As I praise God for sending His Son so that we might be free for eternity, I also praise God for those who give their lives so that others may be free here on earth!

Update on Manja in Nepal: One of the supreme court judges that was supposed to announce the decision last week was unable to be present. The verdict has been postponed until June 17th. Please PRAY!

Song going through my head:
Take all of me.
Take all of me.
For a world that's lost,
Help me count the cost.
Take all of me.

Second thought: If you happen to be reading this blog and you are one of perhaps six people in the world who has never seen Star Wars, DO NOT watch the movie with 20+ people who have seen it mutiple times. Somehow, arrange a private viewing. And don't read the rest of this blog. It gives it all away.

Before we reached the 30 minute mark in the first movie, I had already been informed that Ben was Obi Wan Kenobi (or however you spell it) and that Pricess Lei was Luke's sister. Of course, since the incorrect quote, "Luke, I am your father." is now a cultural catch-phrase, I knew the Darth Vader connection before I even went into the movie.

Some of the people in the room were talking about how impressed they were when the movies originally came out in the theatre. Aren't you impressed, Dorinda? they asked. Isn't it awesome?

Last week, I heard a discussion about how whiney Luke is. Sure enough, every time Luke whined, I heard it in stereo--from about 20 different mouths. And I never actually heard the famous dialog between Darth Vader and Luke last night. All I could hear was the 20+ voices quoting the lines.

Talk about surround sound.

First Disclaimer: 2/3 of the posts in the last 12 hours were NOT posted by Dorinda.

First thought: Just like the Master of the Dark Side, the enemy continually tells us: "This is your destiny." But he doesn't really know that. And it isn't true. And even when we give in at moments to the enemy's tricks, even when we start attacking out of anger and hate, even when we mess up--God doesn't give up on us. The Dark Side is NOT our destiny.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. For we all... are changed into His image...by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor. 3:17-18)

Praise God for grace!

This is another community post. I can't believe she hasn't seen Star Wars ever! I've seen it before, but then I was raised on Far Side, Three Stooges, Petra, WhiteHeart, and Styper. Now everyone knows what's wrong with me. Oh well, God still loves me. I hope everyone else still loves me too. :-D

I think I'm calling tonight: "Community Post Night." It is indeed a Stars Wars party -- the office gang decided that since I hadn't seen Star Wars in the first 24 years of my life, I needed to be provided with that opportunity.

im here watching some mad star wars action. totally wild. i got some sweet surround sound with the eric schwartz hittin it up.

hans solo looks like a metal coin.

tony stole my sisters seat on the couch.

i am dorinda... hear me roar.

Paraphrase from Warren Wiersbe: The devil tells you a lot of lies about God, but the devil tells God a lot of truth about you.

Dorinda's thoughts: This could be really overwhelming. The enemy is referred to as the accuser of the saints. He could say a lot of really bad things about me--and they would be true. But while the enemy is stating all the bad things I've done, Jesus is standing at the right hand of God the Father saying, "Yes, it's true. But I paid for it. It's already paid for."

It's already paid for.

This is my 150th post. Wow! Am I supposed to say something profound? Well, since I haven't yet, I guess I don't have to start now.

Tonight, our time, is the daytime of the 27th in Nepal. Today, the Supreme Court of Nepal will announce their verdict in the case of Bro. Manja--one of Gospel for Asia's missionaries that was falsely accused of murder almost five years ago.

PLEASE PRAY that Manja will be released to join his wife (who recently graduated from Bible College) and his kids. What does Bro. Manja want to do when he is released? Plant more churches, he says.

I'm tired. I'm going to bed. I'll make mint stick brownies tomorrow. Today I spent time reviewing printing procedures for the missionary testimonies. IT Volunteer LMO and Eric and I are preparing for some new procedures that LMO is going to code. I also helped an administrative assistant with a mail merge and installed a new spam filtering program on my email. Now if I can just got my offline folders working.

Pray: That I would keep my eyes on Christ and trust in Him to be my strength while I work with a busy schedule.

Monday night I was at the Powells, Tuesday night was prayer (with ice cream after that I skipped), Wed. is a potluck with visiting college students, Thurs. is a birthday evening (not mine), and Fri. is a Star Wars a thon (4-6). Saturday is a wedding reception for a former staff member. Sunday I have lunch plans with a couple from my church. Then comes Monday again...

