Entered Glory 57 Years Ago Today:

(Re-posting this from a couple years ago because there's not a lot to add to what my brothers have said.)

Pete Fleming (Age 27)"[The Lord] has been leading my meditation to the stringent statements of Christ regarding discipleship specially those words of Christ to His disciples before He sent them out…’He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.’ I have been directed to these and similar passages again and again. I should like to put these truths to the utmost test … Seemingly God delights in many instances to place men in situations which magnify their weaknesses for the simple delight of showing Himself strong to all observers”

Ed McCully (Age 28)“I have one desire now-to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it..."

Jim Elliot (Age 28)

--> “God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”

Roger Youderian (Age 31)

"I will die to self. I will begin to ask God to put me in service of constant circumstances where to live Christ I must die to self. I will be alive unto God. That I may learn to love Him with my heart, mind, soul, and body."

Nate Saint (Age 32)

"People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted. ..If God would grant us the vision, the word ‘sacrifice’ would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short; we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ."

“God does not require that we be successful; only that we be faithful.”

-Mother Theresa

Back to School :)

Lately the story of Jesus' friends in Bethany (Mary, Martha, and Lazarus) has been special to me. As I've pieced together a profile of Jesus' relationships with these siblings--and Mary, in particular--I've been warmed by the Lord's tenderness and intimacy in His interaction with them, and theirs with Him. I love Mary, especially, because I want my priorities to be the same as hers (everyone does, I guess). I love how she sits at His feet when He comes to dinner, listening to Him speak, instead of rushing around serving Him. And how she and her sister are so raw and open in their emotions with Jesus after their brother dies. 

As the new year begins, I am asking Jesus to be my Teacher. There are so many aspects of Who He is that I love... He is my Father, my Friend, My Lord, My King, My Savior, My Lover, My Deliverer... but there are so many things that I want to LEARN from Him that I'm going to try to focus on being a Mary; sitting at His feet and soaking in what He has to share with me. Practically, this means digging into the Word instead of skimming the surface. Meditating on what it says instead of just quickly reading to glean an encouraging nugget for the day then move on. It means learning to communicate with Him in prayer. This will take time and effort. But I want to be a Mary, so I'm asking Him to be my Teacher. Psalm 86:11- "Teach me Your ways, O Lord, and I will walk in Your truth! Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name."

I began my list this morning:

-Teach me diligence and ambition.

-Teach me flexibility.

-Teach me to be more organized.

-Teach me to be an evangelist. 

-Teach me to be proactive about meeting needs around me.

-Teach me to disciple.

-Teach me to sit at your feet; learning and basking in Your presence!

-Teach me to love Your Word!

-Teach me to control myself: thoughts, appetites, words.

-Teach me the "Beatitudes" from Matthew 5-- to be poor in spirit, to mourn over what grieves Your heart, mercy, meekness, an appetite for righteousness, purity of heart, to be a peacemaker, and to be persecuted for Your name's sake.

-Teach me faith and trust. 

-Teach my frugality.

-Teach me generosity.

-Teach me to pray; passionately, fervently.

-Teach me to relish small moments.

-Teach me to delight in Your fingerprints all around me.

-Teach me to value time, not squander it. To number my days and gain a heart of wisdom.

-Teach me to be a better daughter, friend, sister, granddaughter...

-Teach me to keep my word, and not make trite promises I don't remember to fulfill.

-Teach me to hurt with and cry for others.

-Teach me to value others' time more than I value my own.

-Teach me to grow and feel loved when you chasten me, instead of letting condemnation crush me.

-Teach me to abide in You- to practice Your presence.

-Teach me to speak tenderly, graciously, cautiously, lovingly. And often, not at all. 

-Teach me to hate sin. In any form. And to grieve over its presence in my life or others'.

-Teach me to guard my eyes.

-Teach me to crave spiritual food more than I crave mindless entertainment.

-Teach me how much you love me.

-Teach me to hate (and fight!) apathy in my own life and in your church.

-Teach me to grieve over sin.

-Teach me to live in peace; not to let myself get frazzled and overwhelmed by life so easily.

-Teach me that people are priority.

-Teach me to memorize Your Word.

-Teach me to hope for what I long for, and not let my hope die!

-Teach me to burn with passion for my God. To desire you supremely. As my highest treasure.

-Teach me not to give up on other people easily. 

-Teach me to think the best. 

-Teach me what I don't even know I need to learn, yet. What are YOUR priorities for me?

