Am I Crazy

I have recently taken a liking to audio books on my long commute from Shoreview to Burnsville and the one I started with is Crazy Love by Francis Chan. He has some amazing views that challenge the way I look at life. Challenge my thoughts, who I am and how I am living my life for Christ. Scary to think that I may just glaze over so many portions of the bible instead of really digging into them and getting more out of them.

One of the things that challenged me to think lately is something he said about two types of people. The “naturally joyful” and the “natural worriers”. Now he went on to say that deep down the natural worries don’t trust God that we don’t believe we can trust God with our everyday things, that just because I have so much going on in my life I feel I am exempt from laying all my things down at the feet of the God who created the entire world. He gave some amazing numbers and information through out his book that just challenged me to think about how truly amazing my God is yet I still worry?!?!? Not sure how I feel about the times I worry when I listened to this portion of the book. I guess you could say it kind of hurt but was good at the same time. I mean really I look at how blessed I really am; how much I have and where I have been in life. Do I really have any room or need to worry? He has taken care of me and provided me with so much can or do I really deserve to worry about anything if He is really truly in control of my life? If I have really given Him everything and taken up His yoke I have no reason to worry. This is just one challenge I have had from this book.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matt. 11:28-30

Now the “Naturally Joyful”. I look at the bible and it talks a lot about being joyful and I have heard people talk about living joyfully and that our joy should come from Him and that being joyful is a choose, but come on is this really easy? My thoughts are of course not. I always feel that is something that I can seem to complain about, stressed about or worry (oops) about. A search on the word joyful on www.biblegateway .com lead me to the verse below. Nothing is going right and he can complain that he has nothing yet he is remaining joyful. Hmmm sounds like it is choice I should have no matter what. Definitely a challenge for me in today’s world with increased unemployment, stocks, 401k and other things I may want to lay my trust in, in today’s world.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Hab. 3:17-18

I Hate MONEY

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 1 Timothy6:10a

As of late I have been reading Ecclesiastes for my daily devotions and just thinking a lot about what makes our world tick. Who I really am and what the world then believes I should or need to have. The present state of the United States has really made me think about and evaluate these things.

Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind. Ecclesiastes 4:4

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless—like chasing the wind. Ecclesiastes 6:9

I read these verses and it really made me sad. In a time when the economy is struggling and people are loosing their houses and times are tough we have car companies offering to pay my car payments if I loose my job? Is this supposed to be a security blanket? I guess I don’t fully understand as then in the end I would be out a car as I traded the one I had in or sold it. It is just another way they are trying to tempt me to buy a new car. So there I sit all because I thought I needed or wanted to “Keep up with the Joneses” carless. Sad but true our culture has a phrase for keeping up with others. Here is what wikipedia.org says about this phrase “"Keeping up with the Joneses" is a catchphrase in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to "keep up with the Joneses" is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.” Inferiority? Really I mean will it ever end in our society?

I sat this morning and talked with a good friend and we talked briefly about this. How we would want something to remain cool or try to hold onto that. It is amazing to see the shift in our minds “I am not cool anymore” but that really doesn’t matter does it? In the sense of the kingdom of God cool means something totally different and it is that realization that means the world to me that I can sit with good friends and discuss how image, what we have and how we are perceived by what we have isn’t really what matters but instead serving Him in the ways of our lives is what is truly important to us. Because after all isn't that so much better than a "chasing after the wind"? I mean in the end atleast we know we will meet Him and not be endlessly chasing after something that we will never find or see?

Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!
Ecclesiastes 5:10-11

This verse kind of makes me laugh as I think about the wedding planning going on in my life right now and talk to vendors and friends about the situation. I look at how many people want a take of the money we will spend on our special day. It is just crazy to think what people will charged for. Things that ring through my head are the charges for banquet rooms (at restaurants or places that serve food) for a reception I mean honestly? I quoted one guy on saying “We don’t charge a room rental fee because we don’t charge you for a seat in our restaurant do we?” How true is this? It really made me appreciate the approach of this place when it came down to it. Another thought is some places charge as much as $2.75 a piece of cake to cut and serve it. I mean really? It almost seems that society has come to the point that we want to take advantage of other peoples happiness if we can because when people are happy they will spend and do whatever they want to have things special or their way.

So I guess I never actually thought I would catch myself saying this, but one day while walking around my house this actually verbally came out of my mouth. “I hate MONEY” Now granted I was home alone and just doing a lot of thinking about life and society. Does that mean I am really living out what the bible says about money? Doubt it as I still think about a new car or a big screen TV or even a new camera lens but I guess I really don’t know. All I do know is I am working on it as it stirs within me……..

