Frank was always a hot head...it was his demise.

Go...

"'Not called' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put down your ear to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put down your ear to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face--whose mercy you have professed to obey--and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish to His mercy to the world.
- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

Reappear...

Hey, Hey everybody! This post is coming after a LLLOOOONNNNNGGGGG hiatus. The fam and I have been in Mississippi since the end of May and have been going from "can to can't" since. Now that I'm finally taking the time to write just a bit about our time at home, it's almost time to get back to beautiful Roach, MO (much prettier than it sounds.)

Only 2 days after we returned here for the summer I jumped back into the role of children's minister for the summer at my home church, Briar Hill Baptist. It's been super busy, but really stinkin good as well. I've taken my time with the kis on Wednesday nights to test out the chronological teaching that we went through during our first semester of training with New Tribes Mission. I will go ahead and admit that the first week or two was pretty touch and go, but once I began to get the hang of drawing out the themes of the stories, the kids (and myself) began to learn a lot. Here's one of my favorite examples of that from the summer: We had already covered the creation story, Adam & Eve, the fall of man, Cain & Able, and we had made it to Noah and the ark. For this story (and all others) I had been using pictures from bricktestament.com for illustrations...which the kids LOVE! ***Disclaimer*** these illustrations were created by an atheist and there are some images that are not appropiate for kids, adults, etc. so if you decide to use any of them for your own teaching purposes make sure you weed through them. *** One of the last illustrations I used was of Noah and his family offering a sacrifice to God. I was just about to wrap up the lesson when a little girl raised her hand and asked "Why is Noah killing that animal?" At that about 3 or 4 kiddos interjected with, what was for me, a EUREKA! moment. A couple kids answered, "THAT'S HIS SACRIFICE FOR HIS SINS." and another young guy quickly followed that by saying, "YEAH, SOMETHING ALWAYS HAS TO DIE FOR OUR SINS."

It had happened! The kids were not just hearing the truths of the Bible, they were really retaining them and applying it. I was super excited! How great will it be once the connection is made in their minds and in their hearts that, yes someting does have to die for our sins, and Jesus came and died for OUR sins...to be OUR sacrifice!

It was the very next week when my 9 year old neice came to me after that Wednesday's lesson and said, "Uncle John...I'm ready!" At that my shy little neice, completely own her own, told me how she wanted to accept Jesus as her Savior so that she could be forgiven of her sins. WOW! What a priviledge!

Well, in midst of all the good things at church, Jessi, the girls, and I have had the opportunity to go and speak to a few different churches around the state about where God is leading us in foreign misisons and about our training with New Tribes Mission. We were able just this last week to go visit some dear friends at Pheba Baptist Church and also at Old Rice Road Baptist. It was encouraging to see their excitement for God's work.

Oh, what a busy, busy summer this has been, but good things sure have come from it!