New life........

Greetings! For the sake of keeping up this blog on more recent events as we get closer to our journey to the Philippines, I have decided to "move on" from the previous discussions.

However, those of you who would like to continue the discussion and dialogue further, please send me an e-mail at bagpipegoo@yahoo.ca. I would encourage you to "change the scenario" to another situation such as an act of theft or maybe you can think of a different one. Perhaps that would change the perspective? It was meant to be a doctrinal/theological issue....it would seem that some are stuck on the scenario (which is actually a conglomeration of three real circumstances that I, for the most part, dealt with in the spirit of forgiveness) and not on the actual theological issue...more plainly- "Under what circumstances does God forgive and if He is our model, how are we to forgive?"....feel free to e-mail.

~Moving on~

Remember when I posted that Tim and I have been feeling a "short-timers" restlessness with our job? I thought it was just something I'd have to deal with and fight through. Another character building exercise...you know how I LOVE those! :)

But this week has proven that God is still challenging, moving and using us in this job with the kids. As many of you know, we've cared for over 40 children in our group home and many we expected to never see again. However, in the last few weeks, we have received phone calls and unexpected visits from kids we've cared for at some point in the last four years! It's been quite bizarre!

Although some are in far worse places than when we had them, others have been reunited with their families and are doing fantastic! God is good. It feels as though God is reassuring us that He will take care of these kids that are so dear to our hearts.

It gets better!

Remember the post on "tantrumming boy" and the two barf brothers? Well, tantrumming boy came to know Jesus this weekend! No joke! He shared that he thought Christians were stupid (he knows what we are...and sometimes we ARE stupid!) and so I asked him why he thought that. He said that he just didn't understand why we would eat a little cracker and drink a teeny bit of grape juice and call it Jesus. I see his point.

That led to a discussion that changed this 12 year-old's life. I asked him if he'd ever done anything wrong in his life.....he answered "OH YEAH!" I laughed. I told him that I did, too and continue to, but that the difference was that instead of having to die because of all my wrongdoing, Jesus went in my place and that now, I can have a relationship with God for eternity.

We talked about how Jesus knows our every thought and knows what we're gonna do even before we do it....that when we confess or tell God when we do naughty things and ask for Jesus to help us, He forgives us and we can have peace.....that we have the Holy Spirit that acts as a warrior on our behalf to help us to do the right thing....and that being a Christian is a HUGE responsibility.....not to be taken lightly. It means doing our best to give God glory or blessing Him in everything we do and say....that it was hard.....it meant putting others needs before our own needs....serving others....

I was trying to discourage him as much as possible because I wanted to make sure he really understood the costs......in the past, I would've just been overjoyed and prayed......but this was too important......

After all that, I asked him if he still wanted to give Jesus complete control of his life and he said..."YUP." So I asked him if he wanted to pray and ask Jesus to take control and he said, "YUP." So we did. I tell ya...the rest of the day, he was on cloud nine....hyper....excited...and even prayed at dinner. That's a first. God is good.

I told him that angels were rejoicing in heaven because he joined the family (Luke 15:10)....he smiled. Be blessed.