“We won’t catch fish in a kitchen sink–we must go where they are.”

Amen…

I’m home, after a weekend in Red Bluff. My friend Lisa got married, and it was a beautiful wedding! 🙂 Lots of family time, and of course, I had the “privilege” of going through more of my stuff that still resides at my parents’ house. 🙂 LOL.

It’s going to be a very busy week, but a great one. 🙂 Time to get rested up so that I can take it on.

I’m watching a 9/11 documentary, and it is amazing how much emotion this still evokes!!

However, I have one (lighter) question:

I wonder if the phone companies who run the phone service on airplanes waived the charges for the people who made calls on those 4 planes involved in the 9/11 attacks…

It seems like they would have, because that would be a gracious and compassionate thing to do (though small)…but I don’t know if they did.

Any insight?

I feel like I have changed more in the past two months than in the past five years…and yet I cannot describe the change at all. I just know that I am seeing the world differently, I am living out my faith differently…not drastically differently, but it’s like my faith is more real, more tangible, less emotional…

The major thing has been about “love”–Jesus says that the world will know that we are His disciples by our love, and that is something that is vastly forgotten, I feel, in the Church today…

I cannot describe the changes inside of me, but I feel their presence each day…and it is exciting to me, as I feel that I am finally discovering “who I am”…:)

For the first time ever, I watched the Emmy’s tonight…just to see Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and 24 win awards…and they DID! 24 beat Grey’s Anatomy for Best Drama, and Kiefer Sutherland won Best Lead Actor in a Drama (my titles, not the official ones).

Woo hoo! 🙂

Wow!!

My friend Jessica and I decided this week that we were going to travel down to Lake Forest and go to Saddleback Valley Community Church today (otherwise known as Saddleback). This church is the largest Southern Baptist church in the Western U.S. and has approx. 25,000 members. I have always been curious to see how a church that large functions, so we decided to go.

It was amazing! The speaker today was a man named Brother Yun (pronounced Yoon), and he is a Chinese man who was involved with the underground church in China for a long time. He was imprisoned over 30 times, tortured a great deal, had both of his legs shattered–yet never ceased preaching the Gospel. His story is told in this book, titled “The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun.”

The most amazing story that he told was this: during one of his times in prison, he was complaining to God about his agony (his legs had just been broken/shattered) and he was angry because he wasn’t able to preach the Gospel. During this time, one of the underground churches was praying and fasting, and they all heard a voice say “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…” but no one was at the door. This happened repeatedly, and then they realized that Brother Yun was going to be set free.

Brother Yun was in his cell, when he very clearly saw/heard Jesus come into the cell and He told Brother Yun to get up and walk out of the cell. He didn’t do it at first, because he didn’t think he could do it. But he stood up, and walked (with broken legs), and the cell doors opened. He walked as fast as he could, and when he was outside the prison doors, there was a taxi waiting out there. As they were driving, and Brother Yun had no idea where to go, they drove by a building that he recognized–the home of the underground church that was praying for him.

While he had been complaining to God about his misery, God was preparing a safe house for him…God is able to open ANY gates, ANY doors…it just takes faith.

It was an amazing story, and I bought his book. I cannot wait to read it! When we were in Tunisia and were able to meet people who faced persecution almost daily, it was so humbling, and yet it renewed and strengthened my spirit, because I knew that they had an unshakable faith, and I want to be like that. This man has faith that can move mountains–but it didn’t come easily.

Am I truly ready for what it takes to obtain faith that strong?

It was an incredible service, at an amazing church…a church totally focused on spiritual growth (more through small groups than anything) and serving Jesus.

We ended our adventure by going to Disneyland and riding the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” because we could. 🙂 Now it’s time to bake, and ponder the message from today…

[Update: At the end, he said that it is in the most impossible situations, when men cannot minister, that God works miracles far beyond our imagination…and out of all the people groups he could have mentioned, he only talked about the Muslim people…and it brought up such emotion in me! I think I’m going to Tunisia next summer, if God so wills…]

I wouldn’t normally post something like this on my blog, but I am hoping this will provide some accountability and that I will stick with this goal!

By December 31st, 2006 I want to lose 30 lbs. I am going to have to work hard to accomplish this goal, but it is something that I want to do!

So, this goal starts tomorrow, officially. 🙂 Let’s pray I can stick with this goal! I have 127 days to accomplish this goal…

I received a “forward” this evening that really offended me…and it nearly made me angry–not at the person from whom the email came, but at the content of the e-mail. It contained pictures of Muslims supposedly in London, and at the top of the e-mail it stated this:

“Why are these people still alive and why does their country’s still exist????????”
(grammar and spelling NOT corrected)

It contained other phrases so filled with hatred and anger…and I am willing to bet whoever wrote this e-mail has not had contact or relationships with anyone of the Islamic faith.

NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE EVIL, OR TERRORISTS!!!

I cannot understand why this is so difficult for people to understand.

It is a very small fraction that actually want to wage war against “the infidels”…it is a very small fraction who are violent and filled with hatred!

The Muslims/Arabs that I met and spent time with were far more kind, generous, serving than most Americans that I know. They were loving, they made us feel incredibly welcome, and they were so eager to learn about “why Americans hate” them. That broke my heart! Yet it was asked so many times…

I do not believe that Islam is true, but I do know that the people of the religion that I have met are decent, hard-working, servant-hearted people. And there’s a lot that we could learn from them!

Yes, this post sounds angry, and maybe it is…but mostly, it is written out of frustration, because I spent a month with Muslim/Arab people, and I grew to have a deep love for them…and because I saw the hurt in the eyes of the Arab people in Tunisia when they asked why we hated them…and I know how hard it was to try to explain why so many Americans blindly despise them…

We are called to LOVE others…bestow kindness and mercy…yes, justice is important, but only when there is a need for it. We must remember that we have done horrible things around the world, and we didn’t like being despised…so why do we do it to others?