Ecclesiastes - Being Satisfied

Hello Everyone!

I have been part of a small-group bible study with men at my church called, "Men in Training."  The Bible study is two semesters long with the first semester being a study of a book in the bible and the second semester being a more topical study.  I was introduced to Warren Wiersbe last year when we did our study on Proverbs.  It was intense, but I learned a lot.  Near the end of the second semester, after our topical study, I started asking myself what I wanted to accomplish in my spiritual walk. Also, how do I get there?  I knew I needed to study the Bible &  be more effective at it.  Overall, I knew I wasn't happy with myself or my walk.  I wanted to be where Paul was at in Philippians 4:11 when he mentioned being content in whatever circumstance.  I went to Lifeway looking for Bible Studies dealing with that topic, and I came across this book.  It intrigued me because it was a topic I wanted to address and I have never seriously studied Ecclesiastes.

Even though I read and heard that Solomon was one of the "wisest people that ever lived," there was a big part of me that didn't believe it.  I know there were stories in the bible that displayed his wisdom.  Obviously you can't deny Proverbs!  But in the back of my head I was like, "If he was so wise, why did he have so many wives, bring in their false Gods, and ruin what was probably the greatest kingdom on earth?!?"  Now I'll admit that no one is perfect and that God uses imperfect people (because frankly if he didn't, he wouldn't have a lot of people from which he could choose).  That still didn't stop my bias before digging into this book.  However after reading and studying Ecclesiastes, I could see the wisdom and intelligence in this writing.  Any Christian or even non-Christian that enjoys a little Philosophical discussion would enjoy this book.

There are so many intricate topics in Ecclesiastes that I could not do it justice in trying to sum it up on this blog.  I thought that's what I was going to do when I started writing this post, but perhaps not.  The funny thing is that Ecclesiastes ends where Proverbs begins. After his long argument, Solomon ends up by saying, "Fear God and keep his commandments" (12:13).  In Proverbs he starts off by saying, "The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7) and then he goes from there.  Both books display the power of God and the importance of living for him verses living for anything else.  You see that all through Ecclesiastes.  Your job won't satisfy you, money won't satisfy you, people will disappoint, there's nothing new under the sun, you live and you die and without God it's meaningless!  If you want to be truly satisfied, there's only one who can truly satisfy you.  

So, does God want us to just do whatever he wants and we can never have fun?  God wants us to enjoy life.  However no where does he say that to enjoy life means to enjoy sin.  We tend to think that since we got away with it once, we can get away with it all the time. As Wiersbe points out, "God is indeed long-suffering toward sinners and doesn't always judge sin immediately,  however, God's mercy must not be used as an excuse for man's rebellion."  Those who are my age or even a little younger are in danger because we think we have time to correct the sin in which we engage.  Yet even Charles Spurgeon said, "Youthful sins lay a foundation for aged sorrows."   Being in God's will helps us to enjoy life even more!  Think about it in terms of children.  If you ask most children if rules are good, most may say that they should be able to do whatever they want.  They would say a lot of rules are stupid.  However they haven't lived as long as we have and know what we know.  They don't see why they can't go to sleep whenever they want, but we know what happens when you don't get enough sleep.  They don't understand why they can't cross the road by themselves because they don't know the power and unpredictability of traffic.  They don't know why they can't get in cars with strangers, but we know the evil that is in some people's hearts.  Do you see what I'm getting at right now?  Just because there are rules and we don't understand them, doesn't mean that God put them in place for no reason.  He knows something that we don't know.

I believe Wiersbe puts it best near the end of the book.  "Life is worth living if you are truly alive through faith in Jesus Christ."  So the question is, are we satisfied?  Do we feel that Life is worth living?

Hong Kong Days 8 & 9 (2012)

Hello Everyone!

I hope that you all are doing well.  I must admit that I am pretty tired right now and it is kind of late, so hopefully this post will make sense and not sound like gibberish or crazy rambling.  If it does, I give you my sincere apologies!

Yesterday (7/27) was our last day at VBS.  I started off thinking that I wouldn't have that many kids, but I ended up having one of my biggest classes that day.  When we were reviewing the story, some of the kids were able to tell them word-for-word, but really how I would describe that day again would be organized chaos.  I decided to embrace it so I focused on the story and review in the morning, and several small group activities relating to Bible Skills in the later part.  When it was over with, I was exhausted.  With family night coming up after that, I wasn't sure if I would have the energy.

Family night was I thought a big success!  We had probably 350-400 people there (including kids) and I thought that the format and everything was really professional and structured well.  The pastor of CBIBC would tell the theme and verse of the day, and then the kids would sing the song for that day.  We proceeded to do that for all the themes/verses/songs for the remaining 4 days.  Then the pastor gave a message, Amy came up and talked about missions, and we dismissed for refreshments.  The funny thing to me at the end were the kids that asked to take a picture with me.  In each class you have those kids that just give you the most trouble.  I had three of those, even though everyone contributed.  However, two of them (the other one wasn't there that night) came and asked me for pictures and thanked me for teaching!  Then another kid who I couldn't get to say 1 word to me came up and asked me for a picture.  It's amazing how God works. I'm finding that when working with boys sometimes just being present and available is half the battle.  I feel like I could talk about this more but I have a time limit...

Today (7/28) we went to Macau.  Like Hong Kong, it is a Special Administrative Region (was given to China in the handover as well) and it also benefits from the "one country two systems" way of life that Hong Kong also lives by. It was really fun, but very hot.  We saw the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, went to a museum, saw the grave and chapel of Robert Morrison - he was one of the pioneers to bring the gospel to the chinese people...even helping with a translation.  It was great.  I could go on about it but I am short of time.

