Category: Miscellaneous

About twice a year, a group of engineers from China come to our town to work on projects for Rockwell. Usually it is a different group of people each time.

A good friend of ours, Sam, (who grew up in Taiwan) hosts these Chinese visitors while they are in the States. Sam drives them around town, takes them shopping, and frequently entertains them in his home. Every time a group comes, Sam also brings them to our house for a meal and to hear the harps. We always have a good time and are very grateful for this opportunity to have these Chinese people into our home! We look at it this way: We can’t be in China right now, but God can bring China to us!

A few nights ago was one of those special evenings where China came to us. 🙂

My dad explaining a passage of Scripture to our guests while Sam translates and expounds on what my dad said.
The evening was full of picture-taking, exchanging gifts, delicious food (thanks to Sam and his wife, Shirland, who are great cooks!) lots of smiles, laughter, and relaxed conversation.

“I am a companion of all those who fear You, and of those who keep Your precepts” (Psalm 119:63)

When we take a team of girls on the road to lead Bright Lights conferences, we all enjoy the fellowship and good times we have together. Unfortunately, when we come home everyone is busy and we don’t see each other very much. Because of this, we were grateful to our friend Lena for setting up a formal Christmas party in her home for some of the Bright Lights leaders who were able to make it. Here are a few pictures…

Rebekah, Katie, Ellen and Sarah

Sarah (piano), Aubrey (flute), Emily (violin), Me (flute)

A few minutes ago I walked around and snapped a picture of everyone working at the Bright Lights office right now.

Top to bottom:
Nickie writing “teacher’s sheets” for the Bright Lights group leaders
Stephen doing something…
Sarah talking on the phone regarding a recent order
Grandpa organizing Bright Lights sets
Chrissy packing orders

Typical Iowa Landscapes…

Our family lives in Iowa. Ever heard of that state before? 🙂
Below is an e-mail our family sent out yesterday. If you live nearby, I hope you can make it! If you don’t, let me suggest setting up something similar in your community.

Dear Friends,

As you know, Iowa is a pretty exciting place to live these days with the 2008 caucus right around the corner. I’m sure many of you have the same questions our family has had. What should our involvement be? As Christians, what is the best way to influence this nation? What is the most effective way we can use our time? The whole country is looking at Iowa right now. How does God want us to use this opportunity that we have?

Well, we’re not sure we have the answers to all those questions. But we do know that the most powerful way we can be involved is by prayer. I assume that all of us have been in prayer individually for our country and for the upcoming elections, but we would like to schedule a collective time of prayer for this nation and the upcoming caucus and election.

We’d like to invite all of you to join us for a special prayer meeting on Tuesday, December 18th.

Time: 7:00
Place: Cedar Rapids Bible Chapel
Plan for the Evening: This is not a political event or a church service for preaching or worship. Due to the time of year, however, we will plan to enjoy singing some Christmas carols together. Feel free to bring some Christmas cookies to share if you would like. We will supply punch, coffee, and tea.

It would be wonderful to have as many fathers present as possible and at least a couple representatives from as many churches as possible. We would especially ask for many of the shepherds of the Body of Christ in our area to be present also. No one will be asked to pray aloud but there will be that opportunity for those who want to.

Our Prayer Focus:
Thanksgiving for God’s blessing to our land and our families
Confession to the Lord of the sins of our land
Petition for His protection, provision, direction, and blessing

Day of Fasting: Our family would also like to suggest Thursday, December 20th as a day of prayer and fasting for this country.

“For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” (Psalm 75:6-7)

Feel free to forward this e-mail to others or to invite friends to join us for this special meeting for prayer.

I’ve also include an attachment entitled “a different kind of caucus” explaining some of the thoughts behind our prayer meeting.

May God bless each of your families this Christmas season!

For His Glory,

The Mally Family

A Thought-Provoking Artical from My Dad:

As Christians we have been wondering for many years how to best keep America strong for the Lord. Without question God DID bless America in the past but is He blessing America now and will He in the future. Is “In God We Trust” a true statement? Certainly we as Christians do not put our trust in politics but in the gospel. Though America is not the equivalent of the Kingdom of God, nevertheless God wants every nation to glorify Him. It is good when we can live in peace and not have our land plagued with evil things. Of course there will always be enemies but when any people humble themselves before the Lord He is able to heal their land. And He must do it because man cannot do it on human effort or human wisdom or all the dollars in the world.

