Ministry Moments

I apologize for my relatively silent blog, lately, we have been so busy that to think of things to write in the spare time I have to write them has been difficult.

We are witnessing God working out His will and His way in our lives and in those of whom we are called to minister to, and with. There is much to trust God for and much more for which to praise Him.

Because of sick kids, I missed Scott's preaching on Sunday night before last. From all accounts he did an excellent job! One lady said his preaching was impeccable. I believe this was the first time for us [our kids] to hear Scott preach expositorily. Not that it's a new concept to him. It is hard to preach through the Bible when you are the guest preacher or only preaching once a month. I'm excited to hear what the Lord has laid upon his heart as he teaches us through the book of 3rd John. Scott's desire is to begin preaching once a week. Please be in prayer for him as this requires not only study of the Bible but a re-study of everything to put his message into Spanish.

The past 4 weeks of SIGMA have been exciting and disappointing. We have witnessed, once again, that there are a handful of teens that excel in memorization. We have encouraged them to continue on but also to encourage their team members to memorize. What we are seeing is those who think it's their (the memorizers) job to do all the work. Boy, don't we already see enough of the "pew sitter" attitude? So now we take on the roles of helpers for all the teens in the areas they need encouragement, be it with devotions, verses, or service in the church. The exciting part is that even though the devotions are hard hitting we are seeing many of the young people faithful in completing them. A friend recently wrote "Today I chose_____because I want to be_____." All of us need to fill in the blanks but our young people especially need to learn that they are becoming today what they will be tomorrow. Please continue to pray for the young people here as they learn to set Godly habits in their lives.

Our ladies ministry ended for the year with a Christmas party. Amparo Lopez spoke on an unusual theme for Christmas...Proverbs 31. The year means looking forward to the next. What will we chose to do, to be, this year? Will we chose to be Proverbs 31 women because we want to honor God with our lives? I was struck with the fact that Jesus' mother, Mary, had this attitude. The Lord definitely has been at work this past year in the lives of our ladies. We have seen growth. We have seen incredible testimonies through incredibly difficult trials. We have seen women stepping up to serve. We have seen a burden for souls. We have seen results of prayer. And last night we saw further evidence of God's work in that we had 40 volunteers to work in the nursery this coming year! I believe 32 of them are new volunteers. Now we will be able to have 2 separate nurseries with 2 workers in each nursery, and each worker will only need to serve once a month.

Without a doubt God is working here. There is no question that your prayers have been answered. Thank you for your faithfulness to the cause of Christ here in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay!!!

Lies We Believe About Marriage

After four hours of Spanish class I wasn't too sure my mind was in a state to teach the ladies Bible study last night, but God intervened and kept my mind working. It turned out to be a great lesson. Several of our ladies questions were answered in this section of the book. As we read the many verses applying to marriage the ladies heard straight from God about the blessings that can be had if they counter the lies believed about singleness and marriage with the truth from His Word.

LIE: I have to have a husband to be happy.

TRUTH: The single ladies learned that happiness is not found in (or out of) marriage. There is no person who can meet our deepest needs. Those who wait on the Lord (including for a mate) always get His best. God has promised to provide everything we need. If He will receive more glory from her being married, then He will provide for her a husband.

LIE: It is my responsibility to change my mate.

TRUTH: The ladies learned that God can do a far better job of changing
our husbands than we can.

LIE: My husband is supposed to serve me.

TRUTH: The ladies learned that God made us to be the helper to the man. We are never more like Jesus than when we are serving others so we ought to seek to serve not seek to BE served.

LIE: If I submit to my husband I'll be miserable.

TRUTH: The ladies learned that submission places us under the protection of God. Our willingness to place ourselves under God-ordained authority is the greatest evidence of how big we believe God is. Our submission to our husband should demonstrate the way the church is to submit to the authority of the Lord Jesus.

Since the ladies are reading the books on their own and then we meet I have used more of a review format with the studies. At times I will teach on the chapter as a whole and hit on the individual lies. Other times I will use the Walking in the Truth book to help clarify some things for the ladies...and for myself. I am constantly amazed at the sweet teachable spirit of our ladies. Their hearts are tender towards the things of the Lord and God is able to change them into His image as a result.

After the study was complete, well most of the study, we had to stop for lack of time, we had a birthday party for Amparo Lopez. She and her husband are missionaries here, from Peru. It was so much fun to surprise her with the blanket that we made, that she thought was for one of our older ladies. The ladies also brought gifts for her and we had lots of sweet treats. I'm thankful for my friend, Amparo. I'm so looking forward to seeing how God will continue to use her here in Uruguay.

