Grace Notes – Page 28 – Tomorrow's Forefathers, Inc.

At Creation Museum

August 8, 2013 Grace Mally6 Comments

We are off again for our next Bright Lights conference trip. The Lord has blessed us already with a restful travel day, a perfect place to spend the night in Indiana (thanks to our friends, the Winters) …

… and a fun day at the Creation Museum!

Camel rides!

The animals seem to enjoy all the interesting people they get to look at. [smile]

I think this white one is my favorite.

Notice the Zorse (Zebra-horse) in the background. For more interesting information about the zorse, see here.

Tia and Hannah riding the new zip line.

At the end of the day, a friend of mine from Saudi Arabia (who I had met on a plane a few months ago) and her brother came to join us. We had a great time taking them through the museum. That was one of the highlights of the day!

We are now setting up at the church in Ohio. The Radiant Purity Conference starts tomorrow night.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the end of Philippians chapter 3 and beginning of 4. When our joy is in our citizenship in Heaven and our standing is in Jesus Christ, nothing can shake that joy.

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved … Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

Please keep the upcoming Bright Lights conferences in your prayers. We want the Lord to extend His hand and do great things in the lives of the attendees–and in our lives! Please pray that we would have clear, bold, and honest speech as we share with these girls.

Also, remember to be praying for the Creation Museum. The Lord is doing great things there, and they continually need prayer for wisdom, energy, and the Lord’s hand of blessing upon all that happens there.

Miscellaneous

Regrouping At Home

August 1, 2013 Grace Mally1 Comment

We are enjoying a week at home before we leave for our next conference trip in Ohio and Michigan. Yesterday after lunch we had Tiramisu and a little party for Nickie’s birthday (a little late). Nickie’s dad is doing pretty well with the chemo. Thank you to all who are praying.

Lunch time around here is pretty fun and often ends up in unique theological discussions. It’s nice having more people here right now! We praise God for the big help it is to have Allison, Anna, and Kristin helping us this week. They’ve been doing so much! I don’t like to think about how we would get everything done without them here.

Miscellaneous

Back to Texas!

July 30, 2013 Grace Mally3 Comments

Over the weekend Sarah, Anna, Allison (who are with us for the summer) and I went down to Texas again to help with the Single Ladies Retreat that Taryn and Mirren Martin put together. It was even better than any of us expected. The teaching was rich with Scripture and insight, and the fellowship was very sincere and deep. The retreat wasn’t really about singleness, it was about walking with the Lord. Being around so many other girls and women who are living in surrender to the Lord and in love with Him was a very big encouragement.

One encouraging element to the weekend was all the special music from three of the sisters in the Marshall family and from many others. The messages of those rich, heartfelt songs shared were one of my favorite parts of the conference.

One of the songs has been lingering in my head today: “I Just Want to Please the Lord.” It is in living for His desires, not our own, that we find joy and rest.

“I just want to please the Lord
To be in His will in every way
To be lost in His presence
Found in His likeness
Hear Him say ‘well done’ some day.”
–I Just Want to Please the Lord, Ronny Hinson

Miscellaneous/Witnessing Stories

Growing Evangelists in Mexico

July 25, 2013 Grace Mally2 Comments

For those who saw my post a few days ago, I asked for prayer for a camp in Mexico that is focusing on training young people in evangelism this week. I thought you would enjoy hearing the story Mrs. Clark e-mailed me!

Thank you so much for your prayers for our camp. The Lord is truly blessing us! Each day, 4 teams of young people and adults have gone out to different nearby destinations to witness. Those who go to the city of Morelia have been using questionnaires with some of the questions you have on your website. They have been very encouraged, using this method, and many have had good conversations with people.

The first day out, Ted went with a team to a nearby rancho (village). His little group was welcomed into a very poor home of an 86 year old widow, María de la Luz. She listened attentively to the explanation of the gospel and told Ted decidedly that she did want to pray to receive Christ! (We often have people here who will say yes to everything and just follow along to be polite, but usually, it is clear they don’t really understand.)

