kings & chronicles
When we host Israeli backpackers in our home for dinner down here in Huaraz, Peru, I make sure that a few things are clearly visible. My big English-Spanish Bible on the coffee table declares loudly that my “Christian Bible” contains both the Old and New Testaments and that God’s Word, given to the world through the Jews, has been translated into the languages of the Gentiles. An Israeli flag in the window and a tabletop menorah communicate that we are FRIENDS of the Jewish people . . .
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why climb a mountain?
Team Yeshua 2019 has competed its work, and the volunteers have all returned home safely to their families. This group was younger than our previous ones, but it proved to be one of our best teams yet and one of the most hungry to learn. It was a great summer down here in Peru . . .
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a tale that is told
Team Yeshua has three weeks left, my family and I a little more than ten weeks; but soon, the entire season will be a tale that is told. Should we all be found faithful stewards of the Gospel, then the tale will have been, as we say in Spanish, valió la pena (i.e. worth the effort) with a guaranteed happy ending . . .
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el alud
On May 31, 1970 at 3:23pm, the earth trembled in the Ancash and La Libertad Regions of Peru and the mountain town of Huaraz with its quaint Spanish colonial ambience, the place where we are currently based, was completely flattened. More than 95% of the regional capital was destroyed and 25,000 people living here perished. Today’s Huaraz retains little to none of its former ambience. The earthquake lasted a mere 45 seconds, and it is estimated that between 65-70,000 people died and approximately 50,000 were injured in Northern Peru . . .
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famine relief
Historically, the word colporter was used to reference those who labored to distribute the printed Word of God, those who traveled far and wide to give out the Bible to folks who didn’t have a copy for themselves. In earlier American history, the Baptist Colportage Board (extinct for many years) did a lot of good work on the frontiers and in the army camps of the Civil War . . .
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once again
We just returned from a quick road trip out to South Dakota and back for the wedding of two quality young people who have served as Team Yeshua volunteers in times past, both in South Asia and South America. It was a good time, and as we posed with the bride and groom during the reception alongside a hodgepodge of other former Team Yeshua volunteers, two words came to mind against a backdrop of joy: ONCE AGAIN . . .
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just a footnote
In Numbers 13, Israel was encamped at Kadesh-barnea at the edge of the Negev and on the cusp of realizing God’s promise of the land made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God commanded Moses to send twelve spies out from Kadesh to explore Canaan and to bring back a report . . .
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a wheel within a wheel
After a very long journey and by God’s grace, Eric and I finally made it back to North Carolina. I apologize for the lull in communication since I last penned a report on February 28th, the day after we arrived in Jerusalem. We were very busy, and so much happened for the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus the Messiah along this journey that I really don’t know where, how, or IF to begin . . .
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5D chess
Greetings from Jerusalem! Presently, I am watching sheets of rain blow from the Zion Gate over to the Mount of Olives on a nasty night. But praise God, it’s much warmer here than it was yesterday in Nova Scotia . . .
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hittin' the road one more time
From a child, I always loved the music of Dallas Holm. I remember hearing it over the stereo in my parent’s pale yellow Ford Fairmont station wagon on many a 3-hour drive to Raleigh to visit my grandparents. If it wasn’t Dallas Holm, it was a cassette of Keith Green, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Scott Wesley Brown, or the Imperials. Those were different days, back when Christian music was actually ministry and not merchandise. Of course, Rise Again, I Saw the Lord, and the narrative album His Last Days are true classics, but a lesser known ballad holds a special place in my heart. As a child, I heard it. As an adult, I have lived it . . .
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out of state checks
The words of the late Keith Green posted above made a convicting impact on me many years ago as I wrestled with answering God’s call in my life to missions and my understanding of the Great Commission. Today, we still go into all the world, preaching the Gospel to both Jew and Gentile . . .
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the Lord's timing
On his second missionary journey (Acts 15:40-18:22), the Apostle Paul purposed to go into Asia (i.e. western Turkey) after revisiting the cities and churches of Galatia. Such was a noble endeavor, but he was "forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia" (Acts 16:6). From there, his team ventured in obedience west into Europe, heeding the Macedonian Call . . .
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my guru
Guru is an old Sanskrit word used in South Asian contexts for a “spiritual teacher.” It’s actually similar to the Hebrew rabbi. And sadly, as in Jewish culture, South Asian cultures are rife with so-called “spiritual teachers” who are nothing more than snake oil charlatans. But, my Guru once opened the eyes of the blind . . .
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primed & ready
Great Commission ministry “to the Jew first” cannot and should not be about numbers, but it is about divine appointments; and for these, the preacher and the colporter must remain vigilant. At any moment and in any place, a lost sheep from the House of Israel might be found . . .
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we can know
Almost 10 years ago, a guy tried to kill me on a lonely highway somewhere in the Yukon Territory as I was riding a bicycle and preaching the Gospel to the top of Alaska. I was discouraged and ready to quit, parked at a gas station in the cold rain, and then went inside to buy a coffee from a girl with blue hair . . .
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a sign here, a tract there
Why does the Church complicate the Great Commission? Why do missions and evangelism strategies have to be so complex, so “contextual,” and so accommodating to the world?
The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthian believers: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Corinthians 11:3).
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into the mountains
For many years, our labors for the Word of God & the Testimony of Jesus Christ have inevitably taken us up . . . into the mountains . . .
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it ends, and it begins
Our last few days in Huaraz, Peru, the family and I explored up the Quebrada Honda, a high-altitude valley with some active and lot of abandoned silver and zinc mines that the tourists can't normally access. We were stopped at a gate, and the guards forbade us entry . . .
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to relax and rely
Recently Eric and I were “Whatsapp’ing” back and forth, he up in the Himalayas and I down in the Andes. Having just arrived in Leh, a very different culture on the world’s other major Hummus Trail for Isrseli backpackers, and after a busy summer with us down here in Huaraz, he mentioned: “When we first got here, it was hard. I was depressed and overwhelmed with what we had to do here alone.” Then, he followed up with something simple but profound . . .
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concurrence
In the 1970’s came the drifter-tourists. Having completed very tense Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conscriptions in very tense times, these individual nonconformists began reacting to the predictable status quo of Jewish life in a land surrounded by enemies who wanted to push them into the sea. They took a break and went trekking . . .
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