Therefore, as Christians living in Iowa, knowing that Iowa plays an interesting and unique role in American presidential politics, and knowing that Linn County is a major and influential population center of this state, we encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ to petition the Lord, at what may be an unusual point and pivotal point in U.S. history. It is possible that what happens in the next month in Iowa will have a dramatic effect on the future of this nation. It is possible that what happens in Linn County alone could affect the state, the country and the world. But it will not be due to politics. It will be due to the hand of God alone responding to the humility of His people.

We invite you to come and pray. Perhaps it could be called a “prayer caucus”. It will not be to choose a candidate but to pray for God’s blessing on this land as the selection process of candidates begins. We desire for God to bring into leadership men who are faithful to him. Men who lead by conviction rather than follow by polls. Men who know the truth rather than who are victims of deception and misconception. Men who decide issues by foundational beliefs rather than by majority opinion. Men who know that America will be healthy not because of fiscal strategy, party cooperation, foreign policy, oil, or education but only by God’s blessing.

How will we regain God’s blessing? Not by political victory but by the humility, confession, repentance, and petition of God’s people. Therefore a collective “prayer caucus” ought to precede the political process. Let us come together to collectively humble ourselves together before the Lord. Then we will wait and watch the hand of the Lord.

Christmas parties can often be difficult to plan!

A few years ago a friend and I were planning a Christmas party for friends from our church and we were trying to decide what activities to do. We were struggling because we didn’t want to just play games and eat. We wanted to plan something worthwhile. After thought, struggle, and prayer, this is what materialized:

CHRISTMAS FISHING

We divided into two even teams and gave each team a video camera, a vehicle to drive, a list of instructions, and Christmas tracts. The goal was to finish everything on the list and be the first ones back. I’ll give you some examples of what was on our list, but I’d also recommend coming up with your own ideas to add.

-Christmas carol at 2 houses with lighted Christmas trees in their front yard. Compliment their tree, and leave them with a tract and plate of cookies.

-Take a Christmas Survey* to someone wearing a Santa hat.

-Take a Christmas survey to someone wearing green.

-Pass out 50 Christmas Tracts

-Sing “Joy to the World” in front of a Nativity scene (everyone in the group must sing).

-Go through a fast food drive-through, buy something, and leave them with a Christmas tract.

-Buy a Christmas dessert to bring back and share with the rest of us.

We all came back excited, laughing, and full of funny stories and good reports. Next we filled our plates with Christmas munchies and watched the documentary videos we had just taken. Talk about hilarious…. we laughed so much that night.

The best part was the satisfactory feeling that we had brightened the lives of others that evening and passed out tracts with a thought-provoking message. When the party had ended, we knew that there was fruit that was going to last. It’s always more blessed to give than to receive. The houses where we caroled were so tickled and excited. In fact, a few days later we received a very enthusiastic thank you note from one of the houses we had caroled at. The mother wrote how her daughter had never heard Christmas carolers before and it was such a highlight for their family.

Just a warning– if you do the “Christmas Fishing” activity, be aware that you may not be able to take video cameras into stores.

If any of you have other ideas for “profitable Christmas parties” or of ways to be a bright light for the Lord this Christmas, please post a comment and share your ideas with the rest of us! And, if any of you try this and it goes well, please come back and post a comment telling us about it!

*Below is a Christmas survey my dad wrote the year I was born. Thanks, dad! 🙂

Feel free to add or subtract questions. Taking a survey is a wonderful springboard for a great conversation. Christmas is an outstanding time to witness! Make sure you don’t let yourself get sucked into the shopping rush and forget to be talking to people about the Lord! During the Christmas season, people are happy, feeling social, and generally they are excited to talk with someone. (Just don’t pick people who are in a hurry! 🙂 ) Also remember: never give up witnessing after a conversation that you feel didn’t go well.
I guarantee you will enjoy your shopping more if you also talk with people about the Lord. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” Acts 20:35

We are now in Georgia on our way home again! All the conferences went very well… they were exciting and tiring. It’s hard to give a full report in one paragraph. Overall, we were thankful to the Lord for the way He worked. It was encouraging to see little girls making commitments to read their Bibles everyday, mothers requesting more tissue boxes, joyful laughter, good times of singing, enthusiastic responses… we were encouraged. Thank you all so much for your prayers.

