Category: Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

Special Surprise from China :-)

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I was so excited to receive a package yesterday from Mary, a special friend from China. When her family visited us last summer she helped me by making Scripture cards and going with me to deliver them in the hospital. See here. (I play my harp room to room for patients in the neurology / oncology floor. If any of you play an instrument I recommend this idea as a great way to reach people in their time of need! It has opened a lot of doors to talk with people. I simply had to become a “volunteer” at our local hospital.)

I try to leave a Scripture verse card with each person I visit, but just a few days ago I was thinking about how I needed some help getting Scripture cards made because they are quite time consuming for me to color. So I prayed that God would provide someone to help…and I just didn’t think that God would answer that prayer from the other side of the world! Thank you, Mary, for all the time and effort you put into these. They’re beautiful!

Here’s Mary, helping me make cards when she was here visiting this past summer.

Mary and her other nine siblings have a bright testimony in China and their family is very special to us.

Bright Lights Office/Miscellaneous

Bright Lights Group Locator Tool

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Often people contact us to ask if there is a Bright Lights group in their area, so we set up a google map on our website of the Bright Lights groups that have started around the nation and internationally. Click HERE to use this tool on our webpage and see if there is a group near you!

If you feel led, please join us in praying for these Bright Lights groups! It is our desire that they may be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you [they] shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life… (Phil 2:15-16)

Miscellaneous/Thoughts

Full Quiver! (Psalm 127)

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After lunch today, we watched this great documentary of the Bates Family–a homeschool family with 18 kids from Tennessee. We appreciated the good job ABC did with the documentary and praise the Lord for the beautiful testimony this family has!

Click HERE to view the 8 minute clip. I think you’ll enjoy it! 🙂

“Rebekah and I regret that we did not have a more Biblical view of family when we were younger. Many years ago the Lord used Psalm 127 and some hard lessons to drastically change our perspective about children and families. He corrected our misconceptions and errors and gave us a love for children. We went from wanting no children to wanting many. We do not deserve any but God gave us three, and we are so grateful for them.

Families are important to God and this concept has become a major ministry message for us. Over the years it has been one of our objectives to communicate to other parents how much God loves children and how much he desires for parents to raise up a “godly seed” for His kingdom. We are thrilled now every time we hear of a large family being brought up to serve the Lord.”
-Harold Mally

“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” (Psalm 127:3-5)

Miscellaneous

The Offense of the Cross

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In 1983, my dad was studying 1 Corinthians 1 and came across a verse which changed his life. It so dramatically transformed his thinking that his entire method of doing ministry changed from that point on.

We consider this message to be foundational in our family, in the Bright Lights ministry, in evangelism, and in discipleship.

Last Sunday my dad gave this message at church, so I thought I’d post it up on here as well!

Christmas Ministry Ideas/Miscellaneous/Witnessing Stories

Christmas Story Printout

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Here’s an idea of how to get into witnessing conversations at Christmas. Ask people, “Have you read the Christmas story from the Bible yet this year?” If they haven’t, you can give them a copy! — a great way to get people into the Word. One friend at church asked us for 35 copies to mail in her Christmas cards. I thought that was a really good idea.

If you’d like to print off copies you can do so HERE. It’s 2 pages, so print it on both sides.

Christmas Ministry Ideas/Miscellaneous/Witnessing Stories

Christmas Tracts

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A few people have recently asked about Christmas tracts. We wish we had more. I sometimes use this “Christmas Quiz” that my dad put together. People receive these very well and they teach about the Christmas story and ask a few gospel questions. (We print it on both sides and get two on a page.) My dad also wrote a short “Prince of Peace” tract this year, which we link to in our December newsletter. I hope these ideas are useful for some of you!

Bright Lights Office/Miscellaneous

NEW: Monthly Newsletter


We just started a montly newsletter for Tomorrow’s Forefathers / Bright Lights.
If you’d like to read November’s newsletter online, click here.
If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter, you can do so on the left hand column of our website. The December newsletter will be coming out in a few weeks.

Miscellaneous

Thanking God for Friends From Malaysia!

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Having spent a good amount of time in Singapore and Malaysia, we always enjoy spending time with people from that part of the world! There are several students from Malaysia who attend the University of Iowa, and we were thrilled that 8 of them were able to come to our church’s Thanksgiving dinner last night.

We had 11 different countries represented at our Thanksgiving Dinner. (You may notice the Indian feathers we provided to help the atmosphere. 🙂 ) Our guest speaker was Ben Bradford. He is a 13 generation descendant of William Bradford who came over on the Mayflower, who was a leading Pilgrim and governor of Plymouth Colony. Ben’s father is William Bradford the 12th and his older brother is William Bradford the 13th! They are a strong Christian family. Their family still has the cuff links from William Bradford who came on the Mayflower.

Young people from our church getting acquainted with new friends from SE Asia.

And tonight the places were reversed, as our Malaysian friends invited us (and a few friends from church) to their apartment in Iowa City for a Chinese meal. Sarah and I had so much fun….great Chinese food (these students are great cooks!) enjoyable conversation, lots of laughs…

Thank you for your hospitality, friends! We had a great time. And don’t forget… we still want to take you sledding. 🙂

Miscellaneous/Thoughts

Watch and Pray Conference

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Earlier this month we attended the annual “Workers and Elders Conference” in Cedar Falls, IA. (In connection with our Bible chapel) I had been praying that the Lord would teach me to pray, and what did He do? Send me to a 3-day confernece on prayer!

Here are a few tidbits:

– “Watch” means to keep alert, just as Col 4:2 tells us to “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it…

-Prayer cultivates intimacy with the Lord. We pray because we want to become closer to Jesus –because we want to draw near.

-Praying is like building muscle. The more we pray, the more we want to pray.

-The word “fervent” could be described as “boiling.” God wants hot, boiling prayers, not lifeless, cold repetitious prayers. We must get close to the source of heat in order to boil.

-If our heart longs for the same things as Christ longs for, it won’t be difficult to pray in His will.

-Paul truly believed his ministry would be more effective if people were praying for him, because he asked for prayer so often in his letters! Prayer makes a difference.

-Church revivals in history start with prayer

-“When we talk to God, all other things that scare us begin to melt”

-We pray, not only because prayer changes things, but because prayer changes us.

To hear audio messages from the conference, click here.

This summer, one of my good friends (and great example to me) from church, Augusta, suggested that us ladies have more prayer time together. She’s from India and she told us about the frequent all night prayer meetings and times of fasting her believing friends in India held. So a few of us ladies decided to start coming to church at 7:30am to have a prayer meeting before the service started. It has been such a sweet, powerful time. We have become closer friends with each other, our hearts are more prepared for the service, and we have already seen the Lord answering prayers. How exciting to have a God who listens and acts!

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20