End of the Spear

Today I saw the movie entitled "The End of the Spear" which is based on a true story of missionaries who go to tell of the good news to the Woudani tribe, an indigenous tribe in Ecaudor. The movie is set in the 1950s and during that time killing was happening frequently between the tribes. Actually I read in one of the film excerpts that this tribe was one of the most violent tribes that anthropologists have studied. During this time, one of the girls from the Woudani tribe comes in contact with the foreigners (missionaries) who take her in. She grows up and comes to love the families that she is with. The missionary men then go to meet the tribe and initially they think their meeting is successful. One of the Woudani boys lies and says that the girl that was taken in by the missionaries has been killed by them in order not to be caught in his own sin, of impregnating another tribal girl. In retalliation, the tribe kill the missionary men. Eventually the wives of the missionaries along with Dayumae live with the people, the people that killed their husbands. What an amazing representation of Christ's love! What's even more amazing is this character in the movie named Kimo is transformed by hearing about Christ. Dayumae tells Kimo that there is a God and His Son was killed with a spear, but He did not kill back and the Holy Spirit changes Kimo. The people of his tribe notice his demeanor has changed. To me that says- wow, God's power is huge and this is evidence- of Him changing the hearts of people who only know violence to hearts of compassion. This movie is a must see!
The picture is of one of the missionary's sons along with the man who killed his father- what an amazing thing! Only through Jesus.

Being filled to the fullness

Before church started I was talking with one of the ladies in my church. While talking one of the ladies shared that a fellow member of the church was in the hospital. All of a sudden my attitude changed towards the Lord; I started thinking of hard trials that we all have to endure. Then the sermon came and it was good and my heart began to change. Our pastor talked about the love that God has for us that when we know this love we are secure. How powerful if we would think on the love that God has for us. That temptations and how we respond loom from knowing the love that God has for us. Pastor Fred talked from Deut 1:26-27 and how the Israelites rebelled from God and even said that God hated them. They had forgotten what the LORD had done for them and had a wrong view of how God viewed them. That we would know what the heigth, depth, breadth and width of the love that God has for us. That we would know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God. When I looked up in the original language of filled and fullness, it could be likened to a net that was crammed to the top. That's how God wants to lavish His love on us. Amen!

Over Consumption

Today after work I headed over to one of the local nursing homes in the area where I do occassional evals when needed and tonight there were two. So, I'm talking with the physical therapist, whom I like. She's telling me about this show she watched on the Discovery channel where people eat and eat. This man weighed around 1,000 pounds. They couldn't get him out the door so they had to cut the door out. Of course my mind is whirring and in pops this spiritual analogy. I think I can be guilty on feeding on the goodness of God and letting it stay in me- not exercising my faith and when I don't it can get increasingly harder to do. May I be a spiritual exerciser!

Litter

I'm driving home and sometimes I take an alternate route to get to my house. Since I live on a corner, when I take this route I can see the other side of my house. Good thing I did this because there was a lot of litter in my lawn- plastic bottles, old voting campaign brocheures (geesh, how long had that been there!), and a pop can. It made me disappointed that people don't really care about others property. And when I was thinking of this, God was like- this is how it is with Me. How when we're His children and don't really care and litter upon ourselves with sin. How much more beautiful the lawn is when there is no litter. When we sin against Him we've littered, but the amazing thing is, is that Jesus is the ultimate garbage collector- He picks up the litter that we've disposed on ourselves. He is our all in all.

Teamwork

Last Monday seated on my parents couch my eyes were glued to ABC as I watched the Ohio State Buckeyes take on Notre Dame. As always, the Buckeyes make me sweat a little, but I do enjoy a good game. Initially I was a little troubled by the first drive of Notre Dame as it resulted in a touchdown. But then the Buck boys came fightin' back and Ginn did great, making some fabulous catches. As my dad said, "here he goes A' Ginn and A' Ginn." The best highlights of the game for me happened near the end of the game. The game was sealed as Antionio Pittman broke through the line and scored a touchdown with time going down on the clock in the 4th quarter. What happened however to allow him to keep going and cross the goal line, was two crucial blocks by Ginn and Holmes, two players who usually do the catching and running. My mom exclaimed, "That's teamwork". How true, how true. These two- Ginn and Holmes- usually are in the spotlight, but they went into the background and allowed Pittman to plow through. I love that about the body of Christ. How God intended that the body help one another to achieve an ultimate goal. It's not about one person always getting the attention, or when people focus on attaining their goals for only self-accomplishment, which can be an easy thing to want and/or do. But, that's what I love about Jesus- I'll conclude with one of my favorite verses..."Making my joy complete, by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of tohers. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Phillipians 2:2-8.

2005 Highlights

Happy New Year!

I was wanting to post my highlights for 2005 in 2005, but that didn't quite happen. Highlights in 2005

1. Going to California with my brother for a spectacular wedding weekend! This was our first time in California and it was beautiful. I loved it and would love to go back. We got to see San Jose, Carmel, Monteray Bay and then it was back to Ohio and within about one week we were off to South Dakota....

2. South Dakota: Small group mission trip. We embarked on a mission trip in a 15 passenger van with 7 people. Very eye opening time, how some people are truly living. Seeing the condition of the Native American living was very sobering. We did construction work through Tree of Life Ministry working where we did lots of painting, texturizing using the texturizing machine, sanding, etc.

3. Florida- spring break 2005 Clearwater Beach Florida. Although it rained the majority of our trip and it was overcast, the Shelby Hills crew was determined to get at least one day of sun :) Swimming with the manatees was awesome. Highly recommend it- I'll have to do it again since I never did get to pet one.

More highlights to come....
4. Ohio State football games- thank you Mitsu, of course I think the #1 highlight game of the year was the nail-biting win over the arch nemisus Michigan. I celebrated the victory over at some friends' house, of which the owners where Michigan fans I'm sad to say.

5. Amazing Race Sidney Style: Since I've become addicted watching Amazing Race (from a high recommendation from my friend Mitsu), I thought it would be rather fun to create an afternoon race around Sidney Ohio. The race began at the Spot, a famous little diner here in Sidney- then onto the firestation where the teams had to choose between two tasks: rolling up firehose or performing a fireman fundamental (wearing firemen gear and commando crawling blindfolded on the floor following a hose, which divided into two and they had to find the one with the nozzle.) Washing cars or baking cookies, participating in a balloon toss, sorting Skittles, building tents, running around a track and finally ending the race at CJ Highmarks where the winners celebrated by eating a free meal!