Praise the Lord!

Oh! Oh! OW! My muscles are still screaming...an hour of ultimate frisbee and 950 miles in the car has left me feeling old. Sorry for the late post, but I left Friday after work for KS. I stayed up late talking and then got up early (5:30) to play Ultimate Frisbee on Campbell Lawn. I attended SC graduation Sat. morning and visited with friends that afternoon.

JD, my coworker and trip companion, and I drove to Coldwater Sat. evening, stopping by Greensburg to see the world's largest hand dug well and the world largest pallasite meteorite. We even walked down the steps of the well.

Remind me to tell you about the wonderful churches I shared at on Sunday.

Today was a full day at the office. I left the office about 5:30 to install a special program on the P family computer. I stayed until after 10:00 helping set up the new wireless router, playing Go Fish, and eating rice pudding. We also upgraded their IE4 to IE6 and applied 14 service packs and patches.

Are you glad that as humans, our security and safety is in the Lord?

Through the day I'm going to list comments I receive. To start with...

• From the way you're looking at me, I take it I'm supposed to notice something different. But I don't.


• Who pulled out the weed eater?


• You should ignore what your cousin tells you.


• What are you guys talking about?


• No more Laura Ingalls? Now you're the fashionable Nellie Olsen!"


• Whoa! What is THAT?


• I'm going to have to get used to this.


• I thought you were speaking at a Mennonite Church this weekend.


• Your hair is down today. I don't usually see you with your hair down.


• You did what?


• In all honesty, and not because cookies are at stake, you do look very nice.

What have I done?

Two brief comments today...

Funny: Pastor Wolfgang from Germany was sharing with us last week. Although he can converse in English, he prefers to preach in German. At the beginning of his message, Pastor Wolfgang was greeting us in English. He mentioned that Auntie Gisela (Dr. KP Yohannan's wife) was translating his message for him. (Auntie Gisela is German.) He tried to compliment Auntie Gisela by saying, "I have a wonderful interpreter." EXCEPT... He got the emphasis on the wrong syllable and it came out as, "I have a wonderful interrupter."

Not-so-scientific plagarism: C. did a wonderful write up on her blog about the damage done by the F4 tornado that passed through my home area last week.

"The S--'s that totally lost their house in the tornado (F4) last week - the 300 gal propane tank was found over a mile away. There were five vehicles in the yard, one of them a two ton truck; they were completely torn up and parts were found... (read more here)

A praise and a prayer...

Thanks to all who have been praying for the really expensive teeth situation. God has answered. There is a dentist in IL who supports the ministry of GFA. Dr. KP Yohannan told him about my situation and this dentist volunteered to do all my dental work for free! So I'm buying an airplane ticket for the end of June and heading to IL to stay with this dentist and his wife for 10 days while he works on my mouth. PTL!!!

Pray...that the dates all get worked out for this trip. I would like to attend the ACT1 reunion in KS if God works that out...

Today, the dentist, Dr. C. called to talk to me. The receptionist couldn't find me at the time and so transferred him to my voice mail. When the receptionist saw me later, she exclaimed, "Oh, Dorinda! I just transferred Dr. Jekyll to your voice mail."

Dr. Who?

Busy today with computer this and that. The Korean printer needed some settings figured out. JD didn't have the permissions she needed to add new questions to the intranet. T's computer had some kind of funny message. (We checked T's computer and it had gotten bogged down with over 400 spyware files!)

I found out at 10 this morning that it was my week to clean one of the ladies bathrooms. About 4 this afternoon, my cousin asked if I would help the young people clean the building that evening so he could go play basketball. I owed him big time, so I said yes.

We got the building cleaned by 7:00 and then I started cleaning my assigned bathroom. Halfway through, I discovered I was cleaning the wrong bathroom, so I started over on the correct bathroom.

Finished cleaning and called a prayer/financial supporter in Maryland. It was my first time to talk with them and I was blessed and encouraged. B&L are going through a challenging time with health problems and finances. Pray for them. B is not yet 60 and has been diagnosed with alzheimer's.

I'm getting ready to head to Sterling this weekend...

