Finally, a report

My daughter, the moviemaker (I've mentioned her before, right?), put together a short review of our trip to Yucatan and Cuba. It's finally online so here's the link. It'll give you a taste of what we did and saw.

Going

Divorce was not an option for Rose, but her husband just walked out 15 years ago, leaving her in a pit of debt and two young daughters to raise.

Rose didn’t buckle. She turned her situation over to God, got some counsel about finances, and began to dig out.

Today, she lives in the same small house but it’s paid for. She has no debt and her daughters are now on their own, both followers of Jesus.

Today Rose recycles carefully, nurtures her old car, and tends to the details because she is a world traveler. She works as a librarian in a school in Texas and sets money aside monthly for her next trip.

For the last 4 years, Rose has spent two weeks each summer in the Yucatan. One year she was able to slip over to Cuba for several days. She’s taught Vacation Bible Schools and helped with outdoor evangelism outreaches.

This year, she spent a week venturing into a youth detention center in the cool of the evening, where teenage boys are imprisoned. “They are guilty until proven innocent,” she told me.

Omar caught her heart early. “I was outside a store,” he told her, “when my friends went inside and stole some things. Maybe I shouldn’t have waited for them.” Omar got four years in the detention center for waiting for them, but Rose has given him a Bible and he has given his heart to Jesus.

“Please pray for me,” he told her. “It’s hard in here to stay with Jesus.”

Rose will pray. And she’ll be back again next year.

Jesus told his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:19)

It can be done, even by a woman shackled with debt. Start praying about how you’ll go.

Who prays?

Our family is home safely from Yucatan peninsula and Cuba. We had very few problems and God gave us grace for those challenges that did wander across our path. We felt as though we floated in a bubble of protection and were very away of the many prayers said for us while we were gone.

God is good and we are humbled. Thank you for your prayers.

We conducted over 13 interviews and logged 16 hours of video that will need to be edited and formed into some documentaries. I asked each interview how American Christians could help them.

"Pray for us." That was their first answer every time. They know that their ministry work continues through God's grace and they need prayer. They appreciate ministry teams who come from America to help them. They appreciate the financial help. But most of all they need our prayers.

This is some of the hard work of being a follower of Christ, to commit to daily prayer for people who labor in Jesus' name in other places. but consider committing. If you'd like to pray for a Christian ministering in Yucatan or in Cuba, please email me. I can supply you with names, short thumbnail of their needs, and often a photo.

I know, from the last two weeks, how valuable prayer is. It was a precious gift to our family from those who prayed and I know it will be a precious gift to those we met and left behind. Thank you for praying.

Lord of the Ringless

Dee Aspin is a bubbly, energetic Christian single who connected with me at a recent writers' conference. Because I was single for a lot longer than I wanted to be, I can relate to her ministry to Christian singles. She's publishing a new book so here's more about her ministry.

Author’s New Release Proves God Is Lord of the Ringless

Book praises singleness as breeding ground for a Christ-fulfilling life

LONGWOOD, FL—In Dee Aspin’s new Xulon Press title, Lord of the Ringless: Women Devoted to God and Desiring Marriage (paperback, 978-1-60477-711-9), the author teaches that the hunt for a marriage partner doesn’t have to feel like the long trek to the base of Mount Doom. Single Christians can live with intent and purpose, seeking to please their first love, Jesus Christ. They can pursue their dreams and date with hope—and women can find love at any age. The book features a collection of stories about women who have weathered the daily battles of life courageously and even victoriously, finding a life love the first and second time around, after the age of forty and fifty. And Aspin should know—after working with singles and in singles ministry for 25 years, she has witnessed firsthand the power of Christ to intervene in the lives and loves of fellow women like herself.

Says the author, “[My book] inspires hope for the future and faith for daily living. It encourages women to look to God and reach out to others. It encourages women to find their God-given gifts and purpose, whatever their situation. It supplies Bible study guides at the end of each topic so they can work their way to freedom if they are feeling stuck in any given area of life or relationships.”

The Northern California native has enjoyed a well-rounded life with a history of travel, sports, and outdoor activities. Aspin presently volunteers for the Juvenile Justice Chaplaincy and has a heart for missions. Through these activities and more, she has discovered her God-given gifts and calling, which in turn has empowered her as a faith-filled woman of God.

Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world’s largest Christian publisher, with more than 5,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Lord of the Ringless through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors.

Ministry Focus: Mission Americas

“Mundo Muyo,” or “home of the Mayan Indians” is also home to Mission Americas, which since 1969 has trained local leaders to be missionaries to their own people.

Mission Americas began with a seminary at Merida on the Yucatan peninsula. Current director Harlan Capps has a passion for training indigenous leaders. They already know the language, customs, culture, and it is a greater stewardship of mission dollars,” he says.

From the seminary in Merida, Mission Americas has planted seminaries in five locations in the Yucatan peninsula. They have also placed seminaries in Cuba as well.

The goal is always to train local people and support the local churches.

Mission Americas has even opened an internet seminary to facilitate theological training.

They encourage mission groups from the United States to help out. The opportunities are endless. Teams have helped with construction projects. All improvements to the seminary buildings must be done – and financed – by mission groups. There’s no money in the budget for capital improvements.

Teams have done local evangelism, visited local churches, sponsored kids’ clubs, and much more.

