The Remnant

Remnant team, summer 2009, taken the day the events of this story took place

    "... don't worry," the operator on the other end of the line assured me.  "We'll have a tow truck out there in twenty minutes.
     "Thank you," I sighed.  This was frustrating.  I was responsible for a group of young teenage evangelists.  We had just finished a Summer Bible Club at a church in town.  All had gone well, with several children coming to faith in Christ.
     Yes, it was perfect, until we went to leave and my car wouldn't start.  Not only that, but my flip phone was as dead as the car.  The church allowed me to use their phone to make the call to Auto Club.  This was not shaping up to be a very good day.
     It was the summer of 2009, my final year leading the Remnant, a youth evangelism team I started in Riverside County.  Like every year back then, I had a wonderful team of eager students, ready to share Christ in Bible clubs and open air evangelism.
     Now, with the car dead, this greatly altered the course if our day.  Ugh!  The students would have to accompany me to the auto shop, instead of share the gospel...
     "The tow truck is here!" yelled Stacy.
     "Looks like a lady driver," Whitney observed.
     Indeed it was.  A wirey, blonde woman hopped out if the tow truck and approved me.
     "Hi, I'm Melissa.  Where do you need to be towed to?"
     As Melissa and I made arrangements and she got my car on the lift, my students seemed to be enjoying themselves.  I was glad.  At least this wasn't a downer for them.  But it was really too bad their evangelism for the afternoon was now cancelled...or was it?
     As we buckled into the truck, Stacy asked Melissa point blank, "Are you a Christian?  We are.  That's what we do, spend our time telling people about Jesus.". She, Whitney and Alex launched into the gospel in such a way that it really sounded like the Good News it is.  Melissa listened happily.  She told them they were the happiest people she'd ever met.
     My attitude about the difficulty was already changing.
     We arrived at the shop.  After a preliminary look, I was told I needed a new battery, new terminals and a new solenoid.  It added up.  Ugh again!  Well, these kids needed lunch.  No point in starving them on top of my other problems!
     "Let's go walk to the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut in the Walmart up the street," I suggested.  I didn't have to ask them twice!
     Their happy, joyous chatter lifted my spirit as we walked, even though my mind was stressed.  I felt God using them to encourage my heart, urging me not to dwell on worry.
     We went to the nearby Vons grocery store to get cash for the meal.  The cashier looked at my students and asked, "Why are you guys so happy?  What's your secret?"
     Stacy's eyes lit up.  "It's because we're Christians." Again, the students shared the gospel, and again, I was challenged to look at this another way.
     We had a delightful lunch with God-honoring, uplifting conversation.  My students' joy had won me over.
     After we got back and picked up my car, I drove everyone home.  I had a song in my heart the rest of the day.  In spite of the change in our plans, my team had done precisely what they had been trained to do.  That's what I loved so much about the Remnant team.  God just brought us so many divine appointments and taught us so many lessons.  It is my prayer that every student I ever trained still has that joy, and that they're still making a difference for eternity.

The Day I Met The Antichrist

   It was your average Wednesday afternoon.  Nothing strange that would foretell the odd events that were about to unfold in the religion aisle in the Borders Bookstore (I sure do miss that chain!). 

     I was minding my own business, comparing study Bibles.  In the back of my mind, I was going over the AWANA lesson I would be teaching in a few hours.  All was quiet in the store that time of day.

     "Hi there," a man's voice at the end of the aisle only slightly startled me.  I thought he might be an employee, about to ask me if I was finding everything all right.  A sideways glance disproved that.  

     The man was of average height, with brown hair and a most interesting suit.  It was old and worn, but it wasn't a cheap suit.  It was high quality material.

     "Hello," I answered politely and went back to looking at the Bibles.  The man stood awkwardly watching.  I decided to wait for him to say something.

     It didn't take long.

     "I notice you're looking at Bibles.  Are you a Christian?" He asked.

     At this, I got excited.  Maybe this was someone searching for the Truth, and I could witness to him!

     "Yes, I'm a Christian," I told him happily.

     "Well, I got saved at Harvest on Sunday.  I prayed with Greg Laurie," he told me.

     "Welcome to the family of God." I said.

  "Well, I have some questions about the Bible.  Can you answer them?"

     "I'll do my best," I answered, still feeling positive about this.

     "Okay," he launched in.  "So, do you believe the whole Bible?"

     "Yes." 

     "Even the book of Revelation?"

     "Yes."

     Here, he looked to be growing more concerned. After a brief pause, he slowly began his next question.  "Do you believe the Antichrist will be a literal person?"

     "Yes, I do."

     His voice dropped to a near whisper.  "Do you believe he could be alive today?"

     "He might not be, but he very well could be alive now."

     At this, his eyes filled with fear.  "No!" He exclaimed.  "Oh no!  Oh no!  Oh no!"

     I was alarmed.  Was this guy all right?

     Tears came into his eyes, but he pulled himself together.  "You see," he whispered dramatically, as if he were letting me in on a great secret.  "I think I'm the Antichrist!"

     I was speechless for a second, not sure if I had heard him correctly.  "You think you're the Antichrist?" I finally asked.  "Well, what led you to this conclusion?" 

      "I have secret powers," he was still whispering.  "And I have information that's vital to this nation's security!"

     I froze.  This was not what I bargained for.  What could I say?  Was I legally obligated to report this?  Before I could answer, he continued.  "I'm from the tribe of David!" This, he said proudly.  My mind spun.  

     "You could be Jewish," I finally stammered.  "But nobody knows what tribe they're from.  Those records were lost.  And there is no tribe of David.  David was from the tribe of Judah."

     I wasn't sure if he was tracking with me or not.  I went on to address more of the bizarreness.

     "You can't possibly be the Antichrist.  You said yourself that you became a Christian on Sunday.  A Christian can't be the Antichrist.  Besides, from my understanding of scripture, the Antichrist won't even come on the scene until all the Christians have been Raptured. We'll be in Heaven.  He may not even be born yet."

