Emotional Rollercoaster News

Wow. What a morning it has been! As usual, drinking my morning coffee and reading blogs, news and facebook. One of the blogs I read posted this video - well worth the time it takes to download and watch. I was struck by the words of one of the translator: "We have no idea. We have had the Word of God for so long. We have taken it for granted. We have resources, we have translations, we have all these different things, and we don't, we don't cherish it. We don't realize what a precious gift we have and hold in our hands, and these guys were realizing that."

I am convicted. Deep in my heart and soul - I am convicted of that truth.

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From there, I went to the news and this article on FoxNews caught my eye immediately: Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches, Homes. People are being killed and persecuted by Muslims in Ethiopia simply for being Christians. Martyrs for Jesus Christ.

Our time is coming. It won't be long.

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Last night before I went to bed I saw on the USGS page that there had been a 6.8 earthquake in Myanmar (also known as Burma). So far the news is telling us that over 40 people are known to have died. The death count is expected to rise.

This area of the world is not a very siesmicly active area. Yes, there are earthquakes there occasionally, rarely. But over the past couple or 3 weeks there have been several.

I laugh to myself because I noted immediately the first time Myanmar came up on the list and commented about it to Mel. I picture myself as a little ant, or maybe a big grasshopper - the scent of something new comes my way, I pause in whatever I'm doing and my antenna just start wiggling all over the place, trying to work it out. If you never watch bugs, you have no idea what I'm writing about. hahahahahahahaha I needed a good mental laugh right now.

Oh, and this is not the "big one" I think is going to happen. ;-)

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When I googled "missionaries to Burma", the first name that came up Adoniram Judson. I have a feeling that anyone who has been in a church for very long will at least have heard that name.

Actually, when I think about it, that is not true. Our modern churches are so weak and worldly that I doubt 1 out of 100, or even 1 out of 1000 in most church circles today would have any clue who Adoniram Judson was. Or Amy Carmichael. Or Jim Elliott. Or maybe even Hudson Taylor. Sad. Very sad.

Whenever I think of missionaries to Burma, the wrong names come to mind. Gladys Aylward (missionary to China) and Isabel Kuhn (missionary to the Burmese Lisu people of Thailand and China). Two women who have inspired me in my own walk with Christ and in missions.

I wonder - how many of the people in the earthquake area have ever heard the name of Christ? Is there a church there? The news article only mentioned Buddhist temples that had been destroyed.

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Scientists' Research Warns Humanity May be Facing 'Vortex of Death' is a very interesting article for a couple of reasons. This article addresses the upcoming Solar Maximum that has already begun. We are in Solar Cycle 24 now. The Minimum that we just came out of was one of the longest ever recorded and scientist are very puzzled over the whys and hows of it all. I'm not going to go into details here because if someone is interested there is so much info on the internet now - why repeat it?

What makes this particular article interesting to me is the fact that a couple of Melinda's Ladies (women who attend her Bible study on Fridays) talked all about magnetism and the sun while they walked home with her last week after the study. It was a "we're going to die! we're going to die! we're all going to die!" Chicken Little kind of conversation. Melinda wasn't sure what they were exactly talking about. When she told us I did have an idea, but had not seen it all put together in an article kind of format. Apparently this info in this kind of format hit the news stands and/or channels here sometime last week. After all, a lot of the research was done by a Russian.

(I find it interesting that a Russian is the one who came up with this. Over and over again I've heard people say things here that we are taught the exact opposite about in the States - yet the Russian view is proven to be correct - i.e. fat is good for you and you should eat it, not do what Americans do and try to never ever eat it. Just one example. I pay attention more now.)

Scientists have been talking about the Solar Minimums and Maximums for several years now. I've mentioned them before, posting photos from www.spaceweather.com and other places of the totally blank sun and how many days it had been blank, and so forth and so on. I'm interested in this stuff, after all! Not just because of things like this particular article (I do recommend reading the article, by the way, it is interesting, if a bit scary and sensational), but because of the natural processes that are happening around us all the time and we are just beginning to catch glimpses of what is really happening.

