LIGHT-MY WORD FOR THE SEASON

The sunrise seeps through the trees oozing into the darkness of the pre-dawn sky. I sit and watch this almost every morning as the light invades the night. It is always amazing. There is something so divine about the sunrise, about light, about how it illuminates the darkness impartially. It can’t not shine it’s light into every corner or crevice. It overcomes darkness. 

And so it is with Jesus who is the Light of the world. He has come to overcome all darkness. John 8:12 says, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” He is the Light! When we know Him as the Life and therefore the Light, we will never walk in darkness. We walk in abundant life and never ending light. Light that illuminates all sin, all darkness and evil. We see clearly! We have no fear in the Light. We can walk in the world because we are in the Light. Friends, we need to make sure we are in the Light as 1 John 1:6 states, “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son purifies us from all sin.” 

What a glorious truth that Jesus would come to be the Light of the World and allow us to enter into this light and life through His blood that He freely gave! He came from heaven to be born of a woman and walked this earth, died and was resurrected! Knowing Him, we are therefore also lights unto this world, a “city on a hill” that we might “shine our light before men (Matt. 5:14-16). 

My prayer is that I can be that light, that beacon of hope to those around me. And that THE LIGHT will overflow from me as I walk in the path God puts before me everyday as the dawn overtakes the dark and the day begins. As I walk here in Wisconsin or in Zambia or anywhere in between, I walk into the world knowing I have the Light that overcomes. Let us boldly be that light, life and love to those around us and overtake the darkness with the Name above all Names, the Light of the World, Jesus. 

May you experience the Light of the World this Christmas season! May He illuminate your need for Him and may you bend your knee to a Savior born to the world, a baby in a manger. 

Many Blessings to you all! Merry Christmas!

Water

This week, as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving and as I walk around the beautiful Geneva Lake in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, I know that I have much to be thankful for. My family, my friends, this beautiful home that God miraculously provided for us and, based on a recent trip to Zambia, the abundance of water that we have available to us here in Wisconsin.
Reflecting back on my recent trip to Zambia, God presented to me something that I wasn’t completely prepared for. It seemed that the main theme of this trip was water. I have always known that water was an issue. On previous trips, I’ve seen the wells that are dug into the ground with used tires around them to announce their location and to keep debris from blowing into them. Sure, the water wasn’t the cleanest and safety was certainly a concern as many of them are not covered but there has always been water in them so the people of Chibolya at least had something. They may get sick from drinking it but maybe not, dirty water is no good but it isn’t necessarily a death sentence.

As I walked around with Issac, the headman of this community, he took me to 4 or 5 of these wells that I’ve seen many times before. This time, however, the wells were empty. No water for the community at all. In November, Zambia is in the tail end of their winter. There has been no rain since April or May, nothing to replenish the water table that has been falling since the last time it rained. I never really appreciated the value of water until I witnessed this first hand. Until I saw the wells, and the tanker trucks delivering water from the capital city which, for whatever reason, delivered the water to the communities across the road but not to the shanty community in which we have been called.

God showed this to me for, what I believe, a very specific purpose. Not necessarily to fix the problem but to show me that the problem is really much greater than water itself. Why has nothing been done about this? This isn’t a new problem for this community. Why hasn’t the Chieftainess done anything? Why hasn’t the Zambian government addressed this issue? Maybe the issue is too big for any of them to make any significant progress. Maybe their resources are already spread so thin that they just can’t afford to do anything. Whatever the case, something needs to be done. Or maybe, God wants so much more for this community.

John 4:13-14 states, “Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” NIV

This is my prayer for the community of Chibolya. That they may thirst for the water of eternal life. That God would seek them out and call them to repentance and to Himself so they may never thirst again. God is big enough to meet the physical needs of these people and we will continue to work toward solutions to ensure everyone has access to their most basic needs of food (water) and freedom while also focusing on their greatest need of all, forgiveness. 

A PERFECT NIGHT??

A fire, a cup of tea, a blanket and Jesus. Aloneness is right up my alley as I am an introvert and such a night would be a dream! Tonight, Ben is gone, Kate is working and Carter is at a friend’s house. I really can’t remember when I have had time like this in the recent months.

This time alone is usually something I relish and can’t wait for but tonight I actually had to work my way to where I was comfortable in it. I wondered if I should have invited someone over, or if I was “missing out” on anything somewhere. I actually contemplated what my life would look like if I was not on this road, If Ben and I were not in ministry. If we still had “real” jobs and money. Wondering where you are going to live next or how God is going to meet a need, is not the life most American suburbanized Mid-Westerner’s find attractive. I realized I needed to address this in my heart as I was walking around the house feeling very unsettled. I got on FB and then realized that is not how I wanted to spend my evening. I then sat down by the fire to write a brief update to a couple that has been praying for us. 