     My friend's countenance took a sort of confused turn.  "But I'm the most intelligent person in the United States!  I know how to get into Air Force One!"

     I felt a chill.  Did this guy want me to deny or confirm that he was the Man of Sin the Bible warns about?  Was this a way he was trying to seem important?

     "Well," I tried to continue with the momentum I already had.  "there are other reasons you're not the Antichrist.  The Antichrist isn't going to worry or wonder about who he is, the way you are.  He's going to know, and be very deliberate about it."

     My friend who was not really the Antichrist seemed to be listening.  I launched forward.

     "The Antichrist isn't going to call himself the Antichrist to people.  He's going to be a world leader who performs signs and wonders and deceives people."

     Tears came back to to his eyes.  "That's me to a T!"

     What could I say?

     "Look," I told him.  "You'll have to trust me on this.  You're not the Antichrist."

     I'm not sure if I resolved any of his confusion.  I felt creepy inside as I went on with my day.  As I drove to AWANA that night, I couldn't shake the experience.  He obviously wasn't well.  Mostly, he'd been very upset with the idea, but it had seemed he was disappointed when I shot down the possibility, as if a part of him really did want to be the Antichrist.  The concept of someone wanting that sent shivers through me.

     Well, I pulled into the parking lot at church and...it was deserted!  Not a soul.  Could it be that--

     No, I sighed in relief as Pastor Mike drove into the parking lot.  I ran to tell him about my adventures with the Antichrist at Borders Bookstore.  His response?

     "You should have gotten his autograph!"

    Alas, a lost opportunity to have the Antichrist's autograph.  

Substitute Teacher

     "Where is he?" 8-year-old Darren looked out the classroom window.  "Mr. Heinz is almost never late!"
     I was concerned too.  Mr. Heinz was the teacher of the third and fourth grade Sunday school class back in 1991.  We were all a close-knit church family.  Most of us lived in Corona, CA, and were very active in the small church's ministries, such as AWANA, Bible study, and of course Sunday school.  In fact, Mr. Heinz's wife was the principal of our new home school group.  We church kids really grew up together in a good sense of the word.
   "I don't know where he is," I answered.  "They were all at AWANA Wednesday." I racked my almost-ten-year-old brain for a reason why our teacher would be late.
     We all turned as we heard the door down the hall open.  Was it Mr. Heinz?
     "Hi, kids," it was my dad, the adult Sunday school teacher.  Was he teaching us?
     "What's going on, Dad?" I asked.
     "Mr. Heinz is sick.  We just got word.  He had appendicitis.  You'll have to go to Mr. Snow's* class [not his real name]."
     I think everyone wanted to groan.  Mr. Snow was the fifth and sixth grade teacher that year.  His room was just down the hall.
     Knowing there was no other option, we all shuffled down the hall, hoping for a good class experience, but prepared for otherwise.
     "Hi, guys!". Mr. Snow grinned merrily as we walked into the room at the far end of the hall.  He was as jolly as Saint Nicholas himself...but somewhere, buried not so deeply, was a raging volcano, ready to erupt at a moment's notice.
     "Hi, Mr. Snow!" I replied for the class, hoping to keep him happy.
     Class that day was relatively painless, if you didn't mind being lectured about how grateful you should be not to live in the Soviet Union.  Beyond that, we read the Sunday school quarterlies.  That's how to teach a class when you don't want to prepare!  Complain about foreign dictatorships and read pre-written material.
     "These words are hard," a couple of the third graders complained about the fifth and sixth grade quarterly.
     Mr. Snow laughed, " It's good to be challenged!" This was to become his mantra.
     It is not! I thought stubbornly.  It's good when things are easy!
      We were told Mr. Heinz would be out recovering for a while.  In the weeks that followed, we learned more about being challenged than we ever wanted to know! I always felt that volcano was on the verge of eruption!
     One particular Sunday, Mr. Snow finally said something that hit home.
     "How would you feel," he began, looking around the room seriously, "if the Soviets took your Bible?"
     "Why would they do that?" One of the older kids asked.  "I thought they didn't like Bibles."
     "Yeah," I added.  "Besides, they can only read Russian and my Bible is in English."
     Mr. Snow laughed.  "You misunderstand.  I mean, what if this was just like the Soviet Union and we didn't have freedom to read the Bible?"
     Suddenly, I was struck to the heart.  At that moment, I realized just how much God's Word impacted every area of my life.  Without it, there would be no AWANA, Sunday school, church family, Bible camps, devotions at home, or Christian home school.  And worse, how could people hear from God without the Bible?  I realized that I had taken God's word as my right, taken it for granted.
     Mr. Snow continued.  "If you lost your Bible, you would have to rely on the scriptures you memorized in order to hear from God."
     Again, I was struck with the seriousness of it.  I had gotten awards for scripture memorization.  I knew dozens of verses, even a couple passages.  It was impressive in Sunday school...but stacked against the possibility of losing my Bible forever, it was kind of lame.
     I had to do better.  I had to take memorizing the Bible more seriously...and I would!
     Meanwhile, Mr. Snow warned us about the poverty of Soviet citizens, no butter for the potatoes and all that (one student asked if they at least had cheese whiz, that's what HE liked on potatoes).  Boy would everyone be surprised at the end of the year when there no longer was a Soviet Union.
     "Mr. Heinz still isn't back," Darren moaned as I arrived at class the next Sunday.  "I don't want to go in Mr. Snow's class anymore.  I always feel like he's mad at us."
     I was hit with an idea, one so good I wondered why I hadn't thought of it sooner.
     "Let's go to my Mom's class!"
     My mom taught Kindergarten through second grade.  She was a popular teacher...and she gave out candy!
     "Great idea!" Darren grinned.
    All of us third and fourth graders rushed to the opposite side of the building.
   Mom was just setting up her room."What are you doing here?  Aren't you in Mr. Snow's class until Mr. Heinz comes back?"
     "We want to be with you, Mom," I said.
     "We love you, Mrs. Heiden!" Darren exclaimed.
     My mother looked gently at us.  "Don't you think that would hurt Mr. Snow's feelings?"
    "What would hurt my feelings?"a voice from behind almost gave me a heart attack.  I spun around to face none other than Mr. Snow himself.
     THINK!  My mind raced.  "We, uh, we don't think we're smart enough for your class."
     "Really?" He looked surprised, then gratified.  Smiling, then chuckling, he said his famous line, "It's good to be challenged!" He swung his arm triumphantly, almost accidentally hitting the side of my head.  "Come on.  It's time to start class!"
     It was a subdued little group following Mr. Snow.  Our attempts to get into the fun class had failed.
     The fifth and sixth graders were already there. We all got to chatting.  Mr. Snow said it was time to pray and start class.  At the exact same second, Darren was saying the punchline to a joke: "I'm allergic to being a vegetarian!"
     Mr. Snow's face went from merry to furious in less than a sevond.  He may have set some sort of record.
     "If you're going to joke around, you can just leave!"
     Darren looked shocked.  "I'm sorry."
     "You heard me young man!  I've put up with enough nonsense!"
    Everyone was stunned silent.  Mr. Snow rose up out of his seat, made his way to Darren and glowered down at him.  "Come with me now!" He grabbed Darren's arm (not strongly or abusively, just enough to show he meant business).
     "I've had enough!  I've just had enough!" The teacher huffed as he and Darren disappeared out the door.
     No one said a word.
     Mr. Snow appeared out the window.  We could see him from the chest up, the top of Darren's head just visible beside him.  In the classroom, Mr. Snow had appeared the strong commander.  Now he looked lost, as if he were thinking, "Now that I have him outside, what do I do with him?"
    They disappeared from view.
     The seconds seemed like hours.  My heart pounded.  What was Mr. Snow doing to Darren?
     Finally, our silence was broken.
     "Well, let's start class," Mr. Snow was striking his hands together as he reentered the room.  What had he done?  My overactive imagination raced to the worst case scenarios, such as maybe he'd killed Darren!
     Class started.  Mr. Snow was jovial again.  He never mentioned Darren.  It was if he no longer existed!  Mr. Snow didn't seem to notice how subdued we all were.
     I will not leave you in the suspense we were left with.  Mr. Snow had simply left Darren outside in the front of the church.  Darren had ended up going to my mother's fun class.  While I worried for his very life, he was eating candy and playing fun Bible games!
     After Sunday school, I made a decision.  No matter what, I would somehow get Mr. Heinz back by next week.
     When I got home, I wrote him a letter, telling him how much we missed him and wanted him to feel better soon and come back.  I stuck a postage stamp on it (newly raised to 29 cents) and dropped it in the mail Monday morning.
    "Did you hear?  Did you hear?" Darren shouted triumphantly the next Sunday.
     "What?" I barely dared hope.
     "Mr. Heinz is coming back today!".
     There were cheers all around.  We all settled into our classroom to await our beloved teacher.
     "I'm just glad we're done with Mr. Snow," I said.  Some might say I spoke too soon.   Speak of the devil, Mr. Snow appeared around the corner.  My heart froze!  Had he heard me say that?  Worse, was he here because Mr. Heinz really wasn't coming back?
     But Mr. Snow looked happy.  Laughing, he asked, "Are you kids waiting for Mr. Heinz KETCHUP to get here?". He walked away, laughing at his own joke. Funny, but hadn't he disliked jokes last week?
     A few minutes later, Mr. Heinz walked in.  I almost wanted to hug him!  He smiled genuinely at the class.  Then he looked at me.  "Thanks for your letter, Janelle.  I read it, and it seemed to just make me better instantly!"
     My good feelings dimmed a little.  Instantly?  My letter had made him get well instantly?  If I had known that would happen, I would have written three weeks ago!  I was rather cross with myself.
    Oh well, maybe Mr. Snow was right.  Maybe it really was good to be challenged after all!
     *This very amusing story is true.  I only changed Mr. Snow's name.  Those named are people I have either spoken with about it, or I know beyond a doubt they would be okay with it.  Mr. Snow really did teach me the value of scripture memorization.
   

