Holy, Holy, Holy

A few months ago I was sitting in church back home at Grace Point listening to a sermon and the Lord began to work a thought process in me that has been growing since. What I began to wonder and question is whether we Christians have forgotten about the Holiness of God. Oh sure, we talk about it and sing about it in song, but it seems as if it is not the foremost description we would give if someone were to ask us about the attributes of God. Perhaps we would say that He is the creator of everything; He is loving, kind and merciful; He is ever-present and all knowing; He is Father, Son, and Spirit; He is with us always; He became the sacrificial lamb in Jesus to make atonement for our sin...

But would we say He is Holy? And do we think of Him first and foremost as Holy? I believe it is absolutely critical to our relationship with Christ to see Him first as Holy, and then to see His other attributes. To be Holy means to be perfect and free from any impurity and to see God first and foremost in that way will forever change our attitude when we approach His throne of grace. It is true that if we have been born again we are covered in the blood of Christ and therefore can come boldly to the throne, but boldly does not mean irreverently. Only when we see the true Holiness and perfection of God can we truly see the depth and filth of our sin, and then begin to accurately appreciate the gift of grace in the shed blood of Christ. If we do not understand the Holiness of God and do not understand that only perfection can be in His presence, then we will take for granted the forgiveness we have received. We will approach the throne with a cavalier attitude, feeling somewhat entitled to His grace and foregiveness.

The more we see the Holiness of God, the more difficult it becomes to excuse our own "special" sins, the ones we justify and make excuse for. When we truly see the perfection of God, displayed in Jesus Christ, we have no excuse for continuing in sin. I am not saying that if we are to truly see God as perfect and Holy we will never sin again; we are both flesh and spirit living in a fallen world and will never attain perfection in this life. BUT, to willfully continue in sin is the worst form of disrespect to a Holy God. We say "I just can't help myself", "I have no control", "I'm only human, after all", or any other of a thousand excuses to allow ourselves to continue in our sinful ways, and then we come "boldly" before the throne and ask to be forgiven, knowing deep down inside that we have no intention of putting that sin to death.

I know what I write is true, because I am a prime example.

I met Jesus in 1985 in the middle of my living room. I had moved to Portland in September and was invitied by a friend to a Spirit filled church. Being born and raised a proper Lutheran, I had never seen anything like what was going on in that building and I was sure they were all crazy. People with raised hands and voices, praising God, a preacher telling me that I needed to be born again? I had no clue what that meant. I had hit rock bottom in every way and knew that I needed whatever those people had or I would end my life. Jesus came into my heart that day and immediately made some radical changes. But the warm fuzzy high of being a new babe in Christ began to fade and 5 years later I found myself back in the pig pen, slopping around in my old ways. For 8 years I lived my life in a way that NO ONE would know that I was a believer. I was a Christian in label only, stating that I was "backslidden". The Holy Spirit was living in me, however, and I lived in continual turmoil. I knew what was right, but I would not bend my selfish will and instead excused my behavior in any way I could. It wasn't until 1998 after my son Michael was born that I began to give my life back to God and to seek His will instead of serving my own.

The last 11 years has been a series of growing and stumbling, 2 steps forward, 1 step back, as will the rest of my life be. But only in the last 2 years have I truly begun to see the Holiness of our God and what that means in the context of my relationship with Him. When I come before Him now I no longer throw out a somewhat sincere prayer asking to be forgiven for such and such. No, now I am beginning to see the depth of my sin, to see how undeserving I am of forgiveness, and am beginning to have true gratitude that He gives it to me anyway.

In order to come to Honduras and serve the Lord among the lost and forgotten of the world I have to see my own sin for what it is in relationship to the Holiness of God. If I do not, I will stand in judgement and condemnation of those we came to minister to. When I see myself as utterly hopeless and lost without the grace and mercy of a Holy God, then I can have compassion for others and show them the love that has been shown me.

He is Holy.

http://musicremedy.com/audio/index.cfm?fuseaction=showvideoplayer&audioid=34448&quality=11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV4so2jZLrg


Blessings,

Natasha

Merry Christmas!

Winter Hollywood Style!

Michael and Brian James with 2 of the boys from Friday soccer.

Brian washing feet.








Feliz Navidad!



Here it is, the first newsletter written from our home in Honduras. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year as we head into 2010. We landed on the gound in Tegucigalpa on November 17th after having a wonderful family vacation in Disneyland, and then visiting family in Phoenix. The last year had been such a blur of activity to get all of the details accomplished so we could leave on our target date, we were desperate for a little R & R. When we arrived in California it was a foreign feeling to just go have nothing but fun for 5 entire days. We hit every coaster and ride in California Adventure and Disneyland, spent a day at Universal Studios, and then went back to the two big theme parks to hit our favorite rides again! California Screamin and Space Mountain were the favorites by a mile. We visited Rodeo Drive (yawn) and the Walk of Fame…if you are a people watcher this is definitely the place to be.

