Flight Paths

We did some more babysitting last month, and the first afternoon that we picked up Silas from kindergarten, he came rushing out to the car shouting, “I got purple!  I got purple!”

 In his school every child starts the day on green, and his behavior moves him either up the color chart to blue and ultimately purple, or down the chart to yellow, orange, or red.  Red means mom and dad have to come in for a serious talk.  Usually all the obedient, well-behaved students end up on blue, and everyone is perfectly satisfied with it.  But purple?  Purple takes something extra-special.  It is the height of achievement for a student.  No wonder he came out running, shouting, and grinning a smile as wide as our windshield as we watched him through it.

 Why is it that I can’t have the same glee, the same sense of accomplishment and exhilaration when I overcome a temptation or grow out of a bad attitude?  Why don’t we all come running to share the good news with one another?  I’ll tell you why—because we are a bunch of judgmental grumps, that’s why.  Two things are going to happen if anyone opens his mouth about these things.

 First, someone is going to gasp and whisper to another, “You mean he has trouble with that sin?”  We can’t share our accomplishments when we are afraid people will look down on us, will lose respect for us, and will probably gossip about us at the first chance they get.  “Did you hear about so-and-so?  Did you know he has these problems?”

 Second, someone else will puff out his chest and say, “Tsk, tsk.  Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall!”  We can’t share our successes without someone thinking they have to knock us down a peg because of our “pride,” as they so hastily judge it. 

 In both of these cases, shame, shame, shame on us!  Those are unscriptural, even sinful attitudes.  Gossip, which is nothing less than slander, is included in that horrible list of sins at the end of Romans 1.  And what in the world do we think it means to “Encourage one another?”  It means when a pat on the back has been earned, give it!  Don’t hoard it with the self-righteous notion that we are doing what is best for the person’s soul—“wouldn’t want him to get the big head.”  Would you do that with your children?  Would you never praise them for their successes, but only criticize their mistakes? 

 AA doesn’t do it, and God doesn’t do that either.  And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”  Job 1:8.

 The Psalms are full of statements by people of God who know they have done right.  The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight, Psalm 18:20-24.

 Don’t tell me it’s because the Old Testament people did not understand grace and were all about “earning” their salvation by keeping the Law.  “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart…Deut 9:4,5.  O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy, Dan 9:18.

 Those people knew they had not earned God’s love and mercy, but they also knew when they had done well in keeping His commandments.  Why do we think it’s a sin to recognize that?  The apostles didn’t.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2 Tim 4:7,8.

 When my grandson came running out that day I could easily have told the difference between arrogance and joy.  Why can’t we tell the same thing about one another?  Why can’t we share victories over Satan and expect others will be just as happy about it as we are?  God wanted us to know we are saved; he wanted us to be confident in our destiny. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life, 1 John 5:13.

 I’ll tell you this, if we are going to “become as little children” and so inherit the kingdom of heaven, we had better stop acting like peevish, petty grown-ups.  With that sort of behavior we will never be able to run down the streets of Heaven shouting, “I got purple!”

Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: Yea, let them say continually, Jehovah be magnified, Who hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant,Psalm 35:27.

 Dene Ward

I remember those drive-in theaters well.  Across the river from our small town, an only slightly larger town boasted one that offered a double feature for $1 a carload. What a deal!

 Our family usually arrived about fifteen minutes early to procure the best spot.  If you were too close all we kids in the backseat could see were headless actors.  But you certainly didn’t want to end up on the back row or next to the concession stand amid all sorts of distractions.

 Once you found a decent spot, you checked the speaker before anything else.  If it didn’t work, and some did not, you went on the hunt again.  Once the speaker situation was in order you spent a few minutes edging up and down the hump to raise the front half of the car to just the right angle so the line of sight worked for everyone. Then you had to deal with obstructions.  Our rearview mirror could be turned completely vertical, but other cars had one you could fold flat against the ceiling.  Headrests on the front seat would have been a catastrophe, but no one had them back then so we avoided that problem altogether.