Brief Report on Borana

This is a brief report from the Borana Region in Ethiopia. It was written by Dr. Samuel Kebreab an amazing man of the Lord with a passion to serve our Lord.

Introduction
The Borana evangelistic outreach has started on September 1998 by receiving 20 school children in the Didhara hostel. The ministry that has started with 20 children and one student’s hostel has now grown into a ministry that administers five students’ hostels accommodating 110 students. The Lord has blessed the ministry that now through the ongoing evangelistic and discipling ministry to the hostel students, their friends and parents for the last ten years, five hundred believers have come to know the Lord and had been discipled. These believers, led by the Borana students, meet in about twenty villages for worship and instruction from God’s Word. The other new thing that has happened in these last six months is that we have ordained and mobilized our first Boranan church planter. Berhane Wongel believing that the Borana are best reached by their own people was trying to raise up Borana ministers who could establish and lead Borana churches. This came into effect through deploying a young dedicated young man who had been discipled by our church planters and who had undergone a Bible School training. The other event which is going to take place after a month is the second and last phase of training of the 22 hostel students who are attending our Borana Bible Training Center , which runs during rainy season when school is closed. These third batch of students together with the first two batches make the number of those who undertook training for serving and leading the church to be 56. We are now realizing the importance of this training as we see that many of the trainees have become instrumental in the planting of many churches. A remarkable thing that has began to happen in these last 2 years is that from among the hostel students nine have joined colleges and universities studying such fields as law, engineering and education. We praise the Lord for this outcome as we see Him blessing our students with knowledge and wisdom and success in their schooling. Let alone joining universities, for many students it is a miracle to be finishing high school. For Jatene who has joined the Kotebe University in Addis it was becoming a history maker; for he was the first person ever to attend college from his district which has thirty large villages.

One of the hostel students, Jarso who is currently attending university
With this brief introduction, we continue the report on the activities that has taken place in each hostel center in the last six months is highlighted.
Didhara
At Didhara, on May 2, 2009 we celebrated a baptismal ceremony for fifty new believers. The thing that was exciting about the event was many of the believers came to the Lord through the witness of their children, the hostel students.

Hostel students Doyo and Konso baptizing new believers
For instance, the mother of Jatene, who is now attending college in Addis Ababa , came to the Lord when one of her daughters was delivered from a demonic bondage through the prayers of the students. Tura and Jarso were instrumental in bringing their close relatives to the Lord. These believers were baptized by the students who brought them to the Lord.

Tura’s and Jatene’s mother, newly baptized
The other important thing that is happening in the hostel of Didhara is that we were able to put a fence for the 90,000 square meters of land that has been granted to us by the local government with the intention to develop it so as to make the hostel work self-sustainable. We have now begun cattle fattening schemes and growing grains. To these new schemes will be added bee keeping and poultry farming.

Cattle fattening scheme
Dubluck and Higo
In Dubluck-Higo area are found three of our hostels: two for boys and one for girls. In this area we have more than ten village congregations that meet together. In a town by the name of Weib, which is twenty kilometers away from Higo, our evangelists were instrumental in bringing fifteen people to the Lord. This is a small but important for the Borana and the majority of people that live in this town are followers of Islam religion. Our evangelists are following the believers and we are in the process of discipling one of them believers so that he may lead the church that we have began to establish in this area.
Yabello
The Yabello hostel is now accommodating fifty boy students, attending high school, while seven girls are living in a rented house. The students meet daily for prayer and to study the Word of God. They also hold Sunday morning worship in the hostel in a more relevant way with organs and synthesizers to attract the town people and youngsters (just like Eagle Brook relevance seems to be important for them!). Many people from the town have come to Christ through their witnessing. They are planning to build a church building in a piece of land which a brother gave them as a gift. We are realizing the need of building another hostel for girls in Yabello as we expect the number to increase to be 12 in the coming school year as those in Dubluck pass to join high school grades.
Items of praises
1. Praise the Lord for the bountiful harvest as we see a steady growth in the spiritual life of the Borana believers and a steady and bountiful growth in the number that are coming to know Christ.
2. Praise the Lord for our students who have grown to become dedicated ministers, church planters and excellent Christian leaders for their people. And praise the Lord also for allowing them to grow strong in body and wise in spirit and for the grace of God to be among them (Luke 2:40).
3. Praise the Lord for giving us our national missionaries and their families who have dedicated their lives to coach and mentor the Borana hostel students. Despite many discouraging illnesses and other forms of obstacles the Lord help them to endure and prevail.
4. Praise the Lord for partners such as Eagle Brook Church who came alongside us since the beginning of the Borana evangelistic outreach ten years ago. In addition to their ever-growing involvement by coming to the field to minister alongside us, and their support in prayer and generous giving, we cannot forget that it is through their ministry in Didhara that a spiritual breakthrough happened in 2001, in which we saw the coming to Christ of more than 290 students from a student body of close to 300. The Lord is pleased to bless this partnership that our church has with EBC and to use it for the expansion of his kingdom.
Items of prayer
1. Pray that the Lord will help us to build girls’ hostel in Didhara which we feel is urgently needed.
2. Pray that the Lord will help us with funding. Because of the increase of food prices we were not able to use the hostel to fully accommodate to its maximum capacity of 170 students.
3. Pray that the Lord may help us to be self-sustainable so that the projects that we are have started would yield good outcomes.
In conclusion we would like to extend our appreciation for EBC leadership and Ethiopian missions committee for their unfailing support and love.
May God bless you
Pastor Fekadu Tadesse and Dr. Samuel Kebreab