From California we headed to Phoenix to visit with Brian’s mom, sister, and brother, and with my mom. We had an early Thanksgiving dinner and got to catch up with nieces and nephews. Brian and the boys hiked to the top of the “mountain” in Quartzsite where my mom lives and explored and old mine shaft. And we finally got to eat at Sonic and Chick-filet. MMMMM.


Life 101

On November 17th everything changed. After a frenzied couple of days buying furnishings for our house we began to see the reality of living in another country. We used to be two capable people, able to handle our own business, communicate well with others, and travel anywhere we needed to go; we were the ones that others came to for help. But now, in this new life, we are the ones that need the help, feeling about as adequate as 4-year olds. Our language skills are limited, we don’t know the city, and we don’t know what’s culturally “correct”. We fall into bed exhausted every night from the stress of trying to navigate the streets, trying to formulate simple sentences, and trying to understand what’s being spoken to us. We truly were not prepared for the amount of mental effort required to get through each day. Grocery shopping in itself is an ordeal, trying to figure out how to maintain some kind of resemblance to our regular meals with the ingredients that are available. Convenience foods (packaged) are limited so it’s back to scratch for many things and I have yet to find cilantro, sour cream, or whipping cream. Utility bills are paid at the bank and can be an all day affair as gun wielding security guards stand outside, wand you with a metal detector, check your purse, and then let only a few people at a time enter the bank while the rest wait in a line outside the building. Gun toting security guards are everywhere, including all the fast food restaurants and it is amazing how quickly it becomes no big deal to see guys with automatic weapons wherever you go.


The Work Begins

Ministry, however, does not wait for anything and we jumped right in with Brian heading to La Ceiba with all the Micah Boys 6 days after we arrived for a jungle trip. Hauner, one of the older guys, was not able to go on the trip due to disciplinary action so he stayed at the house with me and the boys.

After they returned Brian began joining Hector (one of the older Micah guys) for street ministry in the marketplace twice a week, then street kid soccer on Fridays where we rent a field in the heart of the city from 4-5pm. December 3rd the boys and I attended the Friday soccer game for the first time. Kids with glue bottles, teachers from the International School, and Micah missionaries all get in the mix for an all out soccer game. The field itself is very nice with Astroturf, high fences and a fenced roof, but it sits next to the river and the smell of garbage and sewage is overpowering, bringing me to the point of nausea many times. It was difficult to imagine living in that stench, smelling like that, day after day with no hope of ever getting out of it and I understood, if only for a minute, why the kids would want to forget about life in the fumes of glue.

December 11th we began implementing changes to the Friday night outreach to make it more of a Bridgetown type of event. The first week the only change was to a home cooked meal but the next Friday we were able to add hair cutting and foot washing to the night. What a blessing it was to make 4 gallons of Karen Shelley’s white bean chicken chili and to feed the boys until they were full, to see them sit down and enjoy the meal, to see Mil-Anos, who just 2 years earlier pulled a knife on the GPCC team, sitting calm and quite with his feet in a tub of warm water, and to see matted hair become nicely cut by a professional hairdresser that came to volunteer.

The changes were well received and in the coming weeks we hope to find a way that the boys can wash more than their feet and get some clean clothes, along with making the event completely drug free by requiring them to lock their glue bottles in a box until it’s time to leave. We hope that giving them an hour or two away from the fumes will help their minds clear enough so that they can begin to truly hear and see the gospel being preached with our actions. The light of Christ is able to penetrate into the darkest life and that is our prayer, that through our efforts some will see and believe.


Up Next…

In January we will have Hannah Rogers coming to stay with us for a 10 week internship. Hannah is the daughter of Jonathan and Carolyn Rogers who attend Riverwest and were very instrumental in bringing the church on board as supporters. Jonathan is prayerfully considering his response to being asked to become the President of the Micah Board of Directors.
Doug Winn will also be visiting in January and he and Brian will be meeting with the high rollers in the auto industry to grow the relationships that have already started there and to seek out a more formal commitment for equipment and support from those leaders. They will be evaluating available sites for the school and seeking to determine God’s will for placement of HIS school. Once a site has been obtained plans will then be made to build and/or renovate and to have the tools and equipment shipped down.

The boys and I will continue with home school and Friday night soccer, as well as seeking the Lord’s will as to how and when to begin ministry with the puppets. We’re hoping to talk Cindy Gellinger into a trip down in 2010 when we have our first performance scheduled!