The Summer We Nouned a Verb

Our Summer mission team, 2001

     "God," I prayed, looking up at my dorm room ceiling, "thank You for getting us this far.  Thank you for all the work You did through us in St. Louis these past two weeks.  Get Kristie and me safely to Boston tomorrow...and Lord, give us someone to witness to on the plane tomorrow.  Amen."

    I was nineteen.  It was 2001, my fifth and final summer being a summer missionary before I went full into the ministry.  I was excited.  Several of us had just received training, and tomorrow, my teammate Kirstie and I would fly to our summer destination of Boston, Massachusetts (technically, we flew into Providence, Rhode Island and were driven to Boston).  I prayed in earnest faith that God would bring us someone that needed the gospel on the plane...but my faith about it wasn't that strong.  This was proven the next day, when I packed my Bible in the overhead compartment, where I couldn't reach it!

     I shouldn't have been surprised when a woman in her late 20's plopped down next to me (Kirstie had the window seat, I was in the middle, and this woman had the aisle).

     "Hi, I'm Belinda," she introduced herself as the plane started.  We made small talk for a few minutes, before Belinda asked us, "So, this is going to sound really stupid, but what religion are you and can you tell me about it?"

     I suddenly realized God had answered my prayer from the night before, and I was convicted of my lack of faith when I discovered that my Bible was inaccessible.

     Fortunately, Kirstie had Biblical tracts in her purse (more about that in a minute), and we were able to use it to explain the gospel.

     "Thank you," Belinda told us sincerely as the plane touched ground in Providence.  "You've really given me something to think about."

     So our ministry in Boston really began before we even arrived!  Wow!  What was the rest of out summer going to be like?  God was clearly at work!

