Parachutes & paracaidas

Parachutes and Bibles.  How do they relate?  It’s an exciting story.  In March, I attended a Voice of the Martyrs event that told about Bibles being delivered into Colombian jungles via parachute.  I came home to research the idea a bit and came across info for crafting these parachutes.  Matthew 28 and Mark 16 both talk about us taking the Gospel to all nations, the latter giving the words of Jesus in verse 15, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”  That includes the guerrillas in the Colombian jungles.  That’s why we’re talking parachutes, because sometimes you can hardly reach an area by any other means.  And in this case, there happens to be a tangible way for us all to help in the effort.  A kit of materials for making 10 parachutes is available from VOM, and this past Friday our church group was immensely blessed to construct our first set of 10.  Even for people like me who aren’t too craftsy, it’s quite a manageable task, and having the camaraderie of friends makes it altogether fun.  A pilot named Russell drops these parachutes from his airplane, and each parachute carries a Bible and other Christian literature and a solar-powered radio that tunes to either of 2 Christian stations, one being music and the other being the spoken word.  If the parachute catches in the trees on the way down, a station on the radio will trigger, and the sound will attract the people.  The canopy on these paracaidas (Spanish for parachutes) reads “Dios es amor,” which translates “God is love.”  Perhaps Russell will speak at a Voice of the Martyrs event near you; maybe check the speaker schedule at persecution.com.  Thank you, Lord, for giving the ingenuity to devise these paracaidas, and may Your light shine through them.

A Luke 14 pizza feast

Put the Food Network and HGTV together, and you’ve got a pretty good set of ideas for your home.  They talk about meals and events I’ve never thought of before, and they make DIY tasks look possible and even fun.  But I’m unaware of them ever telling how to host a feast quite like Luke 14 does.  In this chapter, verses 12-14 in particular, Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed...”  In verse 13 where the NIV says banquet, the KJV says feast, which is how I first read it last week.  The verses rang in my ear for several days, and I figured the Lord had a feast in mind for me.  But how do I do this?  Whom do I invite?  On Sunday, I sat in church with these verses still floating in my head, and the idea hit me to invite a guy who was sitting across the aisle.  I explained to my husband about Luke 14 this week and ran the lunch idea by him.  I offered the invitation to our church-mate on the aisle and was so happy for him to accept, but then I wondered, “Lord, is this a feast for just the 3 of us?”  I walked into the hallway and found my husband talking to someone, whom he promptly told me he had invited to lunch as well.  Now our feast was for 4.  And so we agreed upon pizza and proceeded in our separate cars to the nearby Pizza Hut.  My husband drove, and my heart danced the whole way to recount how this occasion was developing.  It was a case of literally living out the Bible.  Blessings poured amidst our afternoon conversation, and we learned about some business concerns for our first guest.  Time to pray with him fit wonderfully atop our empty Meat Lover’s Pizza tray.  We had the added blessing too of looking forward to seeing our new friends again the next week.  It was as if watching each separate link, each separate event, adding one by one into God's perfect chain of events.  Almost effortless on my part it seemed, having simply begun one ordinary day while sitting on an ordinary couch to open the pages of the Bible, which is forever extraordinary. 

The juror's stunning phone call

Most people dread jury duty.  Most of us dread going to court.  To defend a traffic ticket or even to prosecute, it’s a hassle.  It’s tense.  But last Sunday I heard an inspiring story about a juror.  This would be someone who didn’t wriggle out of her civic duty.  It was a custody case involving a mom, her ex-husband, and their 2 children.  The mom told the story, and she’s a friend for whom I have been blessed to pray.  I had seen her in agony through the ups and downs of this trial, and now almost a year after its conclusion, my friend receives a stunning phone call.  It’s a weekday, the phone rings at work, any number of co-workers could have answered, but curiously she’s the one who reaches for this call.  The caller had seen the name of my friend’s company on a vehicle just driving around town.  She didn’t remember my friend’s name, but she remembered the company name from being mentioned in court, and she chanced the call.  She explained her role as a juror and how the Lord compelled her to pray throughout the trial and even into the months that followed.  She wanted my friend to know she was prayed for.  Often people change jobs in a year’s time, or companies are so big or privacy issues so tight that there’s no way of figuring out who somebody is.  Yet the Lord connected these 2 people.  He gave uninterrupted time amidst a busy office to convey some huge encouragement, and today we sat in awe to hear about it.  It was evidence of the Lord's love having no limit.  That's for you, for me, and for each of His children.  May you be encouraged.

Flags of the world

I love seeing the flags of the world.  Sometimes it’s at theme parks or at historical sites where they’re flying in the wind.  Sometimes it’s in a sanctuary where they hang neatly from the ceiling or they’re carried on poles in a processional.  They remind me of how small I am in this world and yet how intimately God loves His creations.  We can be the lone ranger on the remotest of islands, and God knows our exact spot.  We can be one in a million in the most crowded of cities, and He reaches us with ease.  I visited San Francisco one time and saw how every nook and cranny had someone living in it.  Deep into one building, past the apartments visible to the outside, I realized there were layers and layers of living spaces more obscure.  How does a realtor even know what’s available to rent when they’re layered so densely?  But no matter our surroundings, God is there.  And so for the sake of our different territories, we call to God and wait on Him and thank Him for saving us from our own human nature.  To the many in 19 different countries who visited this blog since May, I welcome you.  Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.”  To Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, USA, Vietnam—we are in this together.  May you know the Lord's presence today within the uniqueness of where you serve.