But Ted said that this was different. He sensed that she really was sincere. She told him she had been praying that someone would come to tell her the way of the truth! She can’t read, but we will be following up with her. We are so thrilled to be able to be co-workers with God in this world!

Here’s a picture of María!

Mrs. Clark also added another specific prayer request:
One thing to remember in prayer for her: the Jehovah’s Witnesses are like a plague here in Mexico, and they have visited her constantly. It seems that she sensed something wrong with what they told her. Pray that they would leave her alone and that the Lord would open the door for us to continue sharing truth with her.

What a thrilling report! Praise the Lord. Nothing compares to that joy of seeing people embrace the gospel! Mrs. Clark also said they have had many other great stories from their witnessing trips each day. Let’s keep praying for the Lord to raise up laborers unto the harvest there in Mexico!

“Could it be that up in heaven, God is sitting on His throne
Anticipating another sinner will soon become His own.
Years of wasted living and years of toil and strife
Are just about to be over as he receives the gift of life.

Go sound the horn, strike up the choir.
A sinner is saved. Saved from the fire –
No more in darkness, he’s received my Son
All heaven rejoices – that’s the value of one!”

Announcements

Bright Lights Conferences in Ohio and Michigan

July 24, 2013 Grace Mally1 Comment

Our Bright Lights conferences in the Columbus, Ohio area and the Detroit, Michigan area are coming up very soon!

Radiant Purity Conference (Columbus, Ohio) – August 9-10
Strong in the Lord Conference (Columbus, Ohio) – August 12-13

Radiant Purity Conference (Detroit, Michigan) – August 15-16
Strong in the Lord Conference (Detroit, Michigan) – August 19-20

For more information see here.

If you would like to help us spread the word to any friends you know in either of these states, we have an informational e-mail I could send you to forward on. Just please contact me and ask if you would like it.

We would appreciate prayer that the Lord would bring the girls, moms, and dads that He wants to be there, and that He would be preparing their hearts now.

Announcements

Guess What Just Arrived?

July 23, 2013 Grace Mally2 Comments

Last week we received a very special package in the mail with some copies of the new Spanish translation of Will Our Generation Speak? We are very grateful to the Clark family in Central Mexico and their team for undertaking this large translation project!

They are using the book this week at a youth camp in Mexico. We’d appreciate prayer that the Lord would work in the hearts of young people there, burdening them with a compassion for the lost and zeal to spread the gospel.

Miscellaneous

Visit to ICR

July 22, 2013 Grace Mally2 Comments

Hello everyone! We’ve had a good week at home getting caught up and preparing for coming trips. Here are a few more pictures from our time in Dallas that I didn’t fit into my last post.

On one of our free days in Dallas we visited ICR – Institute for Creation Research. We received a tour from our friend Brian Thomas.

ICR has a lot of fossils on display in their office, and Mr. Thomas has a lot of interesting insights about the fossils, how to interpret them, and what we can learn from them.

I met Mr. Thomas at a home school conference last year, and he agreed to help me with a few chapters of Will Our Generation Speak? which I was getting close to publishing at that time. I will always be grateful for the suggestions he contributed to chapters 14 and 15 on creation science and apologetics! It was very encouraging for me to see the Lord’s perfectly timed provision.

Dr. Jeanson shared a very interesting presentation with our group of Bright Lights leaders on how to witness to evolutionists. I appreciated his comments about how it is through seeing God’s glory that we begin to understand how bad sin really is.

Dr. Jeanson received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 2009 and then joined ICR as a Research Associate. We’ve enjoyed getting a little acquainted with him and his wife and are grateful for the ways the Lord is using them.

Your Origins Matter is a new ministry of ICR that is focused on reaching the younger generation. They gave us all shirts so this was a very commonly-worn shirt during our trip!

Bright Lights Conferences/Radiant Purity Conferences/Strong in the Lord Conf.

Bright Lights in Dallas

July 17, 2013 Grace Mally1 Comment

We had a great week of conferences in Dallas. It started out Monday night with a special time with the local Bright Lights group. Haley, Natalie and Megan have done a wonderful job leading this group for several years now.