     I could write a book about all the amazing experiences we had in Boston.  We saw so many answered prayers for people to be saved (and I never forgot my Bible again!).  We taught 5-day Bible clubs in urban and suburban settings. 

     I recall one of our small, middle class suburban clubs.  Only a few children showed up all week.  What was interesting was that the neighborhood moms showed up with their kids.  One was the mother of a four-year-old boy.  The kid was horrible, and the mother didn't seem to do anything about it.  She told us she let her son come to the Bible Club because the Bible was "great literature" and she wanted her son exposed to it.  She didn't see it as more than that.  But she took a great interest in Kirstie's Bible.  It was a study Bible with Greek and Hebrew in it.  This woman shared she was of Greek decent, and just seemed fascinated in the Greek portion of Kirstie's Bible.  One day, as I taught the missionary story, Kirstie quietly shared Christ with this mother.  We found out later that fall that this woman gave her heart to the Lord!

     My favorite club that summer was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just blocks from Harvard University.  We were told it was the most unchristian community in the United States.  The neighborhood was full of kids, all riding their bicycles around, but only four showed up all week (less than 1% of the kids in that neighborhood).  In fact, when our missionary leader Tom tried to encourage more kids to come, one of the mothers called the police (they didn't come down because we weren't breaking the law, but the woman came and yelled at us.). It didn't seem like an environment where God would work...but He did.  One of the students who showed up was a twelve-year-old named Erika.  At first I thought she had an attitude.  But she began asking questions about the Bible, clearly showing she was spirituality hungry for truth, and had been thinking about it prior to the Bible club.  She asked why Jesus had to rise from the dead... wasn't it enough that He died for us?  Could we still have eternal life if He had just died for our sins and gone to Heaven?  I was taken off guard, but God seemed to give me the answers.  I told her Jesus had to rise again to prove victory over sin and death, once and for all.  After club was over that day, Erika and I had a conversation about Christ, and I asked her if she wanted to receive Christ as Lord and Savior.  She said yes, and before I could say a word, she dropped to her knees and began weeping.  "Jesus," she began, "I know I'm a sinner.  I know I don't deserve eternal life!  I deserve to go to hell for my sins.  But You died for me so I could be saved and forgiven.  That's what I want.  I want to be saved from my sins.". By the time she was done, I, too,  was weeping.  The last day of club, she simply said, "Thank you." And that was that.

     Kirstie was very evangelistic with tracts.  She always carried a supply with her. Every day, amidst public transportation, walking, and just daily business between ministry events, Kirstie would hand out tracts to people we met.  She mostly gave out a really good tract called "How to get to Heaven".  I remember the first person in Boston she gave it to.  It was an Irish woman on the subway (the Boston subway is called the "T").  This woman took the tract with interest and read the title aloud, "How to get to Heaven," she said in a delightful brogue.  "That's one of those questions no one knows the answer to, isn't it?". We smiled and told her to read it and find out.

     Kirstie got so involved in giving out tracts that I gave her a nickname.  I began calling her "The Tractor" because she gave out tracts.

     After that, we turned the word tract (a noun) into a verb.  Kirstie would say, "I'm going out tracting." That meant she was going out to give tracts to people.

     I caught the tract vision too, and "tracting" became a big part of our day to day lives there.

     One of our craziest experiences that summer involved tracts.

     We were doing a Bible club at the Salvation Army.  Each day that week, we'd walk from the Salvation Army to our next club a half mile away.  It was a pleasant walk, and we would chitchat as we went along.  But even then, Kirstie would hand tracts out to people.  As I said, she usually handed out "How to get to Heaven."

     This particular day, Kirstie mysteriously had one extra, different tract in her pile.  Neither of us ever knew how it got in there.  It was a tract called "The Visitors", and it was specifically designed for witnessing to Mormons.  Using it for anyone else would have been pointless.

     So Kirstie and I were innocently walking along.  She's handing out her trscts, until, suddenly this different tract is on top, and the next person walking by us is a man (two actually) in white shirts, black pants, and name badges.  Mormon Missionaries!

     It all happened so fast.  Kirstie just naturally handed out the tract. And the white-shirted young man thanked her and kept walking!

     Kirstie stopped short. "I just gave that tract to a Mormon missionary!"

     Both Kirstie and I were from the western United States, and were familiar with Mormons.

     We turned and looked at the two missionaries who had just passed us.  The were walking away, looking down.  They were reading out tract.  Suddenly, they stopped dead in their tracks (pun not intended!).  They spun around and began pursuing us!

      What to do?  If we stood waiting for them, it would look like we had expected a confrontation, maybe even wanted one.  And we surely didn't.  But if we ran away, it would make us look ashamed of our message.  We decided to walk normally on, as if nothing had happened, and let them catch up.

    It didn't take long.

     After a very short introduction, the older of the two demanded if we thought Jesus would go around "dissing Mormons." Kirstie had on a shirt that said "What would Jesus do?" They seized on this.  "You're asking a lot of people that question, but you're not even doing it!" They told her angrily.
     They then told us the Bible AND the Book of Mormon were both the word of God.
   "Why do you need two books?" Kirstie asked.  "Why couldn't God get the message right in one book?"

     This flustered them.  The more experienced one said, "Bible comes from the Latin word biblia." This was not an answer, but a smokescreen.

     Next, I asked them to explain how they could believe Joseph Smith had really had the experience of visitation from the alleged angel Moroni when the Apostle Paul warned in Galatians 1:8 that even if an angel from heaven gave a different gospel, let him be accursed.

     Again, they were at a loss for a good answer.  Stammering, the talkative one said, "Well, the Apostle Paul wasn't really aware of what God was doing at the time. He couldn't take it." Couldn't take it?  It made Paul sound like a mental case!

     The missionaries then tried to prove a point by asking, "What did Jesus say to NicoDERmus in John 3?". It only took seconds for me to realize he meant Nicodemus, and was pronouncing it with an R in it.  But in that second it took, he moved on, and there were more important things to talk about than something as minor as a name pronunciation, so we let that go.  They claimed John chapter 3 was all about joining the Mormon Church.