Barbarian

In Erwin McManus’s book Barbarian Way he tells a story of his son on the roof of their house asking if he could jump from two stories up. Of course he asked his dad as mom would say no and as expected she did. Dad said, go ahead just make sure you clear the cement. Now when I read this story I thought of my dad in some way. He let me learn on my own over the past years. Now it isn’t that he wouldn’t give me advice or point me in the right direction. He would do that, but always fall short of a clear answer. He would also try to stretch me in my life, which was good. I remember my decision to go into the army national guard. I don’t remember a clear path or him telling me what to do, but I do remember my mom not wanting me to do it and him being supportive of whatever decision I would make. That was all I really needed as my call to step out on my own. Erwin says later “Is it possible your father is also calling you to jump or at least encouraging you to do so? Is the Spirit of God stirring within you, pleading with you to stop settling for the status quo.” For me over the years there have been multiple times that I believe my Heavenly Father was calling me to jump. Now I wasn’t always excited for these jumps, but I guess you could say I did them anyway. As I look back over the past say 8+ years of my life, where I have come and gone. It only amazes me how I have changed and how these jumps have shaped my life.

I remember the reason my mom didn’t want me to go into the guards was fear of going to war or having to serve over seas. Now I am by no means one that takes a lot of risks and I was fine with that until I read this. “It is true that the enemy will essentially leave you alone if you are domesticated.” I pulled up domesticated on http://www.dictionary.com because I have always kind of taken it as a semi-negative word. Here is what it said “to tame (an animal), esp. by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild”. I think I have more fear of becoming dependent or losing my ability to do something than I do of most anything. I want my faith to be strong and focused on who He is and what He has in store for my life.

I look back over the last three years or so and I have seen many people struggle in life. This whole domesticated quote makes me think. I have seen friends struggle with a wife having severe back problems in which she needed surgery, a miscarriage in a strong marriage, a man who’s two year old son has a battle with cancer, a women get multiple concussions, aneurisms and other health issues. All these just before the people were to leave or planning to go on a mission trip. There are even more that I know of second hand but these I have just heard of or seen first hand in the past couple years. It really makes me think hard on this whole domesticated statement. Are there times in my life that I become tamed/domesticated? Is my life easy because I am not living extremely for Him? That my faith has become weaker in which Satan may not worry about me as being a threat to his plan.

This doesn’t mean that I am going to live a crazy lifestyle jumping off of cliffs, sky diving, or bungee jumping, but that I want to focus more on stepping out of that comfort zone I think I may have put myself in far to often and have more faith. I have a great person in my life who once told me that I remind her of a Rhinosourus for their strength and stability. Well, I just found out that a group of Rhinos is called a Crash. Not a herd, but a crash. The reason behind this is that they can run 30mph but can only see 30 feet in front of them. Am I ready to run full speed a head without being able to see where I am going? Just running after Him in Faith………

Ethiopia

It has been a while since I posted last but here is something that I have been working on and has been near to my heart. I am preparing to sent this in the mail to many friends and family. Check out the amazing stories.

