Faith....Continued

We blogged on Saturday about some friends of ours who were dealing with the loss of a loved one.  

One was the family of Lisa Williams.  We got an email yesterday that directed us to her Caring Bridge site.  There we read a note from her husband.  Since so many of you prayed for this family we wanted to share Mark's note here.  Though he is suffering, his faith in the Lord in this time of suffering will encourage you.  

Please continue to pray for them (as well as Leslie from Saturday's blog).  Here is Mark's note:

First let me say that the boys and I are doing ok.  It's too soon to know how any of us are really doing, but so far everyone's holding up.  Zach went back to school today, Caleb started school yesterday, and Adam starts today.  Theresa, Mama and I have worked on getting Lisa's things squared away and hopefully that project will be completed by weeks end. 

It goes without saying that Lisa's CaringBridge Site was a tremendous source of encouragement to her and myself.  The last time I looked, there were over 29,000 visitors to Lisa's site and over 1100 entries in her guest book.  Lisa visited the site on a daily basis and if there weren't new entries, she found joy in the old ones.  And so did I.  The Caring Bridge Site really became a barometer of Lisa's ups and downs.  When her health and prognosis was good, entries from us and visitors slowed down, but when the news wasn't good, the numbers went up.  As the numbers went up, so did the number of prayers to the Father, and as the prayers went up, our peace and contentment went up, as well.  

Prayer makes a difference, not only in your life, but others', too.  I'm not sure at all if Lisa would have lived as long as she did without your prayers.  We all know that Lisa should never have made it out of the hospital last March, but she and our family experienced a miracle.  I'm convinced after talking to so many after we came home, that God heard his children crying out, and he relented long enough to give us almost another year with Lisa--A year that we could say goodbye, to take trips, to pray together and to prepare for a painful separation.  You, our friends and family, gave that year to us by crying out to the Father and for that, our family is eternally grateful.    

Good-byes are never easy, but one that's abrupt and unplanned for can sting and hurt.   In this last year we prayed and hoped for another miracle for Lisa, but as the year wore on and Lisa's health declined, it seemed that our prayers for healing would go unanswered, that God was again turning a deaf ear to our calls.  As Lisa's health worsened, my faith in God suffered.  Why didn't he hear me?  Where's the miracle?  The Bible says knock and the door will be opened, ask and you will receive.  Those started to sound like a lot of empty promises and my faith was going down the drain.  Brother Hubbard came to the house one day and told me this--God will always answer our prayers in three ways, it's either no, yes, or not yet.  He said God will heal Lisa, but His will may be that she be healed only after she's passed to the other side.  That perspective got me back on track to believing in God's promises and His protection.  Lisa is healed and those thousands of hours of prayer time  asking for her healing were answered with a resounding yes by the Father.  So now I can proclaim for your encouragement, that Lisa Williams is free of cancer.  Her pain and nausea are gone.  Her new body is perfect and she awaits us.     

Thanks to everyone again for the thousands of acts of kindness shown to our family.  They are simply too numerous to begin listing. Please continue to lift the boys up and myself and our family.  May God Bless you and keep you -  Mark. 

Six Senses

God is pretty cool.  The senses that He gave us are pretty incredible if you think about it  

I did a little research about our senses.  Most people think there are 5.  Or if there is a sixth one it has to do with seeing dead people. 

Smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight.  But there is another one that has to deal with the inner ear and how it senses our body's orientation in space.  

Like I said.....cool. 

Why in the world am I sharing all of that here today?

Last week I got to see how our senses triggered some good memories. 

If you've followed our blog for any length of time then you know that my grandmother passed away 4 days after our family got back to the states in September.  We called her Mammy.  You can read about that here.

It was an incredible blessing for us to get to see her one more time.  To hold her hand, to kiss her, to hug her and to let our kids be with her before she died. Them being with her is something I will never forget and I'm sure they won't either.  My family feels like she literally held on just long enough for us to get back to the states before she said goodbye and went to be with the Lord.  Amazing blessing for all of us.  

When it was time to leave the states and come back home, my mom told Benay that she could take some of Mammy's clothes back to a person who might need them in Brazil.  Benay picked out a few things to bring back, and was looking at them last week.

Here is where the senses come in.  

Garrett held the clothes, smelled them, said they smelled like Mammy and asked if Benay and Bronwyn could make him a pillow out of it.  

Later I came into the den and Bronwyn was holding the clothes up to her nose, breathing deeply and smiling.  She then began to tear up.  