At the same time I purchased an 8' jump rope for my sister for her birthday, I purchased two 14' jump ropes for the kids at the office to use. You see, after Sunday evening fellowship or after Tuesday night prayer, all the young'uns informally gather in the side parking lot to play whatever their heart desires. Red Rover, tag, football, Joseph and the coat of many colors...

Tonight was the first night I brought out both of the 14' jump ropes. "Double Dutch!" the cry went out. Everybody wanted to try, but nobody could successfully turn. Julie and I were the turners, but we could only turn out and we couldn't do it if someone wanted to start in. We kept messing up. And the kids were messing up too...most of them didn't know how to jump double dutch. Some of them were just learning how to jump one rope!

Thirty minutes later, Julie and I had figured out how to slow the ropes down.

Forty-five minutes later, we figured out how to start the ropes if the jumper didn't want to run in.

Sixty minutes later, we figured out how to turn in. (Which way are you supposed to turn double dutch ropes?)

Ninety minutes later, our arms fell off. At that point, we packed up the ropes, picked up our arms, and teddy bear teddy bear said good night.

"Good night!"

Guess what? Ultimate Frisbee is going to _____!

Bro. CM leads a Bible School in one of the most closed countries in Asia. The students at this Bible Schools like to host athletic competitions--inviting lots of other schools to come for volleyball and soccer competitions. Then they sell expensive concessions to the visiting students to fund the Bible School. They also use this opportunity to share the Gospel.

Hearing this, I spoke with our leader and told him about the game of Ultimate Frisbee. And this afternoon, I had the privilege of gifting a brand new Ultimate Frisbee (including game instructions) to Bro. CM for the students to use. Bro. CM explained the athletic competitions to me and then said, looking at the frisbee, "This year, they will have a new game to play!"

Email me for more information! I can't post it on the web. AND PRAY for the students at this Bible College. The persecution is severe and the government regulations are strict. But God is working.

So each time you play UF or think about the good ol' days at SC, pray for the students as they play and labor and prepare to reach Asia with the Gospel.

I just got back from my first rodeo. Isn't it crazy? I grew up in Kansas so close to ranching and rodeo country, but never visited a rodeo until I came to Dallas. We visited the Mesquite Rodeo and took the Asian leaders with us for them to see. The brothers from the field were quite suprised when the rodeo started by having everyone stand for the invocation--praying in the name of Jesus. The Mesquite Rodeo focuses on clean family fun. And it was fun. And much like I expected.

Prayer request: We're trying to figure some dates in IT. All of us have reasons to be gone at the same time and we can't all go where we want. I was looking forward to attending ICCM this year, but just found out today that's it's probably not a possibility for me since I will be spending time in KS the week after that.

Pray that I will have the grace to accept whatever is decided without any sad feelings or regrets or "what ifs."

This evening we had Ladies Meeting. It was a special meeting as two of our leaders' wives accompanied them from India. Tonight, the two sisters shared their testimonies and exhorted us to stand strong as a family in the battle.

Sister M. is the wife of our North India regional leader. She has been having back problems. Please pray that she will be completely healed. I was challenged by the fact that after she takes her kids to school, she spends from 9:00 to 11:30 every morning in prayer and in the Word. Wow! To be a mom of two kids, a pastor and leader's wife, lead ladies' ministry, and spend that much time with God!

Sister A. is the wife of the leader who overseas all of the work on the field across the subcontinent. Sister A. has her BA in Education and her Masters in English. She has two kids (age 16 and 10), teaches 13 credit hours of classes at the Asian Biblical Seminary, and works 30+ hours a week overseeing the proofing of all the missionary testimonies that get sent to the states for the supporters. Please pray for her husband who is struggling with hyperthyroidism.

It was really neat to hear their stories and struggles and triumphs. I wish that all of you could meet them too...

It's still Wednesday to me (12:21am). Yesterday seems so long ago.

Today started with breakfast with my cousins and with Bro. LC. Stop by the maxmissions.com website. See the picture of the brother that is doing the baptism? I ate breakfast with him this morning. He looked at the pancakes and said: "What is this?"

This evening was "Fun Night." There were skits and songs and parodies--nothing serious allowed. I did a skit (What a Steal) and helped with the square dance exhibition.

