Redeeming the time

I am over halfway through my 20's, and although I'm still very young I am beginning to see that life is not as long as one might think. I wonder if as you get older you become more aware of the fact that life is short. Here are some Scriptures that challenge me to live for God today, and to efficiently use my time to carry out the great commission.

Ephesians 5:16
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 

I love the King James Bible in English, and I also love my Spanish Bible. They're the same Bible, and often times reading one of them helps me to understand the other. One example is Ephesians 5:16. Where it says "redeeming" in English, the Spanish says "taking advantage of". I want to take advantage of the time I've been lent.

James 4:13-14

13  Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 

14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 

Life is short.

Proverbs 27:1

Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. 

I don't remember where I read it, but I remember seeing a quote that impacted me:

"Most of us underestimate what we can do in 10 years, and overestimate what we can accomplish in 1 year."

I have a vision that will take decades to accomplish, but I don't want to get lost boasting myself of tomorrow and not being faithful today. Have you ever asked yourself how to be faithful in 10 years? The answer is to be faithful today. And then tomorrow, "be faithful today". And if you continue being faithful "today" then in 10 years you'll be found faithful.

Mathew 24:45-46

45  Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? 

46  Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. 

When I see the Lord, whether it's because my life on earth came to an end or because He returned to the earth for me, I hope that I will be found a faithful servant. What does a faithful steward do? In the absence of his Master he does what the Master bade him do.

Evangelistic trip to 4 communities

What do Bahia Murta, Puerto Sanchez, Puerto Rio Tranquilo, and Puerto Guadal all have in common?

They are isolated communities in Chile's Patagonia
They are all very small
They are without a Bible believing church
Their homes will each be receiving a gospel tract on Monday or Tuesday of the week to come
They are all places where we hope to start a church in the years to come

Although these are small communities, which might make them insignificant in the eyes of some, they still have human beings with precious souls for whom Jesus Christ shed His blood. These people are included in the "every creature" of the Great Commission. I am heading out early Monday morning with one of the men in our church and we'll be doing a two day evangelistic trip. I am so excited and cannot wait to see what God will do.Here is a snapshot of what our route looks like:

 If you would like to see some of God's greatest scenery then look up the names of those cities on www.google.com/images. I remember speaking with this brother about Cochrane which is a city in the southern part of our state. He goes there from time to time for work related reasons. He told me that not only is there a Bible believing church there, but he wasn't even able to find any church that wasn't Roman Catholic. What a great need there is in Cochrane! I can't help but think that maybe God is working in his heart and maybe one day he will go and plant an independent Baptist church there.

I have this 3 phase plan to get the gospel to every creature in our region and plant churches in every village. The planting churches part is part of the 3rd phase, but I have been thinking about the fact that maybe God doesn't want to do things according to my "plan". Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Maybe on this trip somebody will get saved and offer their house for weekly meetings, and then maybe we will have our second church plant in the works. God is good and serving Him is so exciting!

Note: this trip was supposed to happen about a month ago, but my partner had to cancel because of work; I'm so glad it's finally coming together!

Read the Bible through

I stumbled across a super cool website!

http://www.howlongdoesittaketoreadthebible.com/

If you test your reading level at this free website http://www.freereadingtest.com/, then you can use the first site to determine how long it would take you to read the whole Bible! I calculated if I read the Bible for 2-2.5 hours daily I'd finish it in just one month. That is with my below average reading speed. I read somewhere that the average reading speed of an adult is 250-300 words per minute and for a elementary school student it is 200. Surprisingly my reading level is pretty low, I came in at about 185 words per minute and scored an 80% on the comprehension test.

How long would it take you to read the Bible through? If you are the average adult reader then you could read the Bible through in one year by reading for just 7 minutes a day!

John 17:17
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

It's a cold one tonight. It feels like one of those set-your-alarm and put another log on kind of nights. It's about 20 degrees right now. Last night I went to bed with a good amount of rain coming down and woke up to a winter wonderland! It's quite a sight. I love the way the cherry tree looks like snow resting on its bare limbs, or the icicles coming off of the parking garage. The pine trees look majestic with snow on their needles.

Our missions conference went well with a great turn out of people. We're hoping to start supporting a second missionary soon; I am just being careful to choose the right missionary. In the last two weeks we've had some of our highest attendances. A Sunday morning with 26, a Sunday evening with 30, and this last Sunday night with 26. I've noticed that at times it is like we are two churches. The night when we had 30 there had been twenty some in the morning and almost nobody returned that night so really there were about 50 people in services that day.

Tomorrow we are doing a sort of "interview" to try and find a new teacher for Annie. It sounds like what we're looking for is someone who will be at the house for 4 hours a day. In the beginning the idea is for Annie to study for 4 hours a day and then when the baby is here then she'll probably dedicate some of that time to Spanish and then some of the time to help with some house chores like dishes, laundry, and helping with the kids. It was so nice having family around during Micah's early stages as we learned to adjust, and so I hope it'll be nice to have a little help when this baby is born. We still don't have a name for the baby, but I think we may be leaning toward Lucas Patrick or Patrick Lucas. Either way we'd call him Lucas, but I think Patrick Lucas Sheridan rolls of the tongue a little better.

