James 1:27

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Gina, Madelynn and I have an opportunity on January 12-22 to travel to Puebla, Mexico to serve at an orphanage. We will be part of a team from Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota that will be helping children that are living at Living Hope International’s youth home called Esperaenza Viva.

Esperaenza Viva is a home for youth who come from a number of different tragic circumstances. Some of the children’s parents are serving life sentences in prison, some children were abandoned and living on the streets, and some come from abusive homes. At Esperaenza Viva they can experience the love of God, overcome hopelessness and rejection, and receive education and medical care. Our team will be assisting the staff in caring for the 85 or so children who live there by: doing work projects, teaching, playing games, craft projects or just spending time showing love to the kids. The cost for the three of us that includes transportation, room & board, and project money is roughly $3,400.

Over the past several years the three of us have been humbled by the people and children in poor circumstances in our own back yard literally, when we lived on the East Side of St. Paul. We love reaching out to the broken and those in need. That is why this trip has a special spot in our hearts.

If you feel led to help us financially, please make a check payable to: Woodland Hills Church and send it to my work addres: Salem Communications, ATTN: Kevin Norman, 2110 Cliff Road, Eagan, MN 55122. (In the memo please put “Puebla Mission Trip” but do not put our name on the check or the gift will not be tax deductible). We need the funds by December 12.

Even if you may not be able to support us financially on this trip, please pray for our family, the rest of our team, and the Esperaenza Viva orphanage as this trip is approaching and during the trip. Thank you very much!

It's November 7, Don't Forget to Pray

I voted today, but more importantly, I prayed.

When so many people are sweating bullets about whether their candidates get in, just don't forget -- God is in control! And if you cast your heavenly ballot by praying (please forgive the cheesy analogy), you are making a postitive kingdom difference. If you talk to him, he hears you. If you ask for his will to be done, you are covered by him!! Talk to God and ask him what is best -- tell him what you want, but don't be presumptuous to think that you know what is best. God knows what is best for us! Just ask him to do his thing! I'm guilty of trying to "steer" God to do what I want, but sometimes I do remember that like a old, very wise person (to use a very bad analogy, because unlike an old wise person, he actually CREATED me!), he knows better than me!

It's gray out there...

Someone recently asked me about what I think about the death penalty -- I haven't thought about the death penalty for a while, but I think there are at least a few reasons why I have not been totally opposed to it 1) People that get the death penalty know beforehand that their crime is a crime that will be punished - if death is the punishment, and they commited the crime knowing that they could be sentence to death... 2) Death row inmantes have time to repent (they have a lot of time on death row to get right with God). 3) I've heard that places that have the death penalty have a much lower crime rate... if the citizens know that they could be sentenced to death for their crimes, and as a result they do crime less, that seems like a pretty smart system to me.

However, because our judges aren't omniscient like the True Judge (God), I'm not crazy about the idea that there are innocent people who get sentenced to death sometimes. SO, I'm not crazy about it, but not against it either...

I have a feeling that if you brought this issue up with Jesus, just like the issue of war and any other gray area, he'd tell us to not divide over this issue, but come together on spreading the good news!

I've decided not to sell the AK

I think I'm done ruminating on war vs. peace. I just did a Google fight (www.googlefight.com) between war & peace and war won - by a landslide. I'm done sweating this one because I don't want this topic to get in the way of more important questions in my head like do I eat at 11:30 today, or do I eat at noon...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me on this one -- I think I still lean toward more of a MacGyver viewpoint instead of an A-Team viewpoint on war, but please don't hold it against me if you don't - because I want you on my side if we go to war.

Have a happy November 2nd!