And, perhaps I should add another--"Teach me not to become OVERWHELMED by all I have to learn." :) This is a tall order. I won't perfectly learn all these things in the New Year or even in the next 10 years, for that matter. But, I have the Master Teacher who delights in me and has made me His special project, creating me for good works such as these (Ephesians 2:10)! So, I know He's not overwhelmed by my list. :) 

I think the Teacher's eyes light up when we ask Him to teach us these things. I'm determined, with His help, to prioritize the time spent sitting at His feet learning this year. 

Like Mary did. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 

For your listening enjoyment, I present a reshowing of 
"The Sibling Pipers"
with
~Auld Lang Syne~
(First presented to the world by Scott and Danielle S. on New Year's Eve of 2010, brought back by popular demand)

Some Christmas reflections...

And in despair I bowed my head:

                      "There is no peace on earth," I said,

"For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men."

My heart has been so heavy. So many people are hurting.

-My friend's brother just died from alcohol poisoning. He was about my age.
-The last little child was buried today from the massacre in Connecticut.
-Went to a movie and gaped at the ads for other films about to be released. Our culture is obsessed with witches and vampires, dark magic and death, zombies and ghosts. We are shocked when death, disguised as "entertainment," jumps off the screen or page and settles his clutches into our homes, our schools, our nation.
-A family member of mine is facing divorce and being mommy alone to two children this Christmas.
-Another of my family members, trying to stifle the pain of his lonely heart with drugs.
-My co-worker and friend has breast cancer and two little girls.
-My friend is tottering on the edge of abandoning Jesus because she can't understand Him.

This Christmas has been different. Because nearly every time I've thought about Jesus' miraculous, silent arrival to earth inside a virgin's womb my thoughts have also raced forward to His return. There will be absolutely nothing quiet and lowly about it next time. My heart keeps echoing the same cry over and over... "Come BACK! Come back again soon and make everything right again, Lord." I found Matthew 23:40 a few days ago. "...And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”  I read it over and over and pictured what that would be like. Jesus says that so many people--from every nation on earth-- will mourn because they didn't choose Him. But there will be so many people rejoicing and saying, "THIS is our God! We waited for Him and He is HERE!"

Oh, how differently His second coming will be!

• No tiny, helpless newborn wail; this time the very breath of his mouth will decimate His enemy! And along with His shout, and a deafening trumpet call! (2 Thessalonians 2:8, 1 Thessalonians 4:16)
• A dirty donkey on which to flee from the wrath of a ruler? NO! No puny earth-kings will stand against Him. A white stallion will carry the High King of Heaven! He will be a mighty, victorious King with an army in His wake, arrayed in a dazzling robe of white and no dirty tattered swaddling clothes! The brightness of His coming will not shine from just one single star, because He Himself will shine so brilliantly that He'll literally overwhelm the enemy with the blaze of His eye! His righteous, victorious vengeance will crush sin and evil forever. He will simultaneously strike terror and sear joy into the hearts of earth's inhabitants as He rides as a Mighty Warrior, his robe dipped in blood! (Revelations 19:11-16)
• No door will bar His entrance.  No manger to contain Him, for not even the mountain upon which His foot steps will be able to hold Him...it will split in two. (Zech. 14:4)

And yes...He will make everything right again.

Will you be ready at His second advent? And do you long for it!?

"Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." -2 Tim. 4:8

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel!

Some random Aussie pictures

Jet lag.

2:00 am. 

My brain is stubbornly refusing to shut down like a good little brain should and go to bed with the rest of my body. So, while lying here with my eyes wide open--or purposely squeezed shut, which is just as bad--and my mind whizzing at 100 MPH, it occurred to me that now is as good a time as any to get to that blog post I've been meaning to write! So I've dragged my computer to bed with me and I'll see how long I last. Maybe blogging is the proverbial "sheep counting" for me and will do the trick. Maybe in a few minutes my sleepy head will bob onto my keyboard and post a paragraph of jumbled letters and numbers for my friends and family to puzzle over tomorrow morning. 

At any rate, until that happens, let me tell you about the last stop of our Bright Lights ministry trip: The Land Downunda'! Woohoo! Traveling to Australia has finally been checked off from my bucket list! I've wanted to go for so long and my kind Father has granted me the desire. And granted it in such a perfect way. As much as I love to travel, I think I'd feel somewhat aimless--guilty, maybe-- just traveling the world without a purpose other than entertaining myself and seeing new sights. Jesus gave me the gift of being able to travel to Alaska, Asia, and Australia with an awesome team and for the purpose of investing in the lives of precious young ladies there. I've just kept marveling all two months of the trip because He's so kind!! 

I'll try to keep it to concise picture captions. :) These pictures are uploaded in no particular order, btw, in case any of the team reads this and is wondering what on earth I was thinking. ;)

On an off day, we enjoyed a train ride from downtown Melbourne to the country for... 

