It's really happening.

"If you can't see that far ahead.... Go ahead and go as far as you can see."- Bob Blincoe

I'm extremely excited to share with everyone that we have official travel dates to Port Shepstone South Africa. We'll be leaving right at the end of May and be there for 2 short weeks. Matt and I are both extremely anxious and excited about what God has in store for us. We also were able to successfully partner with Helps Ministries for our fundraising needs for this trip, along with that means having someone (with better skills than myself) format our letters into nice works of art.

I received word that our fist newsletter went out in the mail yesterday. Couple that news with having dates blocked, plane tickets and car rental booked and it's finally hitting us on just how real this is.  Lord help us to be humble, reverent and teachable as we continue to move ahead in faith and trust.

Dismantling the American Dream

"The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals... in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity.. success and an upward social mobility...achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers."- Yes I did just pull this definition from Wikipedia.

"Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with an opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth."- James Truslow

In America, the "dream" is about getting richer, healthier, more comfortable and therefore "happier" than the generation before. Many put their focus solely on the hard work aspect "It doesn't matter where you were born or what your circumstances are, if you just put your shoulders in and muscle through it you can accomplish anything." Others focus on the barriers that need to be removed in order for that hard work to make maximum difference. "People can't reach their full potential unless we remove the extra barriers that have been placed in their lives due to the circumstances of their birth and social class." We could debate endlessly over the health of "The American Dream" in today's world. But that's not why I'm talking about it.

At it's heart, the American dream is about getting more; More wealth, more food, more stuff. It's also about getting less; Less work, less discomfort, less struggle. Is that really what's best? No, not really. Do the values of the American Dream line up with God's values? Again, no not really. Now, you'll hear other Americans say "Hang on a second! God values hard work. He values and wants people to of every social class in his kingdom! Those are all part of the American Dream and they are GOOD values." In a sense, that's true. God does value hard work and he does value those of every social class... But for what end? Nowhere in the Bible do I read that God desires for us to have upward mobility within the classes. Nowhere do I see where God wants us to do a lot of hard work so that we can retire and kick back towards the end of our lives. The whole point of the American Dream is to improve your stance in life as defined by the socioeconomic classes defined by our country. That is very much the opposite of what God wants.

The whole point of socioeconomic classes is so that we can be better than someone else. "I know I have arrived at the next stage of wonderfulness when I no longer have to live in "that" part of town or when I no longer have to send my kids to "that" school. I am no longer part of the undesired "others" but now part of the next group up. I'm climbing that social ladder to something amazing. Oh sure, I'll be more generous as I climb this ladder but that doesn't change the fact that I WANT to climb this ladder." If you were born in America you were raised on this concept, in one form or another. Maybe it wasn't so straight forward. It was probably more in the "you can accomplish whatever you dream of if you work hard enough" way of thinking. Many of us were raised to think of those who didn't climb out of their current social rung were lazy for not aspiring to be more (see: higher up on the ladder) and that those who were on the top got there from all that fabulous hard work and deserve the right to kick back (regardless of whether or not the results of the hard work were inherited or not)...  The point is, no matter how the American Dream was presented to you it's end goal is for you to rise above your current circumstances (which, no matter where you are on the ladder, isn't good enough) and make yourself even better.

What does God want? God wants us to work hard to achieve His glory. (Matthew 5:16. 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1st Peter 4:11 ) He wants us to take care of those that society has called "lazy" and "worthless" because of where they seem to be stuck at (or willingly staying at) in life. (James 1:27, John 14:28) God wants us to be worried about our spiritual upward mobility, not in that we need to become better or more spiritually pure than our neighbor but because we desire to be closer to our Father. Not only that but he desires that we help others on this journey and not leave them to figure it out on their own. (John 5:44, Matthew 28:19-20 ) He desires for us to put others needs before our own, to worry more about how we can remove the barriers in other peoples lives and relieve the stress found there so that they can have a better glimpse of the love, peace and grace that their Father in Heaven offers them. (Phillipans 2:4)

We have got to dismantle this American Dream. As Christians it can NOT be our dream.  Our dream should not be of our own success and our own laurels to sit upon, it must be to help others reach true success and true comfort and that comes in knowing and following Christ.

