God Cares

 

Pastor John called to report several exciting things:

1.    He just returned from attending the first session at Point Loma in his Master's program.

2.    The church meant their budget requirements for the third month in a row.  In the prior year and a half this had never happened.

 

3.    Someone from the church bought floor tile and installed it in one of the basement rooms of the church.  The church flooded before we were there last July ,and this is the first of many rooms to complete.

 

4.    One of the members of last summer's work and witness team members gave money for living room furniture for Pastor John and Carla's home. They chose patio furniture because it is more maintainable with their son Peter's use.  The cushions are washable and replaceable. 

 

In our church, we have been in a study of Nehemiah.  Through the study of Nehemiah, we see that God cares about and watches over everything.  God had plans for Nehemiah and He provided.  Jesus told His disciples in

Luke 12:2-7  There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3 What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Pray for Carla.  She goes in for kidney stone surgery the 21^st of November.

Praises to the LORD

The long process of the roof and gutter replacement is finally finished.  Pastor John sent pictures of the new gutters last weekend.



                   

He also reported that Rachel, the volunteer youth worker was granted a local preacher’s license.  Her ministry is growing.  Another military lady has started attending church, and she started a women’s ministry that meets once a week. Praise the LORD for His blessings.

 

Bonnie Young

Riders on the Storm

Pastor John and Carla spent the last several years riding storms.  When we arrived in Hawaii, much like Job they were exhausted.

Job 6:11-13   “What strength do I have, that I should still hope?  What prospects, that I should be patient?  Do I have the strength of stone?  Is my flesh bronze?  Do I have any power to help myself, now that success has been driven from me?"

Since we were there in July, Carla took a refreshing trip home to Florida for her parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary.  The children went back to school.  The roofing project was completed except for the gutters that the church is paying to have done.  Pastor John was accepted into an online Master’s program out of Point Loma.  The new youth ministry is flourishing.

Their strength was gone, but God in His mercy sent workers, friendships, family, and resources to lift them up.

Continue to pray for their family.  God is not done working, and we are not done being used.

Bonnie Young

2x10 Removal Complete

Does the rain here in Colorado remind you of Pastor John’s hanging off the church in the hurricane?  Well, I have terrific news.  Last Saturday several men showed up to remove the 2x10’s that were put on the roof before the roof replacement started in July.  The men safely removed the boards.  Now, other people can put up the new gutters.  God has His timing.  He is never early or late.

Psalm 37:7  Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;

Bonnie Young

Children and Youth

Just a few days before the Crossing team arrived in Wahiawa a new family from Colorado Springs began attending Pastor John’s church.  Rachel the wife, had been active with the youth ministry in Colorado.  She told Pastor John that she would start a new ministry for the youth of the church.  What she found was a church family in need of ministry to both children and youth.  She recruited two other women and two weeks ago they started an active program.  Sunday morning, September 1 the church had 10 new people, and they all said they were there because the programs for their children.

Matthew 19:14   But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Sunday, Eddie put his latest song out on YouTube.  It is his testimony based on Exodus 14.  I put a link below to his song.

 

 The Crossing

Bonnie Young

Prayer Request

Pray for the Millers and the Wahiawa Church of the Nazarene.  Pastor John has been working night and day for at least the last two months.  He prepared for our team in early July.  After we left he invested in finishing the roofing and then he spent the next two weeks being “Mr. Mom” while Carla visited her parents in Florida.  Since Carla returned home, Pastor John and their son Hunter tried to take down the twelve foot long  2 X 10s that the men had put up to stop roofing materials from falling off the roof during  construction.  The pieces of wood are too large for two people to handle.  The board Pastor John and Hunter tried to remove fell and almost hit their car.  They need help but the men that were involved when we were there are not able or have not helped.  Ryan is assigned to weekend duty.  Scott shipped out to sea.  Eddie was told that he would work every Sunday and take a cut in pay.  He turned in his resignation.  Other men are experiencing difficult attacks against their spiritual lives.

Bonnie Young

Rooted

The July roof construction on the second side of the church required that the steel roofing material be pulled up from the parsonage side of the church.  Carla loves plants and had planted a small tree by the walkway.  Because the lanai extended to within three feet of the church for most of that side, the little tree was in the way.  It had to be cut down.  Carla was not happy but submitted to the needs of the construction crew.  When the work was finished, they dug a hole and stuck the tree into the ground hoping the it would root and grow again.  This week Pastor John sent a picture of the tree alive and growing.

  

Without application, this is just another story.  When we look into God’s Word, we see ourselves as a chopped off tree.  We are dead in sin.  Cut off from God.  Job said there was hope for a tree.

Job 14:7   At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

 But, for us there is no hope apart from Christ.

Colossians 2:6-7   Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2:13   When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.

Bonnie Young

Time of Storm

On July 27, twenty men came to complete the roof of the Wahiawa church.  They finished all of the roofing and attached the roof cap with adhesive.

Monday July 29 when hurricane Flossie hit the island one end of the roof cap whipped loose.  Pastor John knew that he had to save the church from rain damage and the steel ridge from ripping entirely off.  He tried to reach someone for help but could not.  He went up alone.  He tied himself off from their house and worked with his weight harnessed over the peak of the church roof.  Cold rain was falling at 4 inches per hour.  Thunder and lightning filled the fast moving clouds and wind whipped the steel around like a flag.  Pastor John managed to safely get the ridge screwed down, but as he headed off the roof, he slipped on the wet surface.  The safety rope attached to his harness broke his fall.  But he hung upside down suspended from the rope screaming for help in the rain for 15 minutes before a neighbor boy saw him and came to his rescue.