...A barby with friends! :)

Beautiful countryside.

Our team enjoyed an awesome evening at our new friends, the Langford's home. Here we're gazing out at kangaroos in the field just below their home! It was amazing. There were at least 20 kangaroos grazing and bouncing around while we ate our dinner on the porch and watched them. 

This big guy came for a drink. 

She kindly posed for a silhouette shot. 

The birds were noisy but oh, so beautiful. 

Mr. Langford took us on a breakneck-speed "buggy" ride through the fields after dinner, and we raced the kangaroos! A pretty unforgettable experience!

Sun setting in the Australian countryside. 

This picture doesn't do justice to the awesome time of singing we enjoyed before leaving the Langfords.  Some crazy good guitar pickin' and hilarious songs made for an atmosphere of joy with this family that we won't forget! 

On the last day of our time in Australia we went to a wildlife sanctuary and got some hands-on experience with Aussie animals! God's creativity never ceases to amaze me. And animals showcase it the most brilliantly of all!

It's called "I'll-lean-in-and-we'll-look-like-we're-good-buddies." 

I never realized how utterly adorable wombats are.
Utterly.
Adorable. 

And the KOALAS! I'm in love!

It's a kookaburra! 

The day after we arrived, friends took us to a park where wild birds will often come and eat out of your hands. It was such a magical experience! To have these wild creatures come of their own volition and trust us felt like a gift. It was amazing. I could have stayed there all day.

The turnout for the Radiant Purity and Strong in The Lord conferences was really great and people drove (or even flew!) from hours and hours away. It was amazing to know that they valued this teaching so much and it blessed our team to know that the truth of God's Word will be spreading like ripples throughout Australia as the girls return to their homes and begin discipling others. Awesome thought!

The weather was too gorgeous to keep my SiTL team cooped up indoors so we enjoyed meeting on the grass. What a precious time of fellowship and mutual encouragement! 

Buddy the skink! I almost stepped on the little guy one evening but he forgave and we made friends. He was the only reptile I saw in Australia. No crocs. Steve Irwin had given me the impression that they await you under every rock and in every tree. Feeling dissolutioned. 

Feeling a little cooped up one evening, Nickie, Jolynn and I set out on foot to find an Australian fish n' chips place.  The walk was longer than anticipated but ended up being a fun memory. :) Here, Nickie and I demonstrate our stubbornness. 

Yessss, we finally found it...

...And it was totally worth the walk!

My Aussie friends and I prepping for a skit :)

My awesome Radiant Purity team. 

This was the group of Australian leaders who helped us with the conferences. Precious sisters!

Sarah Ha and her entire family became such special friends to us. Everywhere we went on this trip we met servants of Christ who blessed us in SO MANY WAYS and the Ha family just kept on giving and giving and giving to our team! When I meet brothers and sisters like them it makes me want to seize every opportunity I can to bless and serve other people whom God brings across my path. I'm so grateful for their fellowship and example. 

Eloise. Aussie tale-teller extraordinaire.
Don't believe this gal if she tells you there are such things as Drop Bears in Australia. 

Emily pulled one on me one evening after we had been talking about the various insects in Australia and girls had been horrifying me with stories of cockroaches and large spiders that actually climbed up their legs. Sneaking up behind me with that blade of grass, she gently stroked it up my leg and sent me screaming and kicking across the room. :) Got to watch these Aussies!

More later. It's after 3:30 am and.....glory be.... I'm getting sleepy!  

Well here we are, back in Singapore! A technologically advanced, beautiful, clean city with amazing architecture, good economy, and--you guessed it--yummy food. :) The above pic was taken as we walked downtown enjoying the spectacular skyline (whoops, did I just state the obvious...!?). We've enjoyed a few leisure days in-between conferences. In Singapore, "leisure" is the code word for "shopping" so one evening we hit the streets to see the sights and blow some Sing Dollars. I must interject here that there is something very, very romantic (or in our case "ro-tic" since, alas, there was no man among us) about a city at night. The air was muggy with a slight breeze and the strains of a Christmas song wafted from a store as we passed through.

Wait---

WHAT!?

White CHRISTMAS!?!?!?

Now that is strange. Bing Crosby crooning Christmas songs just seems a little twisted when we're sweating and strolling among palm trees wearing flip flops (us, not the palm trees) in Asia. It does not at all feel like the Christmas season. There are an abundance of lights but...where is the snow? Where are the warm spicy drinks? Where is the pair of boots I love to wear because they looks so cute with my black hat and red plaid scarf!? 