"The what?" you ask. The square dance exhibition. When our staff go to India, they are always shown tribal dances by the local people. So someone in the US office came up with the bright idea of doing square dancing for the brothers to see. We had three sets. Out of those 24 people, six of us had done square dancing before. Out of those 24 people, three were men/boys. I wore a full denim skirt (although I had no can-can slip) and borrowed a frilly western blouse. It was a great hit.

We had snacks at Braum's afterwards with members of the our Canadian staff. I was driving four teenage girls home after the Braums... I think we counted five Chinese fire drills on the way home?

But more special than the ice cream and laughter was the opportunity I had to converse with Bro. LC (central India), Bro. JG (Bihar), and Bro. J (Gujarat).

Real people. Real work. Real prayer needs.

It was a fun, full day.

I can tell that all my friends are in the middle of tests or are graduating and moving. No one posts comments any more. Hats off to Jen and her vet studies, Big K and her Friday graduation from I. State, Me (not myself) and her graduation (soon, I would assume)....

By the way, when "Me" adds comments, that's not myself. I'm not carrying on a conversation with myself. "Me" is the nickname of one of my friends. I'm posting this disclaimer because one of my other friends contact me with serious concerns about my mental health after they saw me in discussion with myself.

Today was a busy day at GFA as we celebrated our 25th Anniversary this morning and dedicated our new building this afternoon and then we had Tuesday Evening Prayer tonight. It was such a blessing to hear from Pastor Chuck Smith this afternoon and to hear the testimony of our North India field leader, Bro. SJ, this evening at prayer meeting.

It was also encouraging to have members of my church family attend parts of the day- Pastor John, Chris, Jimmy Ray, Renee, Penny, and Brent.

PRAISE GOD!

An Ode to My Mother

I love my mother, as dear as she is.
It's hard to believe she once was a kid.

And then she grew up and then she had me
and then she got white hairs- as many as can be.

But I still love my mother, she's patient and kind
and she loves me (I think) most all of the time.

And sometimes we fail but the love still goes on.
And sometimes we have slushies out on the lawn.

I love when my mother sits down in her chair
and I climb on top and she plays with my hair.

And now that I'm bigger, I put her to sleep
(or at least her legs and my weight kills her feet).

She says I'm too bony and my hip bones are lead.
So she loves me and spanks me and sends me to bed.

But I just snuggle deeper (rebellious am I).
Sometimes I even curl up for a cry.

But she always has time and I always love having
that so special gift of my mommy's loving.

I'm sorry this poem is so bad to hear.
I wrote it too quickly. I'll start sooner next year.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had Friday Night prayer tonight. I just got home and am getting ready to go to bed. Two members of my church were there (I was so excited!), but had to leave early since their kids were home with the babysitter. I enjoyed hearing from Bro. ES this evening. He coordinates all the work on the mission field from our India office.

Bro. ES shared about the VBS programs that are going on in India right now. Last year, several of the churches did a VBS program and over 60,000 children attended. More than 10,000 of those children gave their lives to Christ. As last year's program concluded, Bro. ES and the leaders prayed and decided that every church that could afford to would have a VBS program this year. When they asked the churches to help, over 9,500 churches applied to host a VBS program! The leaders then wrote and produced VBS curriculum that ended up not only being used at our VBS programs, but by churches of all denominations across the Indian sub-continent!

Just think... if each VBS program had 200 kids, that makes... over 1.9 million children in India that would hear the news of Jesus Christ this summer!

Prayer makes the difference.

Today was exciting...in a couple of ways.

At 3:00 this afternoon, all the staff and families of GFA gathered in the courtyard to greet our Indian visitors. Ten of the leaders from the field and two of the wives arrived to help us celebrate the 25th anniversary of Gospel for Asia. It was so neat to see in reality the faces that I have seen in pictures around the office. To see Bro. SJ who leads our work in north India and in Bangledesh. To see Bro. L whose picture is on the Max Missions brochure. To see Sis. Angel whose picture is up on my refrigerator to remind me to pray.

I was walking down the office hallway this evening and abruptly stopped in front of a picture of an Indian man praying. With his head and eyes and hands raised to heaven, the man in this picture has caught my attention more than once. But this time I stopped with sudden realization. The man in this picture was downstairs in the lobby!