 Now that set-up was complete, we rolled down the windows so we could get any breeze possible in the warm humid night air.  Along with the chirping crickets, the croaking frogs, and the traffic passing on the street behind the screen, we also had to put up with buzzing mosquitoes.  My mother usually laid a pyrethrum mosquito coil on the dashboard and lit it, the smoke rising and circulating through the car all during the movies, the coil only half burned when the second “THE END” rolled down the screen.

 At that price we never saw first run movies.  Usually they were westerns with John Wayne or Glenn Ford or Jimmy Stewart, or romantic comedies with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.  Occasionally we got an old Biblical epic like David and Bathsheba or Sodom and Gomorrah, both about as scripturally accurate as those westerns were historically accurate, which is to say, not very.  The only Disney we got was Tron, but that was back when it was a bomb not a cult classic.  Still, we enjoyed our family outing every other month or so.

 And we got one thing that I am positive no one born after 1970 ever got.  When the screen finally lit up about ten minutes before the movie started, after the Coming Attractions and ads for the snacks at the concession stand—and oh, could we smell that popcorn and butter all night long—was the following ad, complete with voiceover in case you missed the point.  “CH__ CH.  What’s missing?  U R.  Join the church of your choice and attend this Sunday.”  And that was not an ad from any of the local denominations—it was a public service announcement!

 But this is what we all did—instead of being grateful that anything like that would even be put out for the general public, we fussed about its inaccuracy.  We were bad, as my Daddy would say, about living in the objective case.  When that’s all you see, you miss some prime teaching opportunities.

 So let’s get this out of the way first.  It isn’t our choice, it’s God’s.  It is, more to the point since he built it and died for it, the Lord’s church.  We should be looking not for a church that teaches what we like to hear, but what he taught, obeying his commands, not our preferences.  And you don’t “join” it.  The Lord is the one who adds to the church, the church in the kingdom sense, which is the only word used in the New Testament for what we in our “greater” wisdom call the “universal” sense.  But that’s where we miss the teaching opportunity because for some reason we ignore this verse:

 And when [Saul] was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple, Acts 9:26.

 Did you see that?  Immediately after his conversion, Saul tried to join a local group, what we insist on calling “placing membership” in spite of that phrase never appearing anywhere in the text.  (For people who claim to “use Bible words for Bible things” we are certainly inconsistent.)  The New Testament example over and over is to be a part of a local group of believers—not to think you can be a Christian independent of any local congregation or simply float from group to group. 

 Why do people do that?  Because joining oneself to a group involves accountability to that group, and especially to the leadership of that group.  It involves serving other Christians.  It involves growing in knowledge.  It means I must arrange my schedule around their meetings rather than my worldly priorities.  The New Testament is clear that some things cannot be done outside the assembly.  I Cor 5:4,5; 1 Cor 11 and 16, along with Acts 20 are the obvious ones.  That doesn’t count the times they all came together to receive reports, e.g. Acts 14:27, and plain statements like “the elders among you” which logically infers a group that met together.  Then there are all those “one another” passages that I cannot do if there is no “one another” for me to do them with.

 We are called the flock of God in several passages.  You may find a lone wolf out in the wild once in awhile, but you will never find a lone sheep that isn’t alone because he is anything but lost.  It is my responsibility to be part of a group of believers.  We encourage one another, we help one another, we serve another.  Our pooling our assets means we can evangelize the city we live in, the country we live in, even the world.  It means we can help those among us who are needy.  It means we can purchase and make use of tools that we could not otherwise afford.  It means we can pool talents and actually have enough members available for teaching classes without experiencing burn-out.  It means we are far more likely to find men qualified to tend “the flock of God among them.”

 So while God may add me to the kingdom when I submit to His will in baptism, it is my duty to find a group of like-minded brothers and sisters and serve along side them.  Serve—not be served.  Saul had a hard time “joining himself” to the church in Jerusalem because of his past, but Barnabas knew it was the right thing for him to do and paved the way. 

 CH__CH.  What’s missing?  Is it you?