Ug! I MUST reprogram my mind because if I insist on traveling AND being so attached to holiday tradition and warm fuzzies for the rest of my life, I am destined to be traumatized during many more seasons to come. Because hot chocolate at 90 degrees just does NOT work. 

For Thanksgiving I skyped with mom. She showed me the turkeys brining, the pumpkin pie ready to be palaced in the oven, and--*sob!*--one of our newer Sobie traditions: pumpkin marzipans all lined up in rows on the counter. I ate Indian food that day. It was an unbelievably memorable Thanksgiving meal. CRAZY good, and I can't exactly complain since I know mom will make me a belated Thanksgiving dinner after I come home in December. 

All these memories and Christmas/Thanksgiving thoughts have me thinking about my family, my warm and inviting home, the rich spiritual meaning of the season for me, and the abundant, abundant blessings that overwhelm me each November and December. 

I am so blessed. I am almost ashamed and embarrassed at how easy I've had it, though I know that all blessings come from God's hand. I can't even describe how many little things I know I take for granted... clean, odorless bathrooms and quick, easy medical care and freedom to talk about whatever want to whomever I want, and a bed raised OFF the ground and no bugs infesting my home and the ability to own a car and the absence of fear when I enter my church and ....wow. It's endless. My life has been filled with one privilege after another and when I stop and think about it--particularly with the focus that being in Asia has brought, I am seriously, literally, overwhelmed. Consider this:

-In Malaysia, there are approx. 28 million ethnic Malay citizens. It is illegal to share the Gospel of Jesus with them. Because of this, it's estimated that there are only about 1 thousand Malay believers. If you were born as one of the 28 million Malays, someone would have to break the law and risk jail time to tell you about Jesus. So, most likely you would never hear.

-Today I listened to a friend of mine who has been working in China among handicapped children. She wept as she told us about the work she does and the children she has encountered. If they are handicapped there's a good chance that their parents will throw them away or give them to an orphanage. At one orphanage she visited she was prohibited from picking up any babies. "They don't cry...they just stare into space because they know they won't be fed or held if they cry anyways. But last time we had come and held them, they cried for a week afterwards. It was because they had hope that someone might come back and pick them up again." Hopeless babies? I have never even considered such a thing. That a human life would be deprived of hope before that person could even say a word or formulate a sentence. My heart breaks. 

-In Malaysia we spoke with a beautiful Christian woman who described the bondage her idols had held her in before Jesus delivered her. Every evening she was paralyzed for a time by the demonic power or her idols and she had no hope for deliverance until she heard the Truth and God set her free. I rejoiced with her but couldn't help but grieve for the millions of people who live in bondage to their idols and will never hear or accept the truth. Like the one Taoist shop owner who exclaimed to me about how REAL her idols were...how she could hear them and and even physically feel their presence when she sacrificed to them. 

-In the newspaper I read about the Buddhist monks who were begging on the street. They live a life depriving themselves of pleasure including the pleasure of food. They eat for nourishment ONLY. any sensual pleasure, they believe, keeps them from enlightenment. It broke my heart to know that these determined men are depriving themselves of the ALL the pleasures God designed us to enjoy...and yet will not reach eternal pleasure because of it! Can you imagine the pressure and needless deprivation of living life this way!? Because we can never hope to work our way to eternal joy and happiness and enlightenment; Only our merciful, powerful God can bring us there; and He DESIGNED us to delight in life, in food, in physical and mental and spiritual joys...in pleasure of all kinds!  What a frustrating life. 

I want God to open my heart to grieve for the things that make HIS heart grieve. I want to be aware of the sorrow in this world and do anything He calls me to do to heal a hurting world in the tiny space of time I will fill on earth. When I am in America I forget it so easily! I pray about my little problems and the problems of my friends but I must fight to remember to pray for the world... the broader picture. I don't want to keep forgetting. I want my heart and my perspective and my vision to be eternally changed. I want to be a "world Christian."  I want to learn how to be like my God, who is infinitely joyful, but infinitely pained. How does a human understand this? God must teach me because I don't know. Please comment if you have anything to add. My words fail, but this Michael Card song has been on my mind today and it captures EXACTLY what I've been thinking:

TEARS OF THE WORLD

In any split second of a moment of time,

In the blink that is one single day,

The sum of the sorrow that wraps round the world

Would catch every soul up and sweep them away.

As vast as the ocean, as deep as the sea,

Swept up in one toxic tide.

By warm salty waves the world weeps its woe

So how can it be that my own eyes are dry?

So open my eyes,

And open my heart,

And grant me the gift of Your grieving.