Dear Friends and Family,
I am extremely excited to be writing you right now. I am writing you to share some amazing stories from Ethiopia because in one way or another you have played a part in my recent trips to Ethiopia, so I wanted you to hear the updates that I have received in the last couple of months. These updates I am about to share are so amazing to me that I can’t not contain my joy in the way that the Lord has used these hostels to reach not only the Borana area in Ethiopia but also the entire country of Ethiopia and even people here in the United States. We have all played a role as seen in Romans 10

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"”
Romans 10:14-15

To start out I received two emails. The first one was to tell me that 5 students from the boys High School Hostel/Dormitory have now moved onto Universities through out Ethiopia. This is amazing that not only have these boys become Christians, but now they have been given an amazing opportunity to further their education. My excitement on this only grew as I talked to my Ethiopian friend that I work with at Goodrich and he told me that only 3-5 percent of those that take the entrance test actually get into Universities. Now I don’t know how to verify this at this time but to see his face light up when he heard that was completely amazing as he was also able to play a role in these trips. If the 3-5 percent is even close to the current percentage that is only another way the Lord is working.

The next email I received was even more exciting to hear that the Boys High School Dormitory we helped build in Yabello in 2008 was actually housing 50 boys. This building built only 1 year ago is actually almost at capacity. Coupled this with the fact that these boys and a couple girls now living in Yabello are looking at starting a church in this small Ethiopian town. I can’t imagine myself as a High School student along with my friends looking at actually starting a church. The Lord is using these boys and girls in such amazing ways, how can we not be filled with joy in from seeing Him work through them.

In this last email it only got better. Within each one of these dorms there is an adult or family that stays there are missionaries there to teach these children the gospel in the evenings. Now they are also building relationships with the communities in the area. In doing this they have been invited to a small community about 15Km east of where we stayed in 2007. They went and shared the gospel with those who attended and 16 people gave their lives to Christ. This is a strong Muslim community so this shows that the possibilities are endless when God is at work.

In closing I want to thank each and everyone of you for the role you have played in His work in Ethiopia. He is completely amazing and what He can do is definitely infinite and this is only a small example of how great He really is.

God Bless,
Jason Langfield

Language Matters

I used to not worry about how I said or worded things. Now I did put some thought into it but not much as I figured if I got my point across I have successfully communicated. Over time though that thought process has kind of changed. One coworker has been quoted as saying “You are to smart to sound this stupid”. Now I know this sounds kind of harsh but really if you read the email I wrote that day it was completely true and I need to be reminded of this and to be careful with what and how I say things.

The above title was actually taken from a Bill Hybels book called Axiom. Ironically it is the very first Axiom he talks about in the book. He puts it very well by saying “When you put the right words to a vision or a principle, it becomes axiomic. It begins to live! It becomes memorable and powerful.” Let me take a second and give you the definition of axiom – a self-evident truth that requires no proof, or a universally accepted principle or rule. As I thought about this it made me think about how important our communication really is. Well I read on and Bill says “I’ve been known to devote an entire transatlantic flight to nailing a single sentence…..” I don’t think I have ever even put that much time into an entire journal entry or blog. Now they bounce around up there for a while as I gather my thoughts and process them but really focusing for a whole flight on something?

This really had me paying more attention to the words I use in conversations, emails and much more. Lately I have been reading Luke and came to these verses.

for I will give you the right words and such wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to reply or refute you!
Luke 21: 15

26 So they failed to trap him by what he said in front of the people. Instead, they were amazed by his answer, and they became silent.
Luke 20:26

39 “Well said, Teacher!” remarked some of the teachers of religious law who were standing there. 40 And then no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Luke 20:39-40

Mighty and Powerful is all I have to say. I mean Jesus was an amazing leader and our Savior so it doesn’t surprise me that His words left people amazed and silent. I think though as I look at these verses these are people that are either out to get us or Him and still they will have or had nothing to say. I would think that people who want to attack or trap someone with something would at least come up with something to say to try and catch Him off guard or to even have the last word. Though in no instance could they be successful in what they were trying to do to Him. Nor, will anyone be successful against us when He is in our court.

Luke 12

”Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”
Luke 12:25-26

I know that in life I do tend to worry. I think everyone worries, but some more than others. I know myself as of late I have been focused a lot on my house. Now I know the Lord is in control and I can easily say that, but I still worry about the future and selling it and on and on as my analytical mind runs with it. Now this can be a problem. As I know worry can at times take my focus and even be something that I dwell on way too much. Worrying can really can effect how I and others live life.

Then I continue on to read in Luke 12 and come to verse 47"”That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

If worrying truly effects how I am living my life than I am not able to use what gifts the Lord has given me to the best of my abilities. These gifts can be very broad when I look at how blessed I am. Then because I have been given so much I need to really make sure that I am on top of my game and frankly when I read both these verses. I mean “beaten with many blows” because I know and don’t act really? I think back as a little kid and getting spanked for all my mischievous acts and misbehaving. I know how much I didn’t enjoy that now I need to take notice to what the Lord says here to ensure that I am making the most of what I have been given, that I am putting everything to work for who He is.

What else do I worry about?