Respect must be learned at home

The first command with a promise attached to it in the Ten Commandments is commandment number 5.

Missionary Questionnaire

I just wrote an interview for a friend of mine. The interview was a missions questionnaire. I wanted to share it with you here.

Question

I was wondering if you could tell me a little about what you’ve experienced while on a mission trip.
Mostly, what kind of responsibilities, challenges and victories did you experience. Also, if you have any prayer requests for any upcoming trips, what are they?

Answer

Mentoring your own children

Today, I am preparing to teach my staff the last lesson on mentoring. It has been a great ride. We have learned how to be mentored, the need for it, and how to mentor others. This final lesson covers the most important mentor/disciple relationship, parents and children. The number one influences and teachers in a child’s life are his parents. This is God’s design. The good thing about our God is that when He asks us to do something, He always teaches us how to do it in His Word. Our job is to discover those teachings, learn them, live by them, and apply them. Here are the passages where these teachings come from.

New Series: Overcoming Fear L1

This past Saturday night, we began a new study with our youth group, Generation of Purity. Many people fear because we live during difficult times. Many do not know what the future holds and therefore, worry and fear. I chose to teach the 40 minute Bible study, Breaking free from fear, written by Kay Arthur. It is a great study of the people of the Bible and how they overcame fear. I want to write this article based on lesson 1 of the study.

Two more summer camps down

I had the privilege of spending 20 amazing days at two different camps during July and August. It was a wild ride leading and the whole thing left me exhausted like no other time in my life. In fact, after the first camp, I almost ended up in the hospital because of extreme fatigue. I left church on a Sunday morning and headed to the hospital because I was experiencing dizzy spells. When I called my friend who is a cardiologist, she told me to go to the emergency room right away because I was demonstrating some early warning signs of a heart attack. I went and did all the tests and discovered that I was fine. My heart rate was slow and slowing down to let me know it was time to take a break. The doc suggested that I take a few days off. I took one day off and then I went to a week long festival for all of our leaders. I was refreshed physically and spiritually there and gained the needed strength the lead the next camps.

The English camp

This was my 13th summer to lead at our annual English summer camp. We had about 200 students attend the English camp, along with about 50 public school teachers. I met some awesome people from several different States in the USA who came to serve with us. Volunteers came from MS, MO, NC, TN, LA, and VA. There were 15 countries represented at the English camp. I had 4 of my English students attend camp. I was very excited because 3 of them had yet to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. The two main studies were “Someday, a marriage without regrets” written by Kay Arthur which was studied by the advanced students and the Gospel of John for the beginner and intermediate students. God worked in a mighty way and over 30 people accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. My two non born again students did not make a decision to follow Christ but they were very impressed by all the things that they learned from the Word of God. I was able to build some good relationships and all of my students want to continue studying in the Fall once school starts back. I am very excited about that and pray for new students as well.

The Youth camp

After the festival was over, I had one day to go home, see my family, and then prepare for the youth camp which started on the 5th of August. First we picked up the American team from GA who came to serve with us at the camp. We chose “Lord I want to know You” as the study for the youth camp. Upon arrival we were greeted with many trials and obstacles. We had 130 campers registered and to our surprise, 150 showed up. Together with the campers and leaders, there were 190 people at camp the first day. We only had portions for 150 🙂 . We managed and God blessed us with an amazing camp. More than half of the campers were non born again. After 5 days of intense study, we gave a call to repentance one night and 15 students came forward and accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. We let two days pass and on the final night of camp, around the campfire, we had another call to repentance and 20 more accepted the invitation. By the end, 35 new souls had their names written in the Book of Life. We were amazed at God’s goodness. The trials and obstacles actually worked toward the furtherance of the kingdom of God. One day we played a game with the entire camp and some of the conditions were to go into the near by village and share the Gospel with people as well as do random acts of kindness. It was great. Even the non born again students liked the game. The camp was also blessed to have the best live Christian band in Moldova as the praise band for the camp, Not an idol. On the final night of camp they held an awesome concert. One of the conditions for them to be at camp was that they do the Bible study with us. They had such a great time and we challenged them to write new songs based on what they were learning. One of the songs that they wrote will be a future hit once they record in professionally. They wrote it based on lesson one of the study. You can hear it here.

Fighting an inferiority complex

As I prepare to teach this Friday night’s lesson, I want to address a need that many young people seem to have in our day and age. It is not a new problem. It is something that people have struggled with all throughout the ages. The problem is a feeling of inferiority. Most teens at one time or another suffer from this complex. I would like to give a Biblical answer to our struggles with inferiority.

Be a grateful teenager (Matthew 11:25-30)

I am preparing to teach at the youth group this week. Since this Sunday we are celebrating the fall harvest with a service of thanksgiving, I would like to use the youth message to teach about being grateful/thankful. The title of the message is the title of this article. The Gospel teaches us how to be thankful/grateful no matter what our age is but I really believe that teens need to be taught how to be grateful so that they can remain that way the rest of their lives. Many times, we assume that children will just inherit common sense. They will not. They must be taught. There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that teaches about an encounter with Jesus and His Father, God. Jesus shows us a picture of gratefulness, specifically, what a grateful child looks like.

A summer full of ministry

I am so glad to be able to write to you about the summer I have had. That is part of the reason why I have not been very active on my blog. I have not been home much and I have not had much access to the internet over the past 2 1/2 months.

Day camps begin today!

This summer, we have planned to lead 10 day camps in 5 weeks. If you do the math, that means 2 per week. Our desire is to reach close to 1,000 kids with the Gospel over the next 5 weeks. We have 2 teams going out per week. Most of the camps will be in villages. I will be leading one in the city next week. Three of the ten camps will be baseball/softball camps so please pray that God will hold off the rain over the next 3 weeks. I am excited about teaching God and baseball to the next generation. Please pray for us, our teams, and the children who will hear the Gospel. We have already had threats from the Mayor of one of the villages. We know that God is in control and will work all things for our good. Please pray for the Mayor of the village of Bacioi.

Biblical Engagement

I am officiating my first “engagement” today. In order to brush up on the process and think through the Biblical steps, I would like to write a post on what the Bible says about the act of “engagement”. The word is found in the Old Testament in the book of Deuteronomy.

If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones that they die; the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall put away evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)