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, 1 Thes 5:11-14

Dene Ward

Monday morning I was outside for a good while, exercising Chloe, feeding the birds, pruning some dormant perennials in hopes of a good summer’s bloom.  While I puttered around, my mind wandered here and there, but eventually stayed on an idea for a devotional.  By the time I finished I had the thing half-written in my head, a good introduction, a nice outline, and even a punchy ending.  But I came in needing to study for my Tuesday morning class, a study that took nearly three arduous hours and left my brain frazzled, my neck aching from poring over the books and papers, and my eyes needing to do something besides focus so intently.

 The next day I spent in town, our usual one day a week of Bible class and all the stops we need to do at once to save the gas required for more than one sixty mile round trip.  Then Wednesday we left early for a dentist appointment that was one of the worst ever, leaving me fit for nothing but going to bed with a pain pill.  Then Thursday we had more appointments and by the time I sat down on Thursday night to type, my half written devotional was nothing but a vague memory in the back of my mind.  I sat for nearly half an hour trying to grab onto it as it floated just out of reach.  Finally I gave up and here I sit without that wonderful piece I was so excited about.

 I know this forgetting thing happens to you too.  Do you know how frustrating it is to teach something in a class, then six months later when it comes up in a sermon by a visiting preacher you can hardly get your next class started because everyone is so excited about this new truth they "just heard" the past Sunday morning?  I find myself sitting there thinking, “Where was your mind when we did this six months ago?”

 Keith feels the same frustration when he un-teaches a faulty concept that many have grown up with, watching the light bulbs go on one by one, only to have those same people repeat that faulty concept yet again the next time that passage comes up.  Yes, it happens to all of us—we forget what we have learned all too easily.

 Do you know how to avoid that?  I keep a notebook handy to jot down ideas that come up in my head when I don’t have time to sit down then and write.  The problem last Monday was not getting inside as quickly as usual and so forgetting to even put the idea in my notebook. 

 Learning involves some work.  I just sat through a wonderful class on a prophetic book I have never studied before, and never heard taught in any church anywhere.  What amazed me was the fact that only two of us were even bothering to take notes.  How much do you think the others remember now, several months later? 

 Come let us reason together…God says to His people in Isa 1:18.  That Hebrew word also means argue, convince, correct, dispute, judge, and many other words that involve thinking.  God will not listen to anyone try to argue, dispute, or convince Him of anything if that person has no clue what he is talking about.  I will be that clueless one if I do not study the Word of God and meditate (think) on it.  I will be equally clueless six months later if I have done nothing to help myself remember what I have learned.  I certainly won’t get it by osmosis from the pew I am sitting on or by an airborne germ just because I am sitting in the building where it was taught.

 Rene Descartes was the French philosopher who came up with this famous notion:  I think, therefore I am.  The guy did a whole lot of thinking his whole life long, but on February 11, 1650, he stopped thinking.  He died.  At least he had that excuse.  What’s yours?

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen, 2 Pet 3:15-18.

Dene Ward

When Keith was still an “apprentice preacher” under the tutelage of some local elders, one Sunday he ventured into an interpretation of a passage that he knew was not the standard.  As he talked he noticed one of the elders grimacing constantly, and he knew he was in trouble.   

 As he tentatively approached that man after services and asked what the problem was, he was startled to hear him ask, “What do you mean?’  When Keith explained the reaction he saw, the brother laughed and said, “Oh that.  I was just having some indigestion.” He added that he thought the interpretation was sound.  What a relief!

 Despite that little misunderstanding, the Bible talks a lot about body language and what it means. 

 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people, Ex 32:9.  That phrase must be the most commonly used one I found in regard to body language.  You know exactly what it means.  Talk to someone you have an issue with and you will see his shoulders draw up and his chin point down, his chest poke out, and his jaws clench—all signs of tension in the neck area.  It means here is a man who has already decided not to change his mind regardless what you say.  Nehemiah says it this way:  and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey, Neh 9:29.

  Centuries after God’s words to Moses, we find this:  Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the LORD…2 Chron 30:8.  You can only “yield” when you are pliable, and these people were rigid, determined not to listen and yield.  And the trait was passed down to the sons, not because of genetics, but because children take their cues from their parents.  Still later we find, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you, Acts 7:51.  Body language does not change like spoken language.  It remains the same for thousands of years.

