A Virginia Welcome

As we say goodbye to our week in Virginia, we take our leave with hearts of gratitude for the great things God did for us through the good people of Lighthouse.  I will list just a few of them.
1.  Our hosts agreed to take us in early so that we could avoid Sandy, the “storm of the century.”  An apartment in their basement provided luxurious accommodations.  They also graciously allowed us to fend for ourselves for lunch so that we would not be tempted to overeat at every meal.
2.  The church showered us with gifts.  When we arrived, a gift bag was presented to each of the ladies.  The next day, the third and fourth-grade children at the Academy presented us with a goodie box that was loaded with practical items.  We found note cards, sanitizers, lotions, band aids, gift cards, tissues, gum, snacks and other special things. They also included a check that was the accumulation of a year-long collection.  When we opened the envelope, we were stunned by the generosity of these children.
3.  Several people opened up their homes to us for dinners.  Those dinners were great opportunities to get to know them, enjoy good home cooking, and spend some time with some of the other missionaries.  I love being in people’s homes.  You get to know them in a way you could never know them otherwise.  At one home, I got to spend time with three gorgeous little girls.  At another, I said to the hostess when I looked around, “You must love candles as much as I do.” 
4.  The preaching all week was superb.  Dr. Earl Jessup, who helps churches plant churches had many good things to say.  These are some favorite quotes from the week:

• They were ready to attack hell with squirt guns because they had seen what God could do.
• Always keep something supernatural in your ministry.  Always have something only God can do.
• We still have a God who will show Himself strong today.
• You need to get a good return on your missionary dollar.
• The church is good for the Christian the way a home is good for a child.  If a child is in a home that is not good for them, he will not turn out right.  If a Christian is not part of a good church, he will not turn out right either.
• You need to start something only God can finish.

5.  The Lord has been working in my heart through the preaching, the fellowship and the study of His Word.  I still have a long way to go to be a good reflection of Jesus, but my heart has been stirred and my faith strengthened through this week.
6.  I always love beautiful scenery, and this was the view out our window all week long.  Unfortunately, the photo just does not do the scene justice.

Dancing with a Hurricane

On October 29 my wife and I drove from York, ME to Winchester, VA; right into the face of "Superstorm" Sandy. You may ask what urgent need would compel me to drive nearly 600 miles through "the storm of the century".

What could be placed on the scales to overcome the possible damage to our car, my safety, and my dear wife's safety?

I did have a few counters to start with:

Modern weather forecasting is very accurate, and Sandy was following the predictions closely.

Cell phone technology allowed me to access these forecasts as we traveled.

My time in the Navy gave me a good understanding of how hurricanes work over water, especially the dangerous and less dangerous halves of the hurricane. (NY City was in the dangerous half!)

My car is faster than a hurricane, I could turn and run!

So I had a plan: I would race the storm to get far enough inland and through the dangerous semi-circle to get to the less dangerous semi-circle, based on the predicted track, and hunker down with our generous hosts.

But why risk it at all? Why not stay in Maine where there was little danger and good fellowship?

The answer - A Missions Revival, call it a missions conference, if you will. But still you may say "Certainly the love offering was not worth the risk!" That would be true, I would never risk my wife's safety, and possibly life, for mere money. There is something more important at work here. The will of the Lord!

God made a divine appointment for Joan and me when Pastor Martin invited us. We claim to follow God's will in our ministry. Should I not trust God to give us the resources to do His will? He had already given us many resources. Some are listed above, others are more mundane. The car, our driving record, the Interstate Highway system, hotels all along the way in case of emergency, a robust emergency services system.

The most important resource however, is trust in Him. We have faith He is worthy of our trust. If God assigns us a task, He will provide the means to accomplish that task. We have but to trust and do. If we cannot trust the Lord to get us 600 miles through some of the easiest and safest roads on earth, how can we trust Him for thousands of miles in a dozen countries?

The overall story of our trip is not very exciting. Maine to Massachusetts was light rain and little wind, Connecticut to NY was a little windy and little or no rain. Pennsylvania to Virginia was interesting, quite windy and moderate rain. But it was never worse than a good summer rainstorm. The whole way we saw evidence of only three accidents; a spin out in West Hartford, CT that was a "normal" rush hour event; a car with a badly damaged front end and no sign of what was hit, likely a deer; and a tractor trailer under tow that appeared to have jackknifed. Not an unusual accident count for a 600 mile trip through some of the busier roads in the US.

Other than crossing the Susquehanna River, where the winds were strong and the construction narrowed the lanes, I never felt in any real danger. I drove from Scranton, PA to Winchester, VA at 50-60 MPH because of the rain, but that was overly cautious to be honest.

After we arrived and had eaten a sumptuous dinner we retired with our hosts to watch The Weather Channel. Sandy had merged with the winter front to become a "Post-Tropical Storm". TWC and the sensationalist media insist on calling her a "Superstorm". The storm rapidly dissipated and the prediction models collapsed. There was no history for the computer programmers to model on. Sandy was truly a "storm of the century", actually two centuries. But Joan and I were safe in a stout house in Winchester, VA where the Lord wanted us!