Right now there is a special with LAN Airlines where you can fly anywhere in Chile for like $100 or less. It is perfect because I am planning to be in Santiago in December for my friend Yerko's graduation from Bible College. It will be great to see friends during that time even though I think I'll just be there for a couple of days (arrive Thursday and leave Saturday). In these early stages of the church plant we are not really able to get away for any great length of time. I think in 2014 though I'll be able to start doing some travelling to preach for others and to attend conferences. God is good.

In other news, I took a crazy spill today. I didn't expect the snow to be slippery since it wasn't ice...well my expectations were wrong. The scariest thing was that I was carrying a sleeping Micah. I've always been afraid ever since he was really little that if I was ever carrying him when I fell that my reaction to flail my arms would send him soaring into the air... The good thing today was that I had like a perfect fall and Micah didn't even know I'd fallen! That was the good news, the bad news is that my rump hurts!

Merkén

What is merkén you ask? It is a gift to the world from the people known as the Mapuche. The Mapuche are one of the indigenous people here in Chile. They are a proud people who were never conquered by the Spaniards.

While in Temuco I visited a city called Pillanlelbun (pee-'yan-lel-'boon <-- no idea if that is the proper way to spell how to pronounce something, but the ' means accent). There I met a pastor and his family who work the Mapuche. As we enjoyed dear fellowship they served us a delicious lunch. One of the condiments on the table was a small dish with merkén in it. As always, I went straight for it and once tasting it I pretty much dumped it all over my food. 

What is merkén? It has similar qualities to chipotle. Chipotle is a smoked jalapeño that is usually then put into some kind of an adobe sauce. Here in Chile we don't have jalapeños, but we do have some other chile peppers. One of those peppers is call the "cacho de cabra" (goat's horn). This is what it looks like:

What is done to the cacho de cabra is that they are smoked. Once smoked they can be used in many ways while cooking. One way I use them is to make a delicious colorado sauce. Back to merkén... After the cacho de cabra is smoked it is some how ground up with a number of other spices until the condiment known as merkén emerges. Here is what it looks like:

I have tasted various versions of merkén, and the general concensus is that the best ones come from Temuco. Having said that, I've tasted several from Temuco, and while I enjoy the condiment it is not really something I go super crazy over. However, this merkén that I ate at the pastor's house was definitely different and it was the very best I've ever tried. After raving about it they found what was left in the kitchen, put it into a bag, and gave it to me to bring back home! Needless to say, I have been putting it on everything since we got home. We have merkén coming out of our ears!

Teaching 16 times in 9 days

The trip to Temuco was wonderful! I’m so glad for the new friendships that we were able to establish and for being able to care for some old friendships. That week ended up being one of my most tiring weeks in a long time. When I laid my head down last Monday night I had taught 16 times in 9 days. Here is a recap of our trip to Temuco:

Wednesday

Take a bus to the airport, 1.5 hour drive

Take a 1 hour flight to Puerto Montt

Go to the bus terminal, purchase tickets, wait for bus, 2 hours

Take bus to Temuco, 6 hours

Take taxi to church service

Enjoy wonderful fellowship with the Pastor and his family

Finally get to our place where we were being put up at about midnight

Thursday

Preach a chapel message

Teach 1.5 hours in Bible Institute

Go to Pizza Hut while the Thompsons watched Micah (yeah!)

Enjoy a mall (I hate malls, but this was cool!)

Teach 3 hours in Bible Institute

Friday

Preach a chapel message

Teach 2 hours in Bible Institute

Go to lunch at a pastor’s house in Pillanlelbun (good luck saying that right)

Eat a delicious lunch and receive a bag of merken as a gift (more to come about Merken in a future post)

Get back to the institute

Walk to McDonalds (I hate McDonalds, but I’ve never been so happy to eat below average food)

Lay down for a little before getting to the bus terminal at 2 in the morning

Saturday

5.5 hour bus ride to Puerto Montt

Picked up by pastor friend and enjoyed breakfast with he and his wife

To the airport for our 1 hour flight to Balmaceda airport

Take the transfer back home from the airport, 2 hours

Get home and make a fire!

Living for the Prayer Letter

        In my meditations lately I have stumbled on a concept, “living for the prayer letter” I call it. It is not a positive thing, in fact, I’d call it a very negative thing. I noticed something happen the other day: I had just witnessed a victory in the life of a dear person we are working with and the first thing I thought to myself was, “Oh great, I can put that in the prayer letter.” My first thought was not, “Glory to God!”, or “Praise the Lord!”, or “I’m so happy for him!” Ultimately, when it boils down to it, living with that mindset is nothing but vainglory.

        Don’t get me wrong…I love to write exciting things in the prayer letter. I also believe that sharing good news from the field can be of great benefit to those who have invested in a missionary family and their work. However, I think sometimes as a missionary your work can slip from serving God to serving the church that sent you and the churches that support you. The work of God is so much more than sharing good news and getting a pat on the back! You can't lose sight of the goal, living for God and desiring to see Him receive glory. Here are a few verses that I want to keep in mind as God allows us to work with people whom He loves and as we report on that work to others:

Galatians 6:14

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

23  Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:

24  But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

1 Corinthians 1:29

That no flesh should glory in his presence.

1 Corinthians 1:31

That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 

1 Corinthians 3:21

Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;