 Have you ever had a discussion with someone only to have that person start shaking his head no before you have even presented your reasoning?  The Bible describes people who were just like that.  But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear, Zech 7:11.  You automatically know that you will make no headway with that person.  In fact, you also know that you will not receive whatever benefits you might have from his study because the conversation is over before it even starts.  Isaiah says it this way: They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand, Isa 44:18.  You are only hurting yourself when you won’t at least listen with an open mind.

 Body language works with the righteous too.  ​He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure, Isa 33:15,16.

 Yes, you have to be careful when judging body language.  Sometimes a frown is simply a matter of indigestion.  But a teacher knows when the same person wears the same look of indifference, boredom, or agitation every week.  He knows when his words have struck a nerve.  Most of us are so obvious it’s embarrassing.  But he also knows when someone is eating up the study of God’s word, perhaps thinking of its application to his own life, perhaps eagerly wondering where a deeper study on the same subject might lead him when he returns home.  A speaker sees the nods of encouragement from the older members and even the light bulbs going off in people’s minds. 

 Just as so many years ago, we speak a silent language, one that is obvious to anyone looking at us, even those who do not speak English.  It’s a language that God can speak fluently.  Be careful what you “say.”

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,Heb 4:12.

Dene Ward

I read Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew about 20 years ago and loved it.  Keith read both that and Disappointment with God and was so happy with the latter that the church soon after had a class based upon it.  So I came into this book expecting wonderful things.  Unfortunately, this one doesn't match up, at least for me.

 When you study the history of the Israelites as they leave Egypt, led by Moses, it takes only a little thought to realize why they had so much trouble.  For 400 years or more they had no direct contact with God.  In Egypt they saw a culture with tangible gods (idols, often of calves) every day.  That is what they grew up with and so, expected from their own God.  No one had taught them otherwise, except perhaps a few whose families kept the old stories of the patriarchs alive, like Amram and Jochebed who successfully taught their own children.  But by and large, when Aaron fashioned the golden calf and told them that this was the god who brought them out of Egypt, that was far easier for them to understand than a God who only showed Himself in frightening thunder and lightning, and cloudy or fiery pillars.  They had to be taught that God was not a tangible being, and that was the reason for the second commandment, "You shall have no graven images before me."

 And so today, we Christians will often fall into the same trap.  "I can't see God in my life, so He must not be there."  Nonsense.  One just has to learn how to see Him, just like those ancient people had to, and sometimes we fail as miserably as they did.  So I expected this to be a book that helped with doubt primarily, and spiritual vision as an answer to it.  That is not what I got.  This book seemed like a group of people sitting around nursing their mocha lattes while discussing personal experiences and interesting questions, with no real practical help given at all.  It barely hung together, and that like a patchwork quilt without even a color scheme.  It was repetitive and somewhat boring.  Frankly, Os Guinness's God in the Dark was much more helpful to me.  After 100 pages in Yancey's book, I gave up and put it back on the shelf.

 If you still want to give it a try, Reaching for the Invisible God is available all over the internet.

Dene Ward

Have you fallen prey to it yet?  You post something on Facebook and then sit back and wait.  You check it every five minutes at first, then maybe stretch it out a bit, and before you know it, you have sat there for an hour or two and what have you been doing?  Waiting to see if someone “likes” you.  Yes, the quest for popularity affects the masses, and many make use of that pathetic craving of ours. 

 After this Absalom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate. And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” Absalom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.” Then Absalom would say, “Oh that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.” And whenever a man came near to pay homage to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him. Thus Absalom did to all of Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel, 2 Sam 15:1-6.

 Absalom made everyone feel “liked” and that “stole their hearts.”  But Absalom wasn’t even the first.  In Judges 9:3 the people of Israel had “hearts inclined to follow Abimelech.”  Both of these men were wrong for God’s people and were eventually killed, but that didn’t stop the people from falling prey to what was “popular.”

 Do you think that hasn’t happened to you?  Why do you wear what you wear?  Why do you watch the television shows you watch?  Why do you go to the restaurants you do?  Whatever is popular at the time steals our hearts because we think that by doing the popular thing we will become popular.  The problem comes when that affects us spiritually.  If I am wearing clothing I shouldn’t because everyone else is, I need a stronger character.  If I am watching inappropriate entertainment, I need to remember who I claim to follow. 