Things to pray for
-Church tomorrow (we are presenting to the church what we did)
-Health (Fatigue and personally my stomach has been acting horribly the past couple of days)
-Travel
-Safety

Thanks, and have a great day!

 Scott

Hong Kong Day 7 (2012)

Hello Everyone!

It is still very rainy here in Hong Kong!  It looks like the rain will continue to stay with us, but not at high typhoon rates which is good.  We have one more day of VBS left and then Parent night.  I probably won't get to blog tomorrow at a very good time because of that, so I'll tell you how that goes later.

We don't really have any updates from yesterday as far as having conversations with kids about the markings of their decision cards.  Some of the kids didn't understand why they marked it the way they did, some go to church, some don't go to church, some are very knowledgeable, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  As far as today went, we had a good number of kids.  I think I got the number wrong yesterday and it was actually 125 or so.  I don't think I got the number today, but it was over 100.  I know my group had 16 in it today.  Once again very uneven with 14 boys and 2 girls.  The word that kept coming to my head to describe today was organized chaos!  They listened to the story, we reviewed the days, and did some activities.  It is very difficult to get them to follow instructions.  I have had Winnie translate a lot more for me these past couple of days which has helped.  I am pretty sure that the kid I have the most trouble with doesn't speak English at all.  The really good thing is that they seem to be listening and comprehending the story and lesson.  It's just everything in between is a fight for their attention.  I would have to say though that even though it was chaos today, it was a good day.  It was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was good.

After VBS, we ended up going to Stanley Market to shop.  I went American today and had some McDonalds.  I have to say I'm a little upset.  I got a Big Mac meal there and the place was clean, very modernized, had a cafe, and great service.  The price for the meal?  It translates to roughly $3.00.  That's half the price than in America!  Plus it was almost better!  We need to look into this.  Regardless, I was able to do some shopping and was pretty happy with what I got.  I never know what to get people, so it's kind of weird.  Hope they like it.

That's about it for now.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Things to Pray for:
-Family Night tomorrow night
-Last day of VBS
-Strength for team
-Decisions that were or need to be made
-Weather

Thanks!

Scott

Hong Kong Day 6 (2012)

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well.  We had some good news waking up this morning.  It was downgraded to a typhoon one, so today could have all age groups present!  The great thing was this was the day we presented the plan of salvation, so we were really happy that they could make it.  We ended up having (can't remember the exact number) another record-breaking day with either 109 or 115 students!  It was crazy, but it worked out.

I made some adjustments to my class.  One of the adjustments that was made was made during class.  It came to me that these kids were only speaking chinese to each other and were not getting what I was saying right away.  Luckily, one of my co-teachers speaks chinese.  I had to translate the Bible story which was SO much better.  We're going to end up doing that for the remaining time.  It just never occured to me but over the years we have come to find that the younger the kids are, the more need there is for translation.  I have worked with preteens the past several years and forgot this fact.  That also explains a lot of the "behavior" difficulties that I encountered.  We are still VERY uneven when it comes to the boys and girls ratio, but that's okay.  The other groups from what I hear are going really well.  It is a bigger adjustment for me personally with the group I have this year.  This is also my first year not teaching with Courtney, and I really didn't take that into account going into it.  So, a lot of learning experiences for me this year!  Even though I've been doing it almost as long as anybody :-)

The story did go very well today.  I ended up going clear to the beginning of the Bible where God created the earth to talking about sin, the mess we are in, God sending Jesus, and the related response.  I ended up drawing pictures and using diagrams while Winnie translated for me.  They seemed to have understood.  On my end, I think I presented it as clearly as I could, so God will just work how he will.  I had some kids signed that they wanted to talk about the decision, so Zach or the pastor will take those kids individually and discuss that.  Hopefully that will open the door for their decision.  Just please pray for the kids and for me.  I think we both are trying to figure out what works!

After the VBS, we went to Jordan to eat lunch and visit the ICM.  I have posted about this ministry before, so I won't go into much detail (you can find these in my old blog posts).  More than before though, this ministry really reminds me of George Müller and his ministry.  Completely by faith, and God takes care of the rest.  Jennifer has been doing an outstanding job with her role there.  I am very excited to see what God does in her life as she goes to Seminary this fall.

Today is Hannah's birthday, so we are going to celebrate the American way and get some pizza (I don't care who you are, that's funny right there!)  I hope that everyone is doing well and have a great rest of the day!

-Scott

P.S.  Things to pray for
-Decisions from today (we haven't had any individual talks with kids yet)
-Weather (still rainy)
-ICM
-Strength for Team
-Patience
-My Group and figuring out what works and what doesn't

Hong Kong Day 5 (2012)

Hello Everyone,

Do you remember when I talked about the different Typhoon warnings and what they meant?  Well, today we had one of those level typhoons where everything closed.  It got to even be a 10 overnight, and then an 8 this morning.  It was pretty intense weather.  It's a mess outside, and we saw some trees uprooted as well.  Everyone is safe and fine.  Unfortunately, we did have to cancel VBS today.  We are still planning on presenting the plan of salvation tomorrow, it will probably just be a little more difficult with where things were.  I did find out this morning though, that we had a record number of children Monday EVEN with the kindergarten absent (95 kids!)  Hopefully we can have a lot more tomorrow.

Since we couldn't really do anything for a while today, we had to plan accordingly.  Once it got to be 11 or 12 the typhoon warning lifted to a three, so some businesses and restaurants opened.   We ended up going to the Science musuem (which was pretty fun and interesting) and then we saw a movie as a group.  We're planning on a dinner tonight, and then getting ready for tomorrow.

