Grace Notes

Last week our family attended a wedding in Colorado and spent a few days camping while we were there. It was a very refreshing time.

Early morning devotional time in the mountains…Life doesn’t get much better than this does it, Dad?! (Notice Dad still found a way to make his morning toast slightly burnt just the way he likes it…)

A definite highlight was the individual time we had with the Lord and our Bibles in the crisp, quiet mountain air! We also enjoyed the chance to spend time in some books we had been wanting to read…
Dad: The Ultimate Proof of Creation (Jason Lisle)
Sarah: After the Flood Historian Bill Cooper shares fascinating information about how earliest Europeans recorded their descent from Noah through Japheth and knew all about the Flood!
Stephen: Going For the Gold (Joe Wall) About the Judgment Seat of Christ and living our lives in light of it.
Myself: A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23

Because of a misunderstanding, we had to move our tent to a different spot for night #2. Some members in the family decided we should just carry the tent so we didn’t have to take it down. It made a pretty unusual sight in the campground…

By the time we moved campsites, ate lunch, cleaned up, etc. it was already late in the afternoon when we began our hike.

It took about 15 minutes to drive to where the trail began. Upon arriving, Mom asked, “Did anyone zip up the tent windows?” No one had. Mom, who doesn’t even like camping, began to imagine what it would be like to sleep in wet sleeping bags. So we all piled back into the van and drove back to our campsite.

On the way there, it began to rain and hail but thankfully we got the tent zipped up before anything got too wet.

Finally we began our hike!

It was so beautiful and we were all really enjoying ourselves….

…Until, right at the top, it became very windy, rainy, and cold. We were wondering if it would continue to be rainy and cold for the 3.5 miles back to the van…

…But laughing at Mom and Dad in their funny rain gear made us forget how cold we were.

When we finally arrived back at our campsite, wet and tired, we found that our tent had turned completely on its side in the rain. (Hmm…maybe camping would be easier without a tent at all?!)

All in all, we had a wonderful time camping. The good family times around the fire were another highlight. We feel so blessed. Even my mom, who doesn’t like camping, said she would do it again! Wow!

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Psalm 90:2

Hi, everyone. This is Sarah, writing a quick post to fill in for Grace. Grace is working at the Answers in Genesis Booth at the NEA (National Education Association) convention in New Orleans this week. Answers in Genesis has a booth there each year reaching thousands of public school teachers with the truth about creation and God’s Word.

You can read some updates – Click Here

Also, you can watch a witnessing conversation that Grace had with a young lady she met at the booth – Click Here

I haven’t posted for a while but that hasn’t been because of lack of action around here. Good friends from China visited us for 12 days and left last week. We had a great time with them and made so many special memories.

We decided to take advantage of having so many energetic helpers around! Here Mary, Charity, and Loice are punching butterflies and flowers in preparation for crafts at the upcoming Bright Lights Conferences. Sarah and Nickie also kept them busy writing and recording testimonies for Bright Lights (in which they did a fantastic job), shrink-wrapping materials for our booktable and online store, sorting and labeling shipments of books, sharpening boxes of colored pencils, entering registrations for the upcoming conferences, etc.

Priscilla and Melody

Lunchtime! (After being around a family of 12, having a family of 5 seems very small…!)

Is Stephen really that funny, Priscilla?!

Listening to my dad tell stories around the fire…

One very special part of their visit was when Mary came with me to the hospital. (I take my little harp and play room to room for patients on the oncology / neurology floor every other week or so.) I usually take calligraphy Bible verse cards for the patients I talk with, many of whom don’t have very much longer to live. Mary had spent several hours coloring the cards for me, so I began to think about how great it would be if she could come along to help deliver them. I called the hospital to see if Mary could come. To my surprise and delight, the hospital gave special permission for Mary to accompany me – even though she wasn’t an official “volunteer”. This was an answer to prayer, and I realized that God must have a special reason for Mary to come.

The patients just loved Mary, and having her along helped to open more doors to talk with people. I wish I could report all the stories, but here’s one of them: The lady pictured above and her daughter and granddaughter were very open to talking about spiritual things so we were able to sit down, open our Bibles, and explain way of salvation to them. When we explained that eternal life was a free gift—not something you have to earn—the mom and her daughter looked at each other like it finally “clicked”. Her daughter told me, “I’ve been wanting to join a Bible study. In fact, just yesterday I was telling my mom about how I was looking for some sort of Bible study to join.” We are planning to meet up again to study the Bible together soon. Isn’t it exciting to see God arrange these things?

Last weekend our family went to Dubuque, IA to Emmaus Bible College for a conference called “Iron Sharpens Iron.” This year’s topic was “Quest for Holiness.” The speakers were great, and it was a really profitable time. I was encouraged and challenged!