Here is a small group from the “Strong in the Lord Conference” conference. It is fun to get to hear what the girls are thinking and learning. After Sarah’s session on being in the Word, a few of them expressed to me with seriousness in their eyes that they haven’t been doing very well reading their Bibles but now they want to make that decision to read it every day consistently.

This is probably the #1 response that the girls write on their “response forms” after the conference – that they are going to start reading their Bibles every day. We’d appreciate prayer for all of these young ladies right now, only a week after the conference….that the Lord would give them strength and reminders to follow through.

It’s also exciting to see the girls get excited about witnessing! Sometimes it doesn’t take much to spark their excitement. Many leaders tell me how their girls are anxious to talk about “sharing the gospel” in their small groups after it’s discussed in the main session. Here Priscilla is standing by our “Witnessing Starter Packages.” She was excited to get one. [smile]

We’re grateful for the testimonies that the Lord provides for the main sessions. They drive home the lessons in a personal, practical way. A message from a mind reaches a mind, but a message from a life reaches a life! Pictured above are Scarlet, Kate, and Abby sharing testimonies at the Radiant Purity conference.

Here’s a picture from the Purity Conference. We’d appreciate prayer for all the conference attendees from Arkansas, Houston, and Dallas … that they would be seeking Christ, abiding in the Word, seeking the Lord’s ways, honoring their parents.

The dads who are able to come to the Purity Conference always have a discussion on father’s roles in protecting their daughters and screening young men who express interest. My dad usually tells us afterward about some of the various comments and stories that are shared. He is usually very encouraged by how the men’s discussions go and he says they never have enough time.

During one of our devotional times, Stephen gave us a review of the book Radical by David Platt which he had been reading on the trip. Stephen was impressed with it, and read several sections to us.

In talking about missions and how we should all have a heart for the WORLD, David Platt writes, “As we have seen all over Scripture, God’s heart is for the world. So when we say we have a heart for the United States, we are admitting that we have a meager 5 percent of God’s heart, and we are proud of it. When we say we have a heart for the city we live in, we confess that we have less than 1 percent of God’s heart … regardless of where we live–here or overseas–our hearts should be consumed with making the glory of God known in all nations.”

During another devotional time, Taryn and Mirren Martin did a “Question & Answer” time with our group of leaders. They have been such an encouragement to us.

We enjoyed several hours on our free day at the Skrinch home.

Lauren and Haley. Haley (right) was one of the hostesses for this conference. Thank you Haley for all your hard work!

Guess where we had tire trouble? 45 minutes from home right in front of a Tires Plus shop that wasn’t busy! They fixed the 2 bad tires immediately (while we girls shopped in the air conditioned mall), gave us a good price, and my dad was able to witness to them. Praise God that He takes such good care of us.

Bright Lights Conferences/Strong in the Lord Conf.

Strong in the Lord Conference, Dallas

July 12, 2013 Grace Mally2 Comments

The “Strong in the Lord Conference” here in the Dallas area was another statement of God’s grace and faithfulness to provide in countless ways! We thought you would enjoy experiencing Session Three from the conference in 35 seconds.

“Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate.” Psalm 116:5

The Radiant Purity Conference started tonight and will end tomorrow at 6pm. Thank you for your prayers!!

Miscellaneous

Please Pray for Mr. Biegler

July 9, 2013 Grace Mally9 Comments

We would appreciate prayer for Nickie Biegler and her family at this time. Nickie’s dad has been fighting cancer for about two years now. Because the cancer returned in a more aggressive form, he has begun chemo. He started the treatments last week and is now beginning to experience the side effects. As you can imagine, this is a very difficult time for him and his family. We are praying that the Lord would use chemo to reduce the size of the tumor.

Here’s an excerpt from Mrs. Biegler’s last e-mail update:

Todd asked for specific prayer. When Jesus was before Pontius Pilate, Pilate asked the question, “Do You not know that I have authority to release you, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above…” Todd recognized that chemotherapy would have no “authority” over the cancer unless God’s power was in it. He is asking for God to give His power to the chemotherapy to fight this cancer. Will you join us in that prayer?