There is no doubt about it - we live in unusual and interesting and without Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord, frightening times. I can't blame man's sinfulness on what is going on in and on the sun, but I am sure that the sun affects us in ways we have no clue about right now. The sun does, after all, rule the day! And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19

And one of my favorite Psalms which I set to my own music and can sing to you if you'd like, promises me that the sun will not harm me by day, nor the moon by night:
Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121
(bold emphasis mine)

So, what do I think of this article? Hmmm - this is one of those that I need to really do some deep thinking over. Right off the top of my head I have some opinions (I always have opinions!) and I think it fits right in with the Times in which we live - the End Times.

God does do miracles, I have no doubt of that. But it seems to me that most often God uses means to accomplish His will. There are going to be miracles in the coming days, yes. But much of what is written about in the Revelation and other prophetic books may simply be natural means that God uses to accomplish His perfect will here on earth.

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And now - time to do the dishes and get ready for my Russian lesson in a couple hours!!

More Martyrs in Egypt

Christian Persecution Continues Amid Egypt Turmoil
, FoxNews
By Amanda Marshall

Published February 02, 2011

As pro and anti-Mubarak protesters clash in the streets of Egypt, the Christian minority continues to face mounting persecution, largely unbeknownst to the public eye.

Tom Doyle, Middle East director for E3 Partners, a Christian missionary organization that works extensively in Egypt and the surrounding region, and author of “Breakthrough: The Return of Hope to the Middle East,” tells FOX that colleagues on the ground report the murder of 15 more Christians outside Al-Minya, about 150 miles south of Cairo.

“With no police available, no one was willing to help them. Family members are taking turns keeping watch over their homes, as robberies, rape, looting, and car theft are occurring routinely now.”

Under Egypt’s constitutional rights, Christians are free to practice their faith. Persecution, however, has been rampant, as Muslim extremists seek to deny those rights. Twenty-three Christians were murdered and 70 injured as a suicide bomber attacked a Coptic Christian Church at a New Year’s Eve mass in Alexandria. Archbishop Raweis, the top Coptic cleric in Alexandria, denounced what he called a lack of protection.

"There were only three soldiers and an officer in front of the church," he said. "Why did they have so little security at such a sensitive time when there's so many threats coming from Al Qaeda?”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was recently asked about the onslaught of Christian murders across the Middle East. Gibbs deflected to the State Department, and said, “I have not heard the – an overarching theory” behind the attacks, and “the president is aware.”

Christianity in Egypt dates back to the first century A.D. as Alexandria was an early center of Christianity, and until the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the seventh century, it was predominantly Christian. Today, the Christian minority only makes up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population.

“With the Muslim brotherhood rising up, Christians are very nervous about who might be next in line to take over for Mubarak,” explained Doyle. “Many times it’s been stated that there’s democracy but it’s just been a veil for authoritarianism.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in the 1920s, demanded today for Mubarak to step down, as well as Jordan’s new Prime Minister. Among the brotherhood’s graduates, Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 - the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri -- who was imprisoned for three years on weapons charges following President Sadat's assassination in 1981, as well as Hamas, the terror network behind suicide bombings and rocket attacks in Israel, and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine whose goal is the destruction of Israel.

Walid Phares tells FOX the group is “the mothership for the Jihadi ideologies and thinking, and therefore one can say today's Al-Qaeda and today's many other jihadists are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Asked today about how the Obama administration would handle Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood takes control, Gibbs said, “I think we’re getting way ahead of the process. I don’t want to get into hypotheticals about what-if.”

Whether it will be addressed by the White House or not, Egyptian Christians fear what will become of the already persecuted minority should Muslim extremists take control.

Revelation 6: 9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

We ARE Affected

I just read an article about what is happening in Egypt and then commented to Mel that I am actually more concerned about what is happening in Egypt than by what is happening in Iran and Palestine. Maybe that is because I have been to Egypt, but not to the rest of the Middle East. Well, I've been to Turkey and I'm concerned about what is happening in Turkey, too, so - there you go.