 The people of Israel were taken in by what was popular over and over again.  Ezekiel tells us “their hearts went after their idols” and “covetousness,” 20:16; 33:31.  Jeremiah talks about them “going after the imagination of their hearts,” 9:14; 13:10.  And why did they do those things?  Not only because they were the popular things to do, but because falling in with the crowd made them popular too.  Simply put, you can’t be different and popular in the world at the same time.

 What is your heart going after?  If it’s popularity and wanting to be “liked,” then you are prey to popular evils just like 99% of the rest of the world.  God calls us to be different.  A Christian doesn’t need to be “liked” on Facebook or anywhere else as long as God “likes” him.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ,Gal 1:10.

Dene Ward

Remember Pete the cat?  When anything bad happens to Pete he says, “Oh no!”, and now that is one of Judah’s favorite phrases, with his special little two year old inflection.  The last time we visited, we must have heard it a hundred times.

 When he found one of his toys in the wrong place, “Oh no!”  When his Mr Happy figure fell over, “Oh no!”  When he dropped his cookie, “Oh no!”  When a bean fell off his spoon, when his shoelace came untied, when his wind-up toy train stopped chugging along—all of these merited a loud and pained, “Oh no!”  Everything was a catastrophe for little Mr. Drama King.  But at least he paid attention to his world and he cared what happened in it.  Can we say the same thing about our spiritual world any more? 

 I remember when every member of the church could quote scriptures.  I remember when we all knew the basic Bible stories.  I remember when we understood that Truth was absolute and that our acceptance of and obedience to it determined our eternal destiny.  I even remember when you converted other people by showing them that their denomination’s practices and beliefs were not Biblical.  They would do their best to prove you wrong.  Now no one cares.  They don’t have a clue what they are supposed to believe, and neither do we.

 Now anyone who has questions about a statement from the pulpit, about a teaching in a Bible class, about the words of a new song is judged as having his knickers in a knot, as if it were something of no importance. His upset is inappropriate and unwelcome. He needs to “just calm down.”  He finds himself the object of scorn and ridicule, his concerns swept aside as the foolish rantings of a crochety, usually older, narrow-minded alarmist.  Never mind that this older person has seen things like this before and their inevitable results.  Never mind that he has the wisdom of perspective that the younger not only do not have but cannot have.  He—or she--is not respected, and never listened to.  His “Oh no!” has become the expected song for him to sing and so goes in one ear and out the other.

 God told the prophet Ezekiel that he was to be a watchman for his people.  He was to sound the alarm when he saw the enemy approaching.  Those people thought Ezekiel was crazy too.  After all, who else but a lunatic would lie on his side and dig in the sand, depicting the siege of Jerusalem for day after day after day?  Who else would not speak a word unless it was given him from God for week after week after week?  Who else would pull out a handful of hair, throw some of it to the wind, tie some in his robe, and then stand hacking at the rest of it with a sword?  None of that wacky behavior made what he said false.  God told him that when the people wouldn’t listen—and He knew they wouldn’t--their blood was on their own heads. 

 Maybe it’s time we listened to a few alarmists.  Maybe the alarm is legitimate.  At least they are paying attention while we often go along accepting anything anyone says (or sings) just to avoid trouble.  Maybe someone needs to holler, “Oh no!” once in awhile.  And maybe we need to care as much as they do.

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith…For there are many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers…whose mouths must be stopped; men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not… 1 Tim 1:3,4; Titus 1:10,11.  

Today's post is by guest writer Joanne Beckley, regarding one particular adventure while she lived in South Africa.

In deep dark Africa just south of the great green greasy Limpopo River, a sunny day began with pure shock and ended in happiness with, yes, a lump in my throat. Living in a foreign land requires unexpected adjustments of every kind in having to adapt to a different culture that works just fine for this part of the world yet can take us sojourners totally unaware. But these surprises actually mean adventures! And often,joy.

Last night my husband received a phone call reminding two forgetful people that what had been planned last month -- was tomorrow! So Dave rearranged his Saturday schedule in order to be prepared when the teen boys arrived for an all-day Bible class. I prudently made plans just in case any teen girls also came.