As I was writing, I realized I was divulging all my thoughts to them. There were words being typed that I did not know needed to be. And then the tears came. I did not know where these were coming from! Words like, “I feel very alone” were pouring out in the email. Well, of course you are! You are alone in your house by the fire! That should be a good thing! But these words were coming from a place in my heart that needed to be touched by Jesus, not by humans.The words to “I Need You” came to mind and I started to sing to Him. I just needed to sit and talk to Him. 

I know I have chosen this road, the road that goes the other direction from most. 

I do not wonder when I am going to have time for a manicure; or where we are going on vacation. I wonder how we are going to get the money we need to get back to Zambia and then I start thinking about the things I need to buy for people we know there, and my mind goes to future projects and the money that will be needed for those. What impact a safe house could have or the money to properly cover and protect the few wells in Chibolya so no children fall down them, or how to keep drainage from the shoddy built outhouses from entering the water in the wells 5 feet from them. These are things most people are not thinking about on a Saturday night. And that’s ok. 

Then I remember that I am exactly where God wants me, alone on a Saturday night with Him.  Addressing my needs with my Savior so I can then get up and address the needs of a dying world around me. He is truly all we need. He is enough. 

https://youtu.be/LuvfMDhTyMA

Just another piece to the puzzle

Last week, Kristin & me were talking with some friends of ours about how we remember our mothers putting puzzles together when we were younger. I used to enjoy helping my mom with the puzzles and I have great memories of searching through the pieces looking something that looked like it would fit somewhere on the table. That was the fun of it for me, finding the next piece, the realization that I’ve figured out what’s next. Many times, I’ve looked at my life with the same goal, to try and figure out how the pieces would fit together. Somehow, I felt that if I could figure it out, I could “help” God move me in the direction that He wants me to go.

However, in Isaiah 55:8-11, it becomes very clear that this is an impossible task.

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (NIV)

I have effectively given up trying to figure out how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Just when I think I see what God is doing, he either adds another 1,500 pieces or changes the puzzle all together. I know many people would struggle living a life where it seems that things are changing all the time but I love change, always have. The adventure of the unknown fits my personality and the way God created me quite well. I can’t tell you how many times in the last 10-15 years I have sat back and said to myself or someone in my family, “well, let’s see how God is going to work this out”. Every time I’ve said that, EVERY time, He has never let me down…ever. It may not have been what I thought it was going to be or what I thought it should be but it has always been exactly what I have needed and it has always exceeded my expectations.

Because of that, I will continue to follow God’s leadings wherever they may lead me and my family. Through our trips and future move to Zambia as well as our stay here in the US. Sometimes that’s a little scary and not knowing exactly where God is taking us is a faith journey for sure but when I look back at all the times that God has shown up and executed His perfect plan for us I am able to sit back and say, “look at that, that was God, He did that”. That is such a sweet place to be and it gives me the strength once again respond in faith, in total surrender to whatever God has in store for us next. My circumstances are just another piece of the puzzle, when God is done, the only thing left will be a beautiful portrait painted by Him and Him alone. Nothing I do will improve or diminish what He is doing in my life. My job is to follow Him and allow Him fit the pieces where they belong because He knows best. 

- Ben

The Heart

In the middle of it, it came to me, that still small voice. In that place during worship where there is no one else; when you are empty enough to hear, quiet enough to listen, and selfless enough to accept. What came to me was the culmination of a summer’s worth of scattered reading, study and music. 

The common theme? The heart. It hit me like a ton of bricks! There was the album cover and title of the music I was drenched in, the focus of the book I was reading, and the clear message in red letters from my Bible reading. I had no intentions of doing an in-depth study on the heart but my Father in heaven providentially guided me. The One who is holding my heart in His hand, and wants to make sure I will leave it there. The Holy Spirit guided my music picks, the random grabbing of a book out of a box in my mom’s garage and the haphazard (embarrassingly enough) picking of Matthew to read and study (Jesus talks a lot about what is on the inside!). All so that I might be reminded of what is going on.   

The warfare over our hearts.  

