anchorite.org

The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America has launched a new design of their web site using Drupal. As I was browsing through the site, I found some wonderful resources on Orthodox Christianity:

• Orthodox Christianity – A series of articles on some of the basic doctrines of the Orthodox Christian Faith brought to you by Conciliar Media Ministries.
• Articles & Orthodox Christian Resources
• Articles from the Word – The official print publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
• Orthodox Liturgical Music

God has been encouraging me about something over the past few days and I thought I would share it with you. I hope He uses it to encourage you, also!

I felt that God really used the following passage to speak to me…

Acts 16:22-26 (NKJV)

Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

What I noticed was that Paul and Silas had been gathered, tried, beaten with rods and then thrown in prison. I’m sure they were exhausted and tired and all they wanted to do was sleep because it had been a long and painful day, probably a lot more painful than any of our days will ever be. But once they were thrown in prison, they didn’t complain to God, they didn’t cry, they didn’t sleep…No, they stayed up all night praying and singing hymns to God. In the midst of their praising, God removed all the bonds and shackles that were on them and also on all the peoples and He opened the door for them.

I really believe this is how God works in our lives. If we are willing to sacrifice (“a sacrifice of praise” as we pray in the liturgy) our sleep, our pain, our sickness, our exhaustion to praise and worship Him, we will hear His voice loud and clear. He will reveal to us His vision for our lives. He will free us from the bonds of slavery to sin, flesh, and this world that consume our lives. He will open doors and light paths for us. This is not as payment because He owes us nothing, but simply because we will be more able to see Him and hear Him because we will by crucifying the flesh to allow the Spirit (His Spirit) to reign in us.

I also feel that this goes along really well with yesterday’s quiet time. The following verses really stuck out to me…

1 Corinthians 1:18, 20, 26, 27 (NKJV)

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?… For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;

What is the message of the cross, but to deny oneself to do the will of the Father for the love of God and others? Isn’t that what Christ did? Isn’t that what He calls us to do? We use our/human/worldly wisdom to make decisions. We think if we stay up all night…we’ll be tired, we won’t be able to get anything done the next day. We also think, it was such a long day at work, we can’t stay up all night. All this is our human/worldly logic, but God says He has made foolish the wisdom of this world. He says those who are wise according to the flesh (base our decision on our flesh), are not called. He says if we do things that seem foolish to this world, we will put to shame all those who think we are foolish because His glory and power will be shown!

Now that I am back into the full swing of things, we are planning for this year’s larger I.T. projects. Here is a rough timeline…

January

• External Hosting – Move all sites to new Virtual Private Server and test Windows Media hosting with ChurchQuest.
• Launch stmarkdc.org version 4.0 with Drupal.
• Setup new wide format poster printer and establish printing guidelines.

February

• Setup new multi-function copier for Little Flock Christian School.
• Begin work on OrthodoxSermons.org version 2.0 with Drupal.
• Trial Discovery Education Streaming for the school.

March

• Launch microsite for a special church series/campaign.
• Install new servers/SAN and move to VMware.
• Clean up server room, install new server cabinet.

April

• Launch OrthodoxSermons version 2.0.
• Sanctuary audiovisual upgrades.

May

• Launch Arabic OrthodoxSermons.org.
• Move smaller websites to Drupal.
• Chapel audiovisual Upgrades.

June

• Trial Microsoft Forefront Client Security.
• Install updated ghost image on all school computers.
• Begin testing FellowshipOne Check-In.

July

• Possible migration from Exchange to Google Apps for church.
• Launch church intranet on “Google Apps Jotspot“
• Large storage solution for media.

August

• New school year – training for teachers and rearranging equipment.
• Possible release of various “web 2.0″ apps for classroom environments.
• Big birthday party for me as I become officially over the hill.

September

• Ministry refresh – training for new volunteers.
• Launch FellowshipOne Check-In.

October

• Audiovisual upgrades around the facility based on need from the school and the ministries.
• Begin work on an online learning environment using Moodle.

November

• Monitoring and logging systems for network and server resources.
• Test Windows Server 2008.
• New firewall and site to site VPN solutions for overseas mission sites.

December

• Plans and design for I.T. services and data center for new construction.
• Launch online learning environment.
• Active Directory rollout for overseas mission sites.

December 28 – January 4: Tanzania

Ministry in Tanzania is tough. We’ve been to Tanzania several times before and its always been tough.

Tanzania is primarily a Muslim country, at least by name. The Muslim prayers and sermons are prayed/spoken over the speaker system for the whole country to hear them. Tanzania is also paralyzed by witchcraft. Many people believe and go to witch doctors and believe that curses have power over them.

Somehow, every time we go to Tanzania, the group of missionaries with us feels sick and tired. They struggle to wake-up in the morning. They struggle to stay awake during the day. They don’t have energy to do the work that needs to be done. They can’t stay awake during our evening devotional time together. Somehow, everyone in the group feels week.