A Dirty Cup

I had the joy of having a date night with Matt the other night. We were able to drop the kids off with his boss and enjoy an evening out. It was a rare and precious thing for us. After dinner, we went to have coffee at a local coffee shop. While there I noticed a plastic cup. There was nothing special looking about the cup, but my eyes grew wide and I immediately had to grab my camera and take a picture of it. Matt didn't understand what the big deal was until after I had texted my mother about it and he saw the conversation that took place between us.

This cup looks exactly like a series of cups my Grandmother used to own. My mother and I reminisced about how we used to dye our Easter eggs in them and use them as the water cups for cleaning our paint brushes. She still has one in her craft room for that exact purpose.

It was just a little cup but it had so much emotional sway over me. If my mother's house was burning down, that cup would be one of the main things I'd want to save.

We are God's "dirty cup". We are not special in it of ourselves. In fact, most of God's most precious children are those that others would see as worthless. It is not usually the World Leaders, the rich and the powerful that God cherishes.. It's the "dirty cups".

It is how God cherishes us and uses us that makes us so special and precious to Him. Don' worry about how much others value you. Your worth is found in Christ. He ensures that we are saved from the fire, not others.

Having the right perspective

    "The living God is a God of missions." This is what kicked off this years round of Perspectives on The World Christian Movement. A great 15 week class that bursts open people's hearts with how awesome God is and how his end goal is to be glorified by all nations, people and tongues. While it's main focus is not to tell everyone how they need to get out there and jump into missions in the 10/40 window (the space on our globe that have the least reached people groups), be warned, by taking the class that very well might happen.... Maybe not the 10/40 window exactly but your desire to get up and do something, to act, to be part of God's missional plan. I took this course, officially, about 8 years ago, very pregnant with our youngest at the time. I had been kicking around the idea of short term missions and wanted to really know what was going on out there. I wanted to understand if it was something I could even do. Don't get me wrong, God made all of us to be "on mission" for him, but I have always struggled with being a bit dubious on just how "on mission" he made me. I'm sassy, loud and independent, and I don't enjoy passing out tracts, "cold calling" people with the gospel or just starting up gospel oriented conversations with total strangers.... so, clearly, if God was going to use me for global work, it was going to be short term... Where I could go and meet a few physical needs, get uncomfortable enough with how good I have it compared to the rest of the world, and then come home and get cozy again for a while.
    By the end of the that initial Perspectives class I was pumped. Short term, here we go. World travel, make a difference, plant seeds all over the place.. I'm going to do my little tiny part. Matt, on the other hand, went "Life time, here we go!" To be fair, he was already kind of there. He purposefully picked his career in plumbing so that he could be of use anywhere and, if need be, be a tent maker type missionary. Needless to say, while God was working in our hearts, it was at different levels and at different speeds. Funny how he does that. I went off on a few short term trips to Canada and enjoyed my experiences for the most part (there may have been some "cold call" style conversations involved, not my thing.) but I appeared to have stalled. I know I've told the rest of the story since then, so I'm not going to go through it all over again. We'll skip to the good stuff.
    Here I am today, working at going on a short term trip to Port Shepstone South Africa... and not so I can "do some good" and then come home and get comfy again, but with the outlook that this could be life long. I know I said at first that I was hesitant about the calling, especially since the temptation of just being with our friends is very real but I can much more confidently say now that this is no longer the case. The more time I have to think on this sudden shift the more I realize that I am no longer satisfied with this comfy life. I'm no longer content to build a name for myself, instead, I'd much rather build a name for the only one who deserves it..  My God! As we reach out to various mission organizations and seek out Godly counsel and training, I am open and ready to the possibility of working somewhere other than my first "choice". Don't get me wrong, I want to be with the Genesis team, I still want to be in South Africa and helping in the computer room... but I'm no longer closed off to the idea of going elsewhere... And I would still want to go check out Genesis even if Sam and Anna said they would be leaving eventually. My heart feels refreshed and rejuvenated. It's a good place to be in.

