9/11/2012
Hello all. Sorry I haven't written much lately. We have been and are very busy and my internet has been down for awhile. Bad excuse I know. This started out as a reply to an email my Grandma sent me, and I realized afterward it had turned into a newsletter. So I thought I’d share it with the rest of you. May you be blessed.
We are doing week of prayer this week. It has been tremendous. Three of us are giving the talks. We met together and picked 6 topics to present out of those pre-fabricated evangelistic seminars... one of them is called Truth for Today if I'm not mistaken. We each picked two topics we were interested in presenting and then put them in order. God totally orchestrated our choices as it turned out to be a perfect following of Rev 14 and the three angels' messages. I didn't realize it until I sat down to write out my sermon. The first message Warren gave on judgment and the 2300 day prophecy. I followed with a message on the Sabbath as the seal of God and His sign that He has the power and the authority to sanctify us, seal us and preserve us free from any earthly contaminates that would spoil us for eternity. God gave me special inspiration as I spoke, and I shared a story I had not even thought of ahead of time and had no intention of sharing and it just fit so perfectly. The Holy Spirit is moving. Warren followed again with the message of Revelation 17, and Jerry tonight and tomorrow will speak on Rev 12 and 13 and I follow Friday speaking of the Holy Spirit. I picked that topic because Lyli and I are almost two weeks into a forty day study on the Holy Spirit that has been excellent so far. We get up at 4:30 every morning and we have a group of about 15 students coming regularly to the study in our house and then we pray together in pairs usually. Sometimes it is hard to get up so early, but it has been a blessing. Also in my personal study I just finished reading Ezekiel and what powerful stuff! I love it. And it is right there with the Sabbath and the Holy Spirit and last day events.
We are also planning a health fair in the plaza in front of the mayor's office for the 24th of September. Please pray for that... it is a lot of work to get ready for it, but I already see how God has been at work both to inspire the idea in one of my colportuer students and to soften the heart of the town official in charge of giving permissions for such events. He is planning to attend. I just wrote a letter for the local churches in Guayaramerin inviting them to get involved. Colportuering has been a blessing. Many people do not want to buy books, but I have been surprised on two occasions when I was not even colportuering but carried the Great Controversy with me (We are reading it in my senior social studies class). One day Lyli and I entered a book store to look at books. We were about to leave and the lady begged us to sit down and talk for awhile. She talked about her children and wants to put them in our school when they are old enough. Lyli told her about some books by EG White like Advent Home and Child Guidance and she eagerly wrote down the titles. Her boss is Adventist, so he can help her get them. That's when I remembered I had the GC with me. I pulled it out and gave her a quick canvass. She bought it on the spot! A week later I was buying groceries and I had the GC with me again. I pulled it out of my backpack at the counter so I could put the groceries inside. THe cashier saw it and nearly grabbed it out of my hand! "What book is that?" I told him, and he bought it immediately! I was so excited when I remembered I had asked God that morning to help me share Him with somebody that day. I didn't expect it to happen quite like that!
We only have about six more weeks left in the school year and there is so much to be done. The government no longer allows us to make students repeat a year (we can't fail them). If their grades are low, even if it is because they don't turn in homework, we must give them special work to make up their grades and pass the year. I don't know what we are supposed to do if they don't turn in the special make-up work. What is this world coming to?
On top of everything else, Lyli and I are in the middle of getting our documents together to get the permanent residency. When we went to ask what the requirements are, they showed us two lists. One very short and easy, the other much longer and almost identical to what we had to get last time. Well, they told us if are job and living place and social status are the same we could do the short list. All the officials at immigration know that Lyli and are married. But they told us we could do the short list and it would be no problem. At first, we almost went for it... it was so tempting to avoid all that extra hassle. But then we realized we would be lying if we said that we had had no change in our social status. If we can't be faithful now because of a little inconvenience and having to pay a couple hundred dollars extra, what will we do in the final crisis? There is no way we will be able to be faithful! Like Jeremiah 12:5 says: "If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, how cans't thou contend with horses? And if , in the land of peace, wherein thou trustest, they have wearied thee, how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" We must be sealed. God is holding back the winds just for us. (Rev 7:1-3). What a merciful God we serve! Blessing to you all!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
8/13/2012 Lana's Story
Lana’s* mother is Ese Ejja, an indigenous tribe of the
northern Bolivian jungles. Her father, she tells me, is also native, but
hails from a different tribe in Peru. Her grandparents still live there
and she has never met them. Lana was one of our first students to
come from the interior. Her acceptance letter had to be dropped from the
mission plane and the villagers thought they were being bombed! Since
then that little village has seen some drastic changes. Our current directors lived and worker there for about a year, and recently Lana came to see me because her health class
is scheduled to give the morning worship talks this week, and her turn
will be on Sabbath at the 11 o’clock service and she is quite nervous.