The next day Carys came into the room and excitedly announced that she found one of Mammy's hairs on the clothes.  Before we knew it the hair had a new home in Carys's room inside of a ziplock bag.  

We are not sad that Mammy is gone.  Sure we would love for her to still be with us but that is our selfish nature talking. We know where she is and we are so happy about that.  She would never trade where she is now to come back and be here.  Heaven is that cool.  Faith. 

Even knowing all of that, we miss her.  

I am amazed at how the senses work.   That a piece of cloth could touch our senses that way and make us feel like, in some way, Mammy is with us.  That's just amazing if you think about it.  

The day after the clothes were pulled out, we were cleaning our room and found a letter from Mammy that she had written to Benay and myself one Christmas after we moved to Brasil. Coincidence?  I don't believe in them. 

I think that maybe one of God's purposes for the senses is to use them to do what they did for us and for our kids last week.  It's like He just overloaded our senses with Mammy and brought her into our house for a little bit and we thank Him for that.   

Updates

My girls have been updating their blogs.  

If you want to check out the latest from them then just click on their links on the right hand side of this page. It's under the heading of "Other blogs from our family."

As you do that, I would encourage you to spend a little extra time on Bronwyn's. A friend of ours from New Zealand made a comment on our blog the other day. That comment was mainly directed toward Bronwyn and her upcoming trip to Africa.  Her words influenced Bronwyn as she wrote her latest blog (thanks Roberta!). 

I know you will enjoy all three blogs.  

Blumes in Brasil

If you've ever wondered (okay even if you haven't but are now curious because I just mentioned it) how our family got to Brasil now you can find out.  

My girlfriend has decided to share how God called two people (a school teacher and a physical therapist)with four kids (thought we were done.....we were wrong), a happy/comfortable life and no intention on moving to another country to move to another country.  

She has decided to share a bit of our story each Friday on her blog.  As she stated on her blog, it's not to glorify ourselves at all (believe me, we so aren't worthy of that), but rather to share God's power and what He did in our lives. 

Should be interesting.  If you know us you will probably still learn some things about us and if you don't know us you might learn more than you wanted.   

Interested?  Check it out here.

God's Love

I have given them the glory you gave to me.  That they may be one as we are one.  With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognize that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me. 

(John 17:22-23 New Jerusalem Bible)

"While praying over those remarkable words, I came to the inescapable conclusion that the degree of Abba's love for me is in direct proportion to His love for Jesus.  For example, I can love the mailman with twenty percent and my best friend with ninety percent.  But with God, there is no division, no more and no less.  God loves me as much as He loves Jesus.  Wow!"

From the book The furious longing of God by Brennan Manning.

Faith

I blogged this week a little bit about faith.  

As Christians, we walk by faith and not by sight.  

We've been reminded of this again over the last couple of days in dealing with death.  The faith we have in knowing that we will be with Jesus after we die.  That death here on earth isn't the end but really the coolest of beginnings.  A place where there is no pain or suffering.  A place where we don't need the sun to shine because God's glory just lights the place up.  A place where we will be forever.  Very cool.

Two Christians that have been friends of our families passed away over the last couple of days. Both fought against cancer.  

Benay and I lived in a little town in Mississippi for over 4 years right after I graduated from physical therapy school.  The town is called Grenada for those who might be reading this and don't know our story.  We got involved with a little church family (about 100 people) that really took us in and made us feel like family.  There we met Mark and Lisa Williams and their boys (they have three).  We really enjoyed any time we spent with this family.  They were funny, outgoing, and just fun to be around.  We got an email last night telling us that Lisa passed away yesterday.  We'd been following  her tests and treatments on their Caring Bridge site. It's always tough to know someone who passes away.  It's even tougher when they are young. Lisa was younger than us.   

Her funeral is tomorrow.  We ask that you pray for Mark and their boys.  I can't imagine what they are feeling today.   

My dad sent an email today telling us he and my mom were going to a funeral this afternoon.   It's for a man named Mike Davidson.  He and his wife Leslie are part of the Bible class that my parents are a part of.  We didn't know them very well but they were incredible prayer warriors of this ministry as well as financial partners.  They never said anything about either one.  They just quietly battled the enemy on our behalf.  My dad shared the following about Mike, "He was a wonderful, caring man who inspired all who knew him." Please pray for Leslie. 

