Fourth month of the Bible reading challenge

Today is Good Friday, the day when we remember that Jesus died on the cross to make it possible for us to have our selfishness forgiven and begin a personal friendship with God. If you've been part of the Reto 2013 Bible reading challenge, I hope that you've enjoyed the Easter readings in the March booklet and have found that they strengthened your own communication with God. In recent weeks, I've been asked to send the Challenge 2013 booklets to Mali, Togo and Lebanon... which may mean that they're now being used in eleven or twelve different countries, and in five or six different languages. That's encouraging! You can download the April booklets (Old Testament readings from the lives of Moses and Jeremiah) by clicking on the links below.

To download the English booklet, click here.

Para descargar el libro en español. haz clic aquí.

Flying back to Spain today

We've had lots of snow over the past week. Some areas, like Arran, have had no electricity for the past five days, and the TV news has carried heartbreaking pictures of farmers in Northern Ireland who are losing all their sheep and newborn lambs in deep snowdrifts. It's not really been too bad here in the central belt, but it doesn't take much to close British airports, and so I'm hoping there won't be a disruption with my flight from Edinburgh to Malaga today. It looks as if it's a good twenty degrees warmer in Alhaurin, even though the forecast there is for continued winter rains over the Easter weekend. 
We're running a "Pathways" retreat next week on the theme of different ways of connecting with God and enriching your relationship with Him. Then the countdown will begin, as staff and delegates start to arrive for this year's leadership development course, which will run from the last week of April to the first week of June.

Don't forget to use your GPS

Do you use a sat-nav in your car? I find them amazing. Even if I'm just driving in the Malaga area, and going to a part of town that I'm not familiar with, I love the security that comes from knowing that I'm on the right track and that my little GPS device will even warn me what lane to get into, so that I'm positioned well and prepared for the road that lies ahead. This morning, in my personal time with God, I was reflecting on the fact that walking by faith is rather like travelling with a GPS. Once you make a personal decision to invite God into your life, it's like buying a sat-nav and putting it into your car; you now have everything you need to keep your life on track and draw on all the wisdom you need for life's decisions - even in the challenging parts of the journey.

But having a GPS device in your car is no use at all if you simply leave it sitting in the glove compartment. You have to activate it - to switch it on and tune into the satellite - before it's able to give you any kind of direction for your journey. And it's the same with faith: being a Christian is like having the sat-nav and carrying it with you in your car. But "walking by faith and not by sight" (2 Cor 5: 7) is like switching on the GPS and listening to what God's Voice has to say about the direction your life should take.

This morning I was reading in Psalm 92 vs 5, where it says, "How great are your works, oh God. How profound are your thoughts." Sometimes we don't see God at work in our lives, because we haven't taken time to ask Him what He thinks about our life and the situations we face. As I thought back to November and December 2011, to those first difficult months of my Dad's critical illness and especially his time in the intensive care unit, I realised that the simple fact of being a committed Christian was not in itself enough to see me/us through those challenging times. I needed to to "tune in the GPS" and be in connection with God on a daily basis to find out what He had to say to us in the face of impossible medical odds and pessimistic predictions from the doctors involved. (Some of those "GPS readings" are still posted here on this blog. You can find them by looking down the list on the right until you come to the postings for the last months of 2011.) "How great are your works, oh God. How profound are your thoughts." Yes, if we want to see the works of God in our lives, in our families, in our church, I really believe that we need to be committed to tune in to the thoughts of God about those situations. How else can we know what to hang our faith on?

Thinking over the past two days about how God has fulfilled, and is still fulfilling, the promises He made about my Dad's life, gave me increased faith to trust Him for other promises that He has made to me personally over the years. I thought of a promise God gave me when a leader prayed for me back in 1985, and realised that it's only been partially fulfilled. I thought of some of the promises He gave me in 2007, when I was leaving South Africa and moving back to Europe. One of those is also in Psalm 92, where God promises that those who trust Him will continue to bear good fruit, even as they grow into old age.