     They called our literature "crap".  But eventually it grew less tense.  We had a really hard time getting rid of them!

     Finally, after what seemed like an hour of fruitless conversation, they asked if they could leave us with an old hymn.

     By this point, I thought, "Anything to get them to go away!" I was curious what Mormon hymns 

were like, so I shrugged an okay.

     They began singing, "The wise man built hid house upon the rock..." complete with hand motions.  The only sang a few bars of it and then stopped.

    "Is that a hymn?" They asked me imploringly.

    I tried not to laugh.  "It's actually a Sunday school song, but you can sing it if you want."

     After they left us, we got the giggles and laughed about it for days!

     I know God set that up, just as He set up everything else.  Maybe it made more of a difference than we know.  We'll never know until Heaven the full results of our "tracting" and other ministry.  Life has gone on.  Kirstie and I both went to Bible colleges, married Christian husbands, and are running the race marked out for us.  We're not in Boston.  That summer was so long ago.  Can the different happenings from over sixteen years ago still matter?

     Yes!  Those who got saved from that ministry are still in God's hands, fulfilling His plans for them.  God's truth went out, and it will not return void!  Eternity was touched.

     Not only that, but I also believe that nothing for God is ever isolated.  There's a ripple effect.  Only God knows, but maybe one of the new believers that summer went on to lead a dozen others to Christ!  And maybe one of THOSE people led a dozed others...and....you get the idea.  I believe doing evangelism sets a chain of events into effect.  But even for it's own sake, that summer touched eternity.

     Run the race God has set before you!  It'll be exciting in Heaven to see all the ways God used it that you never knew!  Maybe I'll see those Mormon Missionaries in Heaven!  I hope so!

The Brady Bunch

     Here's the story, of a silly baby...well, he wasn't a real baby.  He was five...but his behavior was quite infantile.  He had had another fit, and I had been summoned from the worship service to take him home.  The pastor's wife was teaching children's church, and, for whatever reason, my little friend decided to bite her!  Not only that, but he was tearing apart the classroom when I arrived upstairs.  

     "Not again, Bobby (not his real name)," I sighed under my breath.  

     But Bobby didn't care.  He ran past me before I could stop him, tearing down the stairs and out the front of the church.  Several of the men from the church elder board had joined me in the parking lot by this point, trying to help me corner the little rascal.  

     "What's Bobby done now?" his twelve-year-old sister Marcia (not her real name) appeared by my side, a note of laughter in her voice.  I would later find the humor in this, but not now!  

     "Got him!"  One of the elders exclaimed triumphantly, lifting the little boy up and carrying him (kicking and screaming) to my car. 
     "We have to take him home.  He had a fit and bit Mrs. Dunkerley," I explained.  

     "No!!!!!!!!!!!"  Bobby wailed.  "I want to stay!"  

     "Yeah," Marcia said calmly to the gentleman carrying her brother, "he does this stuff a lot at home."  

     "You don't believe in me!"  Bobby hollered as he was placed into his booster seat in the back of my car.  "You think I'm fake!"  

     What was that supposed to mean?  

     "Stop it, Bobby, or I'll call Mr. Monster to come get you," Marcia threatened, the laughter barely hidden in her merry voice. 

     "Do you want one of us to go with you?" the church elder asked me.  "No, I'll be fine," I told him (which turned out to be a little error!).  I turned to Marcia.  "This shouldn't take long.  You stay here.  Cindy, Jan and Peter (not their real names) are still in children's church.  I'll be back before church is out.

     That drive home with Bobby was stressful, as he tried to climb out of his seat and slap me, screaming that I take him back.  He almost caused an accident.  I half wanted to get pulled over, because at least a police officer could help me control this little maniac!  How had I gotten into this?

     God had brought this family into my life at a Bible Club I taught in Riverside.  Six children in one family.  They told me they were "Brady Bunch without the dad."  The reason there was no dad was because he was in prison.  He was in and out of jail all the time, and six consecutive times upon getting out, he had gotten his wife pregnant.  All six children in this family were full-blooded siblings, so the Brady Bunch analogy isn't perfect.  But there were three girls and three boys in corresponding ages.  The girls all had "hair of gold" and the boys all had brown hair.  To protect their privacy, I will refer to them in this blog by the names of the Brady Bunch kids: Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby and Cindy.  

     Out of all of the kids who came to the Bible Club, the Brady children were the ones God had clearly led me to be involved with.  Marcia had grown in the Lord over the years, and the summer preceding my present plight of driving Bobby home, Marcia had served on my junior high evangelism team.  She had demonstrated a real gift of evangelism, even witnessing to some Mormon missionaries.  Some of the "nice" Christians in town had turned up their noses at me for associating with a criminal's children.  My response was always the same, "It isn't the well who need a doctor, but the sick."  By the end of the summer, all six Brady children were attending church with me.  Bobby had his good days and bad there.  I'll never forget the day I was teaching children's church, and Bobby's team had lost a little Bible trivia game.  Bobby had gotten furious and screamed at the other children, "You're all a bunch of knuckleheads!"  He then began hitting himself in the forehead with his Bible!  Needless to say, all the others in the class got a good laugh at this, which only caused Bobby's rage to escalate.  He was a challenging child.  

     He wasn't only like this at church.  At school, he had thrown a rock at his teacher's head and tried to run away.  He had the janitor and several yard duties after him.  He was sent to a special, private school in town...one of the only schools left that was allowed to use the corporal punishment.  I can't tell you how much of a difference this made.  But the biggest difference came later that fall.

     It was at our weekly Bible Club.  Mrs. Collier (my co-teacher) and I taught a Bible story, always including a gospel message and invitation to receive Christ.  That particular day, Peter followed me to the back porch, Bobby in tow. 

     "Peter, I thought you already asked Christ into your heart at church," I said.

     "I have, but Bobby hasn't, and I want him to do it too!" 