Only by God's grace and prayers can these families make it through the next couple of days and beyond.  I pray that their funerals will be celebrations of their lives which blessed so many people.

Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.  For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.  So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 

Parlez-vous français?

I admit it, I love the 80's. When I run in the mornings I usually listen to music from the 80's. Some of my best college memories are listening to music and watching movies with my buddies.

Our group loved any movie with John Cusack in it. One we watched more than once was called Better Off Dead. It's probably been 20 years since I last watched it. It definitely didn't win any Oscars. In a quick nutshell it's about a high school boy who gets dumped by his girlfriend and he thinks his life is over.  He ends up falling for a French exchange student who just moved to town. 

The guy's mom is a bit out of touch with the real world. They have the exchange student over one night for supper and the mom wants to make an authentic French meal. It consisted of french bread, french fries and french dressing. Classic.

What in the world would cause me to think of that and share that here? It was brought to my memory yesterday.  Why?

Bronwyn had her first French class yesterday afternoon.  Why take French?  Because they speak French in Rwanda. Not as the primary, but as a secondary language.  The primary language is Kinyarwanda.  She started reading a Kinyarwanda book for beginners online because she thought she might be able to pick up a few things before she arrived in Rwanda.  The first couple of paragraphs talked of the importance of learning the language with an African. A native speaker. Not on your on or with someone who can speak it, but is not African.  This book said variations of pitch of voice as well as length of syllables will completely change the meaning of a word.  

Since we did not have a native speaker of Kinyarwanda on hand, she is taking an intensive French language course this month to hopefully get some general basics down so that she can possibly understand some things or be able to briefly converse when she gets to Rwanda.  She will then try to pick up as much of Kinyarwanda after she gets there. 

Her language teacher only speaks in French.  No introductions in Portuguese.  No directions in Portuguese, nothing.  Only French.  Bronwyn loved it.  

Almost two hours into her class we got a text message on our cell phone from Bronwyn.  

It said, "I'm at the bathroom.  One says elle and one says lui.  Which one do I go in?"

We laughed.  You are probably laughing.  

She didn't have any help and had to make a decision. 

We took a guess and got it right.  

Care to take a guess?  (without cheating on google)

Getting Closer

Bronwyn bought her tickets to Rwanda this week.  She will leave next month.  She's going to stay and work there for a couple of months.  

She's very excited.  

This is her own faith walk.  Why?  She stepped out on faith and bought her tickets without having all that she needs financially to stay for two months.  

God blessed us with a travel agent who saved Bronwyn around $1,300 from anything we found on the internet.   When the tickets were found, the travel agent could not promise that the price would stay where it was.  She was right.  While we talked about it for a couple of days the price, on S. African Airways, actually went down $400.  Bronwyn went ahead and made the purchase.

It has already been an amazing faith walk for her.  She sent out fundraising letters at the end of November, while we were still in the states, and in a little over a month God has blessed her desire to go and help in Africa with a group of people who have sacrificially given over half of what she needs to pay for everything (transportation, food, etc.).  Obviously none of those people do it for recognition but Benay and I wanted to thank you for what you have done for Bronwyn.  You know who you are and we are blessed to have you in our lives.  

If you are interested in also helping Bronwyn with her financial support then I would encourage you to first go and check out her blog to read about where she is going.  You can do that here.  

If you feel led to help her in a financial way you can let us know here or email us (if you have our email) or let Bronwyn know on her blog.  

A few years ago, when we lived in Abilene, Texas, Benay went with one of our great friends (Hi Rebekah!) to hear a man speak.  He said something that Benay shared with me as soon as she got home and it's really stuck with us and we've shared it frequently with our Brasilian family.  

He said that if you wait until you can see every step in front of you before you act then you don't need faith.  

I love that Bronwyn has already learned that lesson and is applying it to her trip.  She doesn't have all the funds that she needs to be able to stay for 2 months but she has faith that God has called her to this and that He will provide.  

We believe God is going to use her to make a kingdom difference while she is in Rwanda.  

We ask that you pray for her (for her safety, for her fundraising, for the people she will be blessed to meet and spend time with).  I believe she won't ever be the same after this trip.  

Thank you.  

Taking over the Web.

You can't stop us.  

When it rains it pours.  

It's contagious. 

Run for your lives!

Please.......not another one!

After you read this post you can go back and pick your heading from above.  Why?  We have some interesting news from our family.  

We have one more family member who wanted to start his/her own blog.  

