In Ukraine

I’m sitting in Alyosha Ostapenko’s home in Ukraine. This is usually where I land when I come to Novi. They have guests in the Lifestyle Center and until the guests vacate I live with Alyosha and Tanya. They have two beautiful children, Annia and Slavik. Beautiful, but not easy. You can see it on Tanya’s face. She is weary from having to deal with these two demanding, strong, little characters. I tease her, telling her she could have had five of them.

The trip across was pleasant. I read one third of a five-hundred page book. I highly recommend the book by Ron Duffield called the Return of the Latter Rain. If I had nothing else to do, I would spend the whole day reading it.

Last night, I attended a graduation of thirty pastors from one of the Russian Conferences. I invited myself thinking it would be formal affair. It turned out to be a supper and testimony meeting. I might have been embarrassed at having crashed their party except that I don’t embarrass that easily. Things were quiet while we were eating. Finally, one of the pastors singled me out and asked that I tell them where I come from and what I do. I told them about Eden Valley and especially about our cancer treatment program.

The interest was immediately palpable. One pastor has a seventeen year old daughter who has had cancer, and he was very solicitous on her behalf. I was afraid that my little interference was going to dominate the whole evening. Eventually, however, they turned to giving their personal testimonies. It appears to me that these Russian Conferences are ahead of our North American ones in recognizing that lay operated lifestyle centers actually have something to offer to even so-called professionals.

I left my wife to fend without me (as if she needs me), for the next three months. Shawn Boonstra will be living in our house during the next lifestyle session. I’m sorry to miss getting to know him. Janet, Christina and Caleb will get acquainted in my behalf for one week.

I’ll be preaching at least twenty-one times over the next ten days. Then I need to spend a week with Amazing Facts College of Evangelism here in the Ukraine. I’ll be preaching for them also. Then I go to Romania for an OCI Retreat. I only get to speak once there, but it may be my toughest assignment. The blessing, among others, is that Jason will be there.

The problem here, at Novi, is that there is only dial-up internet and Alyosha thinks he may be able to hook my up, but he’s made no move in that direction, so far. I hate to push him, he is very busy getting ready for the Camp Meeting. Alas, third world countries.

Till next time.

In Wildwood

It's only been one week, but somehow it feels so much longer. I don't know, life is getting awfully busy round her, I mean, around here.

I am sitting in my room in Wildwood, GA. I'm here for a constituency and board meeting. Last year, things didn't go so well here. I was elected to the Nominating Committee and the decisions we made riled some people royally. This year, I've come early to try and get a better handle on the issues we face. Issues there are. Some people I am speaking to are quite vocal about things. Others seem to indicate that things are better than they were last year. This afternoon, I am having a meeting with several key players. I am praying. On the one hand, Wildwood accomplishes great things--especially in the outreach dept. But, on the other hand, there is a lot of inertia and apparent lack of decisiveness in the leaders. There is deadwood also. The cost of doing business here is extravagant and our dear leaders (so glad not to be among them) are wondering how to tackle the near future. I'm hoping this board will take the bull by the horns and give these sincere leaders some real direction. They need to act determinatively.

At EVI, we have more than a full session by three patients. We are so thankful for the Lord doing that for us. It isn't like we are way ahead of the curve compared to other struggling institutions. We also only barely have our noses above water, but I can say that I am truly encouraged. The Lord is blessing. We will succeed.

My Lover has been packing her container to go to Africa all week. I believe she hasn't got much room left. The thing will be ready to go as soon as the shipper and Customs and whoever else puts their approval on the thing come through. In three weeks she, Deniece, Caleb and Christina leave for Africa. I leave for Europe. I'll go home this Monday, and by next Tuesday I leave for a month. It's always the same story: I get asked to go. I'm excited. Then when the time arrives, I wish I hadn't said yes. There is so much to do at home. Oh well!!

I preach tonight at Wildwood. "The Gospel and the First Angel's Message."

Did you know that the First Angel's Message is not the Investigative Judgment? The Investigative Judgment is one of the reasons given for the proclamation of the message. The message of the first angel is the everlasting gospel defined as "fear God, give glory to Him and worship Him" Why? Because the hour of His judgment is come. The end of time has come. The judgment is begun, get your act together--fear God instead of anything else.

