Another Wiebdom Quote: Grooms on Missionaries

If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king.

Jordan Grooms

The Head of John the Baptist: Quoted Article from Nigerian Messenger

Handmade oil painting reproduction of Salome with Head of John the Baptist, a painting by Andrea Solari.


To introduce the article which is quoted by Wiebe, the main thought is that we behead John the Baptist anew when we share before or encourage divisions, gossip, and slander in front of our children. Min. Okwandu from Nigeria writes:  

...What are the advices we give our children? What are the things you, as a father or mother are induced to tell your child? Some may like to tell their child or children the wrongs which a brother did to them.  While others may like to share with their children the weakness of a brother or sister.  It could be they will like to criticize a brother in the face of their children.  Are we fair in our actions?  Are we fair in our advices?  Are we portraying the good virtue of a father or mother?  What legacies we are leaving for our siblings?  Is this not the same as demanding the head of John, a brother in a charger?  Let us deeply think about this.  At first it may not create a prick in our heart but after the thunder comes the rain...

 

... How do we love our brothers?  How dear are our brothers to us? Are there not times we crucify an innocent brother?  Are there not times our words become nails, piercing their heart?  Are there not times when our looks become like fire in their mind?  Are there not times when our smiles become hypocritical?  Are there not times when our handshake becomes cold?  We can go down through this corridor of line of questions.

 

Is this head useful?  Dear reader, NO!  Could we think of those around us, our neighbors in particular?  Are there not those you do not want to see?  Are there not those you do not want to hear their voice?  Things like these sends ripples of hatred, ranchor, avarice, and such like in and around us.  In turn we began to look for ways to have our neighbors' head in a charger.

 

Dear reader, Jesus said that we should love our  neighbors as our own self.  He further said that greater love has no man than these that a man lays down his life for his friends.  Further readings said that by these shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another.

 

What do our children come home with? There are times they come home with what that brother said today or what that sister said or did today in the meetings.  Sometimes thy come home with the story of our neighbor whose conduct was unfair, (who knows)? Or sometimes with the story of how the gathering in the worldly meetings looked.

 

Dear father and mother let us be fast in hearing but slower in speaking...

 

...May we be willing to help our children in the best way that will bring honor and glory to the name of God.

Min. Charles E. Okwandu

The Head of John the Baptist

The Voice of Christians' Fellowship

Vo. 19/2011 No. 4

Quoted by Jason Wiebe

CPS Haiti Blog

For those interested there is a Christian Public Service blog on the web at


 cpshaiti.com 


It is a humanitarian branch of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite that rebuilds houses in Haiti---especially roofing houses. I think there are five to six unmarried young men and a set of house parents to help keep house. Check it out they are keeping up with the effects of Hurricane Irene.

Wiebe's Corner: Quotes to Ponder

I will not work my soul to save,

For that my Lord has done.

But I will work like any slave

For love of God’s dear Son!

- Unknown 

Quoted in MOT Vol. 109. No. 11

Every dollar I spend, whether into the collection or on the energy
drink for break or on the SUV, is not my own but God's. Those of you
who have been missionaries know how it feels to spend someone else's
money. But should it be different to spend donated money or our own?

Jay Friesen

The last year was a time of discomfort and suffering.  It became apparent that his time on this earth was limited.  On Easter Sunday, Henry called us to his bedside, sharing personally with us.  He expressed his peace with God and his desire to got to heaven and encouraged us to remain faithful to God.  He told of hearing the angels singing and how it more beautiful than he had ever imagined.  We feel God especially touched him there.  Our hearts are sad, and yet we are comforted in knowing that he is safe at home.  In life he led the way by telling his family, "We are going to be  Christians."  Now again, he has led the way by saying, "Meet me in heaven."