Also this afternoon, there were TWO times that the office lost all internet/email/printing/computer networking access. The first was when DHCP got turned off. DHCP is what tells all of the computers where they live on the network. So when that was disabled, nobody (the computers, that is) knew where to each other.

The second was when something went wrong with one of the staff's laptops. It absolutely flooded the network with packets, bringing the entire system to a halt. I think that Pat wil be checking that out in the morning.

In the DFW area? Come to prayer meeting Friday night at 8:00!

Thank you to all who have been praying. God gave me a lot of grace... I wasn't threatening to cry every other second today. And I almost had a song in my heart. I still had some attitude problems, but I'm working on those. And I choose to trust. And have faith. I don't know yet what direction I will be going, but I choose to trust.

TOMORROW - 12 of our leaders from the mission field arrive. Gospel for Asia will be celebrating 25 years of working to reach the unreached and we're looking forward to praising God's name for all He has done.

So today... IT was running around setting up computer for our visitors, preparing to feed the video feed to the overflow area upstairs, labeling extra phone extensions, and confirming the rental equipment.

What part of that did I do? Not much. I just tried to take the phone calls and keep everything else running so that the really smart people could do all the work. I checked on Brian's problem with DASCO, helped Betty when her keyboard stopped working, sent a text message to Eric to update the tables on the MSSQL server, emailed Dan and Dave about college visits...

Recently, a visitor to the office said to me, "So you're the person who keeps everything running."

My cousin quipped back, "No, she's just the person we call when nothing works."

Choosing.

I've been pretty down for the last two days. The teeth has been a huge part of it. Then, while I'm upset about that, everything else that I thought I'd forgiven myself for in the last 12 years comes back to haunt me. My car, my relationships, my job as an RA, my behavior towards my parents in high school.... Plus, I'm not feeling well physically right now.

I find myself acting like a spoiled child--knowing that God is able, but still wanting to do something about the situation in my own strength (but I can't, so I feel even worse).

I need to choose. I need to choose to have faith. To stand on what the Bible says. To believe in God's promises. To have faith in God. To hold up that shield of faith so I can stand against the enemy's attacks. Right now I'm sitting on my shield and pouting.

Please pray that I will stand.

I visited the dentist today. I hadn't been happy with the work done by the dentist I had been going to, so I went to a new dentist. I had just had a checkup done by the last dentist, so I knew what things in my mouth he wanted to fix. (Namely, two more fillings. I've been fearing/looking forward to the day that I run out of teeth to put more fillings in.)

The new dentist looked at my mouth and said it needed a lot of work. He asked if I wanted a list. I said sure. So an hour and a half later, he presented me with an itemized, prioritized list of the dental work that he wanted to do to my mouth. Quoting cavities, decay, brittle teeth, and loose and broken exisiting fillings, the new dentist totaled up his proposed list of 9 composite fillings, two root canals, one overlay, and nine crowns.

$13,196.

Since I'm a missionary, I do get a discount. That takes it down to $11, 261.

That's FOUR SEMESTERS OF COLLEGE or THREE CARS or 8 REALLY NICE LAPTOPS or TWO CHURCHES IN ASIA. More than one of my supporters LIVE on $13,000 a year.

Yes, I know. I'm shouting.

It is interesting when you can see life perspectives in a single statement, even if the statement was not stated for that purpose. My roommate Rach mentioned matter-of-factly this evening, "This toenail is getting long."

I responded, "I've got a pair of toenail clippers."

Simultaneously, roommate T. responded, "Maybe we should pray for it to be shorter."

T. and I looked at each other and cracked up in laughter. We laughed for quite some time and agreed that our individual statements well represented our approaches to life.

On a different topic, I just returned from a Ladies' Retreat this afternoon. I had almost forgotten what it is like to be in a room with 80 really emotional women. AHH! Oh well, it was good. God showed me some things I need to work on. I enjoyed meeting and interacting with others in the church. I feel like I messed up. There was one point where God laid something on my heart and I was scared to pray it out loud. I finally did, but feel like I tried to create a loophole for God at the same time.

Do you ever do that? You pray, but are scared... what if God doesn't answer? What will those who heard you pray think? What about God's reputation? I don't want to ruin that.

It's hard to remember that if I'm seeking God and asking for His will, God can take care of His own reputation.