The fellowship time in the dining hall was one of the highlights. Seeing old friends again and meeting new…here Sarah is talking with some new friends from the Dominican Republic.

We enjoyed meeting Alex Strauch and appreciated his great messages on Rom 6-8. We carry many of his books in our bookstore, including Biblical Eldership, a well-known book on church leadership which we feel is important. We are so grateful for the many ways he has strengthened the body of Christ.

Here are some tidbits from a session by Mark Stevenson on the sin of idolatry:

-The human heart is an idol-making factory, and anything we love more than God is an idol.

-Even good things, such as a clean house, can be an idol if we are placing it above the Lord in our affections.

-Your affections can be determined by what you do in your solitude — where your mind goes in your spare thoughts, what you delight to think about as you fall asleep.

-Just as in Romans 1 they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” so sin is exchanging the glory of God for lesser things.

-False gods lose their hold on our hearts only when we are captivated with Christ.

-It’s by beholding Jesus that we are changed. (2 Cor 3:18) We become like what we worship.

-When we fall at Jesus’ feet in surrender and worship, we gradually begin to understand what Paul meant when he spoke of how much he valued Christ: “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…” (1 Cor 3:7-8)

-May we see how much we have been forgiven and how desperate we are for His mercy. And may we relish in Christ’s love, which is greater, stronger, deeper, and infinitely more satisfying than any earthly pursuit. May we give Him the worship He deserves!

I am so excited to post about this. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to adequately describe what the Lord did here on Saturday!

After Mark Cahill spoke last Monday, we announced a “witnessing event” on Resurrection weekend. The goal wasn’t to just pass out tracts but to engage people in one-to-one conversations at parks and malls. Because this can be intimidating, we wondered, How many will actually come? Only a few “RSVP’d”, so I figured we’d have a pretty small group.

But when I arrived at the church, the parking lot was already full! I had to park in the back! What are all these cars doing here?! I thought.

65 people showed up, many of them I had never met! It was a little crazy getting everyone organized! But there was a lot of enthusiasm.

Here was a portion of our group before we went out. God blessed us with beautiful weather, so there were lots of people out and about. Thanks to all who came, we were able to cover all the main parks in town. In fact, there weren’t quite enough parks to go around.

My team had never really witnessed in this way before so they were a little nervous, but they dove right in and began striking up conversations with people all over the mall. I was impressed!

Amy and I had a long talk with one young mom who knew a lot of right answers, but had a huge internal battle raging in her heart about coming to Jesus.
“Do you ever read the Bible?” I asked her.
“Oh, I know I would just be SO convicted if I opened that book,” she responded.
We smiled and told her the story of the woman at the well, explaining that the answer to everything is found in Jesus Christ. We encouraged her to take care of what was most important (i.e. her eternal destiny) and reminded her that God not only gives salvation, he also gives strength to those who come to Him. She told me, “This is so not a coincidence you came to talk to me. Just the fact that you came to me out of the thousands of people in this mall…! I know God is trying to get my attention.” Wow, isn’t it neat how the Lord directs our steps?!
We gave her a One Heartbeat Away book and she responded with enthusiasm. “Oh my goodness, I’ve been looking for reading material about this! Ok, now I have to give you a hug…” Please pray for this young mom and her boy friend to come to Christ!

After three hours of witnessing, we came back at 5 pm for pizza and heard lots and lots of stories…

Actually, the story-telling could have probably lasted for hours if we didn’t eventually cut it off.

Mrs. Chung explained how she witnessed to a boy who was very responsive and prayed with her to be saved!

This man shared about some “Divine Appointments” and the people he prayed with in the “ghetto” area near downtown where his group chose to go.

Hannah (left) recounted a conversation she had with a man who actually had a flat line experience in the hospital and apparently got saved because of it. Very interesting story! She and Stephanie (right) also got into a good conversation with a group of 5 teenage girls that were so responsive they were almost fighting over the “One Heartbeat Away” that they gave them.

Jenni (right) explained about a young father she spoke with at a park. Apparently he was very interested in Christianity and had many questions, including if he would be able to come to her church on Sunday!

We decided to tally up the collective number of people we had conversations with and the total came to 281! Though “success” isn’t determined by mere numbers, it is encouraging to see how many more seeds you can plant when you go out with a large group! As you can imagine, everyone was very encouraged.

The sharing continued Sunday morning at church yesterday as we took some time out of the middle of our service for everyone to share the witnessing encounters they had in the past week. After 8-10 stories we had to stop so we would still have time for the sermon! But it was so encouraging to everyone. Actually, I’ve been hearing witnessing stories all week long… it has definitely been an amazing week! And I am very excited to see how the Lord is going to continue to work.

