Happy New Year

Whew! We did it. We survived 2009. It's been a horrid year for many people. It might have been for us as well, except for God's interventions. When the economy began to meltdown, I was having nightmares of untold hardship for all, especially for us. It still blows me away that it wasn't. The worse things got outside, the better they got inside.

In 2008, Eden Valley nearly crashed and burnt. If God had not worked some major miracles, we would have been toast. Believe me when I say we were not worthy. We deserved to sleep in the bed we made for ourselves, but true to His nature, He chose to be merciful and very gracious instead. I've been praising God ever since. When the world's economy crashed, God injected $240,000 into ours. Then He filled our Lifestyle Sessions to the max. If someone messed up as badly as I did, I'd let him suffer it, but God just dusted the dirt off of my scraped knees and gave me another nudge forward. Can you beat that? If He'll do it for me, the chief of sinners, He will do it for you also. Believe me, I've had the experience often.

I weep for people who judge God by the hurts they've suffered at the hands of the ungodly. They get confused by the deceivers who professed to be Christians. Why blame God for their actions? The trick is to walk with God personally. Play fair with Him and He'll be more than fair with you. He is absolutely magnanimous. If we walked with God individually, we would come to know how awesome He is. How generous, how patient, how loving, how wise and how powerful. Oh me, if only we knew.

Galatians 1:4 says, Jesus "gave Himself in exchange for our sins." He didn't wait until we believed, received, repented, or confessed anything. He went to the cross with all of our sins whether we would believe or not. We don't believe in order to get Jesus to forgive us, we see that before we have any involvement with Him at all, He gave Himself to us. We believe after we see how wonderful He is.

Dear everyone, trust God. He won't let you down. I promise. (As if I can promise anything. My promise is based on God's promise to us.)

1 John 2:2 Jesus "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." That includes you.

ST 9-1-1898:6 “With all assurance we may ask Christ to undertake our case; (With how much assurance? •Why?) for when He gave His life as the propitiation for the sins of the world, He undertook the case of each soul.”

Happy New Years everyone,

The Preacher to his Tribe.

Free to be Who I Am

This morning, I read something I wrote in my journal on July 27, 2008.

"Sitting in a board meeting (at Oak Haven) brings some things to the fore. Successful institutions have strong business principles. EVI has a spiritual President. No one wants to see him leave, but the institution is failing financially. Donors will not forever support incompetence (in the financial field). To bring in a separate business manager under the present president will constitute a huge transfer of power. I dare say, I have enough clamoring for my poor talents around the world and especially in Africa to recommend I be replaced."

At the time, I was thinking that if I was shorn of so much power, I wouldn't be needed at EVI anymore. Interestingly, I now have a Business Manager, Leasa Hodges. And indeed, there has been a huge transfer of power. The end result, however, is not that I am less needed, but that I have more freedom. Leasa's coming to EVI is one of my greatest personal blessings. I view her coming as the answer to a prayer I've been praying for several years now. I've long pled with God to glorify Himself at EVI. Lately, I've come to realize that I wasn't asking G tood glorify me at EVI. I don't have to be in the picture at all. That God has chosen to send Leasa I see as the beginning of new potentials for Eden Valley.

Now, the freedom I am talking about encompasses far more than mentioned above. With age comes understanding, if a man is open to it. I accept that God has given me a special talent. I praise Him for it continually. I realize, however, that I am not the only person with that gift. What if others have the same gift and much more of it? Should that bother me? I don't know if it should, but I can say that it doesn't, and that is where the freedom comes in. I am perfectly happy being who I am. I envy no one for the gift God has given them. Likewise, I am thrilled that Leasa has a talent I don't have. I am also extremely proud of my wife's successes as a leader. I have awakened to find that other people's successes are my joy. I don't know if I ever had a different feeling about that, but I can tell you that there is wonderful sense of freedom when the impulse to make others happy springs constantly from within.

I am perfectly free to be who God made me to be. Are you? From the Preacher to his tribe.

What Tiger?

Elk at Eden Valley

Have you given the Tiger a thought lately? Tiger Woods I mean. I genuinely feel for him, don't you? He worked hard to become the best golfer in the world and it looks to all like he succeeded marvelously, didn't he? Will it mean anything, if in the end he is no more than another cheap punk (albeit, with talent?) If you or I succeed spiritually, but fails at an attempt at business, sports, politics . . . few would care, but which would you rather? A big name in the world (with big bucks), but disdained of heaven and family? Or no name in this world, but honest, dependable, self-sacrificing, generous and loved of all, including heaven?

I have long realized that no matter what I accomplish, I will never be special. When I look at the way God led me as compared to the way my extended family chose to go, it appears that God did a great work for me. And He did, but I, in the thing am not great.

Some think themselves great for scaling Mount Everest. It's a huge physical drain, to be sure, and to come back alive is merciful, but is that great? Is it greatness to be a hockey star, a celebrity, a renown politician? Is it great to exercise the powers we've been given? Is it less great for those who are born cripple to exercise, in the same intensity, the powers they were given, that no one recognizes? It's all the same. The package this supposed greatness comes out of is a corruptible mess, if not already irretrievably corrupted. We owe all we have to the God who will give us His greatness if we let Him.

So my tribe, go out and accomplish all you can. Keep in mind, however, it is God that gives you the power to do great things. Give Him the glory or you might just fall after the example we've just been given by the . . . "great one".

My Little World

Finding something to say on these blogs is a chore. It is especially difficult if your life is, well, lifeless. So, what I thought I would do is just tell what is going on in my little world.

1. The big event is that Janet will arrive this weekend. I look forward to that. God willing, we plan to take a vacation in February. We wish to go to the Yukon more than anywhere else, but February is not the time of year to bask in the northern sun (like my Iroquois grandsons.) So I think we will head for Florida. We have a friend who has an empty condo there. From there we will go to the OCI board meetings in Wildwood.

