What’s a confession? I’m not talking about a Catholic sitting down with his priest and telling him all he’s done wrong. Confession is anything we say with our mouth, right? Well, what God has been telling me lately has me rethinking this. And, honestly, for a long time I’ve known in part what He’s saying; I just didn’t admit it, or maybe I overlooked this aspect of it. The question God asked me is, what’s your blog saying for you?
Today was a relatively short day. Short in comparison to the last two, that is. And I was completely happy with that. I hopped in my truck, and I headed home to boil up a fresh pot of rice. On the way I spotted a hitchhiker. And the strangest thing is I heard in my spirit that I should pick this man up. I used to be a Safety Officer for a local trucking company, so I’m quite safety-conscious. Picking up a fellow on the highway is not safe. Plus, I’m practically pedantic about traffic law, so my first thought was hitchhiking is illegal and I shouldn’t empower him to continue this practice. But almost immediately that thought was replaced with a burden to stop and get this guy. And as I continued driving (I drive really slow; this is nearly a real-time transcript) my heart started pounding, and I could hear God yelling at me, “Hey! You down there! I’m trying to tell you something!
” But I kept driving. And as I drove on by the man, I felt my stomach turn over in knots. I knew I had missed God.
I’m going to keep this short. But I want to encourage you to strive to obey God, no matter how odd or strange it may seem. The idea of picking this man up was the exact opposite thing I’d conjur. And the Devil sure didn’t want to help him. It had to be God. Perhaps the Lord wanted to show this man His love. Or maybe he had something to say to me. And, there might have been no other reason to pick him up besides practicing obedience to the Lord’s voice. There have been times in my walk with God that I suspected such! The most probable reason God asked me to pick him up, though? When I left my house later this afternoon, I noticed it had been raining where I’d seen him.
~Jonathan
I met a man the other day named William. At first, our conversation was about the mechanics of fitting a Pentel eraser to the aft end of a Zebra 301 pencil. But it soon turned toward God and the sheer goodness and awesomeness of His plan.
It’s always so refreshing to run across people like that, who take time out of their day to not only help you accomplish what you set out to do, but also make it simply pleasant. There’s nothing more energizing than talking about God!
I’ve been focusing lately on getting God in my conversations. I continually think nowadays about who around me needs what I have to give. Just asking someone where they go to church or telling them Jesus loves them can make their day. You have no idea the benefit it is for them when you take just a couple seconds to tell them about the Lord.
Something that seems so small and almost insignificant to us can be the world to the one you’re telling it to. For instance, the “God bless you” I said to Daniel. What does it cost you to ask a person if he knows Jesus? Or what liability is it to you to smile at them and tell the good news that Jesus loves them? Hardly any, but the returns are astronomical!
This past Sunday afternoon I had some time to myself and I spent it at the bookstore. I grabbed a couple of my favorite magazines and a Chai Latte, and I sat down for a treat. Then a fellow at another table spoke to me; John was his name. He asked me are those reading glasses I’m wearing? No, I said, and then the conversation turned almost immediately toward the Lord. I still don’t know how that happened.
But for the next thirty minutes or so we talked about God and our need to spread His love. We spoke earnestly—and with quite a bit of volume—about the call to take the Gospel to the lost. We lamented the state of Christianity, that no one cares about his fellow man’s eternity. We boldly spoke that the only way to salvation is through our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this at a coffee shop inside Borders.
I later attended a service at a nearby church. (We don’t have service on Sunday nights, so I wasn’t playing hooky!) Well, this church had a guest minister in, and boy, was he a fireball. He preached on being frozen in the fire. We Christians, if we don’t watch ourselves, can become complacent and lackadaisical with our relationship with God—even in the midst of revival. He gave some symptoms of a freezing Christian. One of them was having no compassion for the lost. Was God trying to say something to me that day?
To top it all off, this morning on the radio I heard Dr. David Jeremiah speak about the fact that there is a “proxyism,” as he calls it, concerning missions. A Proxy is something that stands in the place of another, and there has appeared in recent years a proxy for Christ’s Great Commission. People have said that if you can’t go, then send a substitute. Send money to a missionary, and that will be just the same. But God never said that! That’s not in the Word. The only thing mentioned in the word is “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.
” (Matthew 28:19 NKJV)
It’s an absolute lie that we don’t have to speak to others about Christ so long as we are putting money in the offering plate. You’ve got to do both. So, I encourage you to try it. Go out, find someone, and just start talking. Open up with something goofy, like inquiring about the genre of their spectacles! :o) You don’t have to pack up and move to Thailand or Timbuktu, but you do have to tell your neighbors wherever you are.
~Jonathan
Basically, my job as a missionary has been to help other missionaries. Every trip I’ve taken has included augmenting the already-existing work in the country I’m traveling to. Jim Cottrill over at missionary-blogs.com sent an E-mail to everyone asking what we’d like to get in a care package, and he requested that we write a post about it. So this is mine.
My missionary career has thusfar been an extension of the ministry of helps. I’ve never pioneered a work. I’ve never pastored a church. I’ve never been an instructor at a Bible school (I have spoken at one a few times). I’ve never lived overseas longer than three months, and I’m pretty sure I never will. I considered at one time the possibility of staying in Brasil for two years, but circumstances prevented that from happening. One colleague said it best when he called me a “pond hopper”, going here and there, wherever I’m needed.
When I was getting ready to go to Thailand last fall, I considered all of this and what I had on my heart to do at Patti’s place. I began to see how God was using me to be a care package intrinsically; myself a gift to other missionaries stationed permanently overseas. Not that I’m special, but that I’m available. Less like the apostle Paul, and more like Epaphroditus.