We do have some good news though.  Hannah finally got her bag!  It was actually in the Hong Kong airport last night but because of the weather, they were not able to deliver it.  Now though, everything seems to be good.  We were all very happy for Hannah when she got her bag (of course, she was happy too).

We have had some rest, and the kids have had some rest.  Now we really need to get down to business because tomorrow is a big day.

Things to pray for
-Weather to be good
-Clear Communication
-Transportation
-Health
-Lots of Kids tomorrow
-ICM tomorrow (hang out with the kids after VBS)

Thanks, and have a great rest of the day!

Scott

Hong Kong Day 4 (2012)

Hey Everyone!

We have a long break until dinner, so I am able to update a little earlier today.  Hopefully I can get everything in that I want to say before my time is up on this computer.

Today was our first day of VBS.  It was a little different because of the weather.  Real quick...there are certain level of typhoon warnings in Hong Kong that effect whether certain schools will be closed down or not.  For example if it is a lower level typhoon the primary schools would be closed, a higher level secondary schools would be closed, and really high everything closes.  Our typhoon warning was high enough today where our youngest kids could not attend (4-5 year olds).  That is one of our biggest groups, so we didn't have as large of a group as we could.  I don't know the exact number we had today.  I know I had 15 kids in my class and I heard another class had around 22...so we probably had 75-80 kids there today.  It was kind of crazy with the weather though.  It's been really windy and rainy, so the kids were hyper and tired (strange enough) and there was just a lot going on.  The report from the teachers was that it went pretty well today.  My class was okay, but I need to make some adjustments tomorrow.  I am using the 3rd-4th grade curriculum, but I have all 8 year olds, so I need to actually treat them a little differently and maybe modify some of the activities.  These are all fun things that I will try to wrap my mind around tonight.  I have a very uneven class though...13 boys and 2 girls.  These boys are all boy.  I mean that in the sense of can't sit still, very active, want to fight/wrestle on the time.  It makes it fun, but a little challenging in the classroom.  They did sit down and listen to the Bible Story very well, so that should be good for the upcoming days ahead.

We were going to go to the peak tonight, but the weather is kind of bad so we will probably just do or eat something local.  It's going to be a very chill day.  It will be good rest of the team.  I don't know about everyone, but my internal clock is still acting weird.  It also seems like I experience jet lag in spurts.

Things to pray for
-My Class
-Strenth
-Weather
-Ministry at ICM (I think we're doing something with the kids either tomorrow or Thursday)
-Hannah's bag to get here (should be getting here tonight)
-Local church

Thanks, and have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong Day 3 (2012)

Hello Everyone!

I have some good news and bad news.  The good news is that our luggage came tonight!  The bad news is that only 6 of 7 bags came.  Our poor Hannah was the one bag we were missing :-(  We knew we would be one bag short because they said they only got six, but Zach and I were hoping we would be missing a supply bag and not someone's personal bag.  The good thing is that they weren't sure which one was missing, so after we were able to confirm it and give them the number and the bag description, they should be able to find it easier.  So let's hope we can get that resolved soon.

Now to talk about what we did today.  Because the church has to meet elsewhere during the summer and they cannot meet at their usual place, they had to find a place to have their service.  They did find a place but they could only use it at 4pm, so we had a lot of time in between.  We jam packed it with a lot of different stuff, so I'll try to include as much as I can (A side note real quick about these blogs: I am limited with the amount of internet time I have.  I don't have time to proof read these like I want to, so please bear with me if I misspell it doesn't make sense :-D)

The first thing we did today was go to a Daoist temple.  It felt kind of weird going to this kind of temple on a Sunday morning, but I knew I was going to church afterward so it was okay.  This was my 3rd or 4th time going, but it still gets me all the time about the idolatry and false worship that is going on here.  It was VERY crowded today too.  This was one of the things on the trip that I think every new team member should see.  I know I look at the whole concept of Idolatry and the way it mentions it in the Bible differently now that I have seen a physical representation of it.

After the temple, we went to...this pier or something (I'm a little tired, so you need to give me a little grace on this).  It was really cool because we were able to take a boat ride and see more of the island/shore of HK.  We were able to stop at this little island that was evangelized by Catholic Missionaries from a long time ago.  Not many people live there anymore because there used to be salt farms, but it either got destroyed or the resources were used up by a certain time.  The cool thing about that island was that after the Catholic missionaries got there and set up a church, I think the whole island eventually became Christians!  Good stuff.

After the Boat ride, we ate some fresh seafood.  When I say fresh...I mean fresh.  We sat in outside of the restaurant and were able to pick our food from the tanks.  The thing was these weren't in the tanks very long because we asked the waitress where they came from and she pointed to a boat that was docked!  We had boiled shrimp, scallops, fish, etc. right from that ocean.  They all had the heads and eyes, but it was still good.  I also had a sense of satisfaction knowing that I got revenge on a fish that I felt was giving me dirty looks.  Whose giving dirty looks now?!?

Then came time for the church service.  It was held in a school gymnasium and was a bilingual service.  Usually they have a chinese service and an english service separately, but during the summer they combine because they have people out of town, people traveling, new people in for summer, etc., and this just works better.  It was great to be with the church family and get prayed for the rest of the week.

Things to pray for
-Hannah's luggage
-VBS Starts tomorrow
-Weather
-Jet Lag
-Volunteers

Thanks, and have a great rest of the day!

Scott

Hong Kong Days 1 &2 (2012)

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Hong Kong!  It has been a crazy couple of days so far.  I count our travel as a day, so I guess this is techincally our first day in Hong Kong.  We had a little bit of an ordeal traveling though, so I will talk about that first and then what we did today.