“So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” 1 Corinthians 3:7

The past three days have been jammed packed with action as our family has been at the IAHE (Indiana) home school conference!

We are very excited about the new wooden shelves some friends helped us build for our booth. (Quite an improvement to what we had before.)

My dad presented his session, “Learning from Dad”. We noticed how many more dads were at this conference in comparison to most home school conferences. It was neat to see so many couples shopping together–not just moms by themselves. My dad’s session accents on the point of how important it is that fathers play a role in teahing their children– not necessarily “academics” but more importantly the standards and convictions each family needs to have.

Sarah speaking on “Raising Pure Daughters in a Generation of Darkness”.

Things always get pretty busy, messy and crazy inside our booth at the end of the conference…!

Friday night we got together with some of my parents’ friends from college.

Stephen, Sarah and I came along for the entertainment. (And the food .) No, actually, it was a very nice evening and it’s always fun hearing new stories about mom and dad.

Note the above picture was taken inside not outside. Our friends live in an old school they bought downtown Indianapolis and they use it for ministry, a home church, etc. Pretty creative!

I was working in my little cubicle the other day when I heard a very loud racket. I walked out and found my dad and Stephen in full combat…
They told me they were “testing” the armor they were going to use for an activity at Light Shop.

(For those who don’t know, “Light Shop” is Stephen’s boys discipleship group that meets every time Bright Lights meets. It stands for Leaders In Godliness, Holiness and Testimony.)

Dad and Stephen prepared 24 helmets, swords, and shields.

There were 12 guys in brown and 12 guys in red. The objective was to knock the newspaper breastplate off your opponent. As you can see, the activity was a big success.

Stephen (along with David Jones who helps him teach) taught the young men about Ephesians 6 and how we are in a spiritual battle and need to know our weapons.

In Bright Lights we try to be a little more feminine. We’ve been going through a series of lessons on being “daughters of the king” covering topics such as femininity, modesty, inner beauty, joyfulness, etiquette, etc. As daughters of the King, we need to remember Who we belong to and Who we respresent! At one of our recent meetings we gave each small group 15 minutes to create a complete outfit with brown paper and tape. Everyone had a good time, and some of the outfits the girls came up with were pretty impressive!

The theme of the lesson last week was on “pouring yourself out” and learning to die daily for Jesus. (I Cor 15:31) Sarah told some amazing stories of great missionaries and martyrs who went through tremendous sacrifice to proclaim the gospel. Then she emphasized how God values not only the big sacrifices, but also the daily little sacrifices we make in serving our families and those around us. He sees and weighs the heart. It’s not necessarily the intensity of the suffering He rewards (we can’t choose our circumstances) but the response of our heart to whatever He allows. May we, like Paul and Silas in prison, sing praises in the midst of difficulty.

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Unlocking the front door.

We opened the bookstore in the front of the Bright Lights office. It’s still “sinking in” that we are now running a commercial store!

Starting our first day with prayer

First costumer receiving a free book

“Can you believe we are actually opening a store tomorrow?” Stephen asked me last night.
“Not Really”

Thanks to the Lord’s provision, we were able to open this store on black Friday “in the black”. There are DOZENS of stories I’d love to share with you (and probably will eventually!) of how the Lord provided for us to purchase this building debt-free and how He has provided for the interior furnishings at every turn. And, of course, we are grateful to over 115 friends from our area who helped with the remodeling/moving, etc.

See here for pictures of what the building looked like before.

We still have many things to complete and add (permanent outside sign, more shelving and inventory, furniture, etc.) but we’re grateful we’ve finally reached an “opening point”. And we know that He who has been faithful thus far will complete His will in His time!

Last weekend, my dad and I went up to Rochester, Minnesota for the 25th anniversary of the Bible Quizzing league in Rochester, MN. (Bible Quizzing was actually started by Youth For Christ in 1947 but we were celebrating the league that started in Rochester in 1984.) We both really enjoyed the weekend and saw a lot of old friends.

Looking back, we wouldn’t trade the time we’ve given to Bible quizzing for anything. It’s hard to adequately express our gratefulness for this program and for the way it helps young people memorize large portions of Scripture.

Here’s a glimpse of how it works: The “quiz master” uses this box to detect which quizzer jumps first. Each quizzer sits on a pad which triggers a light on the quiz master’s box when he or she jumps. Whoever stands up first gets to answer the question. The competition can get pretty intense, and often once you’ve tried it, you’re stuck–memorizing God’s Word and coming back year after year to quiz. If you’d like to learn more about Bible quizzing, see www.wbqa.org