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 Monday night during an activity with the local youth group, our team was
walking down a dark street when the youth leader told me that “it would
be good if we could dance” at the next stop.
The next stop turned out to be a children’s home with nearly 60 kids
packing the wooden benches. Our group sang songs, some of the younger
girls did a dance they had prepared, and then while some throbbing music
blared, we danced.
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 “God invades the lives of ordinary people and makes them extraordinary,”
said Josef Berthold, speaker at Eastern Mennonite Missions’ Winter
Commissioning Service for short-term workers. “God starts with small
signs, small things. Rarely does he come to us with the finished
project.” Berthold was speaking to a group of more than 150 people who
gathered on January 23 at East Petersburg Mennonite Church to commission
two YES teams and four individuals.
He noted that in the traditional Christmas story that it was shepherds
keeping watch in the fields. “Some may say I’m two months behind in
reading this passage,” Berthold joked. “But I say I’m ten months ahead.”
Berthold told the congregation that the story intrigues him since the
shepherds were on the lowest rung of society. |
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 Recently a seminary professor asked me to name one area of my life that I
wanted to work on where there was sin I needed to address. The reality
was that I was dumbfounded; I couldn’t think of one. I sat there, cold
and blank. He pushed further, “If you want to grow in your walk with the
Lord, you are going to have to start the hard work of asking God to
reveal areas he wants to work on.” As I prayed, God was faithful and
began to reveal things in my life.
My story parallels that of the Prodigal Son. At different points in my
life I have found myself oscillating between being the older son and the
younger son. I believe that both sons sinned. They wanted their
father’s inheritance more than they wanted a relationship with him. The
younger son sinned by leaving his father and squandering his
inheritance. He came to his senses, saw his life as it really was, and
returned home. The older son refused his father’s generous heart; he
sinned in wanting the inheritance only for himself. He disregarded his
relationship with his father, and refused to repent. |
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 The Lord has put the two young Arab women into my life. They are very
different girls, and I was thinking today that the Lord sure knows how
to pick ‘em!
Fatima* is the one most on my heart at this point. She doesn’t
really practice Islam, although she does cover her head and dress very
modestly. She admitted to me today that she lied to her parents and went
out to a restaurant with a guy this weekend. (In this country a woman
does not go out alone with a guy unless he is a part of her family.) She
has told me about this young man before. He has given her gifts and is
her friend but if her parents found out about him she would be in
serious trouble. She implied even serious physical trouble. At the same
time she has told me that she has read the Injil (the Gospels) in Arabic
and that her family gave her grief about reading the Injil more that
the Qur’an. Even today we talked some about that, and I was able to make
sure she knew she could come to me with any questions about it.
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 Farming has got to be one of the most difficult jobs – just ask any farmer, and I’m sure they could tell you it’s not always easy. When I think of farming, I envision John Deere tractors, flat open fields, cows, large farm buildings, and silos. Now, farming on flat land like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is one thing, but try farming in the steep mountains of southern Asia! The people here basically farm cliffsides by hand, with nothing more than some hand tools, lots of muscle, and with their livelihoods depending on it. It’s quite a different view from the large open fields of Lancaster County. However, the same principle exists, as it has since the beginning: seeds must be planted, cared for and nurtured as they grow, and then the plants harvested. Waiting can sometimes be one of the hardest parts, as the seed grows underground, but no signs of it show for days above the ground.
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 During the Young Adult Celebration on April 17, people got to reconnect with old friends and share a delicious meal of pulled pork together. Following a time of worship in the EMM meetinghouse, six people shared their testimonies of God at work in their lives. Heidi Martin, an alumna of the 2002 Spain YES team, shared the following story of God’s transforming work. |
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Positions Available
Join StaffX at the Harrisburg Discipleship Center to grow spiritually and in leadership skills as you mentor and serve others. Current volunteer staff openings: Community Outreach Coordinator, Mission Mobilizer, Office Assistant, and Prayer Coordinator.
Contact Sherrie Ober if you are interested.
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