Excerpt from the obituary of Henry Dyck

MOT Vol. 109 No. 12

Ravenhill Quotes to Ponder

Preaching is a spiritual business.  A sermon born in the head reaches the head.  A sermon born in the heart reaches the heart.  A spiritual preacher will under God produce spiritually-minded people.  Unction is not a gentle dove beating her wings outside the bars of the preacher's soul; rather, divine unction must be pursued and won...

 

Unction cannot be learned, only earned by prayer.  Unction is God's knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory.  Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks but in the prayer closet.  The meeting is won or lost before the preacher's foot enters the pulpit.

 

Leonard Ravenhill

Pray For Unction In The Pulpit

 

-H of HC

 Hallelujah! 1053-054

 The Bible Holiness Movement

One does not need to be spiritual to preach, that is, to make and deliver sermons of homiletical perfection and exegetical exactitude.  By a combination of memory, knowledge, ambition, personality, plus well-lined book shelves, self-confidence and a sense of having arrived, brother, the pulpit is yours almost anywhere now.

 

Preaching of this type, affects men.  Prayer affects God.  Preaching affects time, prayer affects eternity.  The pulpit can be a shop window to display our talents. The prayer closet speaks death to display.

 

The tragedy of this later hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.

 

Leonard Ravenhill

Pray For Unction In The Pulpit

Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men.

 

Leonard Ravenhill

Pray For Unction In The Pulpit

 

The old masters of the pulpit got their texts on their knees, soaked them with their tears, groaned over them with a travailing spirit, warmed them with strivings in prayer - then delivered the message as a living thing, warm from God's heart, burning in the preacher's heart to make warm the heart of the listeners.  There is no substitute for prayer.  We cannot tell this highbrow generation with science-soaked intellects what our God can do.  We must demonstrate the Gospel!

 

Leonard Ravenhill

Pray For Unction In The Pulpit

Effective Gospel Preaching

If a minister's preaching and work are to be truly effective, he must be a disciple of Jesus Christ, walking with Him in a meaningful per­sonal relationship. He must be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. His heart must be filled with and motivated by the love of God. He must be "clothed with humility" and be a shepherd who is willing to give his life for the sheep. In the fear of God, he must be willing to say and do the difficult things that must be done for the good of the church and the salvation of the individual. He must not draw back from them be­cause of fear of man or to protect his personal popularity. He must lead the way in the will of God, and beckon the congregation to follow. His preaching must be by the inspiration and unction of the Holy Spirit. In preparing the message, he must give himself to prayer, meditation, and the Word, being "first partaker of the fruits" (2 Tim. 2:6). The more of God there is in the message and the less of man, the more effective the message will be.

If the minister's life is not consistent with his message, the trumpet gives forth an uncertain sound, and "who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Cor. 14:8). Who will heed the minister's message of charity if love is not clearly felt in his life and labors? How will his message of humility be effective if the congregation detects pride in his heart? How will a call to temperance and self-denial be received if there are evident excesses in the minister's life? Can he preach convincingly about sim­plicity and nonconformity to the world if there are inconsistencies in his own life or in his family? While we are comforted that God speaks through faulty and imperfect men, the effectiveness of preaching is largely dependent on the faithfulness of the preacher.

A minister's effectiveness is in part the congregation's responsibility. Above all, he needs the prayers of his people. He also needs their en­couragement. The minister is strengthened by a quiet word of support or appreciation.

Adult & Youth Sunday School Lessons 

Lesson 6 - Effective Gospel Preaching

June.July.August 2011 (Emphasis added)

Mennonite Has Breakfast with President Obama

photo by David Kettering
Can you spot Eric Unruh? His wife beside him has been carefully cut from the photo? Wondered what they all talked about?
See article at http://www.thonline.com/news/breaking/article_bc67b246-c824-11e0-a11d-0019bb30f31a.html

Grape in the Press: One Body in the Church

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work 2 Tim 3:14-17 NIV

 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:5

Not alot of time but I woke up with a inspiration down this line. 

I thought of wine grapes.