Care to guess?  Think about it for a second.  

It's Carys.  Our 10 year old.  Surprised?  I'm not surprised at all.  

She and Bronwyn worked on her blog site a couple of days ago and then Carys (on her own) wrote her first blog yesterday.  

You can click here to check it out.   I've got a feeling once you go there you will keep going back because she has a very interesting brain and an interesting take on the world around her. It should always be a good read and I can pretty much guarantee that there will be times when she will have you laughing (if, in fact, she remembers past this week that she has a blog).  You will probably laugh when you see the title she picked for her blog.  It might actually be the title of her biography some day.  She is a funny little girl. 

Go check it out. She even has a spot for you to sign up to receive emails when she blogs.  

Little by little our family is taking over the internet.  Don't know if that's a good thing but it's happening and you can't stop us now.  

I will admit in advance that I am completely biased with my opinion in a certain area.

What area?

You need to go here to see one of (there have been 5 others that I am completely biased about as well) the cutest and coolest little one year old kids you will ever see.

You gotta love the teeth!

Do you speak English?

One of the things we have to remember when we go back to the states is that everyone speaks English.  That probably sounds dumb I know but when you speak Portuguese all the time and then you go to an all English speaking country we have to remind the kids.  

Why?  Because our kids, especially the young ones that haven't quite worked out the filtering system that our brain provides,  say what they think in English......out loud......in front of people. Why?  Because they are used to being able to speak to us in English in public and hardly anyone will understand.  We actually try not to speak too loudly in English while we are public here but sometimes things just come out.  

Why do I share all of this?

Yesterday was one of those times.  We had another 90 degree/100 degree heat index day so we took the kids to the pool.

Anderson and I were playing in the pool and he noticed a man playing with his child.  They were fairly close to us.  Anderson then announced the following:

"Hey dad look at that guy.  He has an upside down oval shaped head with big ears and a gigantic nose."

Wonderful.  

Like I said, the filtering system hasn't yet fully developed in this 5 year old.  

Benay came over with Giovanni.  I told her what Anderson said.  She looked at the man and began to crack up in the pool.   I then began to tell Anderson to not say things like that because (even if they were true......okay Benay and I both agreed that the guy actually did have an upside down oval shaped head) it could really hurt his feelings if he heard Anderson say it.  

No worries for Anderson.  He told me, "Don't worry dad, he doesn't speak English."

As I type this it makes me realize that the non-filter is universal in 5 year olds.  

When Garrett was 5 we went to an airport to pick up Sascha (our teammate).  At that time Garrett was fascinated by different sized people.  Especially, let's say.....small people.  And even the size difference between the small people intrigued him.  Anyway, back to the airport.  As we waited and the people started getting off the plane, a man walked by.  I would say he was about 4'10".  

I should've known that my son was processing.  I didn't.  As this older man got right beside us my 5 year old son loudly proclaimed:

"Hey look dad, there's a medium sized grandpa."

Yesterday we at least had lots of people splashing in the water making noise and the high probability that if this guy heard Anderson he didn't understand.  That night at the airport we had no such luxuries as this "medium sized grandpa" passed by in the quiet airport.  

I believe I shrunk to his size (no offense) with embarrassment as I began to explain to my son why we don't say things like that.  At least not outside of our mind.  

It can be embarrassing at times but I wouldn't trade being the dad of a 5 year old for anything. 

Holy Spirit

"The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.  And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit.  But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.   The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice."

From the book Forgotten God (Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit) by Francis Chan

Brain Food or Brain Pain?

A friend posted the following paragraph online the other day.  We swiped it from him (thanks Paul Lockhart) and thought we'd post it here to let everyone give it a shot.  Maybe you've read it before, maybe you haven't. Either way we thought it was very cool and it's remarkably easy.

Here it is:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Less tahn fvie percnet of pepole can't raed tlhs.

Petrty ubneiabevle dno't you tinhk?  

New Year, New Look, New Blogs

Happy New Year everyone.  We hope you had a great evening last night as you welcomed in 2010.  We had a great time (more on that in a later blog).

We figured we would start off the new year with a new look to the blog.  

Benay has actually hated the way the blog has looked for quite a while.  

Yesterday, as we got ready for a new year, she and Bronwyn decided to work on the blog to make it look better.

Kind of a new beginning for our sad, plain looking blog.  You can actually see the sadness in all of their faces as they look at our old blog.  The layout depressed them. 

