World Aids Day

I am so excited to tell you all about this Sunday! December 1st of every year is World AIDS Day. So to recognize this day and to create continual awareness in our church about the AIDS pandemic, we would like to host a Broken Bread Meal after worship. Instead of partaking in a Thanksgiving feast, we will "break bread" together by eating porridge made from corn and soy. This porridge is a meal that many kids and adults around the world feel fortunate to eat because many of them go hungry for weeks with nothing to. What better way to truly experience God's grace!

We will place round tables in the fellowship hall to encourage sharing in the experience with others. So just find a seat in the fellowship hall and we will serve you the porridge. Each seat will have a story of a child suffering from poverty and AIDS. Please read the stories aloud to each other. Share your feelings about eating the porridge and about the stories you read. If your group feels lead to pray for anything, please by all means do so.

After hearing what we will be partaking in on Sunday, many may feel tempted to just leave because let's face it..... who wants to eat tasteless porridge! But please encourage your HC members to experience God's grace, experience poverty, and experience Christ through this. JCS children will also receive a Sunday school message about poverty around the world so this may be a good experience for them as well to taste and better understand poverty. Parents may want to bring snacks for their kids just in case.

There will also be a table setup in the fellowship hall to sign up for Child Sponsorship for children with HIV/AIDS at Agape Home in Thailand. We will have a card for each child with their picture and some information about them so that people can choose which child they would like to sponsor. The recommended amount is $30 per month which is $1 a day.

Lives are on the Line: We will also have cards hanging on clothesline, each with a picture of a child impacted by HIV/AIDS. Please take a child's card off the clothesline that you would like to pray for or think about in the week. Because 5 people die every minute from HIV/AIDS and because 6,000 children are orphaned everyday, lives are on the line. Thousands of lives are impacted everyday from the devastation HIV/AIDS can have on families and communities. Praying for their salvation before they die or even praying that they would have hope in the midst of a crisis that offers none affects them in ways only God knows. Let's join together in prayer for those suffering alone, hopeless, and afraid.

I understand many of you will not have HC this friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday and will not be able to announce this Sunday's event to your HC. But if you could forward this email to your HC members to give them a heads up, I would so appreciate it. Please also pray for this Sunday, that God would prepare our hearts to receive all that He wants to bless us with. I pray that God would show us His heart and love for those suffering and afflicted from the compounding effects HIV/AIDS and poverty have on those less fortunate.

Romance

Flowers, dinner, nights on the town.... I'm sure that it can be much trouble and seem like sooo much work. Imagine if it were non longer expected... What if it were no longer desired... then what ????

A new Theory

I know that I've been honest, and perhaps a little too much so in explaining my 23-year old theory on women, but as the human condition has it... I have yet another theory to touch upon. It's a bit raw, but it has to do with a currently emerging situation. I was having dinner with my wife when I realized that she was crying after a bunch of what I was saying - and mind you none of it was bad news. Hormones! that's the way so much of the world would describe it - and her too. It's that taboo thing for guys to mention, but it definitely affects us at least slightly every month...

My theory is that it's the way we were designed. With every month that passes, so does the chance of motherhood and the potential of bringing life into the world - thus our bodies tell women to mini-mourn, and it's a fight to not get or remain depressed. I'm not sure why God made people this way, but it definitely helped me to think of emotional fluctuations in this way.

The news I was sharing with her was the possibility of serving the Church body in a more prominent position and be a team-lead, known as elders in other churches. I know that I have to "hunker down" and pray my heart out about this situation, and I'm left really lost. I'm lost wondering just how to make a move... I'm wondering all of the implications, responsibility, and added pressure -- and I know that it's wrong. I know that I must ask to have all of my hesitations removed, all sense of logical thinking - and ask for Him, His will, and pray for the revelation of His desire of what choice to make.

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of God's willingness.
George Mueller