2. My little Russian translator is not doing well. Her cancer has metastasized to her abdomen. I keep praying in faith. Janet and I have another friend, Dr. Dolores Jacoby, who has a recurring melanoma in her eye. Cancer is rampant these days. Yesterday, Leonard Westphall called me. Leonard raises millions of dollars for 3ABN by getting people to give through their wills. In any case, he had prostate cancer and came to EVI last spring. We didn't manage to help him at all. He went home to find out his cancer had metastasized into his bones. The doctors gave him three months to live. He went to a doctor in Equador who uses machines with some kind of frequencies and he came back cancer free. He wants me to get some of these machines. He is sure we will be rich. How am I suppose to relate to that? God gave His people a special method for dealing with sickness. As far as I know, it has little or nothing to do with frequencies. Yet, he is healed and swears by that treatment.

3. As you know, I gave my one year notice at the last board meeting. I will be transitioning out from EVI to Africa this year. I haven't moved from that position, but I am trying to study God's providences. People at EVI seem to be willing to give me anything so long as I stay. Steve Grabiner, whose advice I really respect, thinks I would not be fulfilled in Mago, Tanzania. I think my wife agrees with Steve. A young family from Walla Walla, Fred and Caroline Baumann, are on fire about going to work in Mago. There is always the possibility of having found in Fred and Caroline the people who could run this project. I am not excited about being the leader at EVI, but it appears to me like, with Leasa around, things may begin to happen. Who knows?

4. If the number of invitations to speak keep multiplying, I may spend no time at all at EVI in 2010. However, many of the potential sites are not wholly ratified yet.

5. Janet and I may be going to Africa in March. ASI and the Review want to do articles and videos on Riverside, Kibidula and Eden Valley Foster Care Mission. We'd be flying into Zambia. Taking a lady to Vic Falls while Steven and his cohorts have a board meeting. Then we would go on to Mago and Kibi. Sounds like fun, and expensive too.

6. Already I am scheduled for much too much travel. (I resisted listing the possibilities.) Yet, on top of that, Janet would like to go to Northern Ontario. She hasn't been there in forever and I would like to go to the Yukon. Good thing there is a recession going on.

Glorious Future

The girl in blue with pink arms is Olga.

I've been at EVI for seven years. For seven years, I've been swamped with work. I don't remember a time when I didn't have more to do than time to do it in. All of a sudden, I am caught up. For the last two or three weeks I've got too little to do. It's terrible. I am forcing myself not to feel guilty and it isn't easy. By the same token, I believe that God is the orderer of all my experiences. So, relax self, God is giving you a break.

The break, I believe, is due to Leasa Hodges coming to be the Business Manager at EVI. She's taken so much work off my desk that I am wonderfully/terribly relieved.

___________________________

I may have mentioned my little Russian translator. Olga is 35 years old and dying of cancer. I've only seen Olga three or four times and the last time must have been four years ago. The young woman had a very positive impact on me. She is a strong leader, teacher, missionary. Now, however, she has cancer.

To help her with the cancer I raised money and paid to send a female doctor, Dr. Oden, to her. Dr. Oden gave her all the treatments that we would give Olga at EVI. I cannot tell if it was of any benefit to her, but when I spoke to her on the phone, her spirits were high. It appears Dr. Oden was a great help spiritually to her. Olga spoke only of perfect submission to God and seemed focus on the time when we would meet in the kingdom. The cancer has metastasized into her bones and the bones are breaking. She knows she is dying and seems at rest.

I've been praying for Olga two and three times per day. As a matter of fact, I am spending two to two and one half hours in prayer daily. I pray for many people and issues two to three times per day. Anyway, I believe God has filled my mouth with arguments on behalf of Olga. Here is how the argument goes: "Lord, if this young woman was given life, I believe she would win souls for the kingdom. If she would win souls for the kingdom, would it not be irresponsible to deny her life. God, you can do anything. It is easy for you. Please give her life without losing her soul." I finish this prayer with true gratitude, for I believe that I am heard. And I believe that I am praying according to God's will, as well.

What do you think God will do? Amazingly, I am in perfect peace. I know that God is too powerful to fail, too wise to make a mistake and too loving to disregard my appeal.

Does God answer your prayers? Do you have faith? Do you even pray?

You know, this thing of religion and of spiritual connection is not for a few chosen ones. God is there. He loves you. He hears your prayers. He answers . . . every time!

You can't know how many times I hear people say, "God doesn't seem to answer my prayers." It isn't so, you know. The reality is, we pray so little. We let go of the arm of the Lord too soon.

One year and one half ago, May 2008, I began to write a journal. It was meant to be a journal of my spiritual experience over the following four months. Eden Valley was facing a terrible financial crisis. I had made huge mistakes. The whole infrastructure was threatened with collapse. It was my fault. All I could do was pray and hope in God's mercy. So day be day, diary-like, I recorded my feelings and prayers. Now, it isn't like I was blind to God's miracles, but something special happened to me last week.

During my devotional time, I opened my Journal and read the first entry. I was overwhelmed with amazement. The entry brought me back to May 2008--the feelings, the crisis, the despair, the hopelessness--but I am in December 2009. I was able to see what God had done with a clarity that could not have been possible except for that journal entry.

Many of you may question if God really interacts with you. He does, more than we recognize because we don't record life as we should. We are always facing the problems of today. We end up focusing on the dark side of life when, if our eyes were open, we'd see a glorious reality.

Do you think you'll get to heaven and you'll be able to point back to any time in the past where God made a mistake in your case? Impossible! Then, do you realize that between here and then life can only be glorious. So says the Preacher to his tribe.