Imagine the Church as a winepress. We all become blended as one. With age, trial and tests this effort brings out good wine.

Too many times as a wine grape --it does not look attractive to loose your round form to this effort. You do not want to be a squished pulpy mass--urgghh. You peek out of the tub and see other grapes in the Master's vineyard and wonder if they have to sacrifice their liberty and shape as you have to. You can not see what the Master's plan for them---maybe they are to be raisin or eatable grapes in His kingdom. Maybe they are not fully ripe for his plan or that they will be processed in a tub of persecution.

When I think of us as a people--our goal is to blend our efforts as one body grounded in the Word of God. When we reach out to others it can then be as a mighty hand reaching out. When we pray it can be as a body of prayers ascending to the throne of grace. It is evidence of our self-life is harnessed and on its way to die on a cross when we become blended with our brethren. We do not do God or the Church service to setting off as lone rangers against the evil that is set about us. Other sheep that are not of this fold require a body like ours reaching out with prayer,hope and light so they too can benefit. 

Group worship will not save our individual souls, but is a great asset to fighting the evil one. The carefulness we see in our Church is one to be coveted highly. Careful to prove the Word. Careful to prove the spirits. Careful to seek the Lord's face. Where else can we find such a body to entrust our families in.

Today's test is when we seek liberties by shrugging off our responsibility to the Church by observing other's that we perceive as Christians. Praise God if they are, but that does not lessen our responsibility to our brethren. In dealing with other Christians I rejoice with them but as to their responsibilities in the kingdom I had to think of Apostle Peter's discourse with Christ about Apostle John. 

Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. John 21:21-22 KJV 

Also

 And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.
 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.
Luke 9:49-50

  To honor Christ with a meek spirit is to engage the Pentecost spirit and blend as one. That is they way we can reach more effectively to the outreach around us. 

The Church is not perfect and we will see constantly the human element, but then we need to take responsibility of prayer and be willing to voice our concerns in a open way. When I say "open way" that means to also be open to step down after we have voiced our concerns. Also in a "open way" as that we speak "face to face" responsibly and not behind backs. That's real humility in practice to be prayerfully open.

Let us fully embrace the Church as we know it as our God given responsibility, holding nothing back. Give and take reproof. To help and to be helped. Feel the excitement of collective prayer and effort to follow the Holy Spirit and reach out and feel the needs of others around us. In this way we will be better equipped to accept and fulfill  the responsibility of the Great Commission to the saving of souls from the wrath to come. I feel so inadequate yet I feel more and more as one with my brethren as we are all reaching out to a common goal of seeking the face of God.

Truly Written in Weakness-JLT

Watchman Gospel Signs

http://www.watchmangospelsigns.com

Was checking out this site and they had some very thought provoking signs for a reasonable price. Maybe the least we can do is start by hanging out a sign down by the road. Somewhere where it can make us all think. We do not want to draw attention to our selves and yet what happens if the bigger problem is that we would be ashamed. I am glad I came across this site as it has challenged me further to see how serious am I to really get the Word out. Saying that am I also willing to be identified with it as well.



CAM ministries also carries a mail box like the one below
http://www.tgsinternational.com/t/category/witnessing-helps/gospel-sign

How We Should Pray: Guide for Today's Christians

On Sunday, Minister Chet Esau gave an example of how we pray (and how we
SHOULD pray)... for the day, this and that, food, missionaries, blah
blah, and then ourselves, we do a full circle and then we run out of
things to pray about, sort of fade out. That silence at the end of our
intellectual prayer is when real prayer is ready to start, when the Holy
Spirit can begin speaking to us and we should just continue in 'real
heart prayer'. Just let our thots go and if we think about a certain
person, pray about that, if about buying a bike, pray about that, and
all sorts of other relationship stuff that comes up, just keep on
praying about all life stuff, then wait on our Father to speak again.
This is what he suggested the Bible men did when they prayed all night,
not just verbally or in actual words all night, but waiting, sighing,
praying, like cut thru all the routine or fancy formal words. This makes
prayer easy for children and youth, all of us! Make sense? This is a
relief to me, to many others here :)! Have a wonderful inspiring day.


