SmGS Update

By the grace of God, our small group has been meeting semi regularly for the past two month, listening to Father Anthony’s Series on the Song of Songs. Already, people are feeling a bond and looking forward to meeting, and God willing we will continue to grow and glorify the name of our Father and his son Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit guide us and eventually lead us to ministering to others.

Prayers Requested

How Great is our God

I really feel stupid – alot. Its ridiculous how many times God “proves” himself to me, and how ten minutes later I’m ADD with something else. This really is the story of my life but here are two examples.

1) We are preparing to go to Africa in a couple weeks – and its getting to crunch time.  I helped out last year in organizing the luggages and stuff, and there were so many ways that God intervened in providing, from getting the things to shipping and customs, he provided for us.  Well this year, we had nothing of the large amount of things that we are supposed to take to support the mission. PANIC! thats what I did. Forget how God provided last year in the same situation or even more how he provided for us when we were in Africa. What happens? I get a couple emails from a person saying that they got so many items, than another email saying they got more, then a text message saying that we got $500 of medication donated.

Overall, its a message I’ve probably “learned” 10000 times.  God doesn’t need me, he wants me to participate in service just as a witness to HIS GRACE, a believer in HIS POWER, and an intercessor through PRAYER.  Anyone can run around and stress over a situation (like what I did), but it takes someone who really trusts God to put it in prayer.  And we really do have every reason to trust in our Father.

2) The book of Job – this made me realize how Im so easily swayed by the wind.  The book would go back and forth between Job, who says how God is sitting there in heaven unfairly focusing this torment on him, and his friends, who become Gods lawyers in advising Job.  I found myself swayed by every single arguement. When Job was speaking, I would think man God is really unfair to us.  When the friends would speak, I would think I am just a dust particle in the sands of time – God has revealed himself so many times to us as the Lover of Mankind.

Clearly, I know God is my loving father.  No arguments needed.  But I was tossed by all these arguments, even though eve3ry single one was wrong – both Jobs and the friends.  I hear so many arguments, especially living in academia, for and mostly against God – and for what? Because people are bored and dont know what else to talk about or God knows what reason.  The arguements in Job were directly related to these to me – wasting 36 out of 42 chapters on useless and vain thoughts.  But rest assured – God is my loving father.

SmGs

I have become convinced that God is forcing me to start a small group up here.

The thought came and quickly left when it was time for new small groups at home, and then developed when i was home for thanksgiving when a good friend practically commanded me to start a group up here to keep myself tip top as well as have a deeper fellowship with guys up here. Next, it seems like God has been putting people in front of me, people that I’ve prayed with and had a real brotherhood with.

Next, I brought it up with on eof the guys, and he was talking about how much he wished we went into the streets and just preached, or on a smaller scale serve. Then I was talking to someone else and he was telling me how he couldn’t trust some people at all, that people are backstabbers. Both those problems are effectively addressed by having a small group. If you dont believe me check out this link.

But anyways, I always thought that getting the message was hard, doing it was easy. But now that Im at doing it, I need prayers. Already, i know God has been pushing in a lot of little weird (take too long to explain) things like times, situations, and willingness. I know it will continue until He sees us growing and getting stronger, in which case bigger weights are needed to keep getting stronger, but for now, I need some help getting the 5 lb dumbells off the ground. Request – Prayer

Radio Station Cont

K, so initialy, we were broadcasting an Internet Radio Station using a great program called Sam Broadcaster.  Sam was probably the easiest complete solution for internet broadcasting, as it was literally installed, setup, and broadcasting in 20 mins.  We had some reliability issues however, and in addition, it wasnt very expandable.

Plan B, after contacting WGTS 91.9, we learned of a company called Prophet Nexgen, who seem to be a professional grade company in all aspect of radio broadcasting.  Downloaded a trial of PSI101, there basic broadcasting solution, but ran into difficulties.  This was not quite as easy or intuitive as SAM, which led me to start reading the extensive help file.  Unfortunatly, the help file doesnt go into any detail about setup for Internet Broadcast.  Any links and prayers are apprieciated, and Ill keep posting as developments occur.

Glory to God 2

Despite the name, this event happened before the other Glory to God post, i just remembered it.

Africa 2006.  Drove 12 hours with 26 people in a cramped bus trying to get into Congo from the Zambian border. Long story short, didnt happen.  So at 8 pm, we are 12 hours from home (so to speak)  and the car breaks down, twice.  Already, we were told that had the bus broken down in Congo, we would all be killed in a cruel and unusual way.  So time passes, we end up on the side of the road with the leaders trying to find a place for us to sleep the night.  Mind you its like 10 pm in a less densely populated area, not to mention the saftey factor.

Gods Solution:  3 Rooms, and exactly 22 matresses in an oasis in the desert – probably most beatiful place in Zambia.  Lets break that down.  3 rooms, one for Bishop Paul, one for Abouna Elisha and Tasoni Manal, and one for Abouna Anthony. So lets see, 26 minus 4, carry the 1, wait, that equals 22! Once again, this is where you can start laughing at the way God works.  The following morning, we woke up to the most bueatiful sunrise, 3 hours to spend time with God in quiet time, and a meal prepared for us.  One more time – most places in Zambia dont have running water.  I know there was more thats escaping me now, but you do the math.