I took with me to Thailand numerous things for Patti and the kids: ointment for bug bites, vitamins, a Hot Wheels track. I was going to bring peanut butter and grits, but she was well stocked on those items! Yet, the most important thing was having somebody there to talk to. Somebody who spoke English. Somebody with the same accent. Somebody to help with the kids when she wanted to be alone.
I’m sure there are lots of people writing articles like this saying they’d like to have a jar of their favorite perfume or some quality jackets for the winter, but what they won’t tell you is they’d like to see you. There is stuff in America you can’t get overseas, and sending these things to a missionary is a great help for them psychologically as well as physically, but the greatest boost in morale is a little help.
Do your missionary a favor: send them you. :o)
~Jonathan
I came home from Thailand with a desire to dig in and get to work. I knew I’d be home for a while, and wanted to make myself useful. At the time, HarvestChurch was holding “Gatherings”: meetings held during the week, in which there is no formal plan; if you’ve got something to give, you just go up and share it. At one of these meetings I ran into Pastor Ron Ashley; it was good to see him again after so long! For many years of my life he was my pastor. And It was under his shepherdship that I heard the call to missions.
After the service I asked him if he needed any help. He’s been a stone mason for as long as I can remember, and that seemed like a trade I’d like to learn. He gave me a call a couple days later and said yeah, sure, come on. So, off to Hattiesburg we went, where there was a job working on a hotel. I didn’t yet know what a “mud man” was, but I quickly found out!
While working with him, he told me that he was going to Kenya in February 2007. There is an orphanage there, and he was going to build some cabinets for them and do some itenerate preaching. He’s known the folks at this orphanage since 2000, when Pastor Ron met John Garang at the Bungoma Bible School in Kenya.
Well, A couple weeks ago I saw Pastor Ron again. The youth group at our church held a Dinner Theatre to raise funds for summer camp. And since both their sons-in-law and one of their daughters were participating, Pastor Ron and Mrs. Lynn came to the show. We sat at the same table, near the back. A couple of days before, I heard about the fire at the orphanage; it destroyed the entire home. But thank God, no one was hurt. While we were eating, I asked Pastor Ron of the situation. Since there was not enough time to tell the whole story, he got my E-mail address instead. Here’s what he sent.
An E-mail from John Garang to Ron Ashley
Dear Pastor Ron,We thank God for you pastor and your prayer pastor. We receive the 400 you send to us and we pay all school fees in waymarks pastor. We love you pastor. The cost of fire nobody no pastor. Just we see smoking around the house and the childern say fire, fire. And nothings we can do, because already got power insid the house pastor. The plan we have to trust God for new house for us and childern pastor. We take same of the childern to my mother-in-law pastor. We are praying God for the needs of us. No where we can go now in these situation. We love you and pray for you, we need your prayer and you come and see what happened to us. And now no ways even, to take them back to Sudan pastor as we told you, we give it to God forever. Nothings we can do about it. Let God help us now.
Thank you pastor Ron
We love you
JOHN & TABBY
John and Tabby Garang run an orphanage in their own home for children from the Sudan. These kids are basically refugees from the tremendous turmoil of the land. There’s infighting and civil war rampant, and it’s been that way for many years. The children of the Sudan have known nothing but war their whole lives. And this sweet couple have decided to save as many as they can.
The E-mail and photo I received from Pastor Ron, explaining the situation
Jon
Meet John Garang. John was taken from his village in the Sudan on the Nile River when he was 14. He was told that he would be working on roads. He was inducted into the warfare. The Sudan has been in the middle of civil war for a generation. He fought and killed to survive. He was placed over a troop of lost boys and raised to the rank of Lt. After some years, he stepped on a land mine and was disabled for a period of years. He was sent to Nairobi, which is in Kenya, for further treatment. After his recuperation, he was attached to the Sudanese Embassy and later reinducted as a Liason Officer {procurement of supplies}. While on a mission in Uganda, he passing by a crusade held by Bungoma Bible School in Kenya. He was saved and he left the army and went to Bungoma Bible School. This is where we met in 2000. Our hearts were knit immediately. As I returned recently, the Lord told me that he had an assignemt for me to accomplish. I knew John was a part of it but I did not know the particulars. I spent most of my time there teaching and preaching in the Bungoma area, but on my final two days, they carried me to there area of the country. The Lord has entrusted 30 Sudanese children to John and his wife Tabby. They don’t have material goods but they have faith in God and He is faithful to supply their need. My mission is to raise support for them to accomplish the work that God has given them. They have 30 lives, ranging in age from 6 mo. to 18 yrs. These children represent the future of the Sudan. The Gov’t in their country is Muslim and repressive but they are being given a life apart from the repression. John and Tabby are raising these children with the love of Jesus. They need our help. Please feel free to share this burden with any one who will listen. God bless you in His service.
Ron
We are going to Kenya in November to help this orphanage rebuild. I showed these two letters and the picture to my sister, and she asked the question everybody should have: sure, you’re going in November, but what about tonight? Where are these children going to sleep? What are they going to eat? They need help immediately, and there’s none to be found. If you would like to offer support for this orphanage, shoot me a line and I’ll get you in contact with John Garang. Christian service is more than just praying: sometimes it’s going, and always it’s giving.
~Jonathan
A story about my life as a missionary in Thailand.
Stay up-to-date with your feed reader.
Burn this feed. Note: Since I’m not updating this site anymore, this feed will reflect the photoblog feed.