My own little world seems so safe and secure. Sure, they are doing something to the water pipes again somewhere in our podyezd, but even so, the water should come back on again in 20 minutes or a few hours. It's only 66 F in here, but the pipes are at least warm and we have electricity so we can use the little heater if needed. My own little world is safe and secure at the moment.

But I watch world events. I've watched world events since, well, as long as I can remember. Maybe because I was raised in a very Dispensational church in the '60's and world events at that time were causing preachers like ours to preach on End Times stuff all. the. time. But in the preaching I did learn that what happens in one part of the world has a direct influence on what happens in my little world. It might take years, or it might take just a few minutes, but it will affect me in some way at some time. The cultural revolution in the '60's also taught me that. Just look where we are now in our society and culture compared to where we were in the '50's. The new tv program "Skins" is a direct descendent of what happened in the 'revolution'. So is the rise of homosexuality in America and even around the world.

I'm sure I've written about this before, but a change happened in the '50's and '60's. One of Mel's profs in seminary truly believed that Satan had been loosed from the pit then. Revelation 20:7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Maybe we are in the middle of that right now, the deceiving of the nations. If so, the time will come for the rest of it to be accomplished as well.

I read about what is going on in Algeria. I read about the unrest in Egypt (one report I read today said there may have been or may be a massacre of protestors in Suez!). I think about what is going on in North Korea where millions of people are on the verge of starvation, or are already in the midst of it.

Those places are so far away and have nothing to do with MY life! we think. But not really. Mexico is on the border of the US and the violence is spilling over into the States now. Unusual cold has affected grain crops in many places of the world. Floods have wiped out farm land areas the size of Germany and France combined in Australia. Our planets' oceans are polluted with an amazing amount of oil, caused by man's drilling and carelessness. A volcano has erupted in Japan, filling the air world-wide with more volcanic ash (I wonder when it will get to the point that we once again have 'pink skies' like we did when Pinatubo erupted back in the early '90's? At least they were a weird pinkish during the day in the Wet Mountain Valley when looking toward the south - no true Colorado blue skies that whole winter.)

What happens in one part of the world eventually has an effect in another part of the world. Food prices are rising - due to destruction of crop land in Australia (they will need to import more food - competition for that food increases), due to extreme cold in various parts of the world (Vietnam is one example with thousands of cattle dead and crops destroyed), due to drought and/or extreme heat in other parts of the world (Russia and parts of Ukraine lost much of their wheat crop last year due to the unusual heatwave). And so it continues.

I listened to the Revelation series by Art Azurdia and although I was blessed by much of it, I struggled with his non-dispensational view of the book (again, I've written about that before and won't go over it again now). But recently his view has brought me great comfort. If we are in the middle of the Revelation now, as he contends, then just look at that verse in Revelation 20: 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. We are the city he loves. WE are the city he loves. We are the camp of God's people - the Church today is the camp of God's people! And he loves us!

In today's news is this article: U.S. missionary in Mexico fatally shot. Toward the end of the article: Maryanne Wheeler, another friend who worked with the Davises in the 1990s, said Nancy Davis' death was a great loss.

"They breathed Mexico," Wheeler said. "That's their love.

"For 40 years she has gone around Mexico, trying to be there as a nurse, a friend, as a spiritual adviser and has loved them. They lost the best," she said. "They had a petite lady who had the tenacity of a bulldog and was there for you."

Wheeler said the couple had been shot at before and knew the dangers of the border area.

So, things are getting worse, and are going to get much, much worse. But then - oh my! But then will be eternity and things will always be perfect!

Hear the words of J. C. Ryle today on Christ-Centered Quotes for the Renewing of Your Mind: January 27: The state of things after the judgment is changeless and without end. The misery of the lost, and the blessedness of the saved, are both alike forever. Let no person deceive us on this point. It is clearly revealed in Scripture. The eternity of God, and heaven, and hell, all stand on the same foundation. As surely as God is eternal, so surely is heaven an endless day without night, and hell an endless night without day.

