behold, a new blog name...

Okay, so I was getting self-conscious about the lameness of my self titled blog... This new title is actually the name of a poem I've written recently, which I guess I will post on here so you know where it came from.

Touch Belief

Within the spacious folds of time
Below the broken mountains’ rumbling
Mankind, for all their wisdom climb
not...
but crawl through darkness stumbling.
An iron grate conceals their shame
While beneath, the weary worker paves
And though each tombstone bears a deep-etched name
Oak trees grow upon their graves.

For not by wisdom owned or taken,
Do the lofty sages swear.
Nor before a fleeting phantom
Would honest lovers’ hearts lay bare.

A seed of faith weighs in the balance
Pensive, with no thought of time lost pondering,
Captive thoughts in darkness ravished
Brought back through endless days of wandering
A breath of hope to parch a desert of longing
Grasped at by starving claws unprepared
Fleeting, contagious, the life’s blood of nations
Brandished on banners, by kings proudly bared

But faith is presumption, hope ignorance’ dream
If not guided and guarded and gained from above
For as thoughts without actions are waves without oceans
Life’s measure and weight must be balanced with love.

(c) A. S. G.

picture (c) Joshua Greenplate.

Our little group spent most of the month of February in Israel. We stayed in the town of Bethlehem in the West bank, and got to experience Biblical history come alive in our studies, as well as the modern political tensions in this area. It is incredible to feel the spiritual atmosphere here, charged with tension but, as our team felt strongly during an all night prayer set on the Mount of Olives, also charged with expectation for God to do something amazing among the people of this divided nation. One of the most encouraging encounters for me was meeting a Brazilian missionary named Rodrigo at the house of prayer. He has been working with the youth in Israel for about three years, and was sharing with me how they have begun to see a movement among the youth in Northern Israel who are hungry for the presence of God to transform their nation. In a conversation with some Israeli soldiers I asked them what they thought was necessary to see lasting peace come to their nation. One of them answered me "change has to come from our generation, from the youth. We must learn the value of love and respect, then we will see peace." I thought that was pretty profound, and I've been praying that God, who is in his very nature, love, would reign as the prince of peace here in this nation.

At Peter's house in Capernaum and at the shore of the sea of Galilee.

I couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed as I read through some of the old testament prophets and some of the gospels in places like Nazareth, Jerusalem, Jericho and others. God has used this land in amazing ways to work his plan for Salvation into human history. While I guess I had read and studied that before it didn't really begin to hit me until I had the chance to walk here. To realize that even the yearly cycles of rainfall in this region were designed by God to teach his people things about His character, just amazing. Seeing things like the significance of the gates in Jerusalem, the watchtowers on the walls and the field where (supposedly) angels announced the birth of Jesus to Bethlehem's shepherds really has enriched my study of God's word, and I definitely recommend a visit to anyone interested.

Inscription in Jerusalem "He is not here, he is risen!"

All night worship on the Mount of Olives.

An issue that is raging here and is every bit as intense as apartheid was in South Africa, or civil rights movement in America, is the Palestinian / Israeli conflict. Getting to meet with Christian Israelis as well as Christian Palestinians was a real privilege, and it was really interesting to get to hear both sides of the Israel / Palestine conflict firsthand from people on both sides of the political issues. Also interesting was having a really nice conversation with someone, then a Christian friend mentioning later "oh yeah, that guy is a member of Hamas..." huh. Studying through the Gospels in the last two weeks has impressed on me God's heart for unity between people groups, as we see Jesus reaching out to Jewish people, Samaritans and Gentiles alike; and his command to the Church echoes this example in Acts 1:8, when he says "you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea [Jews], in Samaria [Samaritans], and to the ends of the earth [everyone else].

Reading Joshua at Jericho

Cairo

Life in the big cities of Egypt is much faster paced than sluggish Nile which winds it's way through them. A land of complete contrast; desert, farmland, metropolis, wasteland, Christian, Muslim, Mediterranean resorts, and communities built of garbage. The team's time here has flown by, but I wanted to post a few pictures of what's been going on along the way.

The first few weeks we stayed in the City of Alexandrea, famous for an ancient library (the old one is gone but they've built a new one) and a giant lighthouse (again, gone but now there's a castle.) We were blessed to be in fellowship with some believers along the way, and my friend Tristan and I had a great time in the evenings watching the soccer African Nations' Cup with some of our Egyptian friends.

Fishermen along the Alexandrea coast

We stayed right in the center of Cairo. If "the city that never sleeps" was not already taken, Cairo would have a fitting nickname, it's busy... all night long. We visited the Pyramids today, and a few days ago went to one of the biggest churches in Egypt, which is also I believe the worlds biggest church that meets in a cave!

St. Simon the Tanner Hall of St. Mark's church in the cave

Garbage city is something I wrote about in my newsletter, but I wanted to post some pictures for you to see. As a school, it was a difficult but good experience to process, as we consider God's heart for the poor, his desire for social justice, and how we partner with him in bringing these things on earth as his Children.

