JUSTIFIABLE DOUBT

June in Hawaii. After lunch, I asked her how she got in the wheelchair. Automobile accident. She had been in the chair 6 years.

I offered to pray for her, she was delighted. After prayer, I asked "any difference?" She looked at me blankly, as though the thought had never entered her mind. I pushed a little. "I'm serious. I have seen people paralyzed 6 years get up and walk."

Still no move to check it out. I didn't push.

Later I got an email that the couple had come back looking for me. She was now walking without pain!

The Shepherd has said that he can and will do things for us. Why are the sheep so doubtful?

Harvest Time!

It's been half a year since I posted to this site. This week I received two unsolicited testimonies from past investments. This first one is from a comment posted on my Walking with Jesus blog spot. I don't get many comments!

Hi hugh,,, you won't remember me, but anyway you came to my church early last year to preach..

It's been a year since that time, and now i'm in Singapore for university. i just want to tell you the seeds you plant in me personally has really help me a lot. It arouse my passion to love people. I am so motivated to shine for God wherever i am, be the light and serve everyone with abundant love God has given me. Oh, and you were telling us not to be afraid of being really religious. to be honest sometimes i just follow the current, when i can see no Godliness in school i cease to become Godly. It really is refreshing to look to my old notes and find the message you shared scribbled in it again.. So i thought i might look for you online to thank you..

this next one was in an email sent by the Director of the school I work with:

I have been meaning to share this to you but got sidetracked, so here it is.During the first batch of our senior high graduates in 2006 you gave an amount of money to one of our student. I would like to let you know that student has excelled in her studies in the university, in fact she got another scholarship entering the university. At one of the school project she managed to get excellent performance that the university sent her on an educational trip to Europe with all expenses paid.I believe the seed has been sown on good ground, we are eagerly waiting to hear more of her excelling in other areas.Thank you for your generosity and I look forward for more seeds to be sown in the future.

My Delight: Investing in People - The return is really

OUT OF THIS WORLD!!

Ai Yao

I had my last session this school year with two Chinese teachers. One became a Christian while still in China, and was well tutored by a foreign missionary. The other received Christ during a school retreat. This second one, Ai Yao, will return to China. My mission has been to prepare her to return to a family and community that does not know Christ. She says she knows of no Christian or church in her place!

So when Dennis Balcombe. who been missionary in Hong Kong for nearly 40 years, quite well known for his ministry in mainland China since as soon as China opened to foreigners again, came to Surabaya, I was keen to get her connected to him and the China church through him.

This happened this past week with meetings with Dennis on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I was privileged to have several meals with Dennis and pick his brain on many topics. I was pleased to find that he is a down-to-earth guy.

Ai Yao will be returning to China this week, and now has contacts. I have been feeding her in weekly Bible studies whenever I am in Surabaya, and Mary, the other Chinese teacher, has also been having Bible studies with her. I am excited about the prospects of miracles following Ai Yao as she prays for people and God demonstrates His power, and her being able to have home Bible studies that will turn into churches.

STRUCK BY LIGHTENING

Rev 3:19-20 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Hebrews 12:11 says that the Lord’s chastening is not pleasant while we experience it but it will yield its fruit in time. So the Lord standing at our door and knocking, after we have shut him out, perhaps gets more and more uncomfortable as he must knock harder and harder to get our attention. I have heard many jokes about being struck by lightening by the Lord, but while waiting for my plane from Manila in April it was my first time to meet someone who had been struck by lightening three times, in the same place, and still did not pay attention to the Lord. Finally, he said, there was an accident where a large piece of equipment fell on him, broke his neck and left him paraplegic. Slowly, he had been regaining use of his limbs. Now only some minor functioning of the fingers was deficient, but the pain in his neck was an ever present reminder, and he walked with difficulty because of this pain.

He had been in Davao, Mindinao, to visit his wife. There, they had started works to provide employment and food for the poor. He had met his wife on the internet (I’m meeting many recently, who met like this and are now enjoying healthy, happy relationships, a surprise to me with my prejudice against the principle!). We talked about the wonder of the Lord and the work He calls us to, about how slowly we are to respond, and the variety of methods He employs to call us. He acknowledged that he did believe the three lightening strikes, and the accidents, were indeed all attempts by the Lord to get our attention. He agrees with my understanding that if we don’t repent, as Rev 3:19 clearly says we are called to do, then the knocking gets harder, and more uncomfortable, even painful, until finally we do repent, and pay attention.

This word repent merely means stop going the direction we are going, turn around and go the other direction. In this case the direction toward the Lord and His will and work.

Conclusion: Sheep are really dumb, and slow to understand or respond to the Lord knocking, slow to learn from experience!

Has the Lord been knocking on your door lately?

REBELLIOUS SHEEP

In the past month, I have been ministering in several places, and have come upon a few ‘hard cases,’ people who hear and acknowledge the truth, but still want to go their own way.

One young man asked for prayer for a job. He got his job within two days. I suggested to him that there was a hindrance to his prayers being answered, for his dreams being realized. He acknowledged that he still liked sex with young men. He said he would like to change, but couldn’t. We worked with him for some time, and finally he came to the realization that he had but to choose to stop, and he could. He thought for a few moments, then asked "If I stop, what will God give me?"