Father God in Heaven, help me stand firm in faith to the end of my life. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Christian in Egypt: ‘They Try to Kill Us’

January 26, 2010 - 11:41 AM | by: Dana Lewis

Egyptian Maher El-Gowhary and his 15 year old daughter Dina never pray twice at the same church, never stay longer than a month in any one apartment. They are constantly under threat, always on the run because they converted to Christianity in a largely Muslim country.

Maher and Dina nervously agreed to meet us at a Church in Cairo. The priest at the Church said he feared problems from the Egyptian authorities and while he agreed to have us watch his Sunday mass, the Priest declined to speak to us about what is happening in Egypt and to the El-Gowhary's.

They tell their story out of fear and desperation. Born Muslims they chose to convert to the Christian Church after both claim they had religious visions.

Now Maher says "Muslims try to kill us, and will kill us if they find us."

Several religious fatwas have been issued for "spilling his blood" after Maher asked an Egyptian Court to legally recognize his conversion, so he can one day be buried as a Christian and so his daughter won't be forced into a marriage by her Muslim mother.

The court ruled a legal conversion to Christianity would threaten public order. His lawyer told us it's a dangerous double standard because in Egypt a Christian can convert to the Muslim faith in a week, but a Muslim cannot convert to the Christian faith.

Ten percent of Egypt is Christian, largely the Coptic Christians who increasingly say they face daunting discrimination and even death.

We had to hide our camera as we followed the El-Gowhary's because we were told if the authorities discovered we were preparing our story we would be arrested.

Religious tensions are running high in Egypt.

On January 6th, the Coptic Christmas eve, three Muslim men sprayed gunfire at a Church in Upper Egypt killing six Christians and wounding up to a dozen more. Christians rioted the next day and the area is still closed to outsiders including the press.

Human rights activist Hussein Bahjet say's Egypt has the potential to become like Lebanon because of growing sectarian violence.

"Civil strife that could engulf the country" Bahjet says.

The U.S. State Department reports respect of religious freedom in Egypt is declining, Christians are denied Government jobs, Priests are threatened and harassed, Christians are increasingly attacks in what State describes as "a climate of impunity that encourages violence."

In some cases authorities turn a blind eye to attacks on Christians, in other cases there is evidence police sparked the attacks.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been largely silent about the problem, but this week he spoke out saying Egyptians must up-root "fanaticism and sectarianism, which threatens the unit of our nation."

Dina has written a letter to President Obama which has been published on Christian websites. She has been pulled out of school. She has only a blue jean jacket to stay warm and little food to eat. Her letter was a desperate plea. "I wrote that we are a minority Christian Community treated very badly and I want to tell President Obama to tell the Egyptian Government to treat us well."

Her father Mayer says he can't stay in Egypt anymore. He and his daughter are in such grave danger we can't report where they are in Egypt now, or where they are planning on moving tomorrow.

In recent days the two met with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in Cairo. They asked for refugee status to get out of Egypt.

A source at the Commission say's its a complicated matter because Dina has a Muslim mother and there are legal issues, but their request is being considered.

The Commission source also says because of religious discrimination in Egypt, last year the State Department down graded Egypt to being on a watch list. This year it could potentially be downgraded further to a Country of particular concern. That means the U.S. might even consider sanctions against a Country which receives some 2 billion dollars in U.S. aid every year.

As I write this Dina and her father are packing, moving to another area of Egypt. Out of money. And running of out hope.

Amazing Joy

Photos of Murdered German Bible School Students
Two German Bible School students were brutally murdered while volunteering at hospital in Yemen this month.

Anita G. and Rita S. were photographed earlier at the Brake Bible School in western Germany. Anita was photographed serving children in Malawi during a missions trip there in 2006.

from CBN News, Friday, June 19, 2009

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What?? Amazing JOY?? Why in the world would I title a post about the murder of these two young women 'Amazing Joy'?

There are a couple of reasons.