The topic that she has been assigned is on demon possession. We start
conversing about cases of demon possession that are mentioned in the
Scriptures. What does it look like? She remembers the most dramatic
example, the two demoniacs who went naked and lived in the cemetery, and
could not be restrained even with chains and terrorized all who passed
by (Matt 8:28-34).
“Teacher, how does someone come to be possessed like that?” she asks me.
“It has to do with our choices.” I reply. “When we don’t choose to surrender our lives to Christ, the default is that Satan starts to take control. God in his mercy to us limits how much Satan can do, but if we keep ignoring God’s spirit we move closer toward demon possession. There are all different levels of demon possession. You don’t have to act like the demoniac in Matthew 8 to be controlled by Satan. He has many distinguished, intelligent, cultured people who are just as well quite possessed. Whenever we continuously follow our own thoughts and desires we invite possession because one of the principle tenets of the devil’s philosophy is “do as thou wilt. He has so infused humanity with his character that most of us come to think his thoughts as our own.”
“That’s what I thought, that it happens when Satan can get to your mind. That can happen when somebody drinks alcohol, right teacher?”
“Definitely”
“And when they take drugs?”
“That too. Anything that alters the mind or affects our ability to reason and make decisions can be a door for Satan to make suggestions to our minds, and even to take control. That doesn’t mean that everyone who does those things will automatically be under the complete control of Satan, thanks to God’s merciful restraining power, but it definitely increases the risk! And its obvious that people under the influence are out of control and do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. I think you could fairly say that they are temporarily possessed”
“My dad had a real anger problem. He used to get mad at us and do terrible things. When the baby would cry too much he used to dunk it in hot water. I was lucky because when I was little I wasn’t a crybaby. But I was afraid of my dad. One time he almost killed my sister. He had the knife in his hand. He could get angry so quickly. In an instant he would become another person. I remember escaping to hide in the jungle with my sister one time because I knew that he was going to be angry. We stayed in the jungle a long time. I guess that’s why I never called my dad papa. I just always called him by his first name. After that my Grandpa Antonor called Dad the ‘assassin’”. Grandpa was always more like my real dad. He is affectionate. But I could never understand why my father was like that when he is a school teacher. My mom was going to leave him, because besides being violent, he had other women on the side."
“She was going to leave? What happened?”
“My father has changed. He doesn’t treat us bad like he used to. My mom is still with him. They were married when they were 15 years old.” I wonder how much of the change is a result of the change he has seen in his daughter.
“I never told you this story. I never told anyone this story before.” She seems pleased to finally have it off her chest. “I told teacher Lyli one story, but it was about my uncle.” So she’s been working up to this. I realize. This is her third year with us here.
Sadly, Lana’s stories are typical of probably at least 90% of our students. I’d like to pass it off as cultural, a local, national problem, but I know that is just not true. (See the poem below about my experience teaching in what was, at the time, the largest public high school in Washington State.) This problem is universal. We seem to live in a daily-increasing demon-possessed world. The family has failed. Schools have failed. We have failed. All we can do is ask for a miracle and agree to cooperate with the Master Teacher. He can fix anything, including me.
*name changed for privacy
Student Teaching: They call this high school—
Before they draft essays,
my students draft grass
and drink cervezas (1) on the weekends.
After work flipping burgers, flipping rivals
off, turning wrenches, loading dumbwaiters;
they are loading up on who knows what,
and later, loading guns. (2)
The bathroom smells of pot,
not for being left un-flushed,
although the unplugged stall
was also hard to find.
The school’s name is written on the wall,
but from where I park I only see the asco (3) part of Pasco,
and I appreciate the irony and step over some vomit
and wonder how many more youth
will puke away their lives before we learn to educate. (4)
(1). Spanish for beer
(2). “Sixteen-year-old Christopher Ruesga, [who a few short weeks ago sat in the same class that I am now teaching] was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon by members of the Tri-Cities Regional SWAT Team from a house at 1711 W. Fifth Ave. Ruesga is suspected of fatally shooting Eutimio Vivero-Martinez, 38, of Pasco, during a confrontation Sunday afternoon on North 14th Avenue near Agate Street. See more information on this site and Wednesday's Tri-City Herald”
(3). Spanish for disgusting, grotesque, despicable.
