02.08.10


With the book of Leviticus what I would love for people to see as they study through this book is what a beautiful and wondrous thing it was for God to make a way for His presence to dwell among his people. Because that is the heart behind the book, we saw in Exodus that God has redeemed his people for relationship and now in Leviticus we begin to get a more full and beautiful picture of the Covenant-keeping God’s ambition to pursue humanity and make a way for his presence to dwell among them!
At first glance this book can seem very monotonous and hard to get through with all the details concerning offerings and such, but don’t miss the beauty and wonder that a Holy God is making a way for his children to approach him! He is not distant and unconcerned, He is a God of mercy and love and longs to be with his children, and though sin has separated His children from being able to freely enter his presence he is making a way for them to do so. And hopefully as you study the book you will begin to see how all of this is pointing to a much bigger purpose God had in mind in sending his Son so that all might approach freely,(as seen in the book of Hebrews, which incidentally I would highly recommend reading alongside any serious study of Leviticus) don’t miss how this fits into God’s universal Plan of Redemption. Think about it, even from just a cursory glance one can see the themes of Holiness, Atonement, Blood, Sin, Guilt, Offerings, God’s Character…can you see how all this fits into the context of the whole Bible? Leviticus gives us a foundation for our theology, many of us may have general understandings of concepts like atonement, sacrifice, the Perfect Spotless lamb, man’s sinfulness, but an in depth study of Leviticus will bring depth and fullness and beauty to your understanding of these theological concepts!

01.28.10

Its been a week since we checked in and updated our you, blog readers, regarding the adoption process. We still have not heard back from USCIS clearing us for the adoption.  Daily, we make our trek down to the mailbox at 3pm (about when the mail arrives), and come back empty handed on the USCIS approval we are waiting and praying for.  However, the other day, the trek to the mailbox did not leave us empty-handed, but instead God gave us a huge gift on that day; we received a grant from Show Hope for $4000!!!  And miraculously, through this grant, our aggressive savings, and the generosity of several of our friends, we are only about $3500 away from reaching our total adoption costs of the seemingly insurmountable $25,000 that we started at just 7 months ago.  Thank-you Lord for your lavish generosity towards us - so consistent with your character and lavish grace you've given us!

In the midst of this faith challenge with needing USCIS approval and a lack of favor we've seemed to have with them, this gift from God shows me that God is behind us in this, thus boosting my faith when I needed it!  Thanks Lord!

Please check out the www.showhope.org website to learn more about them.  It was started by Steven Curtis Chapman's family in 2003 after they adopted their 2 daughters from China.

I've been studying Numbers to teach in the ESBS right now, just getting into it today actually, and already God is speaking things to me about placing my faith in him.  Numbers shows two generations of people, the first generation which saw the mighty acts of God in Egypt, the Exodus, and the Red Sea parting, but then failed to have faith when the land promised to them seemed to difficult to take over.  The next generation are contrasted to their parents generation in that they chose to follow God and trust his promises, and chose to look back at the power of God displayed to their parents' generation and trust in that God.  These people are my heritage as the people of God, and I need to learn from them.

One generation failed to enter into the promises of God because of their lack of faith in a God who had so clearly shown himself to them.  The other generation, no larger in number, no more physically capable, chose to view themselves as a spiritual people first and foremost, who were oriented in deliberate faith in Yahweh!  This speaks to our situation, in that we feel like God has called us into this adoption process, and as we wait, we have a chance to really exercise our faith and choose to trust the God who parted the Red Sea for our ancestors, who delivered them from slavery to the most powerful king on the planet, and the God who delivered the land of giants to an untrained straggling nation of Israel.  Again God seems to be speaking to me and challenging me on this issue of being intentional in my faith, and orienting myself towards a God who is worthy of my faith, a sovereign and powerful God.

Eileen has been fairly aggressive in providing some audio lectures for SBS International, the umbrella of YWAM that we are still connected to.  They are working at putting up mp3 files of every single book of the Bible up for anyone to listen to and get an introduction and overview for each book of the Bible.  They've asked a select few SBS teachers from around the world to teach for them, hoping to get some really quality lectures out there for people to hear and learn from.  So, thats right, I'm bragging about my wife, as being one of those asked.

She recently taught a very big picture look at Genesis for this venture.  Check out www.thesbspodcast.com for her Genesis, Leviticus, and Judges lectures.  You can also download them as a free podcast on the iTunes Store.  Search for "thesbspodcast.com" on the iTunes Store, and click on the link to the "thesbspodcast.com"

01.12.10

We are so grateful for the words and encouragements of others towards us in this process.  We have received two prophetic words from dear friends that have really brought hope and encouragement in this tenuous process.  Upon receiving a denial from USCIS and feeling hopeless, a friend, Amy, wrote an email that she had prayed for us and felt like God was wanting to tell us the words, "Rest Assured", which means to rest and have confidence.  At the time, that couldn't have come at a better time, as I had just got to my desk in the morning and was overwhelmed with where to go and what to do.  Thanks Amy for those timely words.