Language is another stumbling block in Musoma, Tanzania. It is very rare to find someone in Musoma, Tanzania that speaks English. Primary schools in Tanzania don’t teach English and most people don’t make it to Secondary school. Of all the deacons in the Tanzania church, only one knew English well enough to translate and he was out of town the entire time we were in Tanzania except for the last few days. When he came back, he had his fiancée with him and was pretty busy with her.

But somehow, He “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20) Some examples:

• On the 29th, we planned to go and do visitations/market preaching around the church compound, but we didn’t have anyone who could translate for us. We prayed and waited at the entrance of one of the homes in the church compound. All of a sudden a very young boy shows up and starts speaking close to perfect English with us. He mentioned that he had just come to greet Bishop Paul and us. His mom used to teach at the school that we used to operate in Tanzania. We asked if he was free for the day and he said that he was. God had answered our prayers! We collected the deacons, prayed and headed out for visitation/market preaching.
• On the same day, shortly after we began the visitation/market preaching, a teenage boy began speaking to us in perfect English. We asked him who he was and from where he recognized us. He said that he was a deacon at the church. We asked him to join us for a day of visitation/market preaching and he agreed. We split into two groups, one with they young boy and the other with the teenage boy. We spent the day doing visitations/market preaching and returned back to the church with little hope that there was much fruit because people were pretty resistant. When we arrived, we told Bishop Paul about the teenage boy that we met. Bishop Paul told us that there was no such deacon in the Tanzania church and we never saw either of the boys again. Only God knows who they were. God must have arranged for them to meet us and freed them to go with us!
• Shortly after we returned from the visitations, one of the boys that we had visited came and brought two of his friends with him to the church. We spent sometime speaking with us. He and one of his friends came and spent New Year’s Eve with us in overnight prayers. He and his friend stopped by the church every other day thereafter. His friend also brought his family member to the hospital.
• One of the visitations that we did on the same day was to a Muslim family. We visited a widow, her children, and her mother. Her brother showed up shortly into the visit. She knew a little bit of English. Her brother knew a little bit of Arabic. The fact that he knew Arabic scared us at first because it meant that he was probably actively involved in Mosque activities and may even have some Middle Eastern background. We spoke with them for a while first to get to know them and their family, then we asked if we could share a message from the Gospel with them. They hesitantly agreed, but the brother indicated he had to leave because he had to be at work shortly. We said our goodbyes to him and shared the Gospel message with the rest of the family. We invited them to the church and prayed for them. We had little hope that the message we spoke had any impact because the grandmother began to joke about her daughter finding a husband before joining any church and if she finds a husband at the church then she could convert. Little did we knew … the next day the brother came to the church and invited us to his home to share the Gospel there, the widow came to the hospital, was treated, and visited with us…
• On the 2nd, we planned to go visit in one of the areas that has church members, but is a little distant. It was the only area, we still had not visited during our time in Tanzania. Things were busy in the church compound as we were trying to finish all the details related to the Coptic Medical Center and the Doctor’s apartment in preparation for our departure. Everyone was working around the compound, but we knew that God wanted us to go visit the area. Once again, we prayed for a translator. The deacon that was suppose to come first thing in the morning to translate for us still had not shown up at 4:00 PM. Around 4:15 a young man who finished secondary school and knew English perfectly well walked into the church. He was a church member, but not a deacon, and we were not expecting him. We asked him, if he could spend some time with us visiting the area we still had not visited. He gladly agreed. We drove to the area hoping to meet up with some of the church members. We knocked on one door and no one was home. We went to another home and the owner said that the members in the area did not have a fellowship meeting that day and were not prepared to meet with us. At that point, we weren’t sure what to do. We stopped and prayed and asked God what He wanted us to do. We knew he had sent us the translator for a purpose, but now, we needed to understand what that purpose was. After our time of prayer, the translator suggested we go to the market and preach there. We arrived at the market to find approximately 25 men sitting around talking and joking. We joined them and asked if we could introduce ourselves and share the Gospel with them. They agreed. While we were sharing the Gospel with them, the group continued to grow. By the end of our sharing there was approximately 75 men there. They were engaged and had a lot of educated questions for us, some of which caught us by surprise (Why do you worship on Sunday? How do we know you don’t worship Sunday? The Bible says, if our eyes cause us to sin, we should pluck them out, should we really pluck our eyes out?). We spent at least an hour, if not more, with them. We answered their questions and invited to come and visit the church and medical center. Some of the men followed us to the car and continued to ask us questions. After the tough questions and because of the distance (about one hour walking), we weren’t confident that anyone would come. The next morning 4 of the men had walked more than hour to come and visit us at the church.

These are just two of the days we spent in Tanzania. We saw God do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20) each and every day in Kenya and Tanzania. “…To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20).

I hope to share with you how He worked “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20) in our own lives sometime in the near future.

When we arranged the dates of the trip and Sherry’s new job we knew it was right around our five year wedding anniversary. We planned to return to the U.S. on January 11 and take a family and/or anniversary vacation after we return. We weren’t quite sure how things would work out financially, considering I would not be paid for more than two months and I would only be paid for the vacation time he had accrued. We didn’t really know what would come of it, but we prayed about it and trusted that God would do what is best for us.