     "Is this what you want, Bobby?" I asked.

     "Yeah!"  he exclaimed excitedly.  He was in a good mood today!

     I explained the plan of salvation, and afterward, Bobby prayed to ask Christ into his heart.  To this day, he is the only child I have ever seen get saved while jumping up and down and spinning in circles! 

     We all knew it was a real decision on Bobby's part.  He still had his struggles, but his conscience was more quickly stirred.  He began taking an interest in spiritual things, and acting like a beloved child of God, not a criminal's child. 

    The Brady children also began attending AWANA with me on Wednesday nights, right after the Bible Club.  I remember one evening, during the drive there, Bobby announced, "When I'm in junior high, I'm going to join the military, but I haven't decided which side to join yet."

     I laughed hard at this one! 

     The next week, Bobby told me, "Yeah, I've decided to join the America side, because we kicked German butt in 1945!"

     Even as I saw Bobby's ideals grow beyond himself, I saw his heart soften to spiritual things over the months and years. One day, he asked me for a Holy Bible.

     "But Bobby, you have a Bible," I told him, referring to the Kid's Adventure Bible I had given him.
    "No, that's just a regular Bible, I want a Holy Bible!"  He meant a black Bible with the words HOLY BIBLE on the cover.  Shrugging, I handed him a spare church Bible that fit the bill.  Imagine my surprise a few days later when Bobby showed me how far he had gotten.  He'd been reading it daily and was in Genesis chapter nine, just finishing up Noah's story.  He finished Genesis in three weeks. 

     A few months after he began reading the Bible, he made an interesting discovery on the way to church one day.  "Hey!"  he called out.  "What's that building?"

     "You mean that Chinese church?" I asked him.

     "I thought it looked like a church," Bobby said, "but how can it be, when the sign is Chinese?"

     "What do you mean?"

     "Well, the Bible's in English.  I know!  I've been reading it.  How can people who don't know 

English have church or Bibles?"

     I gladly explained that God's word is in virtually every language on earth.

     Bobby also began referring to Jesus as "Jesus Christ."  He always wanted to volunteer to pray at church, Bible Club, and AWANA.  He would begin with, "Dear Jesus Christ..."  It was priceless.

     One day, Bobby told me, "I really want to lead people to the Lord!"  How could I deny him this?  After church that day, I took a group of the church kids to the park.  We brought a loaf of bread, to feed the ducks in the pond (something they always enjoyed doing), but also brought tracts.  I allowed Bobby and his friends to share Jesus with other children playing at the park.  Marcia helped them out.  Her boldness was impressive to me.  At one point, she even engaged an adult woman in a conversation, and flat out asked, "Do you want to become a Christian?"

          The Brady family was not well off.  With dad in jail and six kids to feed, money was tight.  As Christmas approached, they knew they wouldn't be getting any presents.  While other children at church excitedly talked about the new toys they wanted, my heart went out to the Brady children.  One of them asked Bobby, "So what do you want for Christmas?"  I cringed, knowing Bobby didn't have hope of a present.  Bobby's answer totally surprised me. 
     "I don't need anything.  I have Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible, and that's all anyone needs to be happy."  

     I felt the tears pricking at the back of my eyes.  Of course I had to get them something small.

     God just gave so many fun opportunities with those kids.  That was one of the most fun times of ministry in my entire life.  Greg, Marcia and Jan all served on my evangelism team.  One year, I even took Marcia up to Bakersfield, California (Three hours north) to partner with a church up there.  We worked with their youth, doing 5-day clubs at an apartment complex.  Cindy and Peter came to help me evangelize at the County Fair.  One time, Greg, Marcia and our pastor's daughter got to be on a televised Bible game show, and they won! 

     Little Bobby always had a special place in my heart. 

     Probably the very most wonderful ministry experience I ever had involved the Brady children.  My cousin Rachel helped me direct a Christmas play at church, A Charlie Brown Christmas.  God was in it.  Bobby was perfect in his roll of Linus.  He did a wonderful job playing opposite Charlie Brown (who was played by a fine young man in our church, also one of Bobby's good friends).  My heart was touched beyond measure when I heard Bobby's sweet voice saying, "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about..." then quoting from the gospel of Luke.  This was what it was all about.  Not just the true meaning of Christmas, but the true meaning of ministry.  Serving God means loving the least of these, bringing them to Jesus, and discipling.  It means looking beyond bad behavior (like a fit in the church parking lot!), to the real person that Jesus died for.  That's how God sees me, and it's how He wants me to see others. He used my own personal Brady Bunch to teach me that.

    In December of 2010, when Bobby was almost ten years old, the family moved to Indiana. I have more or less lost touch.  What I do hear is generally positive.  Jan has kept in touch the most.  Last I heard, she was attempting to go on a mission trip with a church she had joined back there. 

     God used this time to expand His kingdom, and expand me. 

Is There Enough Grace For Me?

    No one deserves grace.  That's the point.  Grace is undeserved favor.  An acronym I once learned was God's Righteousness At Christ's Expense.  Yet, sometimes, I wonder if there is something I must do to be a candidate for, or recipient of, this mysterious concept we call grace.  Don't get me wrong.  I know God's grace is freely given, and all we do is place our faith in Him. I don't question God's grace, but rather the version of grace we talk about.

     Probably the greatest perversion of grace I experienced was the summer of 2004.  I was twenty-two years old, and loved the Lord with all that was within me.  I had joy in my heart, as well as struggles with depression (both of which I will discuss in further blogs).  I was discipling a new believer who would go on to become an overseas missionary.  Another good friend I was doing ministry with at the time is still involved in music ministry at our home church back in California.  I was ready to share the gospel at every opportunity, and daily sought God in the Bible and prayer. 

