'll admit I've had "Seasons of Love" stuck in my head from Rent. It asks a good question, "How do we measure a year?" And even more importantly, "How do we measure a life?"

Seasons of Love-

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes,

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Moments so dear

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, In cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love? How about love?How about love? 

Measure in love. Seasons of love.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned, Or in times that he cried

In bridges he burned, Or the way that she died

It's time now to sing out, Tho' the story never ends

Let's celebrate Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love.

So how do we measure it? 525,600 minutes? That's what we are handed every January 1st. (Of course this year will be fewer since the Mayan's have declared the world is ending, so you better really get busy!) It's a lot of minutes. But in the grand scheme of things, it's less than a breath, and we're not promised a single one of them. The song suggests that we measure it in love. It may be a secular song, but I have to say I don't think they are far off. What matters more than the goals we checked off, or the experiences collected, is how we lived the majority of minutes when nothing exceptional was happening at all. How did we love God, and how did we love others? How did we leverage the 525,600 minutes we were entrusted with to glorify God and share Him with the people around us? 

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 reminds us that, "Not all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." 

How our years, and ultimately our lives, will be measured is by whether we accepted the gift of salvation that is available to all men through Jesus's sacrificial death, and then, what we do with the new life we have in Christ after that. If I died today, how would my life measure up? How would yours?

Of course the really great thing about New Year's is that our time of reflection on the year past is also the time we consider the year to come. We evaluate our lives,  mull over changes to be made, and consider what we want to accomplish. As we go about the process of setting goals and making changes this year, let us be mindful of what really matters. Sure we can try to eat healthy, exercise, floss, drink more water, spend less time on facebook. Those are all good things, and could very well be honoring to God, but no matter what your resolutions are this year, remember to make your personal relationship with Christ your top priority. Unfortunately it's a lesson that I constantly struggle with. As Oswald Chambers writes, "There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill His purpose through our life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life." 

If you haven't put your trust in Jesus, I can think of no better way to begin a new year than with a new life in Christ. And if you have a personal relationship with Christ, I pray you'll use the new year to share the Good News with those around you and show His love in the way you live. 

May you be blessed abundantly in 2012 and may God be glorified in the year to come!

Happy New Year!