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Friday, February 29, 2008

The Ten

Late tonight I'll be landing in Lima, Peru with Alyssa, Stepanie, Jon, Rachel, Rebecca, Jess, Braedyn, Brannyn, Ashley and Elisabeth. These "the ten" are nursing students at Malone College in Canton, Ohio.

We will be doing clinics in the neighborhoods around the town of Chilca where ChildReach Ministries (http://www.childreachministries.org/) is building a home for pregnant street girls as well as an orphanage.

Some are on their first ever mission trip. All will be exposed to a level of poverty they've probably never before experienced. And we will all be changed, I think.

They are excited about putting their nursing skills to work to help the less fortunate. I am excited to see what God does in their life too. I think they will experience a God way bigger than they ever imagined.

Check back on this blog if you're interested in what we're up to. Updates will also be at the ChildReach website by following this link: http://www.childreachministries.org/08pe0229/

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Ban the Bible

Last night my wife and I met Mark Fashevsky from Tiraspol, Transnistria. Transnistria is a small area between the countries of Moldova and Ukraine. And that probably helped about zero of the adults my age (yes, I had to look it up too). It's been an independent state, in its own eyes, since 1992. In its own eyes? They have their own currency, president, military, flag, coat of arms, postal system, banking, national anthem, police but no recognition from the international community. Igor Smirnov has been their president for 17 years.

Mark works with Summit Missions from Akron, OH and has set up a foster care program there called Help The Children (www.htc.tiraspol.info/). It seeks to get orphans out of depressed and underfunded state run programs and into a christian home. Mark was inspired by a recent trip to Texas where he learned about the concept of fostering for the first time.

Mark presented a slide show about his country and the foster care program. He spoke of government corruption and a country of very poor people. He said you could not set up and succeed at business in his town, Tiraspol, without paying a bribe to the mayor. When he finished I was struck by how similar the story is to where I take mission teams to Ecuador and Peru. Kids starting life with nothing. Parents with little opportunity for work. Families break up. Alcohol and drugs rule the day. Kids pay the price. The cycle repeats. Hope is neither spoken or dreamed. But Mark is helping to break the cycle.

Mark told us his testimony about coming to faith in Jesus at 17 living in Russia. The Bible was a banned book and he said this naturally made everyone want it. He had been taught that Christians were dangerous and sacrificed children to their god. But a friend invited him to a Baptist church and he went. Mark described feeling different when he walked into this church and said "he knew there was something to this." He went home and prayed for repentance. I loved hearing him describe his youth and how the Bible was banned and how that generated incredible interest in it.

That reminds me how the early Christians, even though their religion was illegal, continued to meet and worship and serve. Then everything got messed up when Constantine legalized it. Maybe we need to be subversive and illegal again to really storm the gates of hell.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Civil Disobedience

Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah did it. You can read their story in the book of Exodus. Pharaoh ordered them to kill all the males born to Hebrew women to control the Israelite population growth. Perhaps the intent was to wipe out the Hebrews? But these women lied to Pharaoh when asked why they let the boys live. And God blessed them with families of their own.

Next comes the mother and sister of Moses. Since Pharaoh's first try at genocide fails he then orders all Hebrew baby boys thrown into the Nile river. Instead, Moses' mom hides him for three months. When she can no loger keep him quiet she puts him in a basket and puts it on the bank of the river and posts her daughter at a distance to observe what happens. Apparently Moses' sister is brave enough (no mention of her age here) to approach as Pharaoh's daughter finds the basket. She is close enough to offer to find someone to nurse this new found baby as Pharaoh's daughter is discovering the contents of the basket.

And in the ultimate twist of fate Moses' mother not only gets to nurse her son, she gets paid to do it!

After this time of nursing is over she takes Moses back to Pharaoh's daughter. Talk about obedience! How difficult was this?

So where was Moses' father in all this? Tradition says Moses wrote this book of the bible and I would think he would include his father...........if he was around. The women seem to be doing all the disobeying here. Way to go girls!

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

I just finished reading this book by Philip Yancey. It was a bit of an ardous read to go straight through but well worth the time nonetheless. Yancey writes , not from a claim of expertise on the subject, but as a fellow pilgrim seeking to answer such questions as why pray? Does prayer change God? What difference does it make?

I found it an excellent little trip of discovery as much about the nature of God as prayer. But is that the same thing? Maybe that's one of the best reasons to pray, to spend time getting to know Him.

I've often fallen asleep at night while praying. I wake up in the morning feeling guilty that I didn't stay awake to talk with God. And I wonder what God thinks about that. Reminds me of Jesus' experience with some disciples who couldn't stay awake to pray. Then I read an essay in this book by a woman named Susan. She noted: "I used to worry about falling asleep during prayer. Now, as a parent, I understand. What parent wouldn't wand her child to fall asleep in her arms?"

For now, and for reasons I really don't understand, prayer sets God loose on earth. When we meet Him face to face I think it will resume its rightful place as conversation.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

A change of venue

One thing we at ChildReach Ministries always try to impress upon our trip participants is to be flexible. We set up an itinerary but are subject to what God wants to do, when God wants to do it. Well, I recently got a taste of my own medicine.

I wrote awhile back about a group of nursing students I am taking to Ecuador on a mission trip to do cross cultural clinicals. Only I'm not taking them to Ecuador. After over two months of trying to set this up to no avail we decided to give Peru a try. Within a week we have what looks like an incredible trip shaping up. We will work out of the hospital in Chilca and set up neighborhood pediatric clinics to distribute medicine and work with kids.

Ashley, one of the Malone nursing students going on this trip and my new friend becoming, told a pretty cool story last night as we were leaving our meeting about Peru. She was in a store hoping to buy a video camera for the mission trip. She got into a conversation with the salesperson about why she wanted one and another patron overheard them. This guy comes over and tells Ashley he overheard her talking and tells her he is a doctor who just moved to the area from Wisconsin; he tells her he thinks what she is doing (a nursing mission trip) is great.

He buys Ashley a $300.00 video camera right on the spot!

So God has already shown up on the trip in a big way and we haven't even left yet. He completley changed our venue from Ecuador to Peru and was certainly involved in a video camera transaction. And we are still 3-1/2 weeks away from departure.

I can't wait to get there and see what God does through, and to, these 10 students.