Inside This Issue:
What's Happening With Us
Praise the Lord, He's still moving mightily! Wow, what a year we've had with
Him! We are constantly in awe of what He is doing both in our lives, and
in the lives of others we meet.
We've been so busy, traveling and ministering that I'm only about a year
behind on getting out our newsletter. So, let me try and update you to a
few things that have been happening in our lives.
First of all, take a look at the picture above. In case you hadn't yet heard,
this is the motor home that God gave us. Yes, our prayers were answered,
and He showed Himself faithful again! This was a gift from a couple we had
only met once. Hallelujah! They only had it for six months between the time
they bought it, and the time we received it from them.
The picture doesn't show it, but now we've got a trailer behind the motor
home. A church we were at in Michigan blessed us with it. We were in need
of more storage space for our books, and they happened to have a trailer
that had been given to them. It was home made, and in need of repairs, but
it was exactly what we needed. Since then, we've added an attic, west wing,
and a garage for the kids bikes to the trailer.
I don't have room here to tell you all the details, but if you would like
to read the full testimony of how God provided this, ask us for "The Story
Of Our Motor Home." If you can send along $1.00 to help pay for the printing
and mailing, we'd appreciate it.
Since we've had the motor home we've been doing a lot more traveling. In
fact, we just finished getting rid of our house, so we could stay on the
road full time. It was so obvious that God wanted us on the road, that we
couldn't see paying the money to rent a house we weren't using, in order
to store a bunch of stuff we weren't using. So, we sold or gave away most
of the stuff, put the rest in storage, and we're just following the leading
of the Holy Spirit, seeing where He wants us to go next.
Was it hard? Yes. Is it worth it? Most definitely, YES! No, we're not
SuperChristians, able to leap tall obstacles with a single scripture, faster
than Satan's speeding lies, so full of faith that doubt can't touch us. We're
just believers, trying to follow a God who's greater than we can even imagine.
He's the one who's Super, we're just His servants.
Speaking of where we're going... As we've traveled this year, we've ministered
in 14 churches that didn't know we were coming. When we were in a town, we'd
just look in the phone book for a church, and go wherever we felt the Spirit's
leading. Since it's obvious we're visitors, we go through the meeting people
ritual, and prepare to worship with them. Almost always, they ask us to minister,
we never ask them. If this isn't the Holy Spirit's leading, I don't know
what is.
Yes, I know that sounds a little strange, but if we're going to live by faith,
we're going to do it all the way. I could call pastors, and try to get them
to allow us to come minister. I could put a schedule together, and do things
my way. I could even advertise about our ministry, and upcoming ministry
events. But that would be in my strength, which isn't enough. By allowing
God to do it, I'm sure that people are really ministered to.
In February we were at a church in Georgia. There was a word given to us
that God would be having us spend more and more time ministering, and less
and less time selling our books. Looking at the last six months, I can sure
see that happening. He's even been bringing us people who want to sell our
books, which will free us up from that burden.
We're planning on spending the winter mostly in the south, ministering in
whatever churches the Holy Spirit leads us to. There are a few churches that
have asked us to come and minister, but other than that, we'll have to see
what God's plan is.
For Christmas, we're planning on going to Colorado to see Rich's family.
It's been seven years since we've been there, and we're looking forward to
seeing family and friends.
Prayer Requests
Any ministry is only as good as the prayer support that is behind it. God
only moves on the earth through the prayers of His people. Please pray with
us for the following needs in our ministry.
Continued open doors for ministry. As opposed to most traveling ministries,
we don't pester pastors for an opportunity to minister, we expect the Holy
Spirit to open the door. Pray that God continues to guide us, and opens the
doors He wants us to walk through.
God has brought us several people who are working with us on different language
curriculums. Please pray that God continue to bring us these people, and
for the people who are working with us to have the time, so that we can complete
those books.
Continued traveling mercies. As we live and travel in the motor home, it
is a faith venture. Without God's mercy and protection, we couldn't do anything.
Our kids schoolwork (which is going great) as we start the new school year.
All the traveling has given us opportunities to take the kids to many exciting
and educational places, such as the Old World Wisconsin and the Gettysburg
National Military Park. They are all ahead of grade level, and we desire
them to continue in excellence.
Please pray for God to provide people who have caught the vision of what
we are doing, and are willing to commit to pray for and support our ministry.
Of course, continued sales. We have sold over 1000 of our titles this year.
Praise God! As we go into the fall and winter, we will be spending our time
writing and ministering in churches.
Children Of The King
(teaching)
I am tired of seeing wimpy Christians. You know the kind I mean, the ones
who don't do anything until Satan is kicking their brains out. The Body of
Christ seems to be full of them, never on the offensive, always worried about
when the next attack is coming.