Day 1:

Everyone got to the airport on time, which was great.  We checked in, went through secuirity and didn't have any problems.  Our flight was delayed an hour or so, so we had plenty of time to wait.  After the wait, then we went to Chicago which is where it got complicated.  Our flight to HK was delayed by three hours which meant that we would be getting here about midnight.  In order to avoid that, Zach went to see if we could change flights.  The good news was that we were able to get on the Cathay Pacific flight to HK (An amazing airline, by the way) with one of our teammates who was traveling seperately, and we would get back to our hotel by 10:00pm or so.  The agent even said that she would take care of the bags where they would arrive with the previous flight we had, and then went it arrived at the HK airport, it would be sent to our hotel.  Everything went well and according to plan...but when we arrived and tried to confirm that with a representative here about our bags, they couldn't find the claim made for that.  That could have been because he didn't have a computer where he was stationed, so he said they would call us when that flight landed.  The plane landed, and our bags did not arrive.  We came to find out that our bags didn't leave Chicago.  As I type this (7/21: 5:30pm HK time), we are waiting for a claim that was made to include our bags on the next flight to HK.  Hopefully we will get our luggage tonight or tomorrow night.  The problem is that we are without clothes and some toiletries, and some of our supplies and decorations are in those bags. Luckily, I was paranoid before I went on this trip and I took all of my VBS stuff from the leader pack in my personal carry-on bag.  Only one classroom I think doesn't have the leader-pack related items with them, so that's a good thing!  But pray that we get those bags back soon.


Day 2:

Today, we have set up our rooms, talked to our co-teachers about VBS this week, and then wraped-up some last minute details.  I have a co-teacher from the church in my room (her name is Winnie) and a teacher's assistant.  I looked at our class roster and it looks like I'll be having 18 kids in my room.  That was actually a lot less than I thought, so we're pretty good! It makes it great for working in groups too because we can divide it evenly between us three teachers.  All of the volunteers are very eager to help in any way they can and they are really excited about this upcoming week.  We have about 120-125 kids registered, so we broke the record from last year.  Thomas told us that he didn't even advertise it as much this year.  It's just nuts.  It's great though because we learned a lot of them aren't involved in a church anywhere and several have never heard the Gospel at all.  I think it's starting to hit us how big this is going to be, but really we just won't have any idea until Monday rolls around, so we'll just wait and see.

Things to pray for:

-Our luggage to come hopefully tonight or tomorrow (we bought some clothes and items today, but we would still like it to come!)
-Kids coming to VBS
-Volunteers
-Jet Lag
-Weather

Thanks, and I will talk to you later!

-Scott

Don't focus on the Mountain

Hello Everyone!

I hope that the December month is treating you all well! Things are finally starting to slow down for me. After next Sunday, I will be able to take a break for a couple of weeks from teaching Bible Studies. I love doing it, but it will be good to just relax, recharge my batteries, and also get my focus re-aligned. Speaking of which, there was something I read that I wanted to share with you.

I am currently reading the book, "Too Busy Not to Pray" by Bill Hybels. I am not finished with it, but I would already recommend it as a great resource if you are looking to improve your prayer life. I was reading something today that really made me think and reflect. Hybels quoted the verse in Matthew 21:21-22:

"Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

One of the first points he makes about this passage is that, "Faith comes by looking at God, not at the mountain." This was very interesting to me. I have heard different Bible studies on this verse, various sermons, but this was a very unique perspective. The purpose of this passage wasn't that you can move a mountain, but saying that there is power in prayer. The thing is you need to have faith and don't doubt which is where Hybels comes in with this first point.

After I read that, I had to sit and reflect on it for a moment. Faith comes from looking at God, not at the mountain. How often do we focus on the mountain rather than God? We think about a sin that we are struggling with and we focus on the sin. We look at what it is, what caused it, practical steps to battle it, etc. It gets to the point that we focus so much on the sin that we forget the person who can free us from it. Faith comes from looking at God, not at the mountain. Or say that we are serving in a ministry. We get all the statistics, find creative ways to present the information, read all the theories, get great curriculum, etc. We can get lost in that and focus on the mountain instead of focusing on God's truth and letting that work. Faith comes from looking at God, not at the mountain.

In my life, I think that is a really big problem for me. I focus too much on the mountain and figure out how to move it instead of looking at God the one who not only put the mountain there but knows how to move it, when to move it, and why it should or shouldn't be moved. Faith comes from looking at God, not at the mountain.

Reading, Retreating, Teaching, and Pies

Hey Everyone!

I realize that it has been over a month since I have blogged…my apologies. The past couple of weeks I have been so tired after I come home from work that I just don’t think about it. Then when I do think about it, there’s really nothing to say. Unless you want to hear about some of the stuff I do at work…which isn’t super exciting. I could update on my Life group and things like that, but I just don’t really know what to say. Thus, you get the blank blogs. Now since I have a little time, I will try to write something.

There were a couple big events that I went to this month that were really cool. Our church had things thing called the Immersion Conference which basically was a two day conference where this professor from Union University, Dr. George Guthrie, taught us the basics of reading/studying the bible. He wrote a book called, “Read the Bible for Life” which I highly recommend. Whether you are a new Christian, been a Christian for years, or are just curious, it is a good book. What he did was interview several experts in their fields and had each chapter is an interview with that person about the topic. For example, some chapters have to do with reading the Bible in context, reading the Bible in translation, Reading the Old Testament Stories & Laws (2 separate chapters), Reading for personal devotion, reading in times of Sorrow and Suffering, Reading with family/church, and many, many, more. If this interests you, try to find the book. I got it on my Kindle, but it is also available other places.