This should not be new news to us as believers. Yet we live as such. In the book I am reading, there is a powerful quote, “If Jesus said the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, well, then, why don’t we think the thief every actually comes to steal and kill and destroy? Good grief-the things people just roll over and accept as “God’s will.” The house [speaking of a house the author was trying to buy but lost] was just the move to steal; the Enemy wanted to kill our hearts and destroy our faith and all that flows from it. I think that’s nearly always true. The particular attack is not the issue; he’ll steal anything to kill and destroy” (John Eldredge in Waking the Dead). 

Is it the lack of healing for someone you firmly heard God say would be healed?  A job change that would have allowed for more family time and more money to give away but was yanked at the last minute? Or a desperate situation with a friend who was falsely accused and yet with prayer, justice has yet to be served? 

It is in these things that our hearts can become troubled, weakened or overwhelmed. We can lose heart, lose faith, and that is exactly what the enemy is trying to do. We do not remember the story of Daniel and the vision given to him concerning a great war enough. Daniel prays and fasts for 3 weeks and nothing! Where is God? What is going on? Yet this is the story from the angel… “Since the first day that you set you mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to them. but the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia” (Daniel 10: 12,13).  This is the reality of what is going on in the spiritual realm. If we for one minute forget we are at war, the ramifications are disastrous. 

Our armor must be on, our hearts steadfast and our minds filled with the Word. We may yet realize that one more night of holding on, one more hour of prayer could be the moment of victory, the moment of the dawn rising to the east, the mountain scaled, the river crossed, the valley walked through.  The moment you might see the God of angel armies battling for your heart and the vast and wondrous story we are a part of for His glory. 

God is holding my heart and I will leave it with Him. I will not take it back. I will not doubt that He will handle it better than I. I continue to give it all to Him. I will not lie down during this battle. I will armor up and stand firm for my family, Zambia and for all that God has called us to. 

Proverbs 4:23-“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Follow this Link to hear "Have it all" by Bethel Worship

DITCH, DISTRACTION OR DETOUR?

There are days I wake up and feel like I have accidentally found myself upside down in a hole. What is this? How did I get here? What is going on? The questions abound. But God abounds more. As I have uprighted myself over the past few weeks, I find that there are a few questions that run through my mind. Is this a ditch from the enemy?  A distraction that is pulling our eyes off the clear calling of God? Or a detour in God’s sovereign plan that is part of His clear calling? 

Knowing that the enemy and the kingdom of darkness want nothing less than to keep us from going to a place that means graveyard and is bound by the principality of death and destruction, we understand the battle we are in. But we trust in our God to have filtered all these things through His hand. For even if this is a ditch or distraction from the kingdom of darkness, our God can have all things turn out for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We are sitting tight in the presence of the Lord as we re-group and wait on Him. 

For this is truly about God’s faithfulness, God’s goodness and His sovereignty despite our circumstances. Let us trust and walk in faith with the God of the universe despite what is seen or not seen, what is hard or not hard, what is known or not known. Great is Thy Faithfulness….this song was given to my heart and since then I have had multiple people say this is the song that they have been prompted to give me. A clear message for all of us, it is all about God. 

SAVORING EASTER

Desiring to still hold onto the weekend we just had (Easter weekend) and wanting to continue to ponder on the cross and the resurrection, I jumped into the passages in John after the stone was rolled away. What beauty in this time right after He arose. 

How amazing that Jesus Christ would show Himself to the world that had just crucified Him and to the few who truly loved Him. These days after Easter when Christ would remove doubt, calm fears, bring peace and show His power again would be the building blocks for the faith His disciples would need after His ascension. And it is also for us today. Jesus states to Thomas that, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed” (John 20:29). May we live in that blessing to believe and hope in what is not seen. What a loving God that He would make sure these things are written down for us to know! Just a few verses later John states this very thing, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). 

Jesus did many other miracles and spoke many things to those He chose to reveal Himself to. He gave those people, and us today, the continued evidence that He was the Son of God the perfect God-man who could atone for our sin and justify us before a holy God and be raised from the dead to defeat death once and for all. And as I could not just stop at the resurrection this morning, I pray we do not stop at even this point in history. Jesus Christ then ascended and is seated at the right hand of God. We need to remember that He is now acting as our King, Intercessor and Lord. His Spirit is here and as He and the Father are one with the Spirit, He is moving and working in this world. But one very important historical point we can not forget is that He is coming back. So many times we relegate Jesus to 1st Century Palestine. We bind Him there in our minds. But He is not there! He is high and lifted up, exalted and worthy of praise! And He will be coming back on a white horse in all His glory. 

