Mom's Memorial Service

It has been about a month and a half since Karl's mom passed away on May 24th and her absence is profoundly felt. She was a wonderful woman and dearly missed. Our family is very thankful that God gave us some time with her after we arrived from Thailand on May 20th and praise Him for strengthening us for the chaotic and emotional time that we stepped into when we got off the plane.

I had the unique privilege of leading the memorial service for my Mom and I am posting below the order of service from the church bulletin together with the MP3 audio files for the service. I am doing this both for my own sake and that of my family as we think back about my Mom in years to come, and also for the sake of those who loved and appreciated my Mom but were unable to make it to the memorial service. The six MP3 files, taken together,

Are Long Term Missionaries Obsolete?

I was recently talking with a pastor whose church does not send any long-term missionaries.It is a vibrant church with many members and a vision for missions, and they could probably send and support their own long-term missionaries if they wanted to.But it seems that they don’t want to.Why not?This pastor told me about what he believes to be more strategic, more effective, and most cost-efficient way to do missions outreach than sending long-term missionaries.

This pastor and his church conduct many short-term training events and seminars throughout the world, gathering together a large group of local leaders and teaching them in an intensive course.When the course is done, the pastor and his team go back to the USA and the local leaders go back to their homes and churches, presumably to put into practice what they have learned.Besides live teaching from short-term missionaries, this pastor is also committed to getting a video training course called ISOM into the hands of groups of leaders in various countries, to be used in place of live teachers but administered by a local coordinator/facilitator who leads discussions about the video course material.It is his belief that Western churches can have a much bigger global impact for the Gospel by doing missions through this type of short-term leadership training rather than paying for long-term foreign missionaries (I am defining “missionary” as one who intentionally crosses barriers of language and culture to share the Gospel with those who would normally not have the opportunity to hear the Gospel within their cultural and/or linguistic context).

The Random Thoughts of a Toddler

What's going on in there? Before they can talk, it is often a mystery as to what babies and little kids are really thinking about. As Joshua has become much more verbal in the past month or so, we've gotten some really unique insight into what is going on in that little brain. Every so often, he will blurt out something completely unrelated to what's going on or where he is. Here's some examples:

I was changing his diaper on the floor of his room and Joshua blurts out "chipmunk". Apparently he was thinking about the chipmunks that run around in my Dad's backyard.

We were driving down the street and Joshua announces "airplane, airplane". We looked out the windows and up into the sky to see if Joshua had seen an airplane but we couldn't see anything. Maybe the mere sight of the sky reminded Joshua of airplanes. It's hard

The Bubble Chaser

Sun took Joshua out into the front yard of my Dad's house in New Hampshire to see if he would enjoy a bubble wand that someone had given to us. Joshua had a great time trying to chase down the bubbles but he wasn't quite grasping the technique of how to wave the wand to produce bubbles.

Joshua chasing bubbles as they are carried away by the wind

 

 

Sun instructs Joshua in the fine art of waving the bubble wand to produce big fun bubbles

 

 

Joshua chasing bubbles as they are carried away by the wind

Sun instructs Joshua in the fine art of waving the bubble wand to produce big fun bubbles

Video: Joshua pursues bubbles across the yard

Donation Address

OMF International
10 W. Dry Creek Circle
Littleton, CO 80120

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