Grace Notes

Announcements/Bright Lights Internship

2011 Internships

We are excited to announce two Bright Lights Internships for 2011:

January 17 – March 25th
July 6 – September 16th

This ten-week internship includes intensive Biblical studies, practical discipleship training, and a variety of ministry opportunities including traveling with the Bright Lights team to help lead “Strong in the Lord Conferences” and “Radiant Purity Conferences”, office work, discipling younger women, witnessing outreaches, working at Noah’s Archive Christian Bookstore, and helping with whatever else the Lord brings our way during the time you are with us.

For young ladies ages 18 and up. Please contact us for more information.

Miscellaneous

Dr. John Whitcomb in Cedar Rapids!

We were so honored to have Dr. Whitcomb speak to us in Cedar Rapids last weekend. We want the body of Christ in our town to be well grounded in Creation Science, and we were excited to see over 12 churches represented! We were also very grateful to the Jurgensmeiers and New Life Community Church for letting us use their building! You can watch his sessions from the weekend here or on our church website here.

Dr. Whitcomb is 86 years old now but still going strong traveling and teaching the Bible! What an example! Dr. Whitcomb is an expert on Noah’s Flood and is widely known because of his work on The Genesis Flood, which he coauthored with Henry Morris in 1961. This book has been credited as one of the major catalysts for the modern Biblical creationism movement. It also had a dramtic influence in my dad’s life when he read it back in 1973.

We loved Dr. Whitcomb’s gentle, knowledgable, relevent, Christ-honoring messages. And we loved being able to get acquainted with him a little behind the scenes as well…

Many are unaware of some of Dr. Whitcomb’s secret talents…such as his special whistling abilities. 🙂

Though the weekend turned out wonderfully, we definitely had some unexpected “trauma” along the way! Saturday morning, Dr. Whitcomb told us he was feeling a little dizzy. After he spoke, my dad took him to the doctor, who sent him to the hospital in an ambulance because of shortness of breath and suspicious signs. You can imagine our concern as we passed the prayer request along our church’s prayer chain! Dr. Whitcomb never lost his calm spirit, though, and my mom told me about some of the jokes he was making in the hospital. Dr. Whitcomb was praying that he would still be able to speak that night, but we were sure it wouldn’t be a possibility and arranged a replacement. But after a few hours, Dr. Whitcomb was feeling much better, the tests returned with good results, and the hospital released him. We called his wife who responded, “If he wants to speak, by all means, let him speak!” It turned out to be a wonderful evening session. Praise God who answers prayer!

As we were dropping Dr. Whitcomb off, he told us, “Someone must have been praying for this weekend!”
We told him, “A LOT of people were praying for this weekend!”
He told us, “Maybe in Heaven we will learn all the things God did because people were praying.”
We agreed.
Then He added, “And we hope He doesn’t tell us all the things He didn’t do because we didn’t pray!”
Wow. What a good reminder to be on our knees!

“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:24

“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16

Bright Lights Local Group

Bright Lights Campfire

After our last Bright Lights meeting here in town, we all went outside for a campfire/sharing time. It was very encouraging to hear girls sharing about how the Lord has been working in their lives.

One girl shared that at the recent Bright Lights conferences, the Lord had convicted her of a number of things she needed to confess to her parents—it was a whole list of things, actually. As I’m sure you can imagine, this was NOT an easy thing for her to do. But God gave her courage, and after confessing everything to her parents, she said she had a much better relationship with the Lord, her parents, AND her siblings. Also, she emphasized how God gave her a new understanding of the cross and the seriousness of her sin, and a new delight in His Word and prayer.

Several other girls also shared about some good, yet difficult, decisions the Lord had convicted them to make as well. Praise the Lord!

Bright Lights Conferences/Radiant Purity Conferences

Final Conference Post!

Below are a few more pictures from our last conference in Duluth 3 weeks ago!

This church began to feel like our home after being there for a week straight!! Since it was right on Lake Superior, the view was beautiful and the air was so fresh. That meant lots of walks around the parking lot… 🙂

Sarah explaining the important principle of the two kinds of purity.

The best part of each conference is seeing the Lord work in girls’ lives. Here is an encouraging e-mail Bekah received from one of the young ladies in her discussion group. (We have permisison to share it.)

“… I went home and told my Mom about an errand I have to run. About 5 years ago, I stole 2 rings from a store and I need to get that right with God, which means admitting to that and compensating for them. I remember how much they were and I’ve calculated tax and added that on, so that’s where I’ll be today…The sermon [at church yesterday] was on idols, well, I don’t have any of those, right? I went home and I’ve started memorizing a list of verses that I found on the heart, a pure heart, a godly heart, a godly woman, a godly wife, and a godly marriage. Now I’m set! Well, I did want to share something with my Mom, something I’d hoarded away-love letters-from guys in the past. I realized those were my idols and I’m de-guying my life!!! We burned them all, and now she knows why my heart was always troubled. Well, we both do. I got rid of an idol that was forcing Jesus out of my heart, and with that gone….There’s only room for Him!!!! I’ve had SO much joy, Bekah, and no one understands, but they will. I’m going to be the brightest light for Him that I can…And a pure one!
P.S. I’m deleting my guy contacts and friends on Facebook. I will not be a “fisher of men”, just the one God intends- and until then, I’m waiting on Him and using my single years for His Glory!”

Special relationships made…

We made a list of some of the little details in which we saw God answering prayer. Here are a few of them:

• When Nickie was printing the name tags for our final Radiant Purity conference in Duluth, she noticed that the supply of pink paper was very low. With only about 2 hours before the conference began we were worried that we might not have enough. But God answered prayer and we had the EXACT number of sheets to print the nametags.

• There were 2 missing items that we really needed to find. After praying about it, we found them both in about 2 minutes!

• We heard many testimonies from small group leaders who had girls with specific needs assigned to their team and they were able to effectively encourage because of common family situations, personal struggles, etc. It was humbling to know that the Lord was guiding and blessing us even in the “regular” tasks of assigning girls to small group teams.

• One leader wanted to talk with a certain girl in her group alone. She prayed about it during the main session, and immediately after the session was over, this girl came and found HER, wanting to talk about questions she had regarding the gospel!

• My dad and Sarah had especially been praying that the Lord would bring 400 people to each Strong in the Lord conference. Including late registration we reached (and exceeded!) that number each time.

These are just a few examples of answered prayer. I wish I could record them all. It is humbling and very exciting to serve a powerful God who works in so many ways–many of which we often don’t even see or recognize!

The last morning my dad took us to watch the sunrise over the lake. What a special conclusion to the week.

As we were watching the sun rise, someone brought up the analogy of waiting for Jesus to return–our true Sunrise. The anticipation and excitement beforehand…the warmth and beauty after…what a clear picture we see, every morning, of that one day coming soon.

“Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring (NASB: Sunrise) from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)