Pastor John said, “God is faithful.  I am unharmed.”

This past Saturday Pastor John and Ryan, a lay member of the church finished the job of screwing down the remaining roof cap.  Praise the Lord, the roof is completed.

Next week a commercial company is coming to put up the gutters.

God timed our trip to get the roof on before the storm.

Psalm 32:7 For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.

These lyrics was written by a British pastor, Vernon John Charlesworth 1880:

The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide,
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Secure whatever ill betide,
A Shelter in the time of storm.
The raging storms may round us beat,
A Shelter in the time of storm
We’ll never leave our safe retreat,
A Shelter in the time of storm

Bonnie Young

Completed Roof

Pastor John emailed that the two local church congregations came together on Saturday after we left.  Twenty  volunteers showed up at the church to work.  Several of the volunteers were not part of the workers when our team was there or members of either congregation. Together, they complete the roof  including the ridge cap. 

Workers for the Harvest

Matthew 9:35-38   Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

The Wahiawa Church of the Nazarene asked God to send workers.  After about 10 months of planning, the team arrived.  Now, all too soon, our team’s work is over but we pray that the church has an abundant harvest and that their harvest continues for the pastor’s family, the people of the church, and the community.

 

God's Love In Action

Sunday afternoon we served a meal and gave clothing to the homeless in the Wahiawa city park.  The woman in the picture with the aqua shirt had had one leg amputated.  She and her dog are homeless.  She gets around with a very worn wheel chair.  Can you image being homeless and unable to walk?

 

Another woman told me that her father brought her and her mother to Hawaii when he was transferred here on a military assignment.  When he went to his next assignment, he abandoned the two of them.  They had no way to return to the mainland.  Another man needed a pair of size 10 shoes.  We only had size 9 1/2.  He tried the shoes on and they fit.  I told him that God made the shoes fit.

He looked baffled and replied, “I used to wear size 9 1/2.”

 

I sat with another man as we ate.  He said, I always say a prayer before I eat.”  Then he folded his hands like a small child and began to pray.  His brother, who ate lunch with us, said that he goes to three Celebrate Recovery sessions and two church services each week to enable his sobriety.

Jesus told us to care for those in poverty.  When we care for their physical needs, they may see Christ’s love for them through our concern.

Difference for Eternity

The team completed 3/4 of the roof by the time they had to stop work on Saturday evening.  They spent many hours tied in harnesses standing on a thirty-degree slope in the hot sun.  Rusted corrugated steel roofing had to be removed and lowered to the ground.  Heavy 3’ by 23’ sheets of green metal roofing had to be winched to the second story roof then moved and screwed into place.  The roof had to be enclosed quickly enough that no rain damaged the ceiling of the church.  The roofers’ bodies screamed for relief after just a few minutes.  Can you imagine how they felt after several days?  They had sunburned necks, damaged knuckles, blisters, and sore backs.

“If the roof was the only thing that was going to happen this week, we failed.  It is not.  We are here to make a difference for eternity.” ―Pastor John Miller―

The apostle Paul moved from place to place preaching and teaching.  He never stayed long enough to complete a church.  He committed the newly started churches to God and moved on to a new city.  When he left Corinth, he told the congregation that knowing Christ crucified was above all things.  Through Christ’s crucifixion, we are made right with God for eternity.

1 Corinthians 2:2   For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  

Live as an Example of Christ

I intended to post more about other ministries during our trip but Saturday was extremely busy.  Instead, I want to make a comparison to Patches who I featured in yesterday’s blog.

How many people wear a Sunday morning behavior that is like Patches’ innocent face but as soon as they step outside the church, they jerk out of that “constraining behavior” and run to the paths of sin?  The Bible tells us to be an example of Christ to those we meet. Pastor Brian challenges us to live out the Christian life all the time.

Christ was evident in our team this week.  I saw our members joyfully carrying out each task of our mission, love with deep compassion, and act upon promptings of the Spirit.  I did not see or hear any “Patches religion.” My prayer is that God continues to use each team member for His glory and gives us an abundant Christian life.

1 John 3:17-18   If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Meet Patches

 

You are seeing the innocent face of a runaway.  Jeda and I tried to take Patches for a badly needed walk, and he took us for a run.  Four steps out of the house he pulled a Houdini and left me holding an empty leash.  Around the oversized city block, he sped past other dogs, along side of a busy street during rush hour traffic and back to the church.

 

Another way to help out on a mission trip is to walk the dog, that is if the dog wants to walk.

Second Trip

I went back for my second trip to the egg farm yesterday.  This time I planned before I went.  I took a van load of woman and little Jeda with me.  I bought four more flats of eggs and they gave Jeda a "baby egg."

 

The interior of the building is neater and cleaner than the grounds.

  However, the egg conveyor in the picture above is probably 100 years old. 

 

 

Ministry

Our days here have been filled with the church roof, housework, childcare, Bible school, and cooking.  God blended our team, so we came equipped to minister to needs that we were not aware of before our arrival.  It is evident that God cares about the obvious visible needs and has compassion for the heart needs.  This blog entry is intended to allow you as readers to see us in action in our many diverse roles.

 

Oh, the joy of a chocolate chip bar after a hard morning's work!