submitted by L. Giesbrecht

Oriani Clinic Update

Aug 3-2011

Oriani congregation was able to finish the new church building in time for Junel and Daffney`s wedding. Nobody seemed to get a very accurate count but there must have been close to 400 people there! It was a nice wedding and the couple are a joy to be around. Haitian custom is for the bride and groom to sit on chairs below the pulpit, facing each other, for the sermon and then for the vows the minister comes down and they just stand up where they are, and say their vows, also while facing each other. After the vows are said they all go up to the pulpit and the minister, the witnesses and the couple all sign their names in the appropriate places. Then the minister reads the whole marriage certificate to the assembly. After the service was over, we all stayed in our seats while the Oriani church brethren did an awesome and efficient  job of handing out the hundreds of plates of food. I think they had everyone fed with a plate of rice and beans, and a fruit drink, within 45 minutes or less. The direct simplicity of it all was truly a blessing.

               

The clinic saw 1355 patients this last month. A record. Where is this going? How can we keep up? The little house that we rented for a clinic is already too small. The bank account is almost empty. What shall we do? But the people keep coming because they need help and they seem to be happy with the help they are getting. In the business world you have certain marketing tools (price being one of them) to somewhat control the numbers of customers. Here I can’t do that. Raising the price for a consultation from 50 gds to 100 would probably cut back on patients, but it would cut out the ones who are the poorest and have the big families. Paul Farmer (read the book Mountains Beyond Mountains) is a man who has done a tremendous work in the health field in Haiti. He has one cardinal rule for his hospital and clinics... ``EVERYONE regardless of social status HAS to pay the 50 gd price, except the ones who can`t pay it, which happens to be almost everyone.``  We also have that rule here at Clinique Confiance En Dieu, but we find that most people are quite willing and able to pay it. Sometimes we get gifts of bananas, avocados, etc brought to us too. It’s always touching to see their appreciation.  Dave Wenger from Faunsdale Alabama was a great help to us in finishing up the plumbing in the clinic. All the water system works great. Our electrical system works fine too and the solar panels are easily able to keep up so far. CPS is donating us their old generator so we are excited about that. It has a problem with compression finding its way into the water system so we will have to take the head off and do some repairs but we hope it can be fixed for a reasonable price.

Help us pray for a replacement nurse for this fall when nurse Kim goes home to Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We have some leads still, but some have not turned out successful , and nothing is certain yet. Ashley Dirks, a CNA from UC, Kansas has been a great help here for the last 3 months, but is leaving in a few days. Maybe God will inspire her to come back after she finishes her schooling. We really enjoyed her. In the three months Ashley has been here she has really picked up the language, and can talk to people quite well.

I am spending too much time away from the clinic and my family, on purchasing trips, and also running down the mountain with seriously sick people. I cannot let someone die because I don`t feel like going down YET AGAIN, so I am looking for solutions for this problem. I have been begging all the major NGOs in Haiti lately (to no avail) for a vehicle we can turn into an ambulance. We can’t afford to buy one now, but if we had one... we could set it up with oxygen and IV, etc., and then I`d hire a Haitian (whom I know is a good driver) to take some of these runs for me. I can see that working quite well in the future. I had 2 different ladies just about die in our truck this last week. One was having delivery complications and would have died had we not gotten her to a large hospital. Even then we just about lost her in the hospital. I will spare you the gory details. The baby didn`t live.  The other day I was driving and some people stopped me and begged me to take a lady down that was in serious trouble. Her family had hauled her on a bed for 2 hours, out to the road, and were vainly seeking for some vehicle to take her down to get help SOMEPLACE, they didn’t have a clue where. This young lady Monique had the desperate look of someone who knew she was soon to take her last breath. She was so anaemic  from her last baby 2 months ago that she was having heart failure, and was not able to talk anymore, but had that wild-eyed, desperate, yet weak, look. I took her on the 2 hours ride down to Fond Parisian, and after lots of frustration, and milling around, and trying to start the ambulance, abandoning one ambulance and finding another, then trying to find oxygen etc., we got her loaded into a real ambulance (that they were scared to drive because it had no licence or insurance) and off they went to Port with her. I trust she will be ok, but we haven’t heard today yet.  I really wish you could hear the expressions of thankfulness from these people. Makes us cry with them. They knew she was in critical condition but they were praising God that at least now she had a CHANCE!