And awaken in me

The compassion to weep

Just one of the tears of the world.

When God walked among us in the fullness of time

He wept tears as old as the world

Acquainted with sorrow, he took up the cup

And drank every drop of the poison that heals. 

So open my eyes,

And open my heart,

And grant me the gift of Your grieving.

And awaken in me

The compassion to weep

Just one of the tears of the world.

Well, I'm out of words so that's a pretty good sign that I should wind up this post. 
Time to hit the hay--er, air mattress--because conference prep begins tomorrow! 

Love from Singapore. :)

From Malaysia!

Well, my travels with the Bright Lights crew have led me from Alaska to Singapore and now to Malaysia. Such good times! It's good to be back in Asia... I wondered if I ever would come back and what a JOY to be here. I'll post a few pictures of the happenings lately, but first a thought from this evening.

Last time I was in this city it was in September, during the month of Ramadan. The religious fervor is high in an Islamic country during Ramadan; the call to prayer was louder then and more frequent, and Islamic festivals and bizarres were all over the place. The things I saw and heard fascinated me.
Four years later, they still do!
Tonight I sat in my friends' hotel room and heard the call to prayer outside. (In fact, you can click here to see a video I took of the prayer call early on a September morning in 2008 from the same hotel here in Melaka.) I went to the window and looked across the street to the apartment building opposite our hotel. Many lights were on; many windows open, and through the open windows I could see people praying or leaning out on the window sill to pray as the wailing cry in Arabic echoed over the city. One women, standing in front of  her window, wore a long, draping white hijab, covering her head and body. She repeatedly knelt, bowed to the floor, stood, knelt, bowed to the floor, and stood again . The call ended and one by one people retreated back into their apartments, quietly turning away from their windows, continuing conversations and activities which had been paused during their devotions. The woman in the long white hijab stood and removed it, revealing somewhat modern clothing underneath.
Life resumed.

I stood at my window looking out at theirs and praying for them...
...And thinking.
 The dedication and devotion of Muslims could put many Christians to shame! They probably pray, fast, and give more than the average "Christian." But the thing that fuels their prayers, their almsgiving, their fasting is a deep rooted fear. It is not love. It is DEVOTION, yes, but that devotion is driven by the knowledge that if they reach the end of their lives and their good deeds have not outweighed their bad, they will not enter heaven.
Can you imagine? The fear? The pressure?

I remember hearing a Christian missionary once retelling an incident he had with a Muslim man as they studied the Muslim holy books, Injil (or what we Christians call the four Gospels) together. They read together Jesus' words which are so familiar to us:

"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

Upon reading this, the Muslim man broke down into tears. The thought that Jesus Christ is a God who offers REST and not striving, a RELEASE from loads and not more rules and demands to pile on one's back, overwhelmed him with relief; joy; astonishment!

We should serve Him because we love Him and He has saved us....
We should give to those who need it because we love Him and He has saved us...
We  should obey His commands because we love Him and He has saved us...
We should walk in purity and holiness because we love Him and He has saved us...

Not because we're afraid of damnation if we mess up too often!

I hope you can rejoice in the fact that Jesus has paid for your sins with His own life, He has blotted our your transgressions with His own blood, and he offers us a life free of striving and "trying to be good enough." Because He is God and He knows none of us ever will be good enough.
Have you understood and accepted that?
Really?

And pray for the precious Muslims of Malaysia and those all over the world who are still carrying the heavy burden of paying for their own ticket to paradise. Pray that they will come to Jesus for rest.

Picta' time!

Fitting all our suitcases in the bus from Singapore to Malaysia. It's about a 5 hr. drive to Melaka from Singapore.

So, we've realized that apparently restaurants don't see the need to wash their dishes with SOAP here. I mean, why do that when you can just rinse them off in a tub or 5 gallon bucket and they look just as clean!? (We shot this picture as evidence but it turned out a little blurry.) This is the Indian restaurant we've been frequenting. We just eat and don't think too hard.

This lovely lady is my roommate in Melaka! I  kinda' like her.

The American team- Me, Grace, Nickie, Bekah, and Sarah... plus Jolynn (far L) and Crystal (second from L)

I stayed with Abigail and Gabriel 4 years ago in Singapore and now they are traveling with us! SO fun to reconnect with these awesome sisters!

I can almost guarantee you: there WILL be Roti Prata in heaven.

Danielle Moi, little Jerusha Tan (in her mommy's belly last time we came) and me

The BEAUTIFUL view from my hotel window in Melaka!!!

It's not that all we do is eat...it's just that THAT'S when we pull our our cameras. :)

Eating again. At the no-soap Indian place.