4. See Hebrews 5:12. I need to be taught of God before I can truly teach.
“Teacher, how does someone come to be possessed like that?” she asks me.
“It has to do with our choices.” I reply. “When we don’t choose to surrender our lives to Christ, the default is that Satan starts to take control. God in his mercy to us limits how much Satan can do, but if we keep ignoring God’s spirit we move closer toward demon possession. There are all different levels of demon possession. You don’t have to act like the demoniac in Matthew 8 to be controlled by Satan. He has many distinguished, intelligent, cultured people who are just as well quite possessed. Whenever we continuously follow our own thoughts and desires we invite possession because one of the principle tenets of the devil’s philosophy is “do as thou wilt. He has so infused humanity with his character that most of us come to think his thoughts as our own.”
“That’s what I thought, that it happens when Satan can get to your mind. That can happen when somebody drinks alcohol, right teacher?”
“Definitely”
“And when they take drugs?”
“That too. Anything that alters the mind or affects our ability to reason and make decisions can be a door for Satan to make suggestions to our minds, and even to take control. That doesn’t mean that everyone who does those things will automatically be under the complete control of Satan, thanks to God’s merciful restraining power, but it definitely increases the risk! And its obvious that people under the influence are out of control and do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. I think you could fairly say that they are temporarily possessed”
“My dad had a real anger problem. He used to get mad at us and do terrible things. When the baby would cry too much he used to dunk it in hot water. I was lucky because when I was little I wasn’t a crybaby. But I was afraid of my dad. One time he almost killed my sister. He had the knife in his hand. He could get angry so quickly. In an instant he would become another person. I remember escaping to hide in the jungle with my sister one time because I knew that he was going to be angry. We stayed in the jungle a long time. I guess that’s why I never called my dad papa. I just always called him by his first name. After that my Grandpa Antonor called Dad the ‘assassin’”. Grandpa was always more like my real dad. He is affectionate. But I could never understand why my father was like that when he is a school teacher. My mom was going to leave him, because besides being violent, he had other women on the side."
“She was going to leave? What happened?”
“My father has changed. He doesn’t treat us bad like he used to. My mom is still with him. They were married when they were 15 years old.” I wonder how much of the change is a result of the change he has seen in his daughter.
“I never told you this story. I never told anyone this story before.” She seems pleased to finally have it off her chest. “I told teacher Lyli one story, but it was about my uncle.” So she’s been working up to this. I realize. This is her third year with us here.
Sadly, Lana’s stories are typical of probably at least 90% of our students. I’d like to pass it off as cultural, a local, national problem, but I know that is just not true. (See the poem below about my experience teaching in what was, at the time, the largest public high school in Washington State.) This problem is universal. We seem to live in a daily-increasing demon-possessed world. The family has failed. Schools have failed. We have failed. All we can do is ask for a miracle and agree to cooperate with the Master Teacher. He can fix anything, including me.
*name changed for privacy
Student Teaching: They call this high school—
Before they draft essays,
my students draft grass
and drink cervezas (1) on the weekends.
After work flipping burgers, flipping rivals
off, turning wrenches, loading dumbwaiters;
they are loading up on who knows what,
and later, loading guns. (2)
The bathroom smells of pot,
not for being left un-flushed,
although the unplugged stall
was also hard to find.
The school’s name is written on the wall,
but from where I park I only see the asco (3) part of Pasco,
and I appreciate the irony and step over some vomit
and wonder how many more youth
will puke away their lives before we learn to educate. (4)
(1). Spanish for beer
(2). “Sixteen-year-old Christopher Ruesga, [who a few short weeks ago sat in the same class that I am now teaching] was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon by members of the Tri-Cities Regional SWAT Team from a house at 1711 W. Fifth Ave. Ruesga is suspected of fatally shooting Eutimio Vivero-Martinez, 38, of Pasco, during a confrontation Sunday afternoon on North 14th Avenue near Agate Street. See more information on this site and Wednesday's Tri-City Herald”
(3). Spanish for disgusting, grotesque, despicable.
4. See Hebrews 5:12. I need to be taught of God before I can truly teach.
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