Our son Trevor (18) is signed up to go work at Christian Public Service down in the Port area in September. They are still building earthquake victims houses. He will be there for 6 months. I think he will find it a different temperature than up here in the cool mountains! Ha. Hope he can handle the change. Zack (16) will be lonesome, but we do have lots of other missionaries around as well as many visitors to this area, and he gets along great with the Haitians here too, so he has lots of friends.  Our youngest three, Cam, Chase, and Christina, all fluently talk and play with our neighbour kids. They work in the yard with their friends, they play soccer, skip rope, play dolls, and ride and fix bikes all summer long.

Next week we as a family are going back to Ontario for 20 days to visit, tie up some loose ends, and get some supplies so we can return. Our teacher Lacey Toews is coming back in Sept to start school. She will be teaching Min. Dallas Koehn`s son too. Dallas`s are soon coming as missionaries, replacing Clinton Holdemans.

I believe more than ever in the power of collective prayer. The other day I thought of it this way... A dark world where every ascending prayer is like a shaft of light reaching up to God. I think it must be a pretty sight to God to see many spears of light beaming up to him.

Help us pray for, our neighbours Jude and Miranie and their 3 children who are absolutely penniless and can’t find work or food,     sufficient funding to keep the clinic going,   an ambulance,   a nurse to replace Kim soon,   and for wisdom and ability to keep going (we feel pretty weak and out of our league many times).

Thanks for your support and God bless you all,

Keith and Candace Toews

Oriani, Haiti      tel... 1-809-816-4899

www.confidencehealthcenter.org

Tropical Storm Emily Update

The sorm petered out to where it really didnt do major damage here.
Some of our brethren had some tomato crops broken up by wind and heavy
rain but other than that no serious damage was done.

Thank God.


Keith Toews

Tropical Storm Emily Hits Haiti

Keith Toews :
We are in the middle of Tropical Storm Emily

LINK....
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml

 Pray for the people here who are already seeing their last 3 months
of BEAUTIFULL crops being destroyed this morn. Corn is being knocked
down etc.

Copy.... MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS REMAIN NEAR 50 MPH...85 KM/H...WITH
HIGHER GUSTS.  SOME WEAKENING IS POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS AS
EMILY INTERACTS WITH THE HIGH TERRAIN OF HAITI.
RAINFALL...EMILY IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS
OF 6 TO 12 INCHES WITH ISOLATED AMOUNTS OF 20 INCHES POSSIBLE OVER THE
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND HAITI.

Hard to believe it myself but we are huddled in our house here in
Haiti, with jackets on, trying to stay WARM!  lol

Emily is beating outside now and wrecking stuff for these wretchedly
poor Haitian brothers and sisters all around us.

Keith Toews

Google Earth: Pinpointing Lastic and Oriani Haiti

Lastic Canyon  18 degrees 25'29.76" N   71 degrees 58'20.67" W
elevation 2,177ft.

Oriani Church

New Church under construction spring 2011

Oriani School (original church )

Oriani Clinic

Oriani Church Coordinates 

18 degrees 18.403 N

71 degrees 49.868 W

5,251ft.

Chadek CSI Unit 

18 degrees 19.229 N

71 degrees 49.535 W

5,597ft.