May we remember that we serve a King who is seated at the right hand of God. And in that knowledge we can fully lay down our lives to Him and His will for us. As we move away from Easter, let us pursue the surrender of our lives to King Jesus. It is in this posture that we are preparing to go to Zambia. May we all be able to hear the words Jesus gave Peter in John 21:19, “Follow Me”. 

Many blessings to all of you as we rejoice in the wake of the Easter weekend. 

LOVE LIKE THAT

I look outside and a shiver runs down my back. The ice and snow are not budging here in Illinois. That northern wind blows and our windows are frosted but that does not stop any of us from thinking about Valentine’s Day coming up! There is much ado about this day of love. Thoughts of romance, candy, candlelight and words of adoration fill our minds. Though my thoughts of love go deeper than just thinking about romantic love this week.

The shiver is gone and my heart melts though, even in the cold, with the thought of the love our supporters and partners have for not only God but for the precious people of Zambia. This holiday is the perfect opportunity to tell all of you who have prayed, given of your time, money and energy to the people of Zambia how much Ben and I love you all! The love we and you all have for the lost, poor and oppressed people of Zambia is love that will last! Love that walks alongside, touches, hugs, and sits in the dirt. True love is built on sacrifice, as Jesus demonstrated for us. Thank you all for the sacrifices you have made over the years to be a part of this ministry! We are so blessed by your love to us and to those you may have never met half-way across the globe. But there will be a day when we all are rejoicing in heaven over the lives that were saved and thus transformed by your support and partnership of us and this ministry! It is love like that that we celebrate today! Blessings to you all and know you are all prayed over and appreciated! 

This picture represents a small way in which we love. This is Charity. We met on the streets in the back of a bar in 2014. We had prayed with her and talked with her for quite a while. My Zambian friend who was with me happen to see her again in the market last fall. When I went in Dec. we went on a search to find her. After finding out she had moved, we went to search her out. The look on her face when she came out and saw me!  She was overwhelmed that I had come back to find her, that I remembered her. That I wanted to come and put my arms around her. She was not on the streets anymore, and was trying to make a living selling plastic shoes. We sat in her little home and chatted for a while and prayed with her. It was a precious time. You, our supporters, made that moment possible. I am just the extension of your arms of love to girls like Charity. Thank you!

WORD FOR THE YEAR

It is here that I need to back up and say, I did not get to write about my word for the Christmas season this past year. The season got away from me (A trip to Zambia will do that!) and even though I did feel the word, reveal or revelation was my word from God, I did not actually write about it (sad face). I feel it was in that word though, that God did reveal and well, ripped back open, past scars that needed to be felt again in a way to bring a fresh brokenness to my life, my marriage and ministry.

In our training with International Teams we have had to read a few good books and do some deep reflecting and searching in the reading and thus the writing on these books. In this, I have felt God asking me to go back, get a little more vulnerable than I have been and push into deeper self-examination. Through this I discovered I had been forgetting I had scars. Scars that have implications, meaning and hurt and pain associated with them. 

I am not saying here that we should go back and live in our pasts or re-visit them in an unhealthy way, but there was a point for me that I knew I was not living in the reality of the presence of my past in a way that brought the beautiful reality of it’s existence. There is a story in it. The story that we overcame. Victory is ours. 

In the training and through my word for the Christmas season God has brought us to a new place as we prepared for the new year. In the wrestling of why I needed to go back, why I needed to unearth the dark soil, God revealed it was to use it to plant new growth in my life. So grateful for God’s gift of words to me and the promptings that come out of that. As the week leading up to New Year’s Eve unfolded, Ben and I got dirty in the soil of our past to see the way in which God is growing new awareness and a certainty in what He has and is doing. 

The word, VICTORY, came out of all of this as we sat on New Year’s Eve writing out our recommitments to each other, God and our calling, after sitting in the dirt the week before. Victory rather than any other word, because it invokes the idea of battle, scars, tough decisions and fighting. It speaks of following and leading, protecting and yet total abandonment. It is also a reminder that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. And it is in the Word of God that we stand firm and win. The Word, not the little words God gives me but The Word that brings total victory and freedom to a life that God is growing His will in. His will planted in the dark soil of unearthed brokenness. 

“When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.  When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”  Deuteronomy 20:1-4 

Love this verse. How good it is to be in the “camp” of the Lord. To be in His will. Then we can have the assurance of His victory! Moving into 2016 today standing firm, ready to fight and accepting the victory God has given as we embark on moving to Zambia to join God in the battle there.