Inexpressible Joy

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory."- 1st Peter 1:8

    My heart is overflowing with this passage today. Sometimes we can feel so distant from God. Unlike the apostles/disciples, we never got to see our Lord's face. I didn't hear his words with my own ears or wash his feet with my own tears and yet... I love him. He never physically met me at a well and said "Go and sin no more" and yet I believe in him and I believe in his saving grace. It truly is an inexpressible joy.

    South Africa has me feeling this way too. I keep looking into what life will be like down there, who the people are, and the challenges we'll face. Yet, despite my late night ponderings of "you're crazy, Amber." I'm in love with these people. I haven't met many of them but I love them and what makes it more exciting is to hear that the feeling appears to be mutual. I keep getting trickles of information fed to me about how others there are excited at the prospect of us coming and staying. Meeting after meeting is being set up and arranged, whether that be with our own church or with others that are interested in helping us get there. To feel Christ's love poured out on us by his people... by my Godly family is too beautiful for words.

All things to All people

    Narcissa Whitman and her husband embarked on, what would be known as, The Oregon Trail, in 1836. They had heard stories that the Natives were begging for the Bible and Narcissa had a life long dream of being a missionary. Yet, when she got there, she found life to be very different. She didn't understand their culture and they resisted change in all of it's forms. What had been a dream for her became a nightmare, that ended in a massacre, known as The Whitman Massacre.

    At the same time, Henry Spalding and his wife traveled out with them.  They ended up in Idaho. While there they were very successful. They baptized several of the leaders of the local native tribles and taught many of the tribal members about the gospel. The women loved Henry's wife and would follow her around her home to see how this "white woman" lived and did things. Spalding and his family went on to have a successful mission. 

  The Whitmans and the Spaldings were friends and came from the same church family. The Spaldings were affected by the Whitman massacre on many levels. Besides emotional, their youngest daughter was a survivor of it. Because of the Whitman massacre, their mission organization called off all mission work in the area and the Spaldings had to find a new and more creative way to reach the people, and they did, they did not stop.

    Why where the Spaldings a success and the Whitmans a failure? Was it because the Cayuse were just a brutal tribe with impossibly hardened hearts, while the Nez Perce were peace loving and open hearted people? No. It was because the Whitmans were not willing to follow Paul's advice to be all things to all people where as the Spaldings were. The Cayuse's were upset with the Whitmans as they brought no gifts to them when they arrived, per Cayuse tradition. The Whitmans couldn't or refused to understand why that was a big deal. The Whitmans wanted the Cayuse to give up everything they knew and model their version of Christianity. Narcissa found everything about the Cayuse to be vulgar and savage. She even banished them from her parlour for fear of it being over run with fleas and filth.

    The Spaldings, on the other hand, loved the Nez Perce and met them where they were. Henry worked to translate the Bible into their language and encouraged them to only give up what conflicted with scripture, not everything about their lives. Eliza loved the women of the tribe and happily allowed them into her home. Despite all that ended up happening to them and those they loved, they continued to work towards saving the Native Americans for Christ and Spalding's church were sponsors and supported relations with the US Indian Affairs agent.

    Learning of this struck a chord with me. Paul wasn't the only one who called us to be all things to all people. Christ did as well. As a matter of fact, God emulated it in the most perfect beautiful way. In taking on human form as a helpless baby, to a poor family, in shaky circumstances. He could have simply saved us with a word or a wave of his hand. He could have saved us by showing up already as an adult and doing all the things he ended up doing in the new testament, maybe even in a week.... But he didn't. He knew the importance of relationships, the importance of being able to relate to those you came to save. He knew this because he made us and he made us to relate to us. He did not come in with trumpets. He was not born in a palace to a King and Queen and servants to attend to his every desires. He was born on a cool night surrounded by animals, feed and dung. He was born to young and poor parents. The first to come and see him were shepherds who were stuck pulling the night shift. He lived through many of the same experiences we did. The death of his earthly father, brothers and sisters who didn't always get along and having to work for a living. He lived according to his Father's word and yet also blended in with the rest of the culture, another face in the crowd.

To be successful in reaching people for Christ we must follow this example. 

"I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some" 1 Corinthians 9:22

What is there to fear?

    I had a friend stop by for a surprise visit yesterday. It was a really pleasant surprise and stirred up fun conversation. Yet, out of all the things we talked about one thing set a stirring in my heart. It was only one little thing they said, but it really struck me. "I'm really concerned with the level of fear people have over Muslims. I don't like where the public dialogue is going."