Several years ago while Mel and I were living in the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado, I had a wonderful experience. At the time Colorado was being inundated by people moving in from California. Everything was changing. I was born and raised in Colorado, as were my parents and grandparents. Suddenly here was this whole migration of people moving in. They had 'west coast values' - not mine, and usually not the values of anyone else I knew. They brought their brand of politics, lifestyle and even religion with them. They brought a drug problem to our little valley (oh, the valley already had an alcohol problem, for sure) and along with that, the influence of gangs. Things changed radically. Now, if you didn't live there day in and day out, you may not have seen the difference, but for those of us who did - it was fast and it was often painful in unexpected ways. I was in mourning for what was happening to my home. Houses springing up like mushrooms all over the place, prices increasing, and so forth.

One day while Mel and I were driving in to town I was talking to him about it all and how distressed I was seeing everything change and much being destroyed (you can't rebuild hills and regrow big trees that are gouged, cut down or totally removed for example). After a bit we lapsed into silence. I looked out the window at the Sangre de Cristo mountains on our left, and then out at the hay fields to our right. When I looked back to the north, I had one of the most treasured experiences I've ever had.

In a split second it was there and then it was gone. Then it was there again and just as quickly gone.

I sat stunned. Quiet. Wondering at what I had just seen.

I looked at Mel somewhat hesitantly and said, "Mel, I just saw the New Earth. For just a split second, there it was."

Mel was driving and he is used to me chattering away, wandering in my thoughts far and wide. He didn't say much, just indicated that he'd heard me. I often have wondered - what did he think at that point? Maybe I'm glad I don't know the answer to that! ha ha!

I started to explain what I'd seen. Even now it's very difficult because I saw the same geological formation that I've always seen while driving or riding down that road - only it was perfect, untainted by sin. I had no clear words to describe how it affected me - like an electric shock, like how a SweetTart tastes when you first bite into one... like pure, complete JOY filling every cell in my body, every thought in my head, creating in me a longing that is deep and desperate to BE THERE NOW.

I asked him - is this really possible? Did I really, truly actually SEE for those split seconds the New Earth that God will create for us after Christ's return? Am I going nuts?

And he reassured me that, no, I was not going nuts, and he didn't know what I had just experienced, but yes it was possible (maybe not probable, but definitely possible) that God had given me a vision, a foretaste of what is to come. And to myself I thought - maybe He gave it to me to help me not mourn so deeply, but to "set my mind on things above and not things on the earth."

I have remembered that instant sense of joy many times. Many times. I have thought about the New Earth and the New Heaven oh so very many times, wondering, and dreaming, and praising my God and Father for what He is going to provide for us.

Several years later, here in Kherson, one of the women in the church told us that she had died and been resuscitated 3 times. She was not a believer at the time this happened. She remembers clearly going to heaven and seeing flowers there. One single flower had hundreds of petals and each petal was a different color. She said she's never seen colors like that here on earth. She said she was told she wasn't supposed to be there yet and had to go back. This during communist times, happened to an unbeliever - BUT God had called her to be His before the foundation of the world - she was His already, she just didn't know it yet and was not yet prepared to enter heaven. She longs to return, but it isn't time yet.

I've been thinking a lot about death and dying, about the Second Coming of Christ, about living in the End Times. Lest someone think I'm just being morbid about it all - no, I've just been listening to a series of 80 sermons on The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Some I am relistening to because they are so good, they bring me such comfort and they make me think deeper thoughts than I would otherwise.

In one of the sermons from a passage in one of the last two chapters of The Revelation, Dr. Azurdia makes a statement that one of the things we will experience on the New Earth is JOY, real, deep Joy. And when I heard him say that, I thought of the vision God had given me, and began to weep with longing for the future.

So, I started out this post talking about two young German women who were recently martyred. The Revelation has much to say about martyrs, too - they play a big part in what happens in the future.

But for now, these two women, along with the three Turkish men martyred so viciously in 2007, and thousands of others like them (our Christians brothers and sisters of all nationalities, from all of history) - they live eternally in Amazing Joy.

Come Lord Jesus! Come!
Necati Aydin, Tilman Geske and Ugur Yuksel, (L to R)

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
Revelation 6:9-11