When I first began reading the Bible, I reasoned this way: The universe is in conflict. There is God, there are demons and there are wicked people. The Beast says, worship me or I'll kill you. God says, "No, worship Me, or I"ll kill you." Humanity, it seemed to me had little hope, except that I managed to figure out who was the strongest--God. It seemed the better part of wisdom to serve Him than to be against Him. Since then, I've learned to serve Him out of love and not out of fear and the love of God casts out fear.

The investigative judgment is important to understand, but not near so important as the gospel that saves and empowers. So, give Him the glory and worship HIm. He alone can save.

So says the Preacher to his Tribe.

Hectic-boring

Life, as you know, is hectic and hectic-boring. What can I say. I am at Uchee Pines at the moment. We had the Uchee Pines board meeting this morning. I left my wife last night at a Ramada Inn in Denver, at the Mid-America ASI convention. The speakers were great. As a matter of fact, it was a great party all around, but I had to leave right after Sabbath to fly to Alabama. I arrived at my motel room at 1:30 AM. (Mostly because the Motel shuttle didn't come for more than one hour to pick me up.) I was up by 5:30 AM. Wilbur Atwood from Wildwood picked me up and we had a great conversation on our way. The board was easy as well.

In the middle of my four-hour night, I rec'd two phone calls from EVI telling me of a fire on the mountain just north of us. The winds blew from 40 to 60 miles per hour, northward. In a very short time the fire took out seven houses (unconfirmed by me) in Masonville. The Lord spared EVI for the second time in relation to fire. The first time was in the year 2000. This time, the rain and snow came. So from my poor vantage point I think all is well at the moment at EVI.

Garwin McNeilus has nothing but praises for my son. And guess what? The big Mid-America booth backdrop has a picture of Jason and I front and center. Like, it makes no sense whatsoever, but we are the main attraction in Mic-America, for sure. Well, at least Jason is. I just happen to be in the picture.

My wife has EVI pretty well organized for Maranatha. We are extremely grateful for the work she's done for us at EVI. I intend to take a three-day vacation with her at Glenwood Springs, CO, on the 12-14 of this month. She must work on sending her container now. The container is not re-certified yet. We are waiting to see if they will certify it. I had given a certain overly trusted individual permission to use the container to store Brent's furniture. They dragged it with my permission promising to be careful. They were not careful enough. There is some damage, and we await the verdict. It may cost me $2,500. My fault.

Christina and Caleb, our two adventurers have their tickets. They are raring to go. We all hope they will not be too homesick,

I took Ramon Chow, David Fournier's uncle by marriage, to see EVI. He says David is in the market to buy a house, but not in the market for a wife yet.

I'm asked to do a seminar at the OCI Retreat on Leadership Concerns. I know nothing about the subject. You can all pray for me. Today, we start a new Lifestyle session. We have seventeen guests. That is one more than we can house and we praise God for the good problem.

Last week, we worked on the farm mulching our raspberries and getting our eyes full of hay dust. Everybody was walking around with what appeared to be red eye. I guess we are all okay by now. We also spent parts of two days re-shingling the Village.

At the Mid-America ASI chapter meetings, one of our speakers (I can't remember which,) after quoting Jesus who said, "Love your neighbor as yourself," reiterated an interpretation I do not agree with. Over and over again I hear preachers point to this scripture as proof positive that we ought to love ourselves.

I disagree!

The text does not say we ought to love ourselves. Jesus is simply stating a fact--we do love ourselves and in our relation with others we ought to at least love them as much as we love ourselves. Now, let's look at this in a practical setting. Supposing you want to sell your car. It looks good, cosmetically, but you know, and only you know that the engine is shot. When a prospective buyer comes to purchase the car self-love says don't discourage the person by revealing all that is wrong with it. But, if you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, what will you do? You'll tell him/her the truth of the matter.

Question: What does that do to self? Why, self in this instance is denied, which is really what Christ would have us do with self--deny it. "If any man would come after Me," Jesus commanded, "let him deny himself and pick up his cross and follow me." That is the only proper thing to do with self.

Self love is the sin problem. "It is the love of self that destroys our peace." MB 16 or 18. The carnal nature is always looking for a reason to justify self-love and the verse "love your neighbor as you love yourself seems to afford the best argument. Don't buy it. It is not true.

Love your neighbor; deny self, period.

So says the Preacher to his Tribe.