     I was a missionary in Riverside, California.  One of my favorite parts of ministry was Christian Youth in Action (CYIA).  As I'll share in the future, I attended CYIA as a high schooler, and loved it!  It was a nine day training, where teenagers learned to evangelize children in summer 5-day Bible Clubs.  After training, students would return to their home areas and teach the Bible clubs all summer.  I had seen the Lord work in my life, and in other students' lives.  What's more, the CYIA training was held in my home area, at California Baptist University.  This meant, in 2004, that it was my job to set up 5-day clubs in the area for the students to teach during training, and make certain (but not all) arrangements.

     Please keep in mind that we were an outside group using the University campus.  This naturally meant we were under some level of obligation to follow the University guidelines.  One of these guidelines was this: Female students could only wear a one-piece bathing suit in the University pool.  This was not our rule, it was the school's. 

     All students were told prior to training about the requirements.  As always, there were some students who didn't read the guidelines.  I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on that.  At worst, they decided the rule didn't apply to them somehow.  But as I said, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was an oversight. 

     Our state director's wife (my superior) whom I'll call Mrs. Lawrence, told the girls who showed up with bikinis that she was going to show them "grace" and allow them to use the pool anyway.

     Let's look at what's wrong with this so far.  Mrs. Lawrence superseded the authority of the University by telling girls they didn't have to follow the University's guideline. And she called it grace.

   If it were her own swimming pool, she would have been within her own right to change the rule.  But it WASN'T her pool.  She was out of line.  Whether or not she agreed with the rule, she needed to follow it, or find a different place to have training.

      After Mrs. Lawrence told the girls they could wear bikinis, she made me take them to the pool.
     It didn't take the lifeguard long to approach me.  I was shocked and embarrassed to discover that I KNEW him!  The lifeguard was in my college/career Bible study.  Narrowing his eyes at me, he asked, "What is this, Janelle?  Didn't your group know we don't allow two-piece swimsuits?" I awkwardly apologized.  He told me the girls couldn't stay in the pool.  I told him I understood.

     Getting the girls to come with me was a task.  They all blamed me!  Talk about shooting the messenger.  But this was only the beginning.

     When we got back to Mrs. Lawrence, she demanded to know how I could be so legalistic.  Really?!?  I'm legalistic because the University lifeguard upheld their rule?  She told me I needed more grace.  Then she again told the girls they could wear their bikinis to the pool.  She told me to take them back to the pool.  I flat-out refused.  I told her how embarrassing it was for me to be confronted by the lifeguard, whom I knew personally.  "Then you're too prideful!" She told me.  I was prideful because she wanted to overstep her bounds?  

     The swimsuit issue escalated.  Other modesty guidelines were overridden by Mrs.  Lawrence.  I had set up the Bible clubs these students were teaching.  The people hosting the clubs were my personal friends.  They began complaining to me about the conduct and seductive outfits of some of our students.  They felt it wasn't appropriate for evangelizing kids.  They were right.

     I got some other staff who agreed with me, and we approached Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence.  We shared the complaints we had received.  Before her husband could respond, Mrs. Lawrence began to cry.  She said, " If we did things your way, we wouldn't have any students at all!"

     The last night of ministry, one of my superiors (the assistant state director's wife, whom I'll call Mrs. Chatham) asked me to give a talk on modesty to the students.  I had about ten minutes to put an impromptu little talk together.  If I had to do it over again, I would probably do some of it differently.  But please remember, I was twenty-two and had just minutes to plan it.  And I don't think I said anything bad.  I challenged them all to walk in purity, and obey the rules.  I had a couple of guys even share their perspectives on girl's modesty.  After I finished, Mr. Lawrence (state director and final authority) and Mrs. Chatham praised my talk.  A few of the more godly students thanked me.  One parent who was present complimented it.

     Not everyone was happy with me.  One particularly nasty girl threatened to quit (really?  On the last night, you really want to quit because I challenged you to excellence?).  But Mrs. Lawrence was 100% on this girl's side.  This meant that I was in trouble.  Mrs. Lawrence was physically shaking as she raged at me.  Mrs. Chatham, who had asked me to do it in the first place, was intimidated, and backed off from the situation (even though this was her idea).  She left me holding the bag.  Mr. Lawrence backed off too, even though he had originally approved of everything I said.  He decided his wife was right, and he let her rip me apart.  Mrs. Lawrence told me I was directly responsible for sending people to hell.  She told me I needed to love my neighbor more (never mind that I had led my next-door neighbors to the Lord).  She concluded that I needed to have grace. That seemed to be her favorite word to misuse.  

     I decided that if grace meant to excuse sin and attack those who wanted to do right, I wanted no part of it. What was really communicated to me was this: there's enough grace for everyone but me. 

     My relationship with my superiors  was never the same.  My spirit was wounded.  

     It took a lot of healing in my heart before I understood that there IS enough grace for me.  God has been so good, and He sent some people into my life to show me His grace.  I have been blessed with opportunities to give and receive grace.

     I'll close this with a brief story from my summer evangelism team from 2007.  One of my summer missionaries broke a rule.  I had told the students that breaking this rule would result in not getting ice cream with the group. When this young lady broke the rule, I was really sad.  I loved her, and didn't want to withhold ice cream from her when everyone else was getting it.  At that moment, God gave me the solution, and taught me what grace was. 

     "Stacy," I said to her, "you don't deserve ice cream because you broke the rule.  I DO deserve ice cream, because I haven't broken the rule.  But I'm going to take your punishment and you're going to get my ice cream, just like Jesus took our punishment." The punishment still stood, but it fell on me.

     That is the moment I knew what grace was.  It isn't being soft on sin.  It isn't attacking others.  It's being like Jesus.

The American's Calling

     Since high school, my favorite book of the Bible to read has been Acts.  I love reading about the early church, believers just like me, spreading the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit.  I have wept at the stoning of Stephen, and rejoiced at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (AKA the Apostle Paul).  These believers seem like my friends...and one day, they truly will be.  I want to believe they feel the same about me, inasmuch as they make up the great cloud of witnesses as I run the race set out for me (Hebrews 12:1).