Morning arrived, with breakfast nearly over, when suddenly we heard a taxi (a large van) hoot at our gate. The taxi doors opened and out poured 26 LITTLE people! As the children poured through the front door, David had the audacity to whisper, "I believe this is your day!" Somebody lost a minor tidbit in that phone call.

Fortunately the 26 children (ages 5 to 14) and their Bible class teacher passed through the front door and right out the opposite door where they assembled on the lawn under a large tree in our back garden. I went straight to my workroom to regroup. Thankfully, African children are well trained to sit quietly and respond respectfully even to teachers that are in shock, so I knew I would survive. What I didn't realize though was how blessed the day would become.

The teaching day began at 7.30am (please note the time). Armed with five teaching projects, I began, using their teacher Violet Tshikhudo to translate. I don't remember much about the first hour. I think it was because I was still recovering from being told they would be sharing my day until 5pm. That is when the taxi was scheduled to take them all back home. The day was hot and muggy and sticky the WHOLE DAY LONG.

I noticed Dave was hovering, checking on me, smoothing my way in whatever manner he could. He even served the morning tea and washed the dishes afterwards. What a husband! What did I teach? I began with a paper exercise using a very simple time line to help me assess just how much Bible knowledge they had. We were able to scrounge up 10 pencils/pens and five pairs of scissors so the exercise went swimmingly, with everyone working on the tile floor. One hour later (that's one down!) the older children helped the younger ones clean up, and we went on to revise the hand motions for the Bible time periods. Violet had remembered what the Smith family had taught during their visit to South Africa, and she enjoyed the revision. In fact, she stopped me early on and coined the phrases in vha Venda and we all dropped the English.

Because, the children had not had any breakfast, we had a short break for bread and hot tea, their usual fare. Then it was back to the dining  room. I picked up my hand-drawn picture cards to prompt them telling me of Bible stories that contained whatever item was being portrayed. This worked beautifully. It was a nice way to revise with a group that has been well taught. (With each new exercise, I would ask the children why we were using visual aids -- especially to impress on Violet the wisdom of using eye, hand, and ear to increase learning. I have learned that using visual aids is a totally foreign concept to South African teachers, even in the public schools. Therefore, I try to only use items that THEY can reproduce.)

THEN I had them each draw a fish, color it, attached a paper clip, and then write averse on other side. I took them all outside to the "pond" (picnic table) and we fished with a magnet hanging from a stick/string affair to attract the paper-clipped fish,reciting the verse each time a fish was caught. I do believe they would have been willing to continue fishing the entire day, but I was ready to stop after the 15th fish was caught and every verse was recited by each child.

THEN we returned to the dining room floor and I used a lesson from my old 52-lesson booklets that I had made up for our boys back, waaay back, and then had translated. By now the heat was telling on me and I was so thankful that Violet was happy to keep on teaching, using these booklets on the Sermon on the Mount -- while I escaped to the bedroom and Dave turned on the fan.

30 minutes later I was informed it is now time for lunch. Their tea hadn't stuck to anyone’s ribs. Everyone retrieved their knapsacks, dug out their lunches, and retired to the big backyard tree. (I LIKE that tree!)

After lunch I also took them to the kitchen and placed four mixing bowls on the counter and we all made play-dough (flour, salt,water). Choosing the items Jesus referred to in His sermon, we fashioned lamps,altars, eyeballs with a log in one and a speck in the other, wolves and then covered them with a “sheepskin”, and last of all, two houses each. Amidst the laughter and chatter I found it fascinating to see how they visualized making each one of these items, although the lamp and altar had to be demonstrated. Toward the end of this activity, Violet just couldn't stand being on the sidelines any longer and she grabbed a chunk to make her own two houses. She rolled a piece between her hands and curved it over to stand on the counter -- and called it her house. Sure, why not, as they all were reared in round thatched houses. 

Now, came the best part. That afternoon, the children told me they had rehearsed two short plays to present as their gift to me and we all trouped out to the back yard.(Are you still with me?) With running commentary from Violet, I had a delightful time watching 26 children interpret two Bible stories: Samson and Delilah and the Prodigal Son. 