Cardiac Arrest

"Where is everyone?", wondered the handful of ladies sitting in our living room. The answer was that more than half of our faithful ladies, or their families, had been hit by the winter flu bug. So last Thursdays Bible study was drastically smaller. Nonetheless, it was a good meeting. We discussed the three lies women believe about their priorities - I don't have time to do everything I'm supposed to do, I can make it without consistent time in the word and prayer, and a career outside the home is more valuable and fulfilling than being a wife and mother.

It was amazing, as I read through these lies in preparation for teaching, that I had once again fallen for each one of them. Right now I'm working on a church directory, a ladies retreat, a new youth ministry, and a ladies Bible study. I just finished our latest prayer letter. That's just the "ministry" aspect of my to-do list. I have Spanish to learn. A husband and children to feed and care for. Laundry to do, or at least make sure everyone is getting theirs done on time. Cleaning the house. Updating the Blog. Helping our coworkers with their furlough presentation and designing their prayer card. Oh, have I mentioned the baby that wakes me up several times a night...even though he's 9 months old. The kids instrument lessons and doctors appointments. Phew. I'm tired just typing it all.

I nthe morning I often am awakened by a hungry baby and as I feed him I pray, well lately it's more of an attempt to pray. Because he keeps waking me up at night I find myself just as tired when I wake up as when I went to bed the night before.

And though I am a stay at home mom, and really wouldn't want it any other way, I'm convicted by the results of my staying at home. After all one of the reasons I'm home is to be the one influecing our children. So I can be a consistent Godly example to them. And to help Scott lead them to the Lord, grounding them in the Word of God so that when they are grown they will be able to make decisions that honor God. I can see how much I have fallen short here.

As I examine my home, and my heart I see how far I have believed each of these lies. I see how much I still have held on to the battle cry of the feminists. I have failed to find this life, as a stay at home mom, completely rewarding. I have failed to see that the "measure of a womans worth success [is] the extent to which she serves as the heart of her home." (Nancy Leigh DeMoss) I sincerely believe that the heart of our home is close to suffering a cardiac arrest. Or at the very least is all clogged up with things that choke the life out of a heart....and a home.

I need to go back to asking my husband to help me make wise choices about the projects I take on, in and out of our home. I need to see my roles as a wife and then a mother as God's sees them. I need to be more faithful to my primary responsibilities - my husband and my children. And to accomplish all of these things I need to spend consistent time in prayer asking for and relying upon God's strength to be the wife and mother He has entrusted me to be. "I can do all things through Christ..." Philippians 4:13

Rather Rosie

At the completion of the ladies study last night, one of our ladies asked if she could say something. One of the things I greatly appreciate is the input of our ladies. It helps me to know their struggles and their victories. Sometimes I even get a glimpse into their hearts and lives and realize that my life is really rather rosie. Often I end up with a much different perspective in life. I also realize how much I still have to learn.

Back to the subject at hand...this lady after sharing her testimony of salvation and resting in the Lord, revealed some difficulties within her marriage. I wish I could elaborate here, what I will say is that it is vitally important that we be in prayer for Olga. Pray for God to work on her behalf, for God to protect her and for her husband, Hugo, to understand God is real and desires to save him. Before we left we organized a prayer chain for Olga. Each lady agreeing to pray daily for Olga at a specified time. Please leave a note in the comment section if you are able and willng to pray for Olga.

Lies We Believe About Sin

Another installment of Mentiras que las Mujeres Creen will happen here at the house tonight. We decided to change the meeting night because we've had a few ladies missing because they have to work on Thursday's. I don't know that we'll keep the study on Friday nights but I'm interested to see if we will have more ladies.

The chapter we will be discussing deals with the lies we believe about sin.

• "I can sin and get away with it."
• "My sin isn't really that bad."
• "God can't forgive what I have done."
• "I am not fully responsible for my actions and reactions."
• "I cannot walk in consistent victory over sin."

As I read down this list I can see how I personally have believed these lies. When God desired to save me from my sin, his enemy, Satan, had me believing that the first three lies were true. First I believed that I was not accountable to anyone, let alone a Holy God. I also was confident that my sin wasn't really that bad. But then when I saw that Christ died for me, the pain and suffereing that He willingly endured for me, I became convinced that there was no way God could forgive the sins of my past. When I realized the truth, that there is no sin too great for God to forgive, that the blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient to cover all sin and that God's grace is greater than any sin, I willingly repented of my many sins and trusted in Christ to save me.