Tonight we all had fun outside around a bonfire. Yesterday we had a great time at the beach in Jacksonville. It’s a good feeling to be on our way home now. I have lots of pictures that I will post soon. My laptop (actually, Stephen’s old laptop) keeps dying on me (no idea why Stephen gave it up…) so that’s why I’m not posting the pictures now. Oh, the joys of being the youngest–you get to use everything your older siblings don’t want anymore. 🙂

Last Friday morning Nickie and I set out on a adventure. I guess you could say that “obeying God” is always an adventure, but this trip especially had some unknowns…

We were on our way to southern Illinois to lead a Bright Lights Leader’s Training for a handful of girls and their mothers who were interested in starting some Bright Lights groups. Since this was the first Leaders Training without Sarah it was a little stretch, but the Lord helped us in so many ways.

Singing “For the Beauty of the Earth” with coffee/hot cocoa drinks on a beautiful fall morning joyfully anticipating how the Lord was going to work throughout the rest of the day.

Everything went very well. One thing that characterized our time with this group was all the great group discussions we had. I had prayed for this, and when we noticed on Saturday afternoon that we were 2 whole sessions behind, I realized that God really answered my prayer in the area of fellowship! 🙂

They told us many stories of how the Lord was working in their area. The Pastor of the church in town had put a lot of effort into forming good connections between all the local churches. Recently they experienced a wonderful outcome from a jr high/high school evangelism event.
There seems to be a lot of growing spiritual interest in the area, and the Lord is at work. Because of this, we are especially excited about the Bright Lights groups that will be beginning to provide ongoing discipleship.

We enjoyed the small town culture of Milton! (Aren’t the bank and the post office cute? 🙂 ) It was one of those places where everyone knows everyone, the little grocery store is the place to visit with all your friends, you are considered a newcomer unless your parents and grandparents grew up there, and the newspaper includes exciting events like “Grandpa Buzz tried to rollerblade with his grandkids last week”.

As we were leaving town, Nickie and I decided we had to go into Dink’s Diner and order something…just to see what it was like in there. Our experience in Dink’s was just as I expected–a dozen farmers looked up from their breakfast and fell silent in surprise as they saw these 2 unusual visitors walk in. I guess we didn’t fit into the typical costumer stereotype.

Unfortunately, as we got back into the van, I realized that I was still holding the silverware spoon that the lady had handed me to stir my coffee. No wonder she was looking at me funny as I left. Sometimes I wonder why I always do things like that! I had to go back in there with everyone watching me again and give it back…

Aubrey (left) is hoping to begin a Bright Lights group soon. We stayed at her family’s house and they were wonderful hostesses. Nickie (right) has been involved in our Bright Lights group for 10 years now and she comes over to our office and helps twice a week.

On our the way home we decided to make a list of all the ways we saw the Lord working and taking care of us on the trip. For example, we had no equipment problems (very unusual 🙂 ), the schedule worked out well, God answered our prayers in guiding our words and decisions, the timing of the conference was good, etc. Plus, God gave us a very enjoyable trip. He is definately the giver of good gifts. I specifially enjoyed the beautiful drive, good talks with Nickie, meeting new great people, good discussions at meals, brainstorming about future ministry ideas to do in “small towns”, enjoying fun times with the family we stayed with, listening and playing along with the Irish folk songs their kids like to play, etc. ,
Overall, I learned again that being in God’s will is the best place on earth.

One more report: Before the conference started we had a little extra time. I wanted to witness to someone, but we ended up just going to the little vacant town park. To my surprise, a 14-year-old girl came up “out of the blue” and sat down next to me. I had a nice talk with her. Although she didn’t express a lot of spiritual interest, she did admit that she didn’t have a good relationship with her brothers and sisters. About an hour later when we were at the church, I saw her ride her bike into the church parking lot. I gave her a copy of Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends. and some people from the church who knew her said that they were going to follow up with her. I know that God has all kinds of different ways to draw people to His Son. Please pray that He will draw this girl to Jesus.

Every week girls come over and volunteer here at our Bright Lights office. Today has been a busy and productive day so far! I took a few minutes out to give an update of what’s going on.

Top: Ally is printing postage for orders to be sent out
Middle: Marie and Tia organizing team boxes for upcoming conferences
Bottom: Lena is searching for verses to incorporate in the “Teachers Sheets” that we are writing for Bright Lights leaders.

Here we are last night sitting around the campfire in our backyard roasting marshmallows with the Bemenderfer family.

The Bemenderfers live in Hong Kong, but they are visiting the States for a few months. We enjoyed a good time of fellowship and learned some great insights from Mr. Bemenderfer as he explained his methods of evangelism and discipleship.

Stephen playing legos with the 5 Bemenderfer boys.