Self....What?

After a little back and forth with one of my students yesterday, I finally talked to him about his need to exhibit more self-control. His lips pursed as if to bring another excuse or backfire some comment, but they stopped before sound was produced. He finally looked up and said "I would say something if I knew what that word meant."
"What word?" "self-control?" I asked. "Yea" was his only response. This morning thinking back about that conversation, I find it to be very telling about our society. When a 12 year old boy does not know what self-control is, we can truly say "America, we have a problem."
Parents please "train up your child in the way he should go so that when he gets old he will not depart from it." -Proverbs 22:6

The fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and SELF-CONTROL!

-A Teacher

God's People Everywhere

Jim and Elizabeth Elliot courted at this woman's table, and now she is helping me find a job. You have to understand that ever since childhood Jim Elliot has been a huge part of my missions inspiration. He had so adequately penned what my heart felt with words such as "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" or "I desire not a long life, but a full one like yours Lord Jesus."
The woman who owned that kitchen table so many years ago in Ecudor is Keitha Wittig. She now lives in a retirement community not to far from my house. I stumbled into her room a couple of years ago and can't help but go back. Now she is tracking down job information for me in an area I had expressed interest in clear across the world. God is truly amazing as he works sometimes in the most mysterious/hilarious/ironic/cool/touching/tender/marvelous ways.
What a delight to know and have a body of believers so united in Christ all over the globe, all through history, right in our backyards, and now in 2011!

My Statement of Faith

I was asked to write my statement of faith in order to hold a Bible study in a particular church's facilities. I thought this was great. More churches need to be concerned with what is being taught and who is teaching! I wish I could just spit out great insight and then send it on, but I really had to think about each thing I wanted to say and so on and so forth so here is what I came up with...

I believe in the Apostle’s Creed which recognizes the person and work of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit the three in one Godhead. Mankind, since the fall of Adam, is sinful and separated from God by sin. God in His grace calls men to Himself and saves them through Jesus Christ by the work of the Spirit in a person as they hear the gospel. God’s justice demands a punishment for sin; this was met by God’s mercy as He sent His Son to suffer the consequences of our sin. Jesus lived the perfect life that Adam, Israel, and we could not live, and it is through repentance and faith in Him that we are redeemed and also justified in his sight (Romans 5:1-2).

“I believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father apart from Him” –John 14:6. I believe in the word of God, the Bible, to be our source and standard for truth. It is infallible, without error and useful for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). I believe that salvation is by faith alone a gift of God and not of works (Ephesians 2:8-10). I believe that as Christians fruit should flow from our love for God and from a heart and life that has been changed by Him.

This is an excerpt from (http://www.opc.org/beliefs.html) that I found helpful. I believe that it accurately describes how a person is saved and ought to then live:

Those whom God has predestined unto life are effectually drawn to Christ by the inner working of the Spirit as they hear the gospel. When they believe in Christ, God declares them righteous (justifies them), pardoning their sins and accepting them as righteous, not because of any righteousness of their own, but by imputing Christ's merits to them. They are adopted as the children of God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies them, enabling them increasingly to turn from sin and act righteously. They repent of their sins (both at their conversion and thereafter), produce good works as the fruit of their faith, and persevere to the end in communion with Christ, with assurance of their salvation.

A SIGN

I was driving down the interstate and there were many questions on my mind was the answer yes, . . . or . . . no, this, . . . or . . . that, I didn't know. They weren't like test questions but big life questions the kind that rarely leave your mind at ease.
Driving from school, headed home going 66 or maybe 67, I looked out at the night sky and the few stars that softly shown. I though how nice it would be if only God would right the answer to all my questions right there in the sky so plain for me to see. That is when I saw it.
It was a regular night in January at 7:36 with the temperature being 51 degrees outside but much warmer in my car! The sign up in the sky was bright yellow and read "LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT" Great! A sign in the sky for me! So if this was related to my questions I knew that I needed to go left but . . . did left stand for yes or maybe it was no since of course left has less letters then right and no had less letter then yes. Or maybe it was about that other decision telling me to do "this" but you know I was really leaning more towards "that". Ahhhh!
After much contemplation, I realized I knew nothing more than when I started for left could be no or could be yes. This sign was not from God.
I smiled to myself thankful that God has written all we need to know in his word. So I come home open my Bible and begin to read the truth and wisdom which set me free, show me hope, and guide my future. God has written and grants discernment too!

2 Peter 1:3 "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness"
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Note: Everything written did not necessarily directly correspond to my exact thought patterns but was written in this way to communicate the worth and necessity of scripture.

Book Review of Total Truth

Let your mind be captured not by the world but by the word

Pearcey, Nancy Total Truth Crossway, 2004

Hey my name is Lindsey Campbell and I just finished reading this book called Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey it looks at what it means to have a Christian worldview. First, a worldview is the lens through which we view the world and our worldview should be based on what is true. As Christians we are called to redeem entire cultures we do this by living out a biblical worldview. This book helps to liberate you from the world’s, cultural and philosophical captivity. Pearcey describes how often even Christians’ minds are separated by a two story dichotomy with values on the top and facts on the bottom separating religion from anything logical. This intellectual split is what often leads to the falling away of the churches children upon entrance into college. Suddenly other ideologies are providing something Christianity did not.