I also got back from Fall Retreat a couple of days ago with our Youth Group. We took about 300 7th-12th graders this year! Talk about organized chaos :-) All the small groups were co-ed and I had 7th graders (5 girls and four boys). This year was really great. I loved our theme. Our theme was the cross and it was based around 1 Corinthians 1:18 which says, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (ESV). I could mention all the days lessons but basically we wanted to show them how important the message of the Cross is and what it means for us as Christians. Something that has really been a struggle for our students, and a lot of adults, is the fact that they are not assured of their salvation and they put limits on what God can do and wants to do for them. There’s a lot more I can say, but frankly I’m still processing it all even after being back a couple of days! The kids have all this week off so pray that they process it too :-)

My MIT group is going well. I had to miss last week to make up some time at work and we are not meeting this week so I feel a little out of it. Also I haven’t been as faithful with this book. I like the book and it is a very good commentary on Proverbs, but it is just a little harder for me to get through. Plus Proverbs is pretty convicting so when you do have time to look at it you almost have to stop and reflect for like an hour before you can move on. My Life Group is going well. I think that we are at a place where we are starting to understand each other better. The past four weeks I have been teaching God’s story – Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. This study has been fun because it goes over the whole thing. We don’t teach the whole story all the way through a lot. It’s pretty sad. The Children’s ministry is actually going through the Bible this year (the major stories and not revelation). I’m really surprised with some of our kids. We may have one or two that know the OT and NT by now! I’m thankful for being able to teach this class because I finally memorized the books of the OT and NT. Feel free to quiz me sometime.

Let’s see, what else is there? I have been updating my status each day with something I am thankful for. I have been using the letters of the alphabet so I can finish near Thanksgiving. Today was the letter “V” and I was thankful for Volume! I have gotten some pretty good response on these. I think I will post them all in my next blog because I am almost done with them all. What has been cool about this was that it has almost forced me to be thankful for the small things. When you get to some of these letters you are like, “What starts with this letter?” It’s harder than you think! Good exercise though.

I am going to Indianapolis for Thanksgiving to see my Great Grandparents (Hi Grandmom and Granddad if you are reading this!) It will be fun and good to see the family. My parents and sister were able to go up several weeks ago, but I couldn’t make it. It should be a good time of catching up and a lot of eating. I’m starting to get hungry just thinking of the Pumpkin Pies (By the way when I got to the letter “P” I was thankful for pies!)

I better be going I hope everyone reading this has a great day!

Working together for Good

Hello Everyone!

I hope that you are doing well. I am trying to be more consistent with my blogs. I was going to do it weekly, but I will just have to do it when I remember (or when I feel I have something to say). I wanted to talk about something that was discussed at church yesterday. There were two messages I heard on Sunday. One was from our Pastor and the other was from someone I co-teach 1st graders with every Sunday. Pastor Mike talked about growing and equipping leaders. The person I co-teach with taught on Joseph with an emphasis on Romans 8:28 (We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose").

Pastor Mike started off saying, "I don't work with volunteers. I work with people that are called. No one at church volunteers, they are called." That made me feel great and it also made me feel guilty because I have been wanting to quit the Parking Lot team for months now. There is no good reason why other than I just don't want to do it anymore. Yet when I look at it, it has been a great jumping board for a lot of conversations. I see people outside the church who are like, "Do you go to Brentwood Baptist?" or they'll be like, "Aren't you in the parking lot?" Then there are people inside the church who know me or know my name because I was in the Parking Lot and when I introduce myself they would be like, "You're the guy that directs traffic!" I do enjoy doing it. It just gets tiresome and there are several people who don't listen or directly ignore you. I know other ministers get this reaction, but it just seems it is more visible out there. When it comes down to it though, I didn't volunteer for this. I remember when I was in High School someone came into my Bible study to ask for people to help. He told us, "Just write, 'I want to be part of the Parking Lot Ministry'" I was 14-15 then. I didn't know how to drive. I didn't own a car. I've only been part of the church for a couple of months and at that moment I remember thinking, "I could do that." I made a note in the church connection pad, was called on the phone that week, and my first Sunday was Easter. I have been doing it ever since...which is almost 10 years now! If you look at me, you wouldn't think Parking Lot Ministry. I am 5 foot 4, not a very loud person, not a very forceful person, and I am HORRIBLE with directions. Yet God has worked through me. If he can use a talking donkey, than he can use me (for those of you that don't get that reference...check out Numbers 22:21-41)!

Ms. Melva, the person with whom I co-teach 1st grade, gave me a great reminder this past Sunday about how God works. She was teaching to 1st graders, but this lesson applies to everybody. She quoted Romans 8:28 and asked the kid, "Does it say that only good things will happen if we love God? No. It doesn't say that. It does say that all things work together for the good of those that Love God. Sometimes bad things happen in life and we get upset. We don't know why it's happening. What we need to remember is that even though that bad stuff is happening, all things work together for the good of those who love God." I know that I tend to forget that. It's easy to get caught up in what is going wrong, the bad stuff that happens, or why things are the way they are. That's when we should remember that as long as we Love God and put our faith and trust in him, that all things will work together for the good of those who love Him.

Overall, lots of things to think about this week. I even have more, but I will wait until later to post my thoughts on the Proverbs study and also this book I'm reading.

Have a great rest of the day!

I'm still here!

Hey Everyone!

I haven’t really updated my blog in a while. A lot of the time it’s because I feel like I don’t have anything to say. It could also be the fact that I have a lot to say, and I can’t put it down all in a few paragraphs. I’ll try to be better about blogging though for those of you who have been reading but haven’t seen anything recently.

