A Little Picture of Perseverance

A Little Picture of Perseverance

May 30, 2006

On Sunday I was with Mother in the car - now I have to explain to any readers our unique situation. We have a little church that meets in a decrepit building on the corner of the main road. (It's decrepit partly because we don't own it, and every service we have no assurance that it won't be our last one in the building - so we don't spend much money on upkeep. We are trying and praying toward buying the building but the owner is a rather moody Hindu man who wants more money out of us than we can give. Thankfully, neither he nor his demands are greater than our God.) Anyway, after service mother was taking a lady home in our car while everyone else waited at the church - except for me. I decided to go along. It was raining, and after dropping off the lady, we were going along the muddy road back toward the church building when we saw a sight. Both Mother and I wished we had the camera, but a word picture must suffice:
A young boy of about seven years was coming down the road. He was barefoot and wearing only underpants (which is very normal in Guyana - and probably better for walking in the rain!) He had probably just ridden the family bike to the local shop to buy ice and was now returning. The bike was a full-size adult bike and he was pushing it with both hands. His head was slightly down, gripping the top of the bag of ice between his front teeth, while rain streamed down his face. His face was a picture of grit and determination as he slowly pushed the bike toward home. What a picture! I hope his mother thanked him when he got home.
Sometimes life is like that.
What kept that boy going? The command of his parent and the end of his trip - home! (and maybe a soft drink with ice when he got there.) Something better awaits believers in Christ - God. Our dwelling place, our eternal home and our fountain of delight forever. He will fill us with joy in His presence, with eternal pleasure at His right hand.
And if we have to tramp barefoot through mud in life, our hands so full, we wish we had three... we can keep on going, one step at a time. Jesus will keep us persevering in grace and our God will bring us safely home. I know that no analogy is a perfect one - our lives aren't always tramping through mud. There is earthly joy many times in our way. But when we have to drudge, the joy of the Lord is our strength and the end of the journey is our hope.

"...strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." - Acts 14:22 ESV

Banana Bread

This recipe for banana bread is my favorite. I have made it countless times, and know the ingredients by memory. It is great for using up overripe bananas, great for a snack, and great for a simple encouraging gift to a neighbor or friend. Plus, it's naturally sugar-free!

- 1/3 cup sour milk (if you don't have sour-milk, or buttermilk put a tsp. or so of vinegar or lemon juice in bottom of measuring cup and fill with milk and let sit. Do this first)
- 3 very ripe bananas
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil

In medium bowl, mash bananas with fork, stir in vanilla. Set aside.

In mixing bowl, combine
- 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Make a well in center. Set aside.

Using fork, beat eggs into banana mixture; stir in sour milk and oil. Dump wet mixture into flour mixture, stir only until combined. Put batter into greased bread or muffin pans. Makes two 7x3 loaves, one 9x5 loaf, or a dozen+ muffins. (approximation)

Bake at 350... till done. (Toothpick inserted in center comes out dry, or edges are brown - around 30-45 minutes for loaves, 15-20 minutes for muffins) Remove from pans, let loaves cool before slicing.

Options:
- For non-wheat, substiute 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour, 1/4 cup tapioca flour, and 1 tsp. xantham gum for the whole-wheat flour.

- Drizzle honey on top of loaves before baking for added sweetness and a nice brown top.

- Put 1/2 tsp. vanilla and add 1 tsp. of cinnamon to flour mixture.

- Substitute leftover papaya or overripe plantain for part of the bananas. This is best with the cinnamon option.

- Add chopped dates to the flour mixture

"Wheat and Non-Wheat Banana Bread"

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. - 1 Tim. 4:4-5 ESV

Ask, and it shall be given unto you - a story.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Yesterday was Tuesday, visitation day for our church. The Lord had laid it upon my heart to visit my friend Anna, a girl about my age who lives in Edinburgh near our church but goes to a very small Pentecostal church nearby with her family. I hadn't talked to her in a long time. Throughout the day I just asked God to fill me with His Spirit and give me wisdom and let me glorify Him in what I say to her. Mother said I should also visit Asha, a Muslim girl from Georgetown (the capital) who had come back from there and was staying with her aunt in Edinburgh. (I'd had a Bible study with her before.) I felt so helpless to accomplish anything, but God has never failed me, and I asked him to use me once again.

So my mother and I went to Edinburgh (the village of our church about 2 miles away from Glasgow, where we live) First we visited a lady who goes to our church, whose little son was very sick, with tonsilitis as we found out. She was sitting on a bench in her side porch, holding a piece of styrofoam. Mother talked with her while I kept quiet, watching three of their dogs tumble and walk around nearby. When we were about to leave, the lady said she'd tried to call us but our phone was busy. Mother asked, "Do you have our cell-phone number?"
"No"
"Do you have a piece of paper?"
"I can just write it on this" (the styrofoam)
"Um, I can't remember it, Alyssa?"
Aha! That's the whole providential reason I came along, to say "619-5682". Well God works out little things too.

