Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Are we there yet?

Keeping cool in Hawaii
I've been hearing from friends and family back on the east coast that they are going through a bit of a heat wave. It's been hot here too, but I am currently sitting in the shade, looking at my new Sourceview Bible, which arrived this week to the Kona campus, and is available worldwide. I can't recommend this Bible enough, It is currently available in the New Living Translation, but has been re-designed in the first major innovation of Biblical formatting since verses were added almost 500 years ago! Without removing the benefits of chapter and verse references, the colored text is accompanied with a small left hand column with information regarding who is speaking and how many times they have spoken in the book previously. As I am reading it, I have been realizing how much this format is helping me to grasp the events, the emotion and the progression of the scriptures the way the original audience must have seen it unfold before their eyes! Check it out Here!


School of Biblical Studies
In the classes I have been teaching, we have finished the major portion of the New Testament, and now we're starting from the very beginning; Genesis! I taught through Genesis last week, and each of the following weeks will be Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy! Those of you who have attempted to read through these will understand how much prayer the poor SBS students are in need of this month! Each book is filled with the richness of God revealing His Character to the brand new, baby nation of Israel, but they are really long books, a lot to process just reading, not to mention the in-depth hermeneutics and exegesis the students do for each book! We have the benefit however, of spending long hours in the Word in a place and time where God seems to be constantly pouring out his spirit in fresh waves, sustaining our passion for him and feeding our desire to see the things we are learning be spread to the nations! Pray for us also as we decide in the next few weeks where we will send teams on outreach, a couple of amazing options, I'll tell you more in the next update.

Some of what's happening in the YWAM world.
Over the past few months several of my good friends have been working on a missions' innovation project that is leading out in the world of science and technology. If you ever wondered what the first flying cars would look like, or what they will be used for, wonder no more, they look really fun to drive / fly, and are being used to deliver medical aid and the Gospel message to the world's unreached people groups. Check out the story that is taking some YWAM inventors / pilots / missionaries on the world's first ever international "beyond-roads" road trip!

Prayer for Nations: Palestine
Last year, I spent a month in the city of Beit Jalla, in the West Bank, a community of Arab Christians near the city of Bethlehem. While I was there, I learned first-hand some of the realities of their situation. It surprised me to know that the only medical aid and fresh water sources Palestine has to survive with come from across the border in Israel; a border the Israeli government has been building a 25-foot high wall on.
A few days ago, some of the communities in Palestine had gone without drinking water for almost three weeks. A friend from Kona released a breaking news story showing children demonstrating in the streets in front of their homes, which are without water. The video and pictures in this news report show just how day-to-day the lives of many Palestinians are, as they live in refugee camps inside their own nation. Join with me to pray for solutions to quickly and peacefully restore some of the most basic rights of human life to these families.

Palestine is a land marked with church steeples as well as mosque minarets


playing bocce ball (pine cone) at a Roman Catholic monastery in Palestine


I felt the Lord say to share this scripture with this update, I've been meditating on it... the light of His face... awesome.
Psalm 44:3
"It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them."