GPS: God's Promises Stand. What promises are you believing God to fulfill in your own life? Even if it takes time, there is absolutely no doubt at all that God will do what He promised, as we continue to trust Him, "walking by faith and not by sight." It can be in our lives, just as it was for Joshua in the Old Testament, who told the people before he died, "You know deep in your heart that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not a single one has failed." (Josh 23:14)

GPS: God's Promises Stand. But if we don't know what those promises are, we don't know what to hold on to. If we really want to see the works of God, we need to be willing to commit enough time to hearing the thoughts of God. We need to be committed to activating our GPS and maintaining our daily connection with God, so that we have constant access to His wisdom and direction for our lives.

The anniversary waltz

Many, many thanks to everyone who sent cards, email greetings and comments for my parents' special day, as they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with family and friends. It was truly a night to remember, as we reflected on God's faithfulness and the miracle He had done to make it possible for Dad still to be with us in 2013. Here's a family photo taken on the night (my niece Kasey, my brother Graham, Mum, Dad and myself.) And, especially for those who asked, here's a little video clip of my parents dancing to their song: The Anniversary Waltz.

The anniversary miracle...

Today is my parents' Diamond (60th) Wedding Anniversary, and the fact that we can celebrate it together is very obviously due to a miracle of God!

No, the miracle isn't that they've been together for 64 years (they had dated for four years before getting married), the miracle is that my Dad is alive and well to celebrate this special day. And, just this week, God added a little extra miracle that just served to prove that He is God and that no one else can do the things that He does. Let me tell you about what happened this week...

Back in November 2011, when my Dad was "dying" in the intensive care unit after surgery complications, we were told that none of the ICU doctors believed he would ever leave the hospital alive. Although all the outward signs seemed to support this diagnosis, I was holding on to a promise that God had given me from Jeremiah 33 vs 3-4 and 13b: God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love and I have drawn you to me with loving kindness. I will build you up again, and you will be rebuilt. I will turn their mourning into gladness. I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow."

But some weeks had passed since I wrote that promise in my journal, and Dad's condition had been very up and down, with several miracle improvements, but also lots of near death experiences where we, his family, were called to the hospital in the middle of the night to say our goodbyes. On that day when doctors told us that no one believed he would ever come out of the intensive care unit alive, I went home and I asked God again to tell me what we should expect. "Lord, will Dad still be alive at Christmas time or should we be preparing our hearts to lose him before then?"

God drew my attention to a Bible passage that is often read in church at Christmas time. Isaiah 9 vs 2: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned."  It seemed that our family had been living in the "shadow of death" for so many weeks, but on that day I felt that God said to me, "No, he's not going to die. He will still be alive at Christmas time and, more than that, he will live to celebrate his Diamond Wedding anniversary." (which at that time was still about sixteen months away.)

With thankfulness in my heart, I began to pray: Lord, if you do this, there is no way that anyone could ever doubt that you are God. The doctors have given up hope and you alone are the one that can make this happen. It would be so amazing, Father, if Dad not only lived to celebrate their special anniversary, but was even able to dance on that day, as he did at the celebration of their Ruby Wedding and Golden Wedding. (My parents have done ballroom dancing throughout their lifetime.)

Well, this seemed like a crazy prayer, when my Dad was lying in the ICU, unable to move any of his limbs or even to breathe without the help of a ventilator. Even as the months went by (almost eight long and painful months in hospital) and Dad slowly began to make a little progress, medical staff still seemed to have some doubts about whether he would ever be able to walk again. When he was finally released from hospital last June, it was only on the condition that my parents were able to install a stairlift in our home.

But Dad has continued to improve over these past months, getting his appetite back, building up his strength and walking with a stick. If it weren't for some ongoing challenges with the stoma bag, his life would almost be getting "back to normal" and my parents would be able to get on with their lives again.

An amazing extra miracle happened just this week. My parents went on Tuesday afternoon to their usual ballroom dancing group (Dad started going again recently, even though he wasn't able to dance, but could only sit and watch.) Friends there gave them a bouquet of flowers and congratulated them on their 60th wedding anniversary. And then the "impossible" happened. Mum and Dad took the floor and were able to dance a waltz together, just like they did on their wedding day sixty years ago. Mum told me that there were many tears around the room as people watched this miracle happening before their own eyes!

And so Mum and Dad have been "practising" a little at home - in anticipation of being able to dance that waltz together again when we gather to celebrate their special day with a few friends and family. God has done exactly what He said He would: He "rebuilt" and restored my Dad, despite everything that the doctors and the statistics said to convince us that it was foolish to hold on to any hope.