Work is going well. I guess with every job you have periods where you have a lot of work, some work, and then little work. You can never really tell when that is going to be. Typically I’ll have more work on Mondays and Thursdays/Fridays. Then again that is not always the case. It depends on what checks come in the mail, if I need to set up anything, help with anything, or do some filing/catch up work. Either way, it’s good because it’s steady and there are several things I can do/help with and I am given a little more responsibility which is good.

The two classes that I teach or co-teach are going well. The first grade class I’m helping with this year is almost all boys. We have 1 or 2 girls that have come, but they don’t come every week. I enjoy this class though. We have some really smart kids in there and we don’t have any kids that really misbehave. The teaching this year is pretty cool too because we’re teaching through the Bible chronologically. The past three weeks we have been teaching on the Patriarchs. We taught on Abram, Isaac, and Jacob and next week we teach about Joseph. There’s a song we sing that goes with it and it just got stuck in my head as I wrote this paragraph! As for the 6th grade Lifegroup, it’s going well. It took a while for all of us to adjust and we are still getting there. They are getting used to being in the youth group, the way that classes are put together, and also just having a new leader and being with some new kids. I have to think differently when I teach now because I was used to teaching a group knowing they knew certain things and I can’t assume that with this group. It is kind of exciting though because I can be the one to teach them about those new things. It’s still a learning process though and I feel like even though I’ve done this for a while, it’s pretty new.

I am also in a Bible study called, “Men in Training” and we are going over Proverbs using a commentary book written by Warren Wiersbe. It’s been very good. I was one of those people who never really wanted to study through proverbs. I knew it had practical wisdom and was important to read, but I like the narratives better and I also wanted to be sure I knew the NT well enough. Digging into this study though has really taught me some cool things though and I have enjoyed doing it. It is a little more difficult than previous studies. I’m taking notes throughout the chapters because there is so much there. Weirsbe doesn’t even go through every verse but he goes through sections and themes. The group I’m in is good too. It has some of the guys that were there in previous years, but we got a lot of newer guys (or some that have returned) to the group. I’m the youngest in the group. It is an intergenerational study, so there are lots of benefits to it.

My friend Tom just graduated from the Navy a couple of days ago! I watched the dogs and house for his parents while they went to see him. He’s going to Charleston now for school, but hopefully he will be able to visit soon or vice versa. I’m very happy and proud of him, it’s just a little weird for me because he was one of my friends that I would hang out with and now we have to make an extra effort to keep in touch. It’s no big deal. We were writing letters back and forth while he was in boot camp, and now he has e-mail and phone so it shouldn’t be too much harder.

Well, I should be going. I will be sure to blog more. Have a great rest of the day!

Friend to the Navy

Hey Everyone!

I hope that everything is treating you well. I can't believe tomorrow is the last day in August! This summer has flown by so fast. Also so much has happened since the last time I posted - most of it having to do with my father. Since I know I will forget details and may not get everything right, here is a link to my Dad's caring bridge site where you can read about what has happened and what is currently happening.

In other news, one of my best friends went to Boot Camp a couple of weeks ago for the Navy. I'm very excited and proud of him. We hung out a lot and went to church together since High School, so getting used to him being gone will be different. I know he doesn't like the attention, so I'm not going to tell him about this post. But if you could send a prayer out to him and our Armed Forces, that would be great.

There's probably a lot more to say but I'm kind of tired. Have a great rest of the day!

"Eternal Father, Strong to Save": The Navy Hymn

Words: Rev. William Whiting (1825-1878) & Music: Rev. John B. Dykes (1823-1876)

Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea.

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walked'st on the foaming deep,
and calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe'er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee,
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 10)

Hey Everyone!

I hope that you are all doing well! Today is our last day in Hong Kong and will probably be my last blog until I get home to the states. I hope that you were able to follow what we were doing. I wish I could have gone into more detail, but the time constraints with Internet as well as the time constraints during the day permitted me from doing so. Hopefully in future blogs I can tell a little bit more about what I learned this week!

Today was a good day to just relax and fellowship with CBIBC. We were able to do our VBS presentation to the church. We sang 3 songs, two volunteers gave a testimony, and we recapped what happened during the week. Some final numbers would be that we had 98 kids total register for VBS and we talked to over a dozen kids with at least 4 of them making decisions to follow Christ and become Christians! At the service, the church presented us with gifts for this week. Those that didn't go last year got a stamp with their name and Chinese character, and for Zach, Courtney, and I we got some wall pictures to hang (on this trip I got a wall picture of Hong Kong and a wall picture of the Chinese character "diligent" all from the church). I believe Courtney got the Chinese character for faith and Zach got the Chinese character for Love. We also gave Janice a gift from our team for being with us all week. Deejah bought this book on Nashville with a bunch of art having to do with the city and we all signed it. I thought it was a great gift, and I am glad that she took initiative (Go White team! *that's the team for preteens*)

After church, we ate at this western restaurant with some of the other church members. Courtney, Jennifer, Hannah, Deejah, and I all talked with Oscar Au (I will double check the spelling of the last name later) and we had a great time. He is such a smart and good Christian man. He teaches at the University and he's a deacon at the church also helping to lead music from time to time. We also got to hear from Pastor Billy's wife - name escapes me...sorry - and she told us about how her and Billy met (got engaged after 3 dates) and their life doing missions in Asia and all over.

Right now I am just finishing up the blog before we go explore a little bit more of the city. I hope that you all have a great rest of the day, and I will hopefully again blog soon!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 9)

Hi Everyone!