Our family will be one of those teams. We will be spending two weeks in the Yucatan peninsula and also in Cuba, filming video to produce promotional videos and documentaries for Mission Americas.

Please pray for Mission Americas and for our family. We know that God is working through Mission Americas to change lives in Mexico and Cuba.

Ministry Focus: Girls4God

Girls as young as 5 are lured by promises of jobs and a better life. In other words, they’re completely lied to before being stuffed into boxes and shipped to America to be used as porn models.

This is an ugly story and I won’t go on. Suffice it to say that many don’t survive the trip itself and many more don’t survive the atrocities they meet upon arrival.

All to feed an insatiable porn monster. Photos can be uploaded in 15 minutes and there’s a hungry audience waiting fresh meat.

God4Girls wants to provide another way for these girls, who live in Latin America. Using the motto, “From Exploitation to Empowerment,” the group establishes local programs to provide schooling and job skills.

Their four-point goals for programs are:

• Scripture – establishing a personal pattern for Bible reading, discipleship and prayer.
• Sustenance – providing food, medicine and essentials.
• Schooling – education in the 3R’s.
• Skills – training for a long-term vocation.

Author Patricia Hickman is part of a construction team going to Latin America to build training centers for girls there. Further information on her trip is available here.

Please pray for these girls as Girls4God works in Jesus’ name to give them freedom.

The children of Swaziland

Becky Spencer is a self-proclaimed “girly-girl” who traveled to a country of dust and bugs and hopelessness. And the trip captured her heart.

In Swaziland, where Becky visited, AIDS has ravaged a nation. There are not enough adults left and the country is populated by children. Unless changes come, the people of Swaziland will cease to exist in 20 years or less.

Swaziland is located in southern Africa, a land-locked country with South Africa on three sides and Mozamique on the fourth.

Nearly 70% of the population of Swaziland lives in rural areas, where they have been hammered by drought causing alarming food shortages. The death rate outdistances the birth rate and a baby born today in Swaziland can expect to live to age 31. Nearly 70% of the population lives in poverty.

I heard Becky speak recently and was captivated by her compassion for the children of Swaziland. She is a gifted singer and performed a song she authored about those children forced to shoulder responsibility in the face of much hopelessness.

Her ministry is offering sponsorships of children, where for $20 a month you can help feed and educate a Swaziland young person.

Check out her website and please pray for her work with the children of Swaziland.

Under the radar

After I hung up on the lady trying to squeeze out a $200 donation to a cause that I am passionate about, I decided I ought to re-think the whole business of contributions.

I didn’t hang up on her intentionally, but the phone shifted on my shoulder while I was stirring up some biscuits for supper and suddenly her warm voice was replaced by a dial tone.

To be honest with you, those cold calls from ministries bug me a little. They spend a good percentage of their income on such fundraising techniques. I can’t donate to every good cause out there and I want to choose after a time of prayer, not in the midst of a telemarketer’s sweet talk.

Also, it bugs me that the big ministries have enough money that they can overshadow little ministries – both in our attention and in our checkbooks.

I plan to highlight a few smaller ministries in the coming weeks. I’m not endorsing any or asking you to donate, but maybe, as you read about them, you’ll pray and be open to God’s leading. Most are not flashy but their leaders are passionate about their cause.

And, please, if you know of a ministry you’d like to see highlighted, let me know. I’ll try to include it at some point.

So, tomorrow: Swaziland!

In Uganda

In a sign of the times, a group on a Compassion International trip to Uganda are blogging their trip for us. Take a look:

New project

If you survived a miscarriage, would you be willing to be interviewed for a new project I’m working on? I’d like to hear your story and how you moved on with your live. What did people do that helped, or didn’t help? What resources do you think would have eased your walk through grief?

Please e-mail me if you’d like to participate. You will have full control over the level of confidentiality you’d prefer. My e-mail is sumballo@gmail.com.

Thanks in advance!

Separation

Jesus seemed rude to his mother and that troubled me for a long time. If you’ve read John 2, where Jesus eventually rescues a wedding feast by transforming ceremonial water to drinkable wine, maybe his response to his mother has bothered you as well.

I tried to apply human reason: he was having a bad day. His feet hurt. He wasn’t yet good with words.

Truth is, he spoke a Jewish idiom, words of separation. The time had come to part.

They were at a wedding. In those days, the celebration ran on for up to a week, with food and drink stocked for the entire party. To run out of wine was embarrassing and Mary wanted to help.

That’s when Jesus responded with words that appear disrespectful. He used a Jewish saying: leave me alone. Today those are fighting words. But not then: notice how his mother responded. She was not insulted but appeared encouraged.

She turned to the servants, “do whatever he tells you.”

Jesus separated himself from his mother’s authority in this narrative. He no longer did what his mother said, but only what his Father told him to do. In the ensuing chapters of John, that point is highlighted repeatedly. Jesus obeyed only his Father, unconcerned with human influence or opinion.

Mary’s actions are fascinating. When a problem arose, she turned to her son. She informed him of her concerns. Unlike most of us, she did not suggest the solution. She simply laid the problem before him. Having done that, she prepared for obedience. She understood the separation. She had nurtured him as a child but now, as a man, he followed his Father. Her role shifted to following.

Although Jesus’ idiom appears harsh, he was really laying the foundation for his ministry. He did not answer to human authority – not even his mother. He answered only to his Heavenly Father.

And Mary responded as a follower should: with trust and with obedience.

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

John 2:11