Other than that, it’s just walking it daily. Amidst the difficulties we find that we are blessed to be so dependent on our Lord and to see His abundant provision, grace, and mercy for all we need. In one of my blog posts I talked about whether I truly believed all that I have claimed to or not, and came to the conclusion that what I had was Hope. But Oswald Chambers said it perfectly – “Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe.” And so we do, each day, choose in our minds and hearts that we will believe in Him, to believe that He has a plan and purpose for our lives, and to believe that He alone is worth everything.

I want to close with a quote by Joseph Bayly that Ann Riddell blessed me with:

Praise God for Christmas. Praise Him for the Incarnation, for the Word made flesh. I will not sing of shepherds watching flocks on frosty night or angel choristers. I will not sing of stable bare in Bethlehem, or lowing oxen, wise men trailing distant star with gold and frankincense and myrrh. Tonight I will sing praise to the Father who stood on heaven’s threshold and said farewell to His Son as He stepped across the stars to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And I will sing praise to the infinite eternal Son who became most finite, a Baby who would one day be executed for my crimes. Praise him in the Heavens. Praise Him in the stable. Praise Him in my heart.

Merry Christmas!

Prayer requests:
· For continued strength and stamina as we adjust to daily life.
· For our formal Spanish lessons twice a week with a tutor.
· For growth and impact in the street ministry, and deeper relationships with the Micah Boys.
· For the Lord’s leading in timing and all areas of the technical school.
· For continued health for our entire family and for more friends for the boys.
· For peace amidst the storms.
· For additional monthly financial supporters to replace “matching funds”.

Que quiero por desayuno?

Santos has been on the streets for many years. Brian met him on his first trip.

Flowers on the trees in our yard.

Micah boys + one Vindicator water gun = me running!

Crabs from the river behind the house.

Ready for the pot? The Micah guys wanted to go make soup...yuck!

Doug Nichols, the Director of ACTION gave us a good piece of advice before we left for the field. "No Bible, No Breakfast." So, with coffee in hand we begin each morning with some time in the word and prayer. We did this back home but were not as disciplined about it as we are here. Since arriving and dealing with the difficulties of transition we know so much more how absolutely vital it is to our survival to stay connected to the Lord. We also have found out how necessary all of you back home are to our survival...your prayers are palpable, truly keeping us lifted and moving each day.

Life in Honduras is not easy. Everyday tasks like grocery shopping, paying bills, and going to the bank require about 4 times more effort than in the states. Except for Sunday, traffic is insanely hectic. While everyone back home is complaining of the cold, we spend each day sweating and sticky...no wonder so few Honduran women wear makeup, there really is no point as it is sliding off your face by noon. The language barrier is frustrating, the degree of poverty that people live in is mind numbing, the bug bites are maddening.

BUT - there is nothing like the peace of knowing you are in the center of God's will. Amidst the difficulties and frustrations, we have an unbelievable sense of calm and a feeling of "rightness" in our lives. We look around us and focus on the beauty of God's creation, the trees and flowers, the birds in colors we've never seen before, the wind in the trees and the smell of lemons. We see the Micah boys with smiles and bright eyes when you hug them and spend time with them. We see the countenance of those on the street lift just a little bit when you talk with them and treat them with respect and dignity. We see the growth in our kids, learning a little more with each day that they, too, must seek the Lord and rely on Him for their peace and safety.

Tonight we begin another transition. Each Friday afternoon we have Street Kid Soccer. We rent the soccer field by the river and invite about 20 kids from the street to play. Afterward they are given a meal of fried rice and tortillas. But it's time to shake things up a bit. Beginning tonight soccer will be drug free. You see, the kids are afraid that if they put their glue bottles down someone will steal it. So they play soccer with it in their shirt, tucked into their pants or holding it in a hand. Tonight we'll have a box with a lock on it and if they want to play they have to write their name on the bottle and put it into the box for the hour and a half it will take to play and eat. Our hope is that as their minds clear from the effects of the glue they will truly be able to hear the message of the gospel and begin to believe they are all valuable, loved people created by God.

The other change we are implementing tonight is the meal. It's going to be Nightstrike Honduran style, with a homecooked meal. Up tonight is my home made spaghetti. Brian is off right now to purchase the thermal container to transport it in so it stays hot and I'm about ready to get saucy!

We'll be starting at 4:00 and would appreciate your prayers that the changes will be well received by the kids we are going to minister to, that the Lord would protect and keep us all safe, and that we would all be open vessels for His love, mercy, and grace to shine forth to those that the world has cast aside.

Blessings and love to all of you that stand with us.

Natasha

Keeping My Focus

We are finding that by the end of each day we are completely exhausted. The effort required to do everyday life is unbelievable, from driving in the city to trying to learn the language to the profound need seen everywhere. Please pray for strength and energy for us as we begin our ministry here.

It's late, can't sleep, listening to the rain and some praise music...and the power just went out. Wow, it gets really dark out here without any lights. Guess I'll head to bed.