I don't either.

    The members of the extremists groups are doing an excellent job at terrorizing all around them. The governments are chasing shadows and people are now afraid and distrusting of anyone different.The religion of Islam is diverse and varied, much like any religion and the majority have no desire to hurt others or take over the world, etc.  Yet, in the public sphere, all those of the Muslim faith are either terrorists or not being true to their religion. What's disconcerting about that is that the terrorists believe this too. ISIS and other extremists groups believe themselves to be the only true followers of Islam and relish in killing anyone they consider to be apostates. That includes other Muslims. 

Here are some interesting facts: 

1) The majority of terrorists come from Arab nations... But less than 15% of Muslims are Arab or live in the Arab countries.  Asia has more Muslims than the Arab countries. 

This is important to pay attention to because the majority of the terrorists are coming from the nations of Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Sudan. (The Syrian refugee crises is another conversation for another time, perhaps)

2) The Muslim majority are appalled by the terrorists. Terrorism cannot be justified under any valid interpretation of the Islamic faith. The entire Qur'an, taken as a complete text, gives a message of hope, faith, and peace to a faith community of one billion people. The overwhelming message is that peace is to be found through faith in "God", and justice among fellow human beings. Muslim leaders and scholars do speak out against terrorism in all its forms, and offer explanations of misinterpreted or twisted teachings. 

This is important to really think about because there have been many, in Christian past, who have twisted scripture to justify brutal acts of terrorism. It would be extremely foolish of us to behave as if the Crusades were some how not really terrorism or not really the same as now etc. Okay, that's true, it's not as bad as now... if we are at least allowing that people could readily identify a crusader whereas we can't readily identify a terrorist. But, many more were tortured, killed and had forced conversions by those claiming to be fighting on behalf of Christ than our current situation. We must keep that in mind. We must never forget that humbling fact.

3) Muslims are taught that Jews and Christians still worship the same God. While we know that to be wrong, it's important to keep it in mind when figuring out how to think about Muslims and how we can approach them with the truth in love. Throughout the Qur'an, Muslims are reminded that they are not the only ones who worship God. Jews and Christians are called "People of the Book," meaning people who have received previous revelations from the One Almighty God that we all worship. The Qur'an also commands Muslims to protect from harm not only mosques, but also monasteries, synagogues, and churches -- because "God is worshiped therein.

 - Yes, in their end times their "savior" will show the Jews and Christians as wrong and destroy them.. BUT, the Qur'an teaches that it's that "saviors" job, not the Muslims of the current time. I know that sounds like I'm just making insignificant distinctions, but they are considered important distinctions to your average Muslim. 

4) Many believe that Muslim is the fastest growing religion out there today. Not true, Christianity is. Praise be to God for that.


Why do I say all of this?

Let me start with what I'm not trying to do first.

1) I am not trying to defend Islam as being a viable religion that will see you enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There is only one way to do that and that is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and being redeemed by his saving Grace.

2) I am not trying to lull people into a false sense of comfort "oh don't worry, terrorists aren't that big a deal." etc. NO. The terror cells are a huge concern, and rightfully so. 


Here is what I AM trying to say.

How can we reach the lost if we are afraid of them, so afraid of them that we will no longer allow ourselves to get close to them or them to us?

How can we reach the lost if we are so afraid by a few that we turn our backs to the larger number; that we are willing to label all as suspect because of a rotten few?

How can we have proper dialogue on how to solve the terrorist problems if we decide to give them what we want and say they are Muslim or that they are proper representations of the religion... Especially when statistics and evidence shows the exact opposite?

How can we properly pray for a lost community if we pray as if all of them have possible desires to kill us? Especially when the reality is that these extremists are very happy to kill their own (who aren't living up to their standards). Muslims are being terrorized by these extremists just as much as we are (if not more).

Will we allow these current events to shape our feelings and views on those different from us or will we continue to reach out to God, reach out to His Word for help? Will we allow ourselves to be victimized by these terrorists or will we joyfully pronounce that God's victory is already won and live lives of joy and not lives of fear?


These are the stirrings of my heart lately.