Silent night...

I enjoy Gayle Erwin's comments about Christmas. In his video series on The Jesus Style, he tells about his love for Christmas carols. However, he says, there's just something that's not quite right.

Imagine Bethlehem, he says. The city is filled with people inconvenienced by the miserable Roman census. The bars and the pubs are overflowing and the zealots are out full force - raging against the Romans. More people are arriving every moment, turning this house of bread into a teeming mass of humanity. Then suddenly-- Silent night. Holy night. -- A hush falls over the town. -- All is calm. All is bright. -- The zealots cease to rage and.... anyway, you get the picture.

I celebrated the birth of Christ with my family this year. My older sister flew in from VA and the rest of the family drove down from KS to gather at my house. My interns are all home for Christmas with their families, so we had plenty of room for my whole family to stay. We carolled people from my church; attended both Christmas Eve and Christmas services; played Boggle, Clue, and Balderdash; took long walks to look at Christmas lights; threw frisbee in the 75+ deg. weather at the nearby nature preserve; and tackled my brother several times and tickled him good.

It is such a blessing to have family to worship the Lord with. They are back in KS now. I'll head up this weekend to see them once again and drive my sisters back down here to catch their flights out.

But somehow, almost any time I think of Christmas, I think of the tens of thousands of believers who are celebrating Christmas for the first time in Asia. I think of the teams of students from the Bible colleges who go carolling in the villages door to door to tell people about the true meaning of Christmas. I think of the students at the Bible colleges who can't go home for Christmas because their families have threatened to kill them.

And I think of you. Your prayers are a vital to each part of this ministry. Thank you.

Welcome to my kitchen...

As I write this, my kitchen is crowded with hot cocoa cups and Christmas cookies... and with people. The interns and the rest of the discipleship team is here tonight for our Christmas party. We started with a white elephant gift exchange and then moved to praise time for the last four months and then a time of prayer and then fellowship.

As I type this, my attention is split between the blog I'm writing and the current conversation about having the love of the Lord so pouring through our lives to others. And living our lives just wanting to know the Lord more. And choosing to give up all of ourselves to live for Him--not because we have to, but because we want to.

Do we trust in God's character? Do we trust that God is who He says He is? What about those times we say, "But God..."? Do we not trust that He has our best interest in His Heart?

We talked about Bro. Lawrence and how his service was to work in the kitchen at the monastary where he lived. Tracy commented bluntly, "Bro. Lawrence could chop onions for the glory of God and too often I work at GFA for the glory of Tracy."

The Lord is more concerned about who we are than with what we do.

GFA Christmas Dinner

The GFA US office family gathered for our Christmas dinner this evening. I wore the sari that I purchased in India last March and was quite comfortable. (I spent two hours last night adding fabric to the top of the sari cloth so it would be long enough to hang properly -- it worked well!)

We had a time for food (we brought mashed potatoes), singing, Christmas presents, teaching from the Word, and fellowship. We rejoiced over the thousands in Asia who are celebrating Christmas for the first time. And we also reflected on the untold millions yet to hear the news of "Joy to the world. The Lord is come."

Have you driven around to see the Christmas lights this year? I went walking with a roommate the other day through a nearby neighborhood and admired the beautiful light displays. Extra points for nativity sets. Negative points for oddly blinking lights.

House after house after house of Christmas lights. John challenged us this evening-- see the millions of lights that comprise the brilliant displays? Now imagine -- each light on each string, that's someone who hasn't heard the Gospel yet.

John said it might change the way we view Christmas light displays.

The world of IT (Information Technology)

Working in the world of Information Technology -- computers -- as I do, I occasionally lose touch with reality. At lunch with my coworkers today, I mentioned a recent fabric purchase at Wal-Mart. When asked what I needed the fabric for, I promptly responded, "I need to edit my outfit for the Christmas dinner."

Edit an outfit? Since when do you "edit" an outfit?

Field prayer request: Please continue to pray for the 60 believers and the pastor in Himchal Pradesh who were threatened with death by radical Hindus. Three weeks ago, we prayed and God preserved their lives. Now the radical Hindus have taken over the church and the pastor's home and have turned it into a Hindu temple. You can read the full story at http://www.gfa.org/gfa/newsupdate121205.

Caroling and More Staff!

Fifteen young members of the GFA family went caroling this afternoon--visiting perhaps ten different homes with the joyous songs of the season. Accompaning us was a guitar and Indian drum. I'm not sure I've ever caroled with the gentle sounds of an Indian drum in the background. And it was ever so much fun to see people's faces light up when they came to the door!

We moved a new staff family in on Tuesday night, just before the ice moved in. And another new staff couple is getting moved in tomorrow morning. I'd better go get some sleep so I can be down there at 8am. Praise God for all the help He is bringing for the office.

Thank you for your prayers for myself and the girls living with me as part of the internship program. We're all learning a lot and we sometimes all go through the same thing thinking we're the only one feeling that way or struggling with that. (I'm sure you never do that.) Thursday evening, we had a good time of sharing and prayer. Please continue to pray that the Spirit of God would be at work in our lives - unifying us for the glory of God.

Christmas is coming...

It finally began to feel a little like Christmas time today. Saturday's high was 86 degrees and things got cooler after that. The office actually closed early today at freezing rain moved in about 4:00 and made the parking lot into a sheet of ice. The streets weren't bad for our .67 of a mile home, but we parked the car out front. I didn't trust the amount of ice on our EXTREMELY slanted driveway to the garage in the back. After the thin layer of freezing rain, we got a good smattering of ice pellets.

We had already made plans to have chili and cornbread for supper. We followed up with hot chocolate with whipped topping and sprinkles and then set to work on assembly our genuine, faux, brand-new-from-the-thrift-shop Christmas tree. The miracle of the evening was that all 11 strands of lights we tested WORKED! (Have you ever had that happen?)

Just think--this year, because of your prayers and finances, there are believers in Asia who are celebrating Christmas for the very first time!

Submission

The topic for the last three hours in my house has been submission - especially Ephesians 5:12. Who is the "one another" mentioned that we're supposed to submit to? And when? And what does it look like? How does submission relate to servanthood? And what happens when the person I'm submitting to asks me to do something I don't agree with?

You can pray for us as we seek for the truth and balance in this. I think the girls are meeting with a mentor lady tomorrow to ask questions - Praise God! I felt (as usual) like a fish out of water this evening as they were asking questions and I struggle with the same things myself.

My plant needs water

I noticed today that my plant needs water. I don't think I've watered it since Thanksgiving. Then I realized I hadn't blogged since before Thanksgiving either. I hope my readers aren't dying. I haven't posted recently because of the guilt of not posting, but decided I should probably just take the first baby step...

Field updates: We got the news that just days after our Thanksgiving, one of our believers in Bhutan was forcibly re-converted to Buddhism. Please pray for him and his family. His son is a missionary in India and is on his way back home to help with the situation. You can read about this at the gfa.org website.

Thanksgiving update: I traveled with my sister and one of the GFA interns to my parent's home in Kansas for thanksgiving. We walked to the pond, swung on the rope swing, had a wiener roast, met lots of friends and family, and listened to Grandma and Grandpa's memories of WWII and the Mahatma Ghandi. It was a wonderful weekend.

Home update: Our vacuum quit working two months ago and we've been wanting to get a new one...but we'd like to get a new one that's going to last for several years. This evening, one of the couples at my church handed me a Christmas card. I opened it and found both Christmas greetings and a significant Christmas gift check.

We'll be making a stop by the vaccuum store this week. Praise God!