Somehow, this image doesn't seem to match the scriptures plan for a victorious
church. We are called "children of the king." But most of us don't act like
we are, we tend rather to act like we're children of a pauper, waiting for
the kings' soldiers to come and beat us up again.
How do children of royalty act? What do they do? What's the difference between
their lives and ours? And how do we get to act like that?
Think about it for a minute. If you were the child of a natural king, how
would you live? I'm quite sure you would have the best of everything, just
as I would. You'd probably be protected everywhere you went, so no harm could
come to you. You wouldn't be afraid of anything, because you'd know what
your father would do if anyone tried to hurt you.
Basically, you'd live as one who had already received everything you'd ever
need. One who had received the advantages of victory. One who had all the
power they needed to overcome any obstacle that might stumble into their
path.
Why would you live like that? Because you would have the right as heir to
the throne. Your father, the king, would provide everything you need, give
you all his authority, and protect you from every enemy.
Well, I have some good news for you; you are the child of a king. In fact,
you're a child of the king of kings, that's even better. Since you've accepted
Jesus Christ as your savior, you have the right to everything that the king
has.
As children of the king, we are entitled to the king's blessings. I can't
say that enough, because we're all trained in the opposite of that. Let me
say it again. As children of the king, we are entitled to the king's blessing.
So, what is the king's blessing, anyway? Let's take a moment to look at
Deuteronomy chapter 28. The first half of the chapter, up through verse 14,
lists the blessings. Take a look at some of them:
(vs 4) "Blessed shall be the fruit of your body..." This one talks about
both health, and your children.
(vs 5)" Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough." You will
have tasty and nutritious food to eat.
(vs 8) "The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse
and in all that you undertake." Sounds like financial blessing to me.
(vs 11) "And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity..."
How about that, so much financial blessing, that you are able to be a blessing
to others.
Quite a list of blessings, isn't it? Well, as a child of the king, you are
entitled to every one, and more. But, what do you have to do to receive them?
The beginning of the same chapter says: "If you will listen diligently
to the voice of the Lord you God, being watchful to do all His commandments
which I command you this day, the Lord you God will set you high above all
the nations of the earth. 2 And the blessings shall come upon you and overtake
you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God."
Deuteronomy 28:1-2 Amplified
God's blessings are reserved for those who obey Him, plain and simple.
Jesus said "If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My
teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make
Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him.
John 14:23 Amplified
On the other hand, the second half of Deuteronomy lists the cursings that
come to those who don't obey God's word. So, which do you want? The blessings
or the cursings, the choice is yours, nobody else's.
Oh, and by the way, if you chose to obey, all the curses turn to blessings.
Galatians 3:13 says: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us..." (KJV) So, if we are redeemed, that means that
the reverse of every one of those curses is true. We not only don't receive
the curse, we get a blessing to replace it!
Praise the Lord!
Seminars and More Seminars!
A we've been traveling, one of the ways we've been ministering is in providing
seminars. A seminar allows us a full day to teach and minister. Basically,
these seminars fall into two areas.
Our main thrust of Biblical study for the last seven years has been marriage,
with an emphasis on God's purpose for intimacy in marriage. This study started
out of our frustration in our own marriage. We had a great marriage, but
we knew it wasn't as great as God wanted it to be.
Unfortunately, in all the marriage books we read, we couldn't find anything
that told us what God defined marriage to be. Nor could we find anything
to teach us how to be fulfilled in our sexual union. Oh yeah, there were
secular books about it, but their viewpoint is all messed up. We needed God's
plan, not the world's.
We have now put this study into a full day seminar entitled "And God Created
Sex."
In this seminar, we share on two subjects. The first one is God's plan for
marriage. Looking at scripture, we define what God's plan and purpose is,
building a foundation for our lives as married couples.
Our second subject is God's plan for intimacy in marriage. This area has
been totally ignored by the Body of Christ for centuries. Since God created
us as sexual creatures, He obviously had a plan for that part of our lives.
Without understanding His plan, it's impossible to implement it in our lives.
I know, Science seminars and Marriage seminars don't seem to go together.
But, we're just trying to share what God has taught us. As an engineer for
15 years, Rich worked with applying Physics every day. This gave him an
understanding of the principles on a practical application level.
In these seminars, Rich teaches basic Physics principles to students of all
ages. Instead of concentrating on the Math of Physics (like most curriculums
do, Rich shares Physics concepts in a understandable form. Each concept is
demonstrated by experiments using simple everyday items, using volunteers
from the audience. That makes it so that the student can recreate the experiments
on their own. |