Just the other day, our friend Courtney, shared a word with me as well.  Now, after we have submitted our rebuttal to USCIS, and we are waiting for the reply, another word of "Rest" from the Lord, given through the loving prayers of a friend.  When praying, she felt the Lord give her the idea of us being pregnant, and were we to have complications that could jeopardize the pregnancy, what a doctor would tell us at this stage in a pregnancy is to rest.  So, that is God's word for us, yet again -- to Rest.  

This speaks to us of the peace and confidence we can have in the loving arms of our heavenly Father.  Thanks Lord for the gifts of your calming word in a tumultuous process and mind-racking times.  You know just what we need, and you are ever desiring to bless us with those things!

01.11.10

I recently taught Song of Songs in the ESBS, and here is a copy of my blog posted on www.esbsblog.com.  Byron.

We have a serious problem in our churches as it becomes more and more like the society in which we live in.  The problem is in relation to our sex ethic as believers.  Before the 1900’s, most Christians were not willing to entertain the idea that Song of Songs was a love poem describing human sexuality between a husband and a wife, and so they allegorized it with all these silly meanings.  What this subtly communicated over the ages to the average Christian is that sex is bad, God would never talk about it, and so neither should we.  And I think that created a vacuum, a void of understanding in believers.

As our world is becoming progressively more and more sexified, if I may coin a term, in that we are being barraged with images and concepts because of our technological age, far more than we used to be.  What a 10 year old sees on TV, looks at on the internet, observes in magazines is sex, sex, sex…everywhere there is sexuality on display.  Sex sells.  And our kids are the target and the recipients of this form of advertising.  The entertainment industry makes mainstream and cool what 30 year olds are going through for a 10 year old, and so you have kids in grade 4 talking about how Katy Perry’s “I kissed a Girl” song and idealizing it.

So, in the midst of our sexually addicted society, the church has not had a voice for centuries, and we’ve often been communicated as Christian kids that sex is bad and we don’t talk about it.  So, if God doesn’t have a view of sex and if the Bible doesn’t speak into it, and if the church doesn’t have anything to contribute, then where are kids to find their view of sexuality?  Our society!  The sex-charged world around them!

We need the Bible and God to speak into human sexuality.  It was not a mistake that God created humanity with brains that were acutely aware and given toward processing love and sexual signals.  It was not a mistake that he created them with sexual organs with more nerve endings than any other part of the body.  No, he created all of this, and said it was “Very Good!”  God cares about us having a healthy view of sexuality, and a healthy view is not “no view”.  So, where do we go to find a healthy view of human sexuality within its appropriate context, both for the single person, and for the married?  Song of Songs!

01.11.10

Eileen and I went out yesterday and watched that new movie called "The Blindside" with Sandra Bullock in it.  The storyline is that her family is an upper class white family in Memphis, who sent their kids to an upper class Christian private school.  A poor African-American young homeless youth named Michael Oher was walking in the rain one night, and this family picked him up, cared for him, and eventually adopted him.  This young man was destined for the environment from which he came from, but because someone intervened, and spoke life and worth into him, it changed his life and world.  He is now in his first year in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens.

Obviously the adoption aspect is inspiring in this film, but as much so is seeing the value of strong parenting, believing in your child, calling out the things they are good at, and calling them to rise up to something they think impossible.  Its just such an inspiring parenting movie in general, and I hope that we can emulate and strengthen our children in the Lord in a similar manner, so that they don't walk in defeat, but walk in confidence.

01.02.10

We are really looking forward to the year of 2010! We are stoked to be starting our family. I am reminded of how some of our best friends, the Brauns, were faced with an impossibility and God blessed them graciosly with the birth of their miraculous beautiful little girl Charis. We are in a similar position and we have reason to be confident in our powerful God who is with us always! We are really looking forward to this year, as we add to our family and he teaches me important things about him along the way.

01.01.10

We worked really hard to answer clearly and decisively for USCIS all of their questions. We feel confident that our letter that they'll receive on Monday will clarify our financial capability for adoption. Please pray that they would understand and grant us permission.

We are blessed to have the prayers of our friends and the power of God with us. We've also been encouaged thru timely properic words. So thanks for going thru this with us!

12.15.09


Thanks for heeding our call to prayer.  We greatly appreciate you as our friends and supporters getting behind us in prayer and walking through this with us.  We value your place in the body on our behalf, and hope we can serve you as you serve us.


This week we've got a lot of work to do to make sure we answer all of their questions.  We are meeting with a tax accountant on Wednesday to help us sort through their tax related questions and craft a letter to answer USCIS.  Question comes in as to how much money we actually make, and then how we spend that money, considering we live at the camp, and our food and housing are taken care of by Camp Lurecrest.  Because our situation is unique, there is little frame of reference for them to understand how it all works, so we'll just need to spell it all out for them and give them as much information as necessary.


Please pray for wisdom in this process, to know what to include and how to include it.  We need to be very careful in how to word everything so that they understand our unique situation.  We do have very clear answers to their questions, very sufficient answers, as in there should be no reason we get rejected, we just need to state in a way that they understand it clearly.  


Thanks so much!  Byron and Eileen.