We would check on our bank account every couple weeks from Africa, just to make sure the mortgage and monthly bills would clear. We got to a point where we weren’t quite sure we would clear the January or February mortgage and we thought for sure we wouldn’t be able to take any vacation. We prayed and trust God with the situation. We put our desire before God and submitted ourselves to His will. We said…this is what we would like God (a special five year anniversary vacation celebration), but your will, not ours because we know you have the best plan for our lives… Little did we know what God had in store for us!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had to change our tickets so that we leave from Dar El Salem instead of Nairobi. We wanted to leave on January 5 because that was the same day that Bishop Paul and the rest of the missionaries that were with us were leaving. British Airways told us they didn’t have any flights that we could take until January 7. A friend who was helping us change the reservation from the U.S. told us that they didn’t have any flights that we could take until January 7. But we wanted to get home…what were we going to do by ourselves in Dar El Salem for two week days? We didn’t know anyone there. There was no church there. When we arrived in Dar El Salem, we saw a sign at the airport that said British Airways was flying directly from Dar El Salem to London on the 5th in the morning. We were really excited! We would get to leave with everyone! We asked at the airport about the flight and they didn’t know anything about it. We called our friend in the U.S., who is a travel agent. He said that the the status of that flight was undeterminable and there was no information on the flight because it arrives at Dar El Salem after it stops in Nairobi. At that point we realized, we had no choice. We would be stuck in Tanzania until the 7th. We prayed and asked God what he wanted us to do for the two days in Tanzania.

We remembered having a conversation with one of the priests in Kenya and he mentioned that he would love to take a relaxing vacation to Zanzibar. So we said…why not? Let’s research Zanzibar… After everyone else left for the airport, we sat at the hotel and researched hotels in Zanzibar after praying that God make His will clear by either opening or closing the door for us to go. We began calling hotels in the order they were listed on trip advisor…booked, booked, booked…until we got to the seventh or so hotel and they said they had availability. Before we started calling, I had looked at that hotel and said we would never go there because the sandy white beach was a short drive away and not on the property. But God had different plans, and what amazing plans they were. It was the most beautiful hotel, location, and beach we’ve ever stayed at in our life. It was an amazing five year anniversary gift from God. See for yourself…

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” Ephesians 3:20

This is only one silly worldly example of how God always does exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. I hope to post more about how we saw God’s hand at work exceedingly abundantly above all that we asked or thought in our lives and in the ministry during our trip.

By the grace of God we have safely returned from an amazing two month mission in East Africa. Originally we had planned to split our time between Kenya and Zambia but God had other ideas. Bishop Paul showed up at the mission station in Maseno, Kenya on December 23rd and asked us to stay an extra week in Kenya and postpone our ticket to Zambia from the 24th of December to January 2nd. We spent the week transitioning over projects we had started and work on to longer term missionaries that had just returned from furlough and preparing for an upcoming international conference on evangelism. At the end of the week, the bishop suggested that we take a two day trip out to our mission station in Tanzania before heading out to Zambia. On December 28th, the day after general elections in Kenya, we drove to Musoma, Tanzania, a small town on Lake Victoria.

Sherry and I have previously visited the mission in Musoma in 2000 and 2005, both times we found that the devil was vigorously battling Christ’s work there and the mission was struggling. Thank God, two years ago, He led an amazing couple from Kenya to dedicate there lives to serve the people there. Father Joshua and his wife Pendo moved from Nairobi to Musoma and God through them has brought new life to the mission there. This new spiritual base in the mission has opened doors for the opening of a medical center and HIV/AIDS clinic.

Once we arrived in Musoma, we found the medical center still required quite a few finishing touches before opening for full scale public operations, so we dived in full force and started putting together equipment, hanging curtains, installing fans, etc. We tried to break away once a day and visit people in their homes to share the gospel. The day after we arrived we hear the news from Kenya that the sitting president has called the close election and had himself sworn in for another term. The popular opposition party cried foul and called the people to protest which unfortunately turned into violent rioting.

For the next week, we prayed for Kenya and planned every night to leave the following morning, hoping that the riots would cool down. We were getting reports of roads blocked by marauding gangs who would throw rocks at vehicles and then burn them. Shops and gas stations were set ablaze in Kisumu, the opposition stronghold that is located next to our mission station in Maseno. During the days we continued work on the clinic and began visiting the marketplace where we would preach to large groups of men and women, sharing the gospel and advertising the new medical center as well. Things in Kenya didn’t get better and the Bishop wanted to attend Orthodox Christmas (January 7th) in Nairobi so I hid the SUV in the church and we hopped on a bus to Mwanza, a lakeside city in Tanzania, and caught a flight to Dar al Salaam from there.

We met with some of the Coptic believers in Dar el Salaam (there isn’t a church or mission station there yet), the bishop gave them a bible study at night and in the morning we celebrated the liturgy in the hotel room together. From there we parted ways with the bishop and the rest of our group. They flew back to Nairobi while we stayed in Tanzania because we had rerouted our flight to the USA so that it leaves from Dar al Salaam to Johannesburg, London, then home.

Bishop Paul shared with us some inspirational bible studies which we hope to share with you here over the next couple of days.