     My very favorite part of the book of Acts is chapter sixteen.  Paul has tried to go preach in Asia, but God keeps preventing him.  Through divine calling, he is instead persuaded to go to Europe.  Friends, God was thinking about you and me specifically in Acts 16!  It is our story as Americans.

     History tells us that the gospel spread through Europe, eventually making it to the British Isles.  In 1620, a band of Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to find religious liberty, to worship God.  America was and is that land

       Only God could have known back in Acts 16 that Paul was not only evangelizing Europeans, but also setting in motion the birthing of a nation that would in turn send out missionaries all over the earth, and be a place where people could come hear the gospel freely.  The United States of America has its place in God's plan for history.

     So where does that leave us as American Christians today?  Clearly, if God cared enough to change Paul's plans in Acts 16, He must care enough to have a responsibility for us.

     First and foremost, we, like my heroes in the book of Acts, must be ready to evangelize, regardless of the cost.  We cannot be complacent.  The Christians in Acts weren't.  If they were, the gospel would have been lost somewhere in history.  We have more freedom and resources than anyone else on earth for getting the gospel out to others.  Are we making the most of it?  Are you?  Am I?  Be aware of divine appointments.  There are unbelievers that the Holy Spirit is drawing, and God wants you to be the one He uses to help them find faith in Christ.

     Second, after evangelizing, we American Christians need to be proactive.  One of the most wonderful things about our country is that we are the people.  Our voice can be heard.  We elect our leaders, and even cast ballots on propositions.  As we exercise this right, we should do research.  Vote for candidates and propositions that support religious liberty.  That is the most important thing.  It truly is.  If we do this, all other important considerations will fall into place.  God set the stage for our Christian witness centuries ago.  It is our sacred honor to see that we keep our freedom to share the gospel. 

     Third, don't complain; pray.  It is easy to get on a downward spiral when we disagree with things our government does.  I could easily get on a tangent about things that upset me in our nation.  But complaining, or getting into doom and gloom predictions, will not help.  Many believers through history were in governments more evil than ours has any capability of ever being.  Yet they knew their calling was to share the gospel, and they never lost sight of that goal.  I think we also need to remember what America has gone through.  It is easy to think that we were so perfect and godly until now, and that if we make one more false move, we'll lose God's blessings entirely.   While God's blessings are His business, He doesn't want us to live in this anxiety.  First of all, America has been in trouble many times.  Our nation and leaders have sinned from the beginning.  Contrary to popular belief, many of our founding fathers were not born again Christians (though some certainly were).  Slavery, abuse, unfair labor laws...these horrible things and more can all be found in our history.  So today, as we rightfully bemoan ungodliness, we need to remember that our nation is sinful, and always has been.  We have had godly and ungodly leaders intermittently throughout our history.  The reason we have ever experienced, and continue to experience Gods grace is that we are a land where the gospel is preached.  May we be faithful to this calling.

A Displaced Calfiornian

     In January of 1848, history would be forever altered.  Gold was discovered in Coloma, California.  From then on, California would become a place of destiny.  Of dreams.  Of hopes.  Of triumph. Innumerable lives have been lived in California.  It has seen love and loss, victory and failure, joy and tears.

  

     Since the 1960's, California has been the most populated state in the nation.  I imagine this will cease to be true, considering the rate at which people are moving out.  So many of my friends and family have left in the last decade, mostly for places such as Idaho, Utah, and Texas.  I never thought I would join the ranks of displaced Californians.   God had other plans in mind. 
    It has been two months today since my husband Walter and I left the Golden State to follow God's clear leading to South Dakota.  We had a wonderful trip, stopping in many places we wanted to see, and visiting with friends and relatives on the way.  A highlight was stopping at four-corners (where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet).  I had wanted to go there since I was nine!  A place Walter really wanted to visit was Las Vegas, New Mexico (not Nevada).  I fell it love with the town once we arrived.  Perhaps sometime in the future, the Lord will call us there!  Until then, we are acclimating to South Dakota.
     I am really enjoying many things about our new home.  Though this blog won't usually be about comparing California to the Midwest (because, really, we are the same country and the differences are very insignificant).  However, in just this first entry, I would like to highlight a few things I have found, just for fun. 
     Terminology:  Californians call soft drinks "soda" while Midwesterners call it "pop". 
                             Californians tend to call their waste "trash" while out here, people say "garbage"
                             Californians call major highways "freeways" while here, they say "interstate"
     Politics:  Let's jus say I moved from a Conservative part of a Liberal state to the Liberal part of a Conservative state.

     Food:  Californians, by far, have better Mexican food.  The Mexican food we've had here is not very good at all.  We've probably been spoiled, though.  However, we have discovered meat in a new way in the Midwest, from their fried chicken to pork tenderloins (of course they have these things in California, but they are better here!). 

     Prices:  South Dakota is incredibly less expensive than California, which is a blessing to us!  For our two-bedroom apartment, we are currently paying a few hundred less than I paid twelve years ago for a one-bedroom in Riverside, CA. 
    
     Dialect:  Some people here sound just like I think I do, but many have a more nasal pronunciation.  Some sound almost musical when they talk.  We wonder if we'll pick up this north-central accent while we're here.

     Weather:  So far, so good, but I know winter will be a change for us!  Thankfully, we lived in Lake Arrowhead, California before moving here, so we have experienced ice and snow.  Right now it is slightly, but not significantly, more humid than California (side note, though:  California is dry compared to the Midwest, but is actually one of the more humid western states). 

Similarities:  Both states have kind people.  I truly don't see any difference in the people at all.  I am loving our church and the women's Bible Study, just as I did in California.  No real difference there. 

     Why start a blog about ministry perspectives on state comparisons?  Well, as someone who was active in ministry in California, I am excited to see the ways God will have me serve here.  Please continue to read my blog.  I will be sharing some very interesting, previously unshared missionary experiences.  At very least, they will make for entertaining reading.  At most, they can encourage and help. 
  
     Blessings to all my Californian and Midwestern friends (and my friends in other places besides!).