Praise
the Lord! The glorious and sweet season of spring is almost here. This past
Sunday, after the morning worship service, Alice and I drove down to
Washington. The Lord gave us a beautiful drive to our Nation's Capitol.
We were able to be with Sunita and her family, and to share some time with
their good friends and good neighbors Jenn and Rob and little Hannah. We got to
see again some of their other neighbors and friends. We spent some time in
prayer. Andy, Rob, and Ben, from Washington, are in the team that going to
Orissa, India on the mission trip in April. Thank you for praying for this
mission event. The centennial celebration will be held from the 11th of April
through the 14th of April. They are planning for an youth event that will
precede the centennial celebration. We are praying and planning to break ground
for the new multipurpose ministry center while we are there. Phase one of the
construction will begin in the later part of April. Thank you for praying for
this mission. May Jesus Christ be praised .
We will
gather for a special Wednesday Evening gathering at 6 PM. We will be serving
Italian, Indian, and Laotian foods. Andrew Rosenbarker will be giving his
testimony. It will be an anointed and blessed evening. Those of you live in
the area join us. Praise the Lord that He still sets the prisoners free, He
makes the wounded whole, He sets drug addicts free and clean and sober. He
gives new life to those who are dead in sin.
I
recently became acquainted with Storycorps. Storycorps is a nonprofit
organization whose mission is to celebrate the lives of everyday Americans by
inviting them to tell and record their stories. It's a pretty simple concept.
The Storycorps sound booth travels from city to city and sets up shop. People
are invited to bring one person with them whose story they want told, and the
two of them sit in a sound booth for 40 minutes and talk. When they're done,
they get a CD with their story on it, and another copy is sent on to be archived
in the Library of Congress. Their stories can be accessed online and heard
weekly on NPR.
I
listened to a few: the story of a young mother running through the hills from
Mexico to the US—in socks so as not to make any noise—in order to escape drug
violence and find a better life for her children. There was the story of a
husband caring for his elderly wife for over 10 years, refusing to let
Alzheimer's take her from him. I listened to the story of a Vietnam vet, whose
high school sweetheart married someone else when he went off to war. He never
stopped loving her, and never married, until he found her 40 years later, single
again, and made her his wife. So far over 40,000 Americans have had their stories
told and preserved. Together, they tell the American story, one life at a time.
The
founder of the movement is named Dave Isay. If you were to ask him why he does
this he would say that it is because he wants people to know that their stories
matter and won't be forgotten.
Suppose
the Storycorps trailer pulled into your neighborhood, and you had a chance to
sit in the booth. What story would you tell? What dreams have you chased?
What obstacles have you overcome? Are you living the life you imagined? Are
you living a good story?
While
in Washington at Sunita and Andy's, I glanced at some of the books they read. I
was sharing with Sunita how the Lord has transformed the lives of those who
turned their lives over to Him. To me the Bible isn't just a collection of laws
and lessons for life; it's more like a collection of stories about people,
events, nations. Together they make up one story, that of God's quest to save
the fallen race of beings made in his image, and to restore this broken world to
its original splendor. I have also discovered that every time we open the
Bible, I find myself in the pages. The people I meet here are just like us,
the stories they're living are a lot like ours.
I came
across an interesting column in the paper several months ago about Tim
Tebow, who is an outspoken believer in Jesus Christ, and one of the most talked
about figures in American sports in recent years. Ross Douthat, a writer for
the New York Times, was trying to explain why Tebow's remarkable ride has been
so captivating. He wrote, "Tebow's religion doesn't just promise a path to
personal transformation. It claims that every human life is actually a story
with an Author, and that a genuinely Christian life should make that divine
authorship manifest." (This, from The New York Times?)
I don't
know if they realize it, but Dave Isay and Ross Douthat are simply confirming
what the Bible tells us from the very first pages—every person's story matters,
because God's story of love is being told one life at a time. When we allow
Jesus Christ, the greatest Author of love stories, to come into our hearts and
lives to rule and reign, He writes a new and amazing story with an amazing and
incredible ending and destiny.
Blessed
be His Name.
In
Him,
Brown
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