He had received a job when he asked. He had received friends when he asked. I asked him what more he wanted from God. God had already given life, His own life upon the cross. God had already given all!

The young man said he wanted his dreams to be realized. I asked how old he was, and he refused, saying it had no relevance. I reminded him Joseph waited some 16 years, Abraham had waited 25. He acknowledged he had waited much less than one year.

He was bargaining with God, when God had already given all, and was offering the dream at the price of obedience. The young man could not, would not, give up his vice!

Another was a woman who was having severe difficulties for more than two years. She was hanging around Christians, but rejected a God who allowed suffering such as she was seeing. She is a race car driver, one of the tops! Some years ago, she had a death experience, with the black tunnel and bright light at the end and all. But her experience was a bit different. About halfway there, a figure stood before her. She could see only the shadow, because of the light behind. The man caused her to turn around and return.

I asked her if she had ever considered just who it was that had the power to send her back, or send her onward, who had met her in the tunnel. She said she had never given it a thought. She still did not want to explore this question, it seemed irrelevant to her. I told her I thought maybe whoever it was that sent her back had a reason, and perhaps she should consider thinking about who sent her back, and why. I suggested that God sometimes had to get our attention, and the Bible sometimes causes problems in our lives to accomplish this (Hebrews 12:6,11). If we aren’t corrected, he must resort to something stronger.

She did not seem to want to consider this possibility. Yet she continues to experience increasing pain and difficulty in her life, refusing to seek God or His will or purpose for her life. I am fairly certain that as soon as she seeks who it was that sent her back, and why, that these problems will cease.

We all are like these two in some ways in our lives, just not to the extent perhaps of these two. We have ‘blind’ areas of our lives, little habits or addictions we think are not too bad that we refuse to give up. Jesus gave all, so that we could have all. Yet we must exchange our bad habits in order to acquire the good habits that will allow us to live the abundant life he offers. We are all a bit rebellious and stupid this way!

VILLAGE LIFE

One place we went was to this village where we prayed for a woman partially paralyzed by a stroke. We traveled an hour and a half each way to get to this Muslim stronghold. After we prayed for her and had polite conversation, the women began to talk, and we men went outside to look around. An old toothless man came hurrying along and stopped with a big smile to greet me. I asked him what he had in the bucket on his shoulder and he lowered it and showed me the clothes inside. He was on his way to wash clothes. We followed him across the rice paddies to the pool created by a nearby spring where he went down and joined a woman who was already washing her clothes. Village life is very simple, and this is but one example of how. It was very poetic and beautiful, but I thought I would not trade my washing machine for a half kilometer trek across the rice paddies to wash clothes in a pool! I supposed it isn’t always sunny and nice.

I

I noticed some school girls gathered down the gravel main street of this village, and went to investigate. Turns out they were fifth graders on recess from the nearby school. The younger kids all ran away but one brave girl spoke out in English "What is your name." This was an opening for me to get them to practice their English, and I got all their names and ages. Just when they were about to sing for me, they were called back to school. Three girls, not in uniform stayed. I asked why they were not in school, and they replied they were sixth graders, already out of school. I sat and talked with them for some time. One wants to be a doctor, one a teacher (sixth grade) and one wants to be used by her nation. I thought this latter was an unusual but very noble and high desire. They sang several songs for me, including one which names all the Asian countries.

It was a very precious visit for me, from the humble dirt floor home we visited to the visits with the children and the old man, giving me a peek into the very simple and very hard life of village farmers in Indonesia.

--HWK--

SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP - NORTH CEMETERY

North Cemetery is a vast city in itself. Many of the tombs are bigger and better ‘homes’ than any of the thousands (millions?) of poor in Manila. And many of these poor take up residency in the tombs. Owners pay up to $6 a month for a family to take up residency. This provides a roof and area to sleep in exchange for making sure no objects (iron fences, photos, etc) are destroyed or stolen. Some of the owners also provide a drinking water supply for their ‘tenants.’

It is in this place that we had our second annual healing crusade. It is reported to me that our particular area is for sale, the bones have been removed and take to Europe somewhere. There are three crypts, two adult and one child, but a fairly spacious floor area some 6-8 square meters under the roof, which is crumbling cement. Our hosts have the key to the iron fence gate.

Most of our group is very young children and their mothers, with a contingent of teenagers hanging around outside, sometimes moving in and out. We have several lively songs, and I preach a message about Christ, his love, his healing power. A woman experiences relief from the usual back pain and fatigue, and with this, others come forward. One woman is quite fearful, for breast cancer has caused pus to be flowing from her breast. I didn’t get details, I have difficulty enough getting the basic information with the language! After prayer, she said all pain had disappeared. I had her go into the back with one of the ladies on our team to check it out. They came back and reported that the pus flow had nearly stopped. We prayed again, they checked again and reported just a pinpoint of pus remained. Relief and joy flooded her face!

Then some of the teens started coming in. I am not sure of the stories, but the change in faces, and the fact that others came in for prayer told me that something was taking place when I prayed for them.

One of the interesting facets of North Cemetery is the ‘Condominiums.’ I noticed some last year, now there are many more. These are high rise 2x2x6' square tubes piled upon one another, crypts awaiting sale and occupancy of dead bodies. In the meantime, many become places of refuge for the squatter community.

Surely our small gathering is not even a sampling of the lives in this strange community in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world!
--HK--