I finally have a moment to sit down and tell about what we did today. One of the great things that we got to do today was sleep past 7! We didn't have to meet for our activities until 10am, so it was good.

The first thing we did today was go to Lantau to see the big Buddha. I say big because it is 112 feet high. That's pretty big! I went to see it last year, so I probably told more about it on my previous blog. The thing with this is we had to take the MTR (Mass Transit System) to get to the cable cars and then the cable cars took us over the river and mountains to get to Lantau Island. For those that were not a fan of heights, they could go on a bus. We got there and we saw the Buddha as well as the Po Lin Monastery. The worse part of the trip was we had to climb like a thousand stairs to get to the Giant Buddha. But, it was still an incredible display of architecture.

After we saw the Giant Buddha, we went to a local fishing village. The village was actually one of the only fishing villages of its kind left in Hong Kong. The time we visited now is low tide, so the river is not as high as it was and also some parts are just dry. The village didn't bother me too much except that there were some live fish which I just had to stay away from. Most of the stuff there was dried out. I actually tried some miniature bananas and cherries there and it was pretty good. It was a different sort of scene to see there. You forget what it's like for some people in the world who live near the sea and don't have a whole lot. Although when you looked at their "houses" you did see some big screen TV's, so it wasn't really void of technology.

After the village we had a long bus ride, and then a long MTR ride. We made it to the Hotel a little while ago, and we just decided to eat here. I just got done twenty minutes ago, so here I am! I am about to head out though because I am getting a little tired and we have our VBS Sunday presentation tomorrow where we tell the church what we did all week and the children sing the songs for them. It should be good.

Have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 7 & 8)

Hi Everyone!

Because I didn't post yesterday, I will have to cover two days worth in this blog. Once you see what I post, you'll understand why.

Day 7

Today was day four of VBS. We were talking about the woman at the well (the Samaritan woman with the husbands) and focusing on telling others about Jesus. This day was particularly hard for me because I just felt extremely tired this day. I felt like I had no energy. I was trying everything I could to get some more energy like listening to music, moving around more, and luckily God gave me enough energy to sing with the kids, do what I needed to do for the classroom, and sing at the end of the day. I about fell asleep on the desks after we were done. That day, however, we were not going back to the hotel. That day was our day to go to Stanley Market. Stanley market is this big open market where you can buy lots of cool things. You can bargain for prices like in the Ladies' market, but they are a little harder to bargain with. I'm horrible at haggling for prices, so I just pay full price. I ended up getting some good stuff, but during this time I started to feel dizzy. Then after I felt dizzy I got a headache. I drank some water and juice because I thought I was dehydrated, and then my stomach hurt so much it felt like I was going to be sick. Luckily Courtney had some medicine that I took, and after the long bus ride we finally made it to the hotel where I just crashed and took a nap. It helped a lot even though I was still dazed. I ended up going to bed early and I think it really helped (although I forgot to take me sleeping pills so at 11:00 I finally gave in and took them to help me sleep).

Day 8

Now to today! Today was our last day of VBS. It was interesting though because we only had half of the kids show up today. There was a level 3 typhoon warning here and according to Government regulations, we had to cancel classes for the real young kids (preschool and kindergarten aged children). Then there were lots of kids that had other obligations today and then some that just couldn't come because of the weather. We had 9 in our class. I personally would rather have more because believe it or not, they were actually easier to manage when there were more of them! We ended the day pretty well though. We actually have our family night tonight in about 3 hours. Hopefully the weather will be good and we can have plenty of the family and children coming to see about this week.

Other than that, things are pretty good. Now we are just seeing what the weather will be like because that determines our activities for tomorrow. If you could just pray for the family/kids as well as CBIBC for following up with the family and kids, that would be appreciated.

Have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 6)

Hi Everyone!

Today was a very important day for us. Today was the day we were presenting the plan of salvation to the kids. The story for the older kids was centered around Jesus and Nicodemus discussing how you can be born again. The younger kids were talking about Peter walking on the water. The way that we were presenting it in the older kids class was I would give a little introduction to the story. I had an activity. They had a sheet of paper and they had to find a partner with a matching name. The catch was that they could not open their eyes they had to shout and basically find them through hearing and touch. It was related back to Nicodemus and the questions he had for Jesus. Mainly, "How can one be born again?" It set up Courtney for being able to talk about the ABC's (Admit, Believe, and Confess) as well incorporating the verse and God's story. It went pretty well. Actually one girl in our class made a decision to accept Christ, so it was very good!

It was a very busy day for me though. I agreed yesterday that I would help with the music which meant that I would do the rapping part for the song. Basically it was just me rapping the John 3:16 verse. The kids seemed to like it. I know I got some compliments from the adults :-) I also volunteered to do a drama for the Younger kids about Peter walking on the water. So right after I did my rap, I ran backstage to get into my costume, ran upstairs to the classroom, and gave my "drama" for Peter. It was different because I have never done a drama for just Kindergarten before (and it was a smaller group). It was more interactive, which was fine with me. From what Zach and Nicole said, they seemed to listen and understand the story very well after that. I enjoy doing the dramas for kids, so it was fun for me! Then at the end of the day, Zach asked if I would talk to this little Girl (7 yrs old) who said on her commitment card that she had questions about God. So I talked with her about who God was, who Jesus was, what they did, what sin was, etc. I relayed the information to Zach and Rachel (her teacher) and it was very good. I don't think she was ready to make a full decision, but she understands everything very well. I've never really counseled someone that young before, but it was fine.