I want to describe the Prodigal Son as interpreted within their cultural understanding. For example, when the son went to demand his inheritance from the father, he knelt down to speak to his father. When the son gathered his fair-weather friends (8 of them) to spend his money, he took them to the shop (manned by four girls) to buy food. The food was placed on the tin plates they had brought with them and my drinking glasses. Then they went to the side to eat the food and afterwards returned the dinnerware to the shop. What had me giggling was their repetition of the phrase, "Keep the change." My laughter turned into understanding when Violet said this is how they understand what wasting your money means. Then the boy and his friends laid down to sleep and one of the friends dipped into the boy’s pocket and shared out the stolen money with his friends. The following morning -- no money and no friends. Seeing a pig farmer with all his pigs (15 little ones) lined up as if to a trough, he went to ask for a job. Taking my old bucket he slopped those pigs well,amidst such a racket of snorting! When the boy tried to also eat from the bucket, one pig pushed him out of the way. Returning home he went to his father who ran to welcome him. The father had his servant place the items on the son who then went to get two of those famous "pigs" for the feast. All the children chimed in whenever scripture was quoted which of course was an impressive amount. Truly a wonderful effort. 

By then it was 3pm (only??) and the children entertained themselves outside with a nice variety of made-up group activities while I taught Violet how to make unleavened bread using a thin aluminum pot on the stove. We used only the typical utensils that she has on hand in her home, and simulated her outdoor cooking fire. I never did convince her to handle the dough lightly, but we did get it rolled out very thin and scored so that it cooked crisp enough to break easily. Sampling afterwards, she pronounced the effort a success and very tasty to boot.

The last hour was spent with The Jungle Book video (they all liked the snake) and then the taxi was hooting at the gate. But wait, they had planned to sing a good-bye song to me before they left. So after each one ran to the taxi and then back to hug me and then back to the taxi, they sat and sang all four verses of "God Be with You"but to a different tune than you are familiar with. I thanked the driver for his patience and waved them off until they were out of sight. (Dave told me later that the driver had charged FULL fare for all those little bodies -- he had made a killing for sure! It caused me to pause and reflect on the sacrifice each family had made just so their children could come to me.)

I now have some wonderful new friends. Let's see, there was Tshinakaho, Rotondwa,Rudzani, Mulamuleli, Shumani, Khathutshelo, Ofhani . . . no, I didn't manage to learn them all. I asked Violet to write their names out for me and then later I read off their names to see who these funny sounds belonged to. And like the rest of us they loved hearing their names spoken.

When David returned (from his afternoon teaching at the prison), he very graciously took me out to eat. Oh, yes, and it rained big time AFTER everyone left. Now that’s a thanksgiving note!I hope you survived the telling. It was a very special day for me.

Joanne Beckley

Our late winter/early spring gardening chores include pruning.  Pruning is serious business.  If you do it at the wrong time and in the wrong way, you can kill a plant.  But correct pruning encourages healthy growth, more flowering, heavier fruit yields, and in general, better looking plants.  Correct pruning can also scare you to death.

 If Keith had not had an experienced friend show him how to prune the grapes, he would never have done it correctly.  Light pruning does not promote fruiting on grape vines.  It takes a heavy-handed pruner, one who knows exactly how far down which vines to cut—and it is much farther than you would ever expect—to make vines that in the late summer provide both greater quantity and quality of grapes. 

 Roses also benefit from good pruning.  Every January or February (remember that we are talking here in Florida before you follow this to the letter) you should cut off 1/3 to ½ of the mature canes, plus all dead or dying branches, as well as those that cross or stray out of the general shape of the bush.  That is how you get more flowers and larger blooms, and healthier, prettier bushes altogether.

 God believes in pruning too.  John 15 is full of the imagery of pruning grape vines, cutting off those that no longer produce and throwing them into the fire, which just happens to be where we throw all our prunings as well.  God has done a lot of pruning throughout history.