To those of you who were standing with us in prayer during those difficult weeks at the end of 2011, be encouraged that your prayers were part of making this miracle possible and allowing the power of God to be demonstrated in an amazing way. May God bless you and may you continue to see miracles in your own situations as you trust and follow Him in 2013.       

Happy Anniversary, Mum and Dad!

Back in Europe

After an uneventful overnight flight from Dakar, we arrived in Madrid at 4 o'clock in the morning yesterday. I had a long 12-hour wait before my connecting flight to Málaga and so, instead of just sitting around in the airport, I decided to catch a bus into the city centre. I live in Spain, but I hadn't yet had an opportunity to see the sights of our capital. Madrid's temperature of 3 or 4 degrees felt bitterly cold after twelve days of African sunshine in Senegal, but I enjoyed being able to take three or four hours to see the Royal Palace and some of the other buildings that are landmarks of the city.

Our ILT (international leadership team meetings of King's Kids International) came to good closure on Sunday and Monday. We were able to spend lots of time in prayer for people and initiatives relating to the African continent and, among other things, we made a decision to hold our next large international gathering in Africa during 2015 (instead of during 2014) as this will give us more time to gear up and prepare for maximum participation from our people around the world.

Now, back in Málaga for today, I'm washing all my laundry and catching up on computer work related to KKI and LDC, before leaving for Scotland tomorrow to celebrate my parents' diamond wedding anniversary with them.

A free afternoon... African style

We've talked a lot, we've prayed a lot, and we've spent lots of time listening to God's voice. Now it's Saturday, and we have a free afternoon amidst the otherwise full schedule of our leadership meetings. Some people have gone into Dakar to visit a children's ministry there. Others are taking a boat trip to Gorée Island, the former slave colony where captives were held before being shipped across the Atlantic. Others, like myself have stayed back at our accommodation (that's my room on the ground floor of the first little house above) to chat and catch up with old friends, or to have a swim in the hotel's pool.

The hotel has a nice long swimming pool, with water that's warm from the African sunshine.
That almost makes up for the fact that most of the beds don't have any pillows, and some of the rooms don't have any light bulbs! Our African friends simply smile and say, "TIA" (This is Africa!) Some of the more adventurous in our group went out to drive around the nearby Pink Lake on quad bikes.

Later, some others of us also set out on an adventure. A guide from the hotel,took us out in an open Land Rover, like the one you see here, next to the camels. First we went to the Lac Rose; the lake is pink because of the algae in it and is one of the richest sources for salt production in this part of the world. In fact, the salt concentration is great than that of the Dead Sea in Israel, which means that you'll float on the surface, even if you try to dive to the bottom.

Next, the Land Rover headed off on a roller coaster ride over the sand dunes; surrounded only by sand, it felt like heading out into the Sahara Desert.... until suddenly we came to the top of a dune where we could see the Pink Lake on one side and the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean on the other. As we headed back to the hotel, we stopped to speak with a man who was making pictures out of the sand. We bought one or two, and he offered to make more for us when we bring our outreach teams to Senegal this summer. The sand pictures are a good souvenir of this part of Africa, and he surprised me by giving me a gift of a small picture showing the Lac Rose.

A fruitful time

These few days spent in the city of Dakar have been incredibly fruitful and encouraging. Over the past week, we have met with pastors and youth leaders to share the "Planting Together" vision and find out if it is something that their young people would want to get involved in. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic, with some of the pastors telling us that God has already been speaking to them and their congregation about the importance of Christians being involved in environmental initiatives in their nation. With the Sahara Desert advancing in some areas by as much as 30 miles per year, people here are aware that their nation is slowly being eaten up and that good stewardship of God's creation is an important part of preserving their country for future generations.

Yesterday we had a meeting with the pastors and missionaries who will be the hosts for our outreach teams this August. It was really helpful to hear of the ministry opportunities available, and to find out important information like accommodation costs or the availability of transportation for our summer teams. We're expecting to welcome teams this August from England, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, the USA and possibly Hong Kong, as well as African teams from Mali and Senegal.  A special prayer request is that we can firm up the right accommodation for our 5-day orientation camp with our expected numbers of more than a hundred people. The facility we planned to use had accidently made another booking which overlaps with two of our camp days, and we are hoping that the other group will be able to change their dates in order to start two days later. The facility isn't big enough for our group of a hundred people to share with the other group of sixty people. Thanks for your prayers.