As far as I know, all of the ladies that come to our study are saved. And so, tonight I plan to focus mainly on the last two lies. Of vital importance is bringing to remembrance that God dwells in those whom He has saved. It often times, is the presence of a specific person that will cause us to think twice about commiting sin. For instance, how many times have I been short and harsh with my kids yet when the phone rings I answer with a sweet voice? If we would not commit a sin before a friend why would we do the same thing before a Holy God? Because we dismiss His presence. We choose to do what we want even though the Holy Spirit is whispering for us to stop. We excuse our sin as not being sin. Or we yield to the desires of our flesh.

As you can see, I'll be hitting on some tough things tonight. Please be in prayer for our ladies, that their hearts would be tender and submissive to the leading of God. I would greatly appreciate your prayers for clarity in thought and speech. I have taught the last couple studies in Spanish, and I find it very mentally taxing to get such deep thoughts across in a language still foreign to me.

God Knows: Yielding your rights. Part 2

"Anyway, I don't know what was up in your life last night, but I could NOT
stop praying for you. I kept talking to God about you, and then trying to move
on and think of something else ... and I could not quit coming back. So, you
were saturated last night."

I received this in an email yesterday. And I am reminded that God Knows. He knew that I was going to "hit" our ladies with a very difficult thing for them. Honestly, I didn't want to. I wanted to teach generally, you know, go through the chapter highlights and call it a night. But God kept impressing upon me this was the way to go. Because He knew he had, at least, this one friend praying for me. Were there others? I have no idea, but I must say what a blessing it is to know that God cares for me in such a special way.

Yielding your rights.

"The fact is, successful relationships and healthy cultures are not built
on the claiming of rights but on the yielding.
Even our traffic laws reflect this principle. You'll never see a
sign that says, "You have the right of way." Instead, the sign instructs
us to "Yield" the right of way. That is how traffic flows best; it
is also how life works best." Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Yielding ones rights doesn't come naturally. Miss DeMoss goes on to point out the 60's birthed turmoil and rebellion based on the philosophy of claiming our rights. Even though I grew up in the 70's and 80's that philosophy was one that I had fed to me by my teachers, parents, friends. I believed, and often attempted, the "anything you can do I can do better." One of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn in my Christian life is that of yielding my rights not only to those around me, but especially and most importantly so to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have seen first hand how the mindset of the typical Uruguayan woman is rooted in the claiminng of her rights. It is common and quite natural here that a child comes before the husband - even when that child is grown and has children of their own. And then the grandchildren take the place of the most important. I certainly appreciate the love they have for children and the value they give them. It is something I believe we need more of. But things have gone to an extreme here. There is a very vague idea of submission to ones husband but that is only after the wife submits to here children or grandchildren.

Thursday night I believe the Lord wanted me to teach the ladies on the lie of "I have my rights!" At the time I had no idea why. Really, I figured it was because I still struggle in this area. Selfishness is plastered all over my heart. After I opened the class for discussion the challenges, agreements, and questions were, well, they were astonishing, perplexing, and sometimes cries for help to understand.

I wish I could tell you all about our ladies but I don't want to violate their confidence by blabbing to the world all they dared to share with me and Ruth. I will say that they need your prayers. Ruth and I need your prayers. Submission, yielding your rights, can be a breaking point for many marriages. And we have seen some marriages here collapse because the wives will not submit. I ask that you pray that the women in our church, and others we come into contact with, will allow the Lord to build their house. That they will have confidence and faith in God that He loves them and wants the best for them. When they follow His way His blessing will be upon them and their marriages.

Whose are these?

You wouldn't think that such a question would bring people to tears but around here you never know what will happen. I certainly never imagined that someone would come to me with dentures to inquire of their owner. But that's exactly what happened last week after our ladies meeting.

One of our ladies lost her lower dentures, and apparantly didn't realize she was toothless. Imagine my surprise when a deacons wife held them up in my face. Uh, gross! Evidently the expression on my face was enough to get the ladies laughing. That led to all kinds of jokes which soon had all of us crying because we were laughing so hard.

Have I told you yet how much I love these ladies? I love their humor, their joy in the Lord, and their ability to laugh. I love that they have wrapped their arms around me and pray for me and help me while I adjust to living here. I love that they are so willing to sit for an hour to gain some truths from the Bible about how they should live for God. I especially love that after teaching my class all in Spanish, from my mind (no notes, except for the discussion questions), the ladies were so encouraging in spite of my many mistakes. God has richly blessed me!

Photos of the Ladies Bible Study

Are You Leaning?

"Recently my husband did .... and from your study I realized that I needed to pray for him and encourage him."