[When we got back into the car, we were greeted by the pungent smell of ripe mangoes. Through the whole time, we couldn't figure out what it was coming from.]

Anyway, Mother took me to Nali's house/shop where Asha was. While I was with Asha, I asked her what she remembered from the last time, when we studied in Romans. She said, "The good and the bad". That's all she could remember. I reminded her that who is bad is us, and who is good is God. Then I sought to explain to her Isaiah 53 and the gospel, Jesus bearing our sins, our righteousness not sufficient - we must have His, which we get by believing in Him who will take our sins and be our righteousness. I don't know how much she understood, but she listened attentively. She is not a strong Muslim, and likes Christianity, that's why my mother got me onto her. But oh may God open her eyes to see and understand and believe.

Leaving that house, I walked down the street to remind Kelly that I was only coming for her reading lessons every other week now. She looked as if she had forgotten I wasn't coming and was ready for me and I felt reluctant not to stay, but I had a mission - Anna, so I told her to keep on studying.

I decided that I didn't want to walk on the busy main road to go to Anna's so I turned into the next street, where I learned a lesson - always look the whole way down a street before you enter it. There were 4 oil barrels forming a barricade to large vehicles at the head of the street and I walked around them. The side of the street was freshly laid with tar and gravel, so I stepped over that and walked on the little dirt strip on the far side. A hired car driver was trying to enter the road and was moving the barrels. A middle-aged man was standing in front of his house yelling at the man for messing with other people's property - I hurried on my way. As I walked I realized that men were still working on the road - oh no, workmen. I doubted that this white girl could get past them without some comments. I ignored one who said, "How are you this afternoon? - hey, you can't even give a 'good afternoon'?" Well I managed to get through the street without too many more comments and soon reached Anna's house. Her mother was there, but she was at church practicing worship dance and would soon be back. So we sat on the porch and talked. I love how easy it is to go to Guyanese people's houses and visit them. While we sat there, a girl who lived on the same street as the church passed on her bike, and Anna's mother hollered for her to tell Anna to come home because somebody was here for her. Anna's mother told me about Anna's being in the President's Youth Club program and how she had gotten the Silver Award for her walking expidition (A kind of 'scouts' program) She wants to go for the gold - walking from Lethem to Brazil!

When Anna came, we talked about that and I shared some verses with her. I asked her what her goal for her life was. She said, "In the church, I want to be a preacher and teach people God's word, and in my life I want to be an accountant." I knew that there church promotes women leadership. She had also told me that in her Bible she mostly reads the gospels and some of the beginning. Well, I showed her the passages in Timothy and I Cor. about women, that they should not speak in the church. She had NEVER heard those verses and it seemed they just blew her mind. Well I talked to her about that and later told her my testimony. God empowered me so much and gave me so much joy and freedom in speaking to her. When I left she said, "I feel so different." and I told her to think about and pray about the things I'd told her.

God never fails. He uses earthem vessels to display His glory. When I opened my Bible in the Psalms that night, I saw one verse, "When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stout-hearted." Amen.

"And He will win the battle. "

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

On Monday, our family went to Whim beach, about 45 minutes up the coast. On our drive along the single coastal road we saw clusters of uniformed school-children streaming onto the road, wandering cows, big new houses and shops - and an Islamic school. It was a large, newly built wooden structure and we passed just as the children, all dressed in dark green and white uniforms were being let out. Young girls with burkas and backpacks, young boys with white skullcaps and others dressed like "christian" schoolchildren - bareheaded. I watched their faces as we passed and felt discouragement weigh upon me, discouragement over the spread of Islam that we have been seeing more and more of, and sadness for their souls. How this region could benefit from a Christian school…but our organization of churches here is so tiny, so lacking in resources and Christian leaders, that the prospect of a Christian school seems beyond unimaginable.

Not only did we see one new Muslim school, I saw on our trip that the Muslims are building a big new school beside their huge mosque in New Amsterdam, and we saw a large new Muslim youth center as well.

On the way home from the beach we stopped at a big white store where we go to buy "American" things. I stayed outside, and while sitting in the car, I looked up and saw the muslim moon and star symbol painted thrice, high on the buiding. How the Muslims seem to prosper. While they build big new buildings, we meet in a tiny, wooden bottomhouse addition - unpainted except for the FOR SALE spray-painted on every wall by the owner, with his phone numbers added to the graffiti. I know that God is Sovereign but felt like the psalmist in Psalm 73 - why do the wicked prosper? And the dread feeling that Islam would take over Guyana jostled the foundations of my heart.