Decorating for a Missions Conference

I walked in.  The signs were everywhere. The missions committee in this church had done an excellent job of alerting the people to what was going on during missions conference. 

I expected to see the flags in the sanctuary.  That idea is fairly standard for missions conferences.  In this church, those flags hang only during missions conference, so it is an immediate visual cue that missions conference has begun.

Signs greeted you on the stairs.  It would be very hard to miss them.  I overheard people trying to pronounce the strange words of the people groups as they climbed.


This sign was everywhere.  It became very clear that the theme for this year’s missions conference was reaching the least reached. There were signs on the ceiling and high on the walls – in places that would be very hard to reach.  All over the church, the signs got people thinking about the “least reached”.



A bulletin board gave locations of various unreached or “least reached” people groups.





A poster gave detailed information and statistics on various unreached people groups in the world.

The overhead was in use to announce the various upcoming activities. This one caught my attention.  Yum!

This was a church we were just visiting, so we were not one of the invited speakers.  It was very encouraging to us to see this church doing what it could to reach the world.

Combating Negativity

Negative ads abound.  The other candidate can’t do the job as well as my candidate can.  The other will fail.  The other doesn’t have a positive track record.  He lies.  Etc., etc.  That doesn’t bother me when I see it on an ad or a political campaign. They know the American public responds well to negative publicity.  If they want to win, they believe its their job to churn out lots of negative information about the other candidate on the air waves.  Those don’t bother me.

However, when I hear negative talk coming from Christians, it bothers me a lot.  Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of complaining.  We complain about the state of our country.  We complain about the political process.  We gripe about supreme court decisions and about supreme court justices.  We grumble about our president, senators and congressmen.  We whine about the lack of family values in our country.  In other words, we murmur and complain and we do it a lot. 

What happened to Christians who pray and keep themselves from speaking ill of others?

We also criticize.  I am not talking about constructive criticism, nor am I talking about pointing out things that are important for guarding our hearts against lies and sin.  Instead, I am talking about the mean-spirited jokes and mocking of those for whom we are supposed to pray.  We’re commanded to pray for those in authority over us and even for those who despitefully use us.  Instead we ridicule and vilify those with whom we disagree.  Have we become just like the world around us?  Is there no difference?

Instead of being people of joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and love, we have gotten caught up in a world of negativity.  No wonder we’re not making much of an impact.  No wonder we don’t shine like lights in the world (Phil. 2:14-15). 

So for the rest of the political season and beyond, I want to be a person of prayer – someone who will pray instead of criticize and rejoice instead of grumbling.  I want to be a light in this dark world.

Will you join me?

Our Maine Bag

Every once in a while we are really touched by a special approach to missionary care.  This past weekend we were in our home church, West Hampden Baptist Church.  Several years ago while we were still there, they began a tradition that is still going on.  The church collected Maine-made items for a “Maine Bag”.  This bag is always presented to the missionary wife, if she is present.  So it was my privilege to receive the Maine bag at the ladies’ lunch and to bring it “home” to show Charlie.

Inside the bag were all sorts of treats.  All of the treats are made in Maine. It was obvious to me that care went into selecting the items.  We do not have a house, so it is entirely appropriate for us that most of the items in the bag are expendable.  In fact, for most missionaries on home assignment, the same holds true.  I know that each missionary’s bag will vary depending on what the church collected, but here is what ours contained.  (In the picture, I’m starting at the back and then going left to right with each “row”.)

1. An L. L. Bean tote bag was used as the container.
2. “Bob’s Sugarhouse” Maple Barbecue Seasoning.
3. Balsam Fir lotion
4. Capt’n Eli’s root beer
5. A “Maine” embroidered kitchen towel.
6. Sitting on that is a little knitted holder for a hand sanitizer.
7. Beddington Ridge Farm’s wild blueberry jam.
8. Stonewall Kitchen’s roasted garlic mustard.
9. Stonewall Kitchen’s maple pumpkin butter.
10. Down to Earth Pottery’s soap dish
11. Cape Shore’s Sea Lavender scented soap
12. Carol’s Country Crafts’ quilted coasters
13. Bluehill Spoonworks’ wooden spreader
14. Two handpainted notecards (not pictured).

What I love about this bag is that everything came from Maine.  That makes it unique and a great reminder to me of this church.  Most of the things will be used up rather quickly and we will thoroughly enjoy them..  The soap dish and the tea towel, however, will make their way into a storage box to wait until the day that we can unpack our storage locker and move into a house.  Since we do not have a house right now, the edible nature of most of these items is very appreciated.  We still need to eat, even though we don’t have a house. 

Thank you, West Hampden, for your care for us and other missionaries as well.  Thank you for loving us and caring for us.