So after all of that, I was pretty tired! We had lunch in a small restaurant in an upper room (very good) and then we went to visit the new headquarters for the ICM (Inner City Ministries). I talked about them in my blog the past couple of years. I can't go into a lot of detail due to my time constraint, but here is a link to their website http://www.innercityministries.org. It was great visit and I hope that CBIBC and BBC can help support this for years to come.

Tonight is going to be a fun night because Courtney, Zach and I are going to be having a guys night out! Just to be clear on the numbers...including Janice who is our go-to person on this trip, it is us 3 guys and 10 girls. We're going to probably eat at Outback and see the new Transformers movie. Good guy stuff! Be sure to pray for tomorrow that we may have energy and also follow-up with those kids we didn't get to talk to today.

Have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 5)

Hey Everyone!

Well, we made it through day two of VBS. We had 92 kids today, so we were just one short from what we had yesterday! I think it was from our class, because we only had 16. It was a good day though. The curriculum presented a little bit of a challenge to teach, but we all made adjustments and followed through. The biggest thing about day two is getting them prepared for day three! Tomorrow, we present the plan of salvation. We had a longer meeting this afternoon about that. We talked about the right and wrongs ways to talk to kids about their decision. We also mentioned about how that day is typically the hardest. The technology might not work right, the kids may be extra disruptive, our coach might not get their on time, there are just a lot of things that seem to happen when we come to day three! It's like Zach told us, "When we do something for God, he's not the only one who notices." If you could just pray for strength, clarity, and patience tomorrow, I would appreciate it. The Jet lag hit me pretty hard this morning, but luckily it didn't get me down. The lack of sleep and time change are starting to show though, so it's getting tougher to have the kind of energy I had yesterday.

Tonight will be a good night. In about 30 minutes our group will leave so we can tour the oldest church in Hong Kong (St. John's - Zach said it was close to 150 years old). We will then go to the Peak after that to have a very nice dinner and view of the skyline. I am also planning on buying a hat and trying a crepe. I am feel so tired I may wear the crepe and eat the hat :-)

Have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 4)

Hey Everyone!

I hope that everything is treating you well. There is a lot to talk about today because it was our first day of VBS and we also visited a daoist temple. I'm going to start with VBS.

It is always stressful the first day of VBS. You have the kids you know already registered, but then you have kids that come who didn't register. You are in your classroom trying to get last minute things done, make sure everyone has everything they need, and you are meeting the kids for the first time and trying to get them not only in the right place but also get them excited about this week. I don't know if God just gave me extra adrenaline this morning, but I remember having more energy than I have had in the last couple of days! Like I said before, we had only 10 officially registered on our list. I told Courtney that I felt that we would at least have 15 and Deejah (our other co-teacher) said she prepared for twenty. What happened was my group (the preteens) got 17 kids! It was wonderful and I actually know several of them from previous years. So we got to the worship time and they LOVED the opening theme song. They were dancing and having a great time. Then we went to class. They were all engaged, listened pretty well, and were open to try new things. Let's just pray this continues throughout this week! Overall we ended up having 93 kids at VBS today! We may even have more near the end of the week. The main issues are that we are having some really big classes and more helpers are needed. We also had to adjust our schedule so that all the kids can do all the rotations. It's crazy, but we are also very thankful that we get to be with all these kids! Pray for strength and that we may be able to show them we love and care about them while telling them about the Bible.

The second thing we did today was go to a Daoist temple. Courtney, Zach and I went to this temple two years ago so you can probably find me talking about this in a post from 2009. They have done several renevations now and in the open square, they have mats and incense where you see a large amount of people casting lots and praying to their Gods. There are several Gods all around the place and they go to the one that they believe answers them the best. From what I can tell, there isn't very much loyalty. It's very complicated, and unfortunately I can't cover it in the amount of time I have on this internet connection.

Right now we are on our break about to go to dinner. Everyone feels very hot, but it doesn't seem like Jet Lag has really hit anyone hard yet. I'm tired myself, but I am refusing to take a nap because I think I would be set.

Have a great rest of the day!

Hong Kong 2011 (Day 3)

Hey Everyone!

Let me be a little selfish for a moment and say, "Happy Birthday to me!" :-) I have to say that it has been a great birthday for me today. I woke up and my team members all said "Happy Birthday," I got a card from one of my prayer partners (thank you Ms. Melva!) and I got a note. When we went to the church and introduced ourselves, Pastor Thomas told them that it was my birthday and they all sang "Happy Birthday" to me! They also gave me a gift of a birthday card and a wonderful picture of Hong Kong. Even though it can be tough being away from home on your birthday, I felt very welcomed here.

Today we went to CBIBC to worship. It was a great service and the whole room was filled with people! We had a commissioning for VBS in the service where we told where we were from, what grade we were teaching, and our occupation. The service was great it was in English and Chinese so we would sing in English and then the others could join in the same song in Chinese so we would be doing the same song in two languages! It was pretty cool. My co-teacher, Courtney, sang a solo (Softly and Tenderly) for the offertory which was great and then Zach preached with a someone translating what he said.

After church, we ate dimsum at a restaurant. I had a little bit, but not too much. Then we toured the campus. CBIBC is meeting at a University...I believe it is Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. I will try to put some pictures with my blogs once I get home, but it is a beautiful campus...full of a lot of smart people!

Right now we are taking a little break until dinner where we will eat at the Spaghetti Factory. Please keep us in your prayers for tomorrow. Particularly the kindergarten/preschool classes as well as the 3rd and 4th grade because they will have the most kids. We have 10 so far and I actually heard that we may only have 10 this week. Either way, it will be great. I heard that we have more registering today and some coming tomorrow, so we might actually get more than 80 kids.

Have a great rest of the day!