In response to a former catholic lady's testimony of Baptist teachings being very different from what she is used to, one lady said this, "I was a catholic my whole life too, but when you immerse yourself in the Bible it gets into your heart and you see that what our church teaches is truth."

Each of the ladies wrote out prayer requests to exchange with eachother. This is the testimony of the lady who got my prayer requests, "These past couple weeks I have prayed for Debbie, Pastor and for their family. She asked prayer for Spanish and I've noticed an improvement. I've prayed for the spiritual growth of their children. And for Pastor as he prepares and preaches his messages."

To begin this weeks study, on Proverbs 3:5,6, I asked the ladies to share testimonies of how they were able to apply the last study's lesson to their lives. Last week I taught on the negative aspect of this verse: Leaning - We are not to trust in our own understanding or our reasoning (our reasoning is our intelligence, our thoughts, and our desires) over God's.

Following this week's study on the beginning of Trusting - We are to trust in Almighty God. Our examples from Scripture are Isaiah, Job, and Habbakuk, Daniel, Joshua and Caleb, Shadrac, Meshac and Abednego, Ruth, and the many examples in Hebrews 11- I shared practical application of my study: When you struggle to do as God asks or to believe God will do as He promised ask yourself, "Who is my God?", read Job 42; keep a remembrance journal of all the ways God has answered specific prayers - when He has provided for your needs, when He has brought a loved one to the Lord, or when He has helped you through a trial, etc; keep a promise journal in your Bible underlining verses the Lord gives you and date them so you can look back and see how God has helped you through.

I was able to share specifics of how I have applied these things to my life, during Bible college and deputation and now here on the field. From that I hope and trust that the ladies will see that God is real in my life. Please keep praying for these ladies as we continue to study this passage of Scripture.

I'm hoping to complete this study at our next meeting, February 21st, and begin the study in Mentiras Que Las Mujeres Creen (Lies Women Believe). The books have been ordered and should be here from the states in a couple weeks.

Destroyed and Damaged Memories

With tears streaming down my face I sorted through destroyed and damaged earthly treasures today. Photos that were ruined as water dripped onto the bookcase from the AC unit above it. Most of my pictures when I was a baby are now in the trash. Wedding pictures are damaged. Baby books are wet. And scrapbooks are in the trash.

Today is the first day of the ladies Bible study in my home. Am I surprised that today is the day I found those albums in ruin? No! Ever since Ruth and I decided on the date for the study we have had trials. Yesterday, Scott suddenly fell ill with the shakes and dizziness, but today he is fine. On accident, a couple of weeks back Adeline was given a popsicle with milk in it. Last week I found myself completely discouraged over my lacking Spanish. I literally could give you a page long list of trials. Suffice it to say God must be getting ready to do something great here in Uruguay and I so want to be a part of it. At the very least I long to see His hand at work in the lives of the church ladies.

Before I discovered my photos I was singing "It is Well With My Soul". Now I must ask myself, "Is it really?" Yes, it is. The Bible study I'm teaching tonight focus' on giving up our own wants and desires and even things so we can follow the Lord. Though my heart aches over lost memorabilia my Saviour stands beside me to give me comfort. For that I can, and do, sing and rejoice. I can lift my eyes onto the Lord and be used of Him, because in allowing me to lose I have gained as He has drawn me closer to Him.

A Bible study for ladies.

Ruth and I have desired to have a ladies Sunday school class. But we don't have the room in the church building to have anything more than childrens and an adult class right now. At first I was discouraged about this, knowing that having a regular time to study the Bible and issues particular to women would be beneficial for the Spiritual growth of the ladies here. So I decided to pray about it and the Lord showed me that ladies could meet in our home a couple times a month, or more. I shared the idea with Scott and he was all for it, as were Archie and Ruth.

So, on January 24th I will have my first Ladies Bible study in our home. I'm very excited about this opportunity to minister to the ladies in our church. At first, I will teach through a study I wrote and presented several times in the States during furlough. Are You Leaning is a study of Proverbs 3:5,6 and what it really means when God tells us to trust Him with all our hearts. Not only will this study prepare the hearts of the ladies to study through the book Mentiras que las Mujeres Creen (Lies Woman Believe) by Nancy Leigh DeMoss; it will also give us time to get their copies of the book ordered.

I'm looking forward to the time together with the ladies; we have several ladies who have said they are coming, WOW! I'm also looking forward to the public speaking practice I'll have with Spanish. Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy public speaking...even in Spanish.

Pray for our ladies that they will be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Pray that the Lord will prepare their hearts over the next few days. Finally pray for the ladies to be consistent, without a doubt the enemy will discourage them with a bad day, and other trials the days we meet for the study.