One of the most encouraging encounters for me personally was when we went to meet one of the Baptist ministers in Dakar. I recognised his name as one of our young people from King's Kids Senegal in the 1990s and remembered that he and his sister had been with us when we took African teams to work with African American churches during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Sure enough, when we arrived at the church, Robert recognised me immediately. "When I heard your name," he said, "I was sure that it was probably Barbara from South Africa." He went on to tell us about the way that his KKI involvement nearly twenty years ago had impacted his whole life. "It was there that I learned to hear God's voice," he said. "It was there that I got my call to be a minister. And it was there that I met my future wife." Fabricants de Joie (King's Kids Senegal) doesn't exist any more at the moment, but the generation of young people who were involved during the 1990s have become the pastors, missionaries, businessmen, and educators of the present generation. It's our prayer that some of the young people who take part in our Planting Together outreaches this year, 2013, will be the missionaries, pastors, politicians and other people of influence in the future. 

Another interesting twist in the story is that, back then at Target World Atlanta, our teenagers from all the different continents gave ethnic and cultural presentations from their nations and, up there on stage, in front of seven thousand young people and families from all over the world, each continent gave a "Macedonian call" for people to come as missionaries and serve in their part of the world. It was Robert's younger sister, Christine, who took the microphone and gave the resounding invitation to "Come to Africa." One of the young people who responded that evening to God's call to come and serve in Africa was 9 year old Kindra from Spain. Over the past six years, Kindra has been visiting Africa regularly and asking God what her long term role in this continent should be. Now aged 26, she is part of our Planting Together steering team, and will be staying in Senegal for the next six months to help confirm food and accommodation details for the visiting teams this summer. These six months will also be a time when she is asking God to clarify which of these nations should be her long term base for serving God as a missionary to a people group of West Africa. This photo shows us yesterday, eating Tiebou Denn at a roadside lunch spot.

Men of peace

When Jesus sent His disciples out two by two to preach the gospel, He told them to watch out (see Luke chapter 10) for "men of peace" who would help them in every town that they came to. Over these past three days in Dakar, a man called Germain, philosophy teacher and president of the Christian Union movement in Senegal, has been that sort of person for us. From his wide network of Christian leaders, he has made phone calls and helped set up appointments for us to meet a variety of pastors and other leading Christians here in the city. At church this morning, and in a number of individual meetings over the coming days, we are connecting with ministers responsible for churches in Dakar and whole denominations here in the nation. What a joy it was for me to discover that one of them, the Baptist minister, had been a teenage boy on one of our King's Kids teams here in Senegal in the 1990s. I remember that he and his sister were with us when we took teams of African young people to minister with African American churches in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympic Games. It's my prayer that some of the young people who take part in our outreaches this summer, 2013, will also be the pastors, missionaries and Christian businessmen of the next generation.

Day one in Dakar

After a smooth and uneventful trip from Málaga to Madrid to Dakar, we finally arrived at our accommodation around midnight on Thursday. Our first encouragement of the day happened yesterday morning at breakfast time, before we had even met to pray and plan the day. Over breakfast, we got talking to some local missionaries here in Dakar, and they were able to give us the names of leaders of different churches, denominations and mission societies that we could meet with this week in order to share the vision and invite the involvement of more African youth when we bring our overseas teams to work in Senegal this summer. They also gave us names and contact numbers of mission guest houses with possible extra accommodation, so that we could make appointments to go and visit those in the afternoon. On our way to visit those locations, we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant with the very un-African name of "Colorado Grill" and the three of us from Spain had to laugh when we saw that the "plat du jour" was paella! We decided just to order some local fish (in coconut milk) instead. Here's a picture of Jean, posing in front of the restaurant.

We made good contact with the people from the other mission houses, but often they only had accommodation for 12 or 20 people. As we're expecting to be 60-100 people in August, it would be nice to find one location where all the teams could be together. On Monday, we're going to look at another place that might have room for all of us. After another meeting last night with the president of the schools and universities' Christian Union groups in Senegal, we finally went to bed, very satisfied with the good fruit of our first day.

