I can’t believe in only 26 days, the people around us will be speaking a different language, eat different food, and have a different outlook on God. I have spent all of my life in the bible belt. I have rarely met a person that has never heard the gospel. It will be amazing to me to share the gospel with a person who may have never heard about the Bible!

As you likely know by now, Monica and I will be helping lead a group 6 staff and 14 students on a summer project in East Asia. Over the 6 weeks we will be there we will be taking culture and language classes in the mornings and spending our afternoons and evenings meeting students and sharing the gospel. The long term staff in this country have told us that 1 out of every 4 people who heard the gospel become Christian! This is a tremendous opportunity to take the gospel to people who desperately desire to know God.

With less than 4 weeks until we leave I wanted to send out some ways you can be praying for us and our team.

“Earthly comforts are loaned. They are not gifts, for all that we possess is God’s property. He has only lent them, and what he lends He has a right to take. We hold possessions and friends on a lease that can be terminated at the Supreme Owner’s option. Therefore, do not complain when God takes His own. In a world where thorns and briars grow, is is natural that some sharp points will pierce you.

The world swarms with thieves, deceivers, and slanderers, with losses in business, crosses in our expectations, false or fickle friends, and with sickness and death. Little wonder our joys are stolen. Our Master warns that our habitation is not theft-proof. “Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19).

This past week Jeff and I went to Northern California for a “babymoon” vacation. We were absolutely amazed by the beauty of the coast with it’s cliffs and crashing waves and rolling green hills leading inland. We were constantly stopping to take pictures hoping to somehow capture the moment and majesty in our little memory card. We saw the perfect sunset. The colors filling the horizon, the little burnt orange ball fading out of sight– God’s brush strokes of beauty at the end of the day. We drove back to where were staying in the dark and the rain, just pondering what we had seen, utterly content that God had amazed us with His creation.

Faith Diary - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7783563.stm

By Robert Pigott
Religious Affairs correspondent

There’s been a rising chorus of alarm from church leaders at what they regard as the “aggressive secularism” marginalising Christianity, the religion whose precepts - such as “do as you would be done by”, and upholding the sanctity of human life - once underpinned British laws.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales

A few years ago, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, warned that “Christianity had been all but vanquished in Britain” as the underpinning for the nation’s moral life.

Its not bad to be passive

I remember reading “Wealth Without Risk” by Charles J. Givens when I was 12 or so. Also, read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kuyasaki a little later. They both touted the importance of investing. Both of them spoke of the importance of investing as early as you could so you would have more years to compound the interest. I remember seeing the graphs showing the dramatic difference in an investment account projected at age 60 when you start at 18 versus starting when you are 28.

Original Article found here… http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1877658,00.html

The word of God is on the move in London — literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London’s buses to convince pedestrians of God’s existence. “It may be unpopular and unpleasant, says David Larlham, the assistant general secretary of London’s Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes bibles worldwide, “but there is a whole lot of truth in the bible that people need to get to grips with.” His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 of London’s red double-decker buses that quote Psalm 53: “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”
Related

We began a new teaching series on 11Jan09 called Doubting Your Doubts. Some folks have asked for some of the quotes from C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller.

Lewis quotes will be from different resources. Keller quotes will be from The Reason for God unless otherwise noted.

C.S. Lewis:
C.S. Lewis - in The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves - “I think the trouble with me is lack of faith. I have no rational ground for going back on the arguments that convinced me of God’s existence, but the irrational deadweight of my old sceptical habits… and the cares of the day, steal away all my lively feeling of the truth, and often when I pray I wonder if am not posting letters to a non-existent address. Mind you I don’t think so - the whole of my reasonable mind is convinced: but I often feel so.”