They gave our blog a much needed upgrade but they weren't done with just our blog.  

Bronwyn also changed the way her blog looks.  If you still haven't been to her blog you can check it out by going here.  She put a new post up today. 

And that's not all.  For the last few months Benay has been talking about doing her own blog.  A blog about things she likes, things that are important to her and things that don't have anything to do with soccer.  No soccer?  Is she nuts?  

Anyway, she has started the new year by becoming a blogger.  Feel free to go here to check out her new blog and her first post.  Yes I'm biased but it's a good one.  She is a very gifted person and I think you will like the things she will share on her blog. 

I've got a feeling you will want to keep coming back to their blogs.  They even have a spot, just like we do on this blog, where you can sign up to get an email anytime they put a new post on their blog.  Go ahead and check them out right now.  You know you want to.  

Of course, we'll keep blogging here but now you can read what's on the brains of three Blumes.

Scary. 

2010

When our family moved to Brasil, in 2002, we made a five year commitment to stay.  When the five years were up we didn't feel like God wanted us to leave.  We felt He still had some things He wanted us to do here.  

Around that same time we decided to start a blog. What started off mainly as a way to keep our families up to date with pictures and stories has become something that quite a few people from, literally, around the world check.  

We don't really understand why people enjoy reading about the goofy stuff that goes on in our family but it's fun to see how the blog has grown.  It's also fun for us to see where people are who read our blog.  We have, obviously, people who follow us from our hometowns in the states as well as from the different places we've lived during our marriage and we love hearing from all of you guys.  

We've also been surprised by our new friends.  Through this blog we now have new buddies from across the globe (Hey Roberta in New Zealand!).  

We are thankful for everyone who reads our blog.  We are thankful for your comments but, more importantly, your prayers. 

2010 will be another interesting year for us.  We will have one child leaving our home and moving to the states to go to college.  We will have another one graduating from high school. Another will graduate junior high.  Two others will change schools this year.  One will start pre-school.  How's that for variety in our house?

God continues to morph and change our ministry.  The things we are doing today are not the things we were doing seven and a half years ago, or even last year for that matter.  Benay and I spent some time talking just last night about how He has already touched our hearts in some of the things He wants us to do in 2010. It's always been a pretty cool thing to see how God brings my heart and Benay's heart together on our ministry before we even talk about things.  I am very blessed to get to do what I love doing and getting to do it with my best friend.  It might be bragging, but I think we make a pretty good team for the kingdom. 

Benay and I still feel as if God is not done with us here yet.  We still feel like He has some things He wants us to do in Brasil for His kingdom.  

Until He speaks clearly to us about leaving (just as He spoke clearly to us about coming down here), we will continue to try and do exactly what He wants us to do here.  

So, as long as we are here you should have the opportunity to continue reading about our family, our ministry and, of course, more Andersonisms.  

Our prayer for anyone reading this is that God will bless you in 2010.  That 2010 will be a great year for you and your family as you serve God's kingdom.  

And if you are reading this and you don't know Jesus, then our prayer is that 2010 will be the best year of your life because you begin a relationship with God's son.  

Happy New Year everyone!

Our 4th daughter?

We spent halloween in the states.  Giovanni had never done halloween before and he had a ball.  

A day or two later Carys and Granna (Benay's mom) thought it would be funny to dress our little boy like this:

Okay kind of funny especially around halloween.  "Hey everybody, look at the little boy in the belly dancing outfit."  Chuckle, chuckle.  Everybody has a big laugh.  Okay, now let's get that off my son please. 

Yesterday morning I left for a short run around a nearby park.  I wasn't gone very long.  When I got home I found out that Benay and Bronwyn had been at work.  

I was met with this:

Halloween is over.  What is going on?  

They claimed that Giovanni wanted to wear Benay's nightgown.  

How exactly does a 15 month old child, whose main words so far are ma ma, da da and bob-bob, (for Sponge Bob Squarepants) ask to wear your nightgown? In the words of Anderson their comment was.........interesting. 

It seems that I now have to deal with a bigger version of Anderson and Carys in our house in their ability to make a story "come alive." 

Feel free to pray for our son.  Poor little guy.  

Go ahead and pray for Benay and Brownyn while you are at it. 

Melting

Remember the scene from The Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch gets a little water splashed on her and she melted?  

That's kind of the way we feel right now.  We are in the middle of a heat wave.  It is HOT.  

Yesterday at 5:00 in the afternoon it was over 