Today we'll continue to connect with different church denomination and missions leaders, with the particular goal of forming good partnerships and encouraging the involvement of Senegalese youth this summer.

On my way...

Well, I'm on my way. Thanks to everyone who was praying. Neither of my flights were among those cancelled because of the Iberia strikes today.
This is just a short note. I'm in the airport, and experimenting with a Blogger app on an iPad. There will be more news from me whenever I can get Internet in Senegal.

Start with what you have...

There's a verse in the Bible (Zechariah 4 vs 10) that tells us not to despise the day of small beginnings. Often, as I mentor or coach people who have a vision to do something big for God, I discover that they haven't actually started to step out, because they don't yet have the people or the finances or the resources to accomplish their "big vision." In my experience, few of these God-given visions are very big in the beginning. In Austria, in Scotland, in South Africa, and now here in Spain, I've seen that we often need to step out with what we have, and do something that seems small and relatively insignificant, before we begin to see the release of the "something bigger" that God has in store for us.

In Cape Town, we had a vision for a computer ministry that would involve reaching dozens or even hundreds of teenagers to equip them with computer skills and with an opportunity to respond to the gospel. Only problem was... we didn't have twenty computers, and we didn't have the money to buy them, either. So, in obedience to God, we started with what we had: our two old computers from the KKI office. We invited four teenage girls to our house, and we had the first ever Project Powerlink "camp." It was a small beginning - but we were stepping out with what we had. A local businessman heard of what we were doing... and just two years later, we had our own "computer lab" with sixteen computers at a township school. As part of our schools ministry, we were teaching computer skills to around 270 young people every week.

Yes, I'm a firm believer in the fact that visions which are really from God will always be "too big" for us. We'll not be able to achieve them in our own strength or with our own resources, but will need to depend on God to do miracles for us. Often those miracles only happen when we step out in faith, and start to do the little we can with the few resources that we do have available now. If we hang around waiting for the "something bigger," we may never activate the faith needed for it to happen. As Zechariah said, so many centuries ago, we mustn't despise the days of small beginnings.

What has God put on your heart? Don't hold back, thinking that it's just impossible, but ask God what He expects of you, here and now. What is the "small beginning" that you need to make, in order to see the breakthrough of the bigger vision?

Recently, someone who knows that I strongly believe in this principle was teasing me about my dream to have a dog again some day. I was joking that my "ideal job" in retirement would be to train dogs for Hollywood movies, or at least to have my own border collie again that I could train to do fun and useful things around the house. "Start with what you have," she joked. "Practise by training those cats of yours!"

Well, as most people know, border collies just love to learn clever stuff and will happily perform tricks just for the fun of it, just to please you, or just to show off.  Cats, on the other hand, are much more independent, often have selective hearing (click here to read an example of that) and tend to need "bribed" with treats in order to do the clever stuff you're trying to teach them. But I had seen video clips of people who taught their dogs and cats the same tricks, and so, just for the fun of it, I rose to the challenge. For those who've asked, here is the first video of Teddi learning his "Say please" trick. Please don't despise this day of small beginnings!! And don't worry, I don't see this as a step to getting a dog any time soon :-)

Hand baggage dilemma

Okay, place your votes. Who should I allow to sneak into my hand baggage for this next trip?

Birthday Sunday

Can you believe I know five or six people who all had birthdays yesterday, 3rd March? Among those were my brother, who was celebrating his 50th, and my housemate, who was celebrating her 33rd. How amazing to think that God knows hundreds of thousands of people who had a birthday yesterday, and that He knows every single one by name. Wow!

Easter Bible reading booklets available now!

It's March, and the Easter booklet for the Reto 2013 Bible reading challenge is available for downloading now. Just this week, I was encouraged to hear of twenty two teenagers here in Spain, and thirty young people in South Africa who were waiting for the new booklet to come out.  You can get your copy by clicking the links below. As always, print double sided in landscape orientation, and then fold in half to form an A5 booklet. May God bless you as you read in these weeks leading up to Easter.

For the English booklet, click here.

Para el libro en español, haz clic aquí.