Russia, Here I Come

A couple of weeks ago at a Family night at church, a man and his wife in our church who are big into missions approached me about going to Russia with them. This couple, John and Jan, are on staff with Soar International and help to run a camp every winter and summer for teenagers.

This trip will be two weeks long, leaving on the 31st of Dec. I'll spend two weeks at the camp helping to lead the sports ministries and spending time with the teenagers there. Then after the week, I will get to go and help pass out stockings for a couple of days at area orphanages. I think I'm going to get to visit St. Petersburg and Red Square in Moscow as well.

God has opened so many doors for me here to be involved in the globalization of his church, and I cannot wait to get a glimpse of that corner of His kingdom. If you can keep me in your prayers for the first two weeks of January I'm sure I could use every bit of them.

God, My Teacher

These last couple of weeks it's been a struggle to find tha happy medium between creating a compelling program for our teens and staying true to the vision that we feel that we have been given. It's never easy for me to change. I shy away from it a lot of times. But God is teaching me that it's not about anything else, but a relationship with him, and leading kids to be disciples of him.

Where do we get so off track? How does our message get so tainted by trying to relate to culture. One of my youth sponsors said, "How does a man like David Blain take something that is not real and make it look so real, yet we who have a real and living message cannot make it even real." And we fail even with the Holy Spirit on our side. But God taught me something while I was teaching. He brought to mind the verse 2 Cor. 12:10, "for when I am weak, then I am strong."

It was then that I was reminded that it's all about making disciples. I have kids who don't like certain things, but I would rather they hate everything except Jesus. I have kids that wish I would buy Lays chips rather than Jays chips (a local brand that is just as good), but I would rather they be sold out to Jesus, than like everything that I do.

God is only going to work in this group when I realize that I am not capable to do so.

We're "Aunt" and "Uncle"

Our little nephew entered the world November 2 at 9:06 am. The proud parents are my sister Joy and brother-in-law Sheldon. We are, of course, very proud of Joy and very happy for the whole family. They will be awesome parents! He was 8 lb 14 oz, 21 3/4 inches long! Here's a picture of the cutie!