In the midst of this, the Lord whispered His word to my heart. At the beach I finished the missions chapter of Desiring GOD. "What is impossible with men is possible with God." John Piper quoted. And in my heart sang "The Lord knows those who are his....", "Those whom he predestined he also called...", and the remembrance of the foretold end, the redeemed worshipping the Lamb who has conquered everything. It lifted my soul in hope - the war will be won! ... but what about this battle? What can I do?

"I will build my church" said Jesus.

What a disconsolate creature I must be, since all this did not cheer my heart as it ought to have. Finally, at bedtime, our ever gracious Lord caused the Psalms to burst upon my longing heart with almighty truth:

"I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples,
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth.
Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered.

God has spoken from his sanctuary:
"In triumph I will parcel out Shechem
and measure off the Valley of Succoth.

Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah my scepter.

Moab is my washbasin,
upon Edom I toss my sandal;
over Philistia I shout in triumph."

Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?

Is it not you, O God, you who have rejected us
and no longer go out with our armies?

Give us aid against the enemy,
for the help of man is worthless.

With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.
- Psalm 108:3-13

May God someday shout in triumph over Guyana - He will win the victory and trample Satan, our enemy. He is King and his glory will someday be over all of the earth.

Isn't life interesting? (In Glasgow at least.) This is a country of people that need God, and that's why we're here. It also can cause one to think at times: "There's never a dull moment!"

First Bible Club Lesson for Glasgow Bible Club

Who is God?

Who is God? (Listen for answers)

Is there one God or many gods? – There is only one God.

Does God have a body that you can see? – God is a Spirit, but God dwells in the body of Jesus. Jesus is God in a body.

God is one God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. They are all one God, but they are three persons. (Persons are not bodies, a person can still be a person with no body. The Holy Spirit does not have any body, but the Holy Spirit is God and He is a person in the Trinity.) God is called “The TRINITY” Trinity means three in one.

Do the persons in the trinity love one another? Yes, they do. They love each other very much. GOD is LOVE.

The three persons are one God (Not three GODS, ONE God in THREE persons!) Jesus said Jesus is God.

The first thing you must know about God is this:

God is your creator! God made the whole world and everything in it. He made the sun, moon and stars. He made the fruit trees and the flowers. He made the birds and the dogs and the cows. And God made people. That means God made you. God the Father made the universe through God the Son by God the Holy Spirit.

Colossians 1:16 is a verse about Jesus. It says: The world was made through Jesus. And everything was made for Jesus.

The trees were made for Jesus, the animals were made for Jesus. You were made for Jesus. But do you know what? You don’t live for Jesus. You were made for Jesus but you don’t love Jesus. And that is because we are sinful.

We are so sinful, we cannot even love and worship this wonderful God. God is so wonderful. He is three persons in one. He is love and He made this beautiful world. But we don’t love and worship him because we are sinners. Our sins separate us from this wonderful God.

Jesus, the Son of God came to this world in a body so that he could save us from our sins. He never sinned, because He is God. He died to take the punishment for our sins. If we trust in Him to save us from our sins and bring us to God, He will take away our sins and bring us to God.

American Amnesia

We are a people who have amnesia toward God. He is the end and goal of the entire universe. How can it be that he is so absent from our lives? The answer is of course, sin. But we don't call it that. Murder is sin. But forgetting God?...

American commercialism emphasizes the enhancement of our enjoyment of God's gifts - "Indulge your senses and satisfy your cravings; though it cost all you have, get comfort!" Advertisements don't call their goods God's gifts. He is simply ignored, and we are quickly and quietly led to completely forget Him, though he is the Giver. This is so wrong.

This departure from the divine is extremely subtle. To the Christian, the silence toward God ought to sound louder than every perky voice and trite tune that surrounds and fruitlessly endeavors to fill that silent space. But more often we are drawn by American commercialism into a world filled with pleasant things we don't possess and health we don't have (unless we would use that brand of laxative...) namely we are presented with a heaven on earth without God! In such a God-less paradise may we ever hear the hollow, howling void that whispers "hell."

In television programs and advertisements about healthy, care-free, luxurious, comfortable lives, may we ever see what lies beyond them - namely eternity - and remember. Remember eternity. Remember God. Television causes you to forget what is important.

Therefore, let us turn from the hollow world, choosing not to fill our God-given minds with the God-less American dream. In practical English: Turn of the television, get your Bible and start praying that God would make you a person who loves Him and lives for eternity.

Let us then, turning from the world, turn to our Lord Jesus who is himself heaven on earth, even in impoverishment. He is in a cold and lonely house our dearest friend; in crawling, crowded tenements our joy and peace. His love is better than life! Let us not love this world and forget God, but let us hate our lives in this world that we may keep them for eternal life!