Children on streets of Manshiyat Naser "Garbage City."

One of the PhotogenX students watching her step carefully.

Our journey continues on Sunday with a long bus ride through Sinai and up to Jerusalem. We will keep on studying, keep on praying, keep on living for His glory! Blessings
Andrew

"All things may change"

A thousand silver ships have sailed a thousand silver seas,
and hosts of saintly lips sang songs suspended in the breeze.
Prodigals one day regret their foolish fall from grace,
while sweet expressions briefly paint the most suppressive face.
Mighty trees make music on their slow determined climb,
mocking mans' futility, our mindless march through time.
The waves of every ocean join to crash upon the sand,
while soldiers blindly follow every officers' command.
A runner's starting steps are vindicated by his last,
and bright potential futures can be squandered by their past.
Because a thousand golden ghosts can haunt a thousand gloomy graves,
while captains on their silver ships must stand and face the waves.
For nothing here created will forever be the same,
and everything that's wild can in time be rendered tame.
The chain that binds the captive's feet will one day turn to rust,
and this tranquil world's a raging fire beneath it's fragile crust.
Warm rain that falls in summer is the winter's fiercest ice,
as fortunes made with toil can be lost on rolling dice.
The lips that sang the morning's praise will grace tomorrow's dust,
and souls who once betray you may cross oceans for your trust.
Not hopes, nor fears, nor fallen tears, nor footprints in the sand,
will endure the test of time, but by God's grace we stand.

(c) A.s.G.

SBS Mobile Core Course

I want to share with you a bit of what I will be doing in the near future...

We with the School of Biblical Studies here in Kona are passionate about bringing the Word of God to the nations of the earth. The school that I am leading now ends it's lecture phase in December, but that is not the end of the journey for me, and hopefully not the end for many of the students. In January I will meet up with a YWAM outreach team that will be on the mission field traveling for 15 months! I will join them in Egypt and teach a bible course over the next three months that they will be completing on the field. Their main project over this trip is to publish a photography / documentary project advocating for social injustice issues.

The three month course I will be directing is called Biblical Foundations for Photographic Communication, and will hopefully ground these students and their project in Biblical truth, as well as God's heart for the poor, the outcast and the destitute for whom they are advocating. I hope to bring an outreach team from SBS along for this time, to teach in the countries we travel as well as teach part of the course. Please pray that God would move in the hearts of SBS students to take all they have been studying to the nations!

The unseen vs. the Unknowable

Many post-modernists today accuse Christians, or more broadly “theists,” people who believe in some sort of God, of basing their life and their belief system and their values on “blind faith.” They would even go so far as to say that God demands blind faith from anyone attempting to follow him. The kind of faith the Bible calls for however, is by no stretch of the imagination blind faith.

Biblical faith is a logical progression of projecting past experiences and acquired knowledge into the present reality, and the future existence. What a Christian is asked to believe about the unseen is nothing more than anyone who claims to live in the real world is required to believe countless times each day, and certainly cant be categorized as irrational faith.

For example; my volleyball team has lost its first two games this season. The statement “I have faith that I will win a game” is not irrational for several reasons. If in fact, I did not play volleyball at all, did not have a team and there were no games to be won, this statement becomes unfulfillable and therefore irrational. The facts that (a) I do play volleyball, (b) there are more games to win (c) winning is a valid result to volleyball games, makes this statement something more than blind faith.

Take square roots. Can you describe what a square root looks like? How much it weighs; what color it is? When children are taught math they are taught the square root of four is two. Are they asked to believe it blindly? No. They are given examples, and the concept is explained and “mathematically proved” but no one in the history of the world has been shown an actual square root. The end result of mathematical training therefore, ends with faith; faith that the next time the answer to the square root of four is given; the answer will still be two.

The same could be said about gravity. Our faith that the next step we take will not send us rocketing off the face of the planet is based on our past experience of gravity, and our knowledge, however limited, of the invisible law. Gravity, which keeps our earth in motion around its sun, and its surface securely beneath our feet has never been seen, tasted, smelled or heard, but mankind’s’ accumulated experience with gravity as an unchangeable force touching one of our senses is enough for us to put our total faith in it’s reliability as a constant, unchangeable physical law.

Belief in a God who created unchangeable physical laws, mathematical absolutes and the universe they govern is not an irrational conclusion based on blind faith. It is the most logical conclusion then; that the unchanging laws that make the universe what it is are reflections of an unchanging creator who designed a universe in accordance with his character. What would be more irrational is to say that these “laws” unchanging as they are, are the result of the random occurrence of a spastic and unorganized universe which, by some miracle, managed to morph reality to conform to universal laws. Knowledge of, and faith in God, are the only logical results an examination of our acquired knowledge and experiences can bring us to: Faith.

Andrew Greenplate

picture taken on Mauna Kea, Hawaii