Glory to God

God has a hysterical way of making things work. I remember many times where I look around at what God is doing, and just laughing for an extended period of time. Today one happened that made me chuckle a bit. Well, at school right now was comfortably in bed at 3:20 am, then a firealarm goes off. Needless to say, I was mad. I dont know the temperature where you are, but in New Jersey, its gotta be below freezing. So instead of sitting outside, i decide to go to the next (heated!) building over. After laying on the couch for five minutes in a vain effort to get back to that comfortable sleeping state, i get up and out of the lounge to find a friend of mine. This friend is not Christian yet, but he told me that he is reading C.S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and he had a question. So here we are sitting at 3:35 am, and for some reason im not tired anymore. Before he asked the question, i said a quick internal “arrow prayer”, and we went on to talk about his question.

When I got back to my dorm, I smirked at God. You now the 3 am part and that we happened to be in the same place, but beyond that, over summer we worked together and probably had one or two conversations small conversations (not arguements!) about God. Why he asked me, only God knows, but i have a prayer request: add a quick line about those strugling to find Christ. And GTG Forever Amen. (Revolution – GTG from “got to go” to “Glory to God”)

P.S. Also, God was trying to reinforce the quiet time for yesterday – “Early will I seek you” Psalm 63

Wow

I love these blogs, its awesome to read the testimonies of others, yet I still cant understand the magnitude of the effect these things can have. I know for me its difficult to see a two page post and not be discouraged to read it, but you have to check out these two blogs. Ya, we are all busy, but dont let that devil take away this spiritual food from us. Blakes Post: No Aloha + Fr. Bishoy: A Miracle

Rising Oil Prices

The parable of the ten virgins, five wise and five foolish, we all know it – Matthew 25:1-13. I was really asking myself today, what do I have that is not seen, where is my oil that only God knows of, that will be revealed only at his coming. I have many visible services, visible traits of Christianity, verbal expressions of it, this blog being an example. But do I have any hidden oil? Do I have even one thing that my right hand does that my left doesn’t know?

Bishop Paul was talking alot about not standing in the queue – getting out of line and standing against the wind for God. He was saying dont do what is comfortable, what everyone else does, the standard ABC, but rather get out of line and stand against satan by the power of our Lord. I cant see the whole picture now, but I know that God has something great planned for each one of us, something that will glorify His name. I’m willing to bet that for most, it won’t be something visible, and that it will cost more then our currently high gas prices – but that we will joyfully pay for it and find that its worth every drop.

Ai Er Novi

I have sinned. I fell into temptation badly. For the past week I’ve been moping around in guilt, and I know that the guilt was the bigger trap that I fell into from the Devil. I was always hard on myself in everything, so it was so easy to listen to the evil words of the wicked adversary. I stopped being a minister of Christ, stopped my service, felt like I couldn’t write anything on here, stopped being aware of people God put around me, and felt like I couldn’t go to God. Yesterday, God snapped me out of it with a couple things.

First was the St. Paul’s words – Romans 8:1 (more on that verse here)
Second, the fact that the goal in life isn’t to stop sinning, but to know God and his son Jesus Christ.

Third, I got to spend some time in meditation prayer, meditating on things not concerning myself, but on Christ’s ministry, on his fearlessness on going to everyone.

Fourth and the thing that finally opened my eyes, there were two people that i know God put before me, not to lift them up spiritually, but just to sit with them and listen to them. God put them there because they needed someone just to smile with them, and i was so caught up in my misery and guilt, that i was blind to it.

I’ve erased the stubbornness in my mind that i need to sit in guilt, and meditate on my sins, and continually by burdened by it, Christ took care of that, I just need to keep my heart open for what he has put in front of me.

Joy THEN Mission vs Joy IN Mission

I was reading all the blogs of the group of missionaries in Mexico, and I got this giddy feeling, something I had to share.  I forever mentally fight with God about the joy we have in Christianity, constantly nagging, “where is it, where is it”.  God has answered my on multiple occasions, but being as stuborn as I am, I somehow always return to this question in an immature manner.  Abouna Bishoy said in a sermon that we dont forget what we teach someone else, that we feel an ownership to that knowlede, so here goes nothing.

I remembered Africa where I did the same thing – truly chalenge God to give me this joy, and i remembered saying how can I preach to these people about the joy I have in Christ if I don’t have it, or can’t recognize it, or whatever.  That day, I went to Anba Boules and told him, “Sayedna, I dont think I should go out today.”  Sayedna, in the wisdom provided to him by God, said go with them.  Going into the preachings, I had kind of decided that I wouldnt speak, that I would just observe and watch God work through those around me, trying to scope it out, find what there source of joy was.

Well, that lasted until we got to the site, then went out of the window.  In speaking with my brothers and sisters, we shared the good news with others and spoke about the great things Christ had done for our group, and whatever was on our hearts.  The funny part – come the end of the day, walking back into the church, I had the greatest joy in my heart that I have ever experianced.

The lesson Im trying to put in writing for myself more than anyone else, is that our source of joy is in the mission, but we are always fearful or whatever to start.  Then we put things to God, things that are extremely logical questions in our eyes, such as not preaching without seeing the joy.  But its a trap that we get stuck in, a pitfall from our enemies.  Just break the cycle, and we receive our joy in mission, in preashing Christs ressurection from the dead and ascension to the heavens.