Greetings! I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of the Christmas
weekend!!! Blessings on each of you as you enter this special time with
family and friends!
Well, I'm supposed to be working on Christmas projects right now...and I WAS...I really was! But what I chose to watch while working on those projects sent me into a mode of worship. I just got finished watching the DVD that was made of the Sunday that Cal and I spoke at Nampa First Church of the Nazarene before we went to Peru. At the end of the service, the Pastor doesn't even get done praying when people begin coming to the altar and laying their gifts there to help finance our ministry in Peru.
I CANNOT tell you the extent of the springs of deep emotions seeing outpouring of love brings inside of me! Watching this in hind-sight is somewhat bitter-sweet, knowing that we had to come back early... But wow. That's all I can say right now. (Well, I guarantee I'll say more,because it's me haha) But WOW! The Holy Spirit moved in that service on that January day of 2010, almost two years ago now! If I remember correctly, $20,000 of our $60,000 was raised in that service! I say it again, WOW! There were young people, old people, friends, strangers, people we didn't know then but now treasure friendships with that all brought their sacrifices to the altar. It was the same Sunday that First church took up an offering for relief work in Haiti (the earthquake had just hit)....and $20,000 more came in for our ministry! Wow!
As I watched that outpouring of love and sacrifice tonight, I just cried. I am blessed. We know that the Lord had a time, set apart, for us to be in Peru. It wasn't the 27 months, and as it turns out, we aren't over any other foreign seas as we originally thought might happen, but we were there for one year. A year that was significant, was in God's plan and that ended early to bring about His plan for us and others right here in the States.
I've been reflecting on what God has done in our lives this year. Another "wow"! Isn't God good! The many lives that have come to know the saving grace of Jesus Christ through Ella's story is absolutely amazing! Praise Him! What an absolute miracle!
And now, as we have been hit with unexpected doctor bills, we are blessed again. I wrote you last week, sharing about the $2,000 that knocked on our door...well, we've got more news!...
Last week was completely amazing. Day after day checks came in. Big checks, "small" checks (and I put that in parenthesis because really, no gift is small - you'll see in a minute why each gift was divine!), and checks in between. Then, we got another knock on our door. It was Pastor Marcus. In his hand was an envelope. He told us that someone from our church had felt led to pay our mortgage for the next FOUR months - he was just the middle-man! You can imagine our SHOCK!
I told you in my email last week that the $2,000 was SUCH a blessing and a reminder that God had everything under control. A sign to us that everything was going to be OK! God had not forgotten us. By faith, we tithed on that $2,000 and then paid-off HALF of our medical loan!!!
Tonight I did some figures. With each of your gifts/blessings and the money that we'll be able to put aside because of our mortgage being covered, we'll be able to pay EXACTLY the rest of the medical loan off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As a good friend of mine told me this week...
God has His math degree!
One more thing that just makes this even more amazing...God had given me the promise, when I cried out to Him about our medical expenses and asked for a way to get through it all, God answered. He placed a strong sense in my heart that He would create a way to pay that loan off in one month! The feeling was so strong that I shared it with Calvin. And here we are: less than one month into this and God has delivered the answer!
If you are struggling right now with trusting Him (God) and/or don't have the money you need to pay your bills...or maybe you lost a job or hours got cut (like Cal's did), I urge you to bring your requests to the throne of our Living GOD!
Philippians 4:4-7:
4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
His peace is better than anything in the world. BEFORE we had a healthy little girl, we had a little girl that was on her death-bed AND we had peace. Before we had paid of (1.5 million dollars) doctor bills, we had debt AND peace. BEFORE we had money for this new medical loan, we had no IDEA how to pay it, BUT we had peace! The trial always comes before the answer. And if you ask for it, the peace will come to comfort while you wait! I urge you to let your worries go and give them to the ONE from whom all blessings flow and the only One who can truly handle it. AND on top of that, I urge you to tithe (and I normally don't talk about tithing - I believe it's private and we shouldn't "pat ourselves on the back" for doing it - but I am feeling led to share the blessings that come from tithing) even when you're not sure how in the world you'll be able to make it that month, week or day! God will BLESS you!!!! Just let go. It's an act of worship, a sacrifice that is pleasing to God! He will take care of you!
Matthew 6:25-33
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
And to those of you that have felt the Holy Spirit's gentle voice leading you to send in one of those checks that we received last week, THANK YOU! We have been THOROUGHLY blessed! To the EXACT degree. God does things perfectly. He is intentional and He is direct. I am blessed tonight and I am amazed!
I say again, we are unworthy of all these things - being used by God to lead others to Salvation and yet, He is using us! Unworthy to receive blessings, and yet, we have received them to the FULL amount! I once heard, I think from Beth Moore that we should live our lives with an exclamation point (!), and man oh man are we ever living with an exclamation point!!!! God is IT! He's the exclamation point in our lives! Praise Him. And thank you for your blessings. We are humbled and we are amazed....and blessed beyond words! Thank you.
Sincerely,
Cal and Jen
Well, I'm supposed to be working on Christmas projects right now...and I WAS...I really was! But what I chose to watch while working on those projects sent me into a mode of worship. I just got finished watching the DVD that was made of the Sunday that Cal and I spoke at Nampa First Church of the Nazarene before we went to Peru. At the end of the service, the Pastor doesn't even get done praying when people begin coming to the altar and laying their gifts there to help finance our ministry in Peru.
I CANNOT tell you the extent of the springs of deep emotions seeing outpouring of love brings inside of me! Watching this in hind-sight is somewhat bitter-sweet, knowing that we had to come back early... But wow. That's all I can say right now. (Well, I guarantee I'll say more,because it's me haha) But WOW! The Holy Spirit moved in that service on that January day of 2010, almost two years ago now! If I remember correctly, $20,000 of our $60,000 was raised in that service! I say it again, WOW! There were young people, old people, friends, strangers, people we didn't know then but now treasure friendships with that all brought their sacrifices to the altar. It was the same Sunday that First church took up an offering for relief work in Haiti (the earthquake had just hit)....and $20,000 more came in for our ministry! Wow!
As I watched that outpouring of love and sacrifice tonight, I just cried. I am blessed. We know that the Lord had a time, set apart, for us to be in Peru. It wasn't the 27 months, and as it turns out, we aren't over any other foreign seas as we originally thought might happen, but we were there for one year. A year that was significant, was in God's plan and that ended early to bring about His plan for us and others right here in the States.
I've been reflecting on what God has done in our lives this year. Another "wow"! Isn't God good! The many lives that have come to know the saving grace of Jesus Christ through Ella's story is absolutely amazing! Praise Him! What an absolute miracle!
And now, as we have been hit with unexpected doctor bills, we are blessed again. I wrote you last week, sharing about the $2,000 that knocked on our door...well, we've got more news!...
Last week was completely amazing. Day after day checks came in. Big checks, "small" checks (and I put that in parenthesis because really, no gift is small - you'll see in a minute why each gift was divine!), and checks in between. Then, we got another knock on our door. It was Pastor Marcus. In his hand was an envelope. He told us that someone from our church had felt led to pay our mortgage for the next FOUR months - he was just the middle-man! You can imagine our SHOCK!
I told you in my email last week that the $2,000 was SUCH a blessing and a reminder that God had everything under control. A sign to us that everything was going to be OK! God had not forgotten us. By faith, we tithed on that $2,000 and then paid-off HALF of our medical loan!!!
Tonight I did some figures. With each of your gifts/blessings and the money that we'll be able to put aside because of our mortgage being covered, we'll be able to pay EXACTLY the rest of the medical loan off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As a good friend of mine told me this week...
God has His math degree!
One more thing that just makes this even more amazing...God had given me the promise, when I cried out to Him about our medical expenses and asked for a way to get through it all, God answered. He placed a strong sense in my heart that He would create a way to pay that loan off in one month! The feeling was so strong that I shared it with Calvin. And here we are: less than one month into this and God has delivered the answer!
If you are struggling right now with trusting Him (God) and/or don't have the money you need to pay your bills...or maybe you lost a job or hours got cut (like Cal's did), I urge you to bring your requests to the throne of our Living GOD!
Philippians 4:4-7:
4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
His peace is better than anything in the world. BEFORE we had a healthy little girl, we had a little girl that was on her death-bed AND we had peace. Before we had paid of (1.5 million dollars) doctor bills, we had debt AND peace. BEFORE we had money for this new medical loan, we had no IDEA how to pay it, BUT we had peace! The trial always comes before the answer. And if you ask for it, the peace will come to comfort while you wait! I urge you to let your worries go and give them to the ONE from whom all blessings flow and the only One who can truly handle it. AND on top of that, I urge you to tithe (and I normally don't talk about tithing - I believe it's private and we shouldn't "pat ourselves on the back" for doing it - but I am feeling led to share the blessings that come from tithing) even when you're not sure how in the world you'll be able to make it that month, week or day! God will BLESS you!!!! Just let go. It's an act of worship, a sacrifice that is pleasing to God! He will take care of you!
Matthew 6:25-33
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
And to those of you that have felt the Holy Spirit's gentle voice leading you to send in one of those checks that we received last week, THANK YOU! We have been THOROUGHLY blessed! To the EXACT degree. God does things perfectly. He is intentional and He is direct. I am blessed tonight and I am amazed!
I say again, we are unworthy of all these things - being used by God to lead others to Salvation and yet, He is using us! Unworthy to receive blessings, and yet, we have received them to the FULL amount! I once heard, I think from Beth Moore that we should live our lives with an exclamation point (!), and man oh man are we ever living with an exclamation point!!!! God is IT! He's the exclamation point in our lives! Praise Him. And thank you for your blessings. We are humbled and we are amazed....and blessed beyond words! Thank you.
Sincerely,
Cal and Jen
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