Christians should not be separating their life into sacred items like going to church, praying and secular items like eating, sleeping, working 1 Corinthians 10:13 says “Whatever we do whether we eat or drink we are to do it all to the glory of God.” This book will help Christians discuss their beliefs in a way that non-Christians will understand philosophically. Often on one side of the college campuses we will see the bottom story of facts and science eating up the upper story of ethics or values. Move to the humanities department and the upper story of values takes over, getting rid of objective truth moving to the subjectivism of modernism, multiculturalism, and political correctness. 1 Peter 3:15 say “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. The Greek word defense is apologia which is the root word for apologetics, the defending of the faith. Apologetics is a crucial skill for Christians in our day.

This book educates Christians on the “isms” of our culture such as Marxism, Darwinism, and postmodernism by revealing the lie they are based on. Pearcey talks about three aspects that every worldview has first they all have some kind of Creation how the world came to be and what purpose it has second, a fall what happened or why there are their bad things that happen and Third redemption or how to make it better. “All truth is God’s truth” said John Milton with that in mind there is a solidly Biblical way to look at and be involved in every area of life.

Pearcey thoroughly takes her readers threw a tour of Darwinism and its errors then she shows us from a pragmatist perspective exactly where Darwinism will take you. Next, Pearcey talked about the first and second great awakening that led to the general “Christianization” of America but also led to the down play of the intellectual role of Christianity instead emphasizing emotional conversions. Pearcey also takes a look at the feminist movement which began when jobs were placed outside the home no longer a family farm or store front but instead work in a factory or office. This led to the need for someone to stay home rather than the family working together. All people long to contribute to something larger then themselves, what we to often forget is that we don’t need competition or a career to fulfill God’s purpose in the world. In the last chapter Pearcy talks simply about the need to live it out by saying “Even worldview studies can become a seedbed for pride instead of a process of submitting our minds to the Lordship of Christ.” I encourage you to read this book and learn what it means to live by a Christian worldview.

Home again, Home agian

After forty-five hugs and kisses, I hopped in a van and watched as my home and life of the last three months faded away. Surely there is a time to return but is there ever time to leave? My plane left Trujillo on Monday, November 24th at 4:55 in the afternoon for it's flight to Lima. Once in Lima when I got to the counter to check my bags and pick up my tickets I was told that my 11:40 p.m. flight has been delayed until 1:40 a.m. The lady on the other side of the counter said she was going to keep me on the same connecting flight she said "just move quickly and you should be fine, you have an hour and a half which you will need for customs and immigration." She put a "special" tag on my bag so it would come out first. After a fitful night of sleep on the plane, I was ready to run through Miami and catch my plane to Jacksonville. I made it to the baggage claim before the bags did and then they started coming out, the bags that is other peoples' bags. Wow! I though a bunch of other peoples' bags must have needed to come out "first" also. . . Now the people were starting to thin out and I'm still waiting. . . . There it is! I grabbed it and ran through immigration. I went to hand a man my bag to check and he said "I'm sorry you only have thirty minutes and you still have to go through security please step over to that counter for assistance on getting the next flight". He didn't listen to my petition that I could run fast! The news came at 8:30 a.m. and they put me on the plane at 2:30 p.m. that afternoon.
Since I have been home I have been kept crazily busy with family, friends and the holidays, but that's the way I like it!
I learned so much and gained so much experience while I was in Peru. I know I will continue to look back and discover the things God was teaching me with my time there. More than anything I am so thankful for the opportunities I have to serve God and speak of his son whether in the USA or in Peru. "Jim Elliot said "Wherever you are be there 100%." I don't know exactly what the future holds but wherever I am I will diligently strive to carry out this quote so that my time is not wasted on looking to the future and forgetting the present.

2 Corinthians 9:7-8 "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work."
Each day My goal is to cheerfully give more and more of myself away no matter where I am. Knowing that his sufficiency will carry me.

Though I can't say how regularly, I hope to keep up the blog with clips from this life that God has loaned to me.

Last Days

I can’t believe it, I leave for home in two days. The last few days have been full of realizing that such and such is my last this and my last that. Thursday Samantha threw me a fogota (going away party) with the friends that we had made from Saturday night church and the other volunteers. We went to the beach in Salaverry and had a bon fire. I have loved hanging out with the young people from the church in Salaverry. We sang songs, played games, ate smores, and then ended with a prayer. Everyone is asking when I will be coming back.
Friday in school Miss Ali’s class (that I work in) and Amy’s Kindergarten class had a going away party for me. I was thrilled to get cards from several of the kids. Since Friday was my last day of language therapy I decided to get cookies and just hang out with each of my kids. Every time I go to get one of the kids for language therapy there are mixed emotions, sometimes they are ready to go and other days they hate the idea. Well, Friday several of the kids were playing outside when it came time to get them and they were completely miserable as I dragged them away. I wanted nothing more than to be like “listen today is a fun day, you don’t understand the surprise I have for you.” When I was standing outside calling one of them, I couldn’t help but think of God and how he has so much in store for us but we don’t want to move or go outside our comfort zone. What frustrating foolish sheep we can be sometimes. The way the kids treat me and the other tias is often a good demonstration of how we treat God. So, what behavior do I want to avoid? Ignoring his voice, saying no, never saying thank you, always asking for more, and not giving him what he asks for (because it’s all his anyways). Just as there are things to avoid there are definitely things worth imitating, the smiles, the love, the trust, their generosity, the kids here don’t have to bear their burdens alone, we too can rest in the arms of our father.