 The wilderness wandering was nothing but one big pruning exercise.  All the faithless, those men of war responsible for the decision not to take the land, had to die, and a new generation be prepared.  Do you realize that if you only count those men, on average throughout those forty years, 40 men died every day?  That does not count the people who died of accident, disease and childbirth, and the women and priests who simply died of old age.  Every morning the first thing on one’s mind must have been, “Who died yesterday?”  Those people must have done nothing but bury the dead every single day for forty years.  No wonder they moved so often.

 Then there was the Babylonian captivity.  Ezekiel worked for seventy years preparing the next generation to return to the land as a righteous remnant while the older one died off.  Pruning made them better, stronger, and more able to endure those months of rebuilding, and the years that followed.

 And what else was it but pruning that made God cut off some branches (Jews) and graft in others (Gentiles)?  They were broken off because of their unbelief, Paul says in Rom 11:20, and then goes on to say that if God will prune the natural branches, he will certainly prune those that had been grafted in if their faith fails.

 God still prunes.  We tend to call it by other metaphors these days—refining our faith as gold, Peter says in one of those passages.  “Discipline” the Hebrew writer calls it, adding that the Lord only chastens those he loves.  But all these figures mean the same thing.  Pruning can be painful.  The best pruning shears are the sharp ones, for the wound will heal more quickly the cleaner the cut. 

 We carry a lot of deadwood on us that God has to whittle away through the trials and experiences of life, and with our own growth in the knowledge of the Word as we learn what is and is not acceptable to God.  It is up to us to use that pruning, shedding the dead wood and cultivating new growth, bearing more fruit, higher quality fruit, and more beautiful blooms.  If I am not growing, I can expect nothing more than my whole vine to be cut off and cast into the fire. 

 We want to be that productive grape vine with fruit so heavy and juicy we almost break from the sheer weight of it.  We want to be the rose that brings the oohs and aahs, whose perfume wafts on the breeze to all those around us.  We must submit to the pruning of the Master Gardener, glorying in His work in us, no matter how painful, so that we can “prove to be his disciples,” John 15:8, faithful to the end.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit, John 15:2.

Dene Ward

That no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices2Cor2:11

 The passage above seems highly optimistic.  I have seen far too many—and I have been one myself—who not only are ignorant of the Devil's ways, but do not even comprehend that he might be using them on us.  I thought we might spend some beneficial time exploring the ways Satan tries to snatch us away.  How long this series will go on, I am not sure.  It may even start and stop as experience shows me yet more of those sneaky devices.

 One of the first places I think of to see some of those things is Proverbs 7, the warning to young men about unscrupulous women.  That particular woman seems to know every way possible to tempt a young man.

 Vv 9,10—She seems to know where he will be and she catches him there "in the darkness." Now he doesn't have to worry about being seen.

 Vv 5,21—She flatters him.  What man doesn't love to be flattered, but the younger they are, the more likely they are to believe it and not see what she is doing.  V 15—He is the special one, the one she came to meet.  Wow, can't you just see the pride swelling in his chest.

 V 14—Don't you want to be with me?  After all, I'm a good person.  I have paid my vows according to the law ("I go to church").  It cannot be sin, can it, if she has a good heart?

 V 18—Notice how she doesn't say, "Let's go fornicate."  Instead, it's "Let's take our fill of love until morning."  Calling evil good and good evil is a hallmark of the depraved sinner (Isa 5:20).

 V 19,20—And now she takes away the fear:  no one will catch us.  My husband is gone.  The word husband should have stopped him in his tracks, but by this time nothing will phase him.  He is marching headlong to his destruction.

 If this list won't stop him, maybe his pride will.  The Proverb writer calls him simple, naïve, lacking sense, take your pick of the translations of verse 7.  He is [dumb] as an ox led to the slaughter, v 22.  There is nothing special about him at all; he is simply one of many "countless" young men caught in her trap, vv 23,26.

 Most of these are not limited to this particular sin.  We can easily fall prey to many others through the same "devices"—flattery, being special or accepted, being able to hide (we think) what we are doing.  We need to study this chapter of Proverbs far more often than we do, and apply it far more often as well.  I don't believe I have ever heard it preached, and that may well be why so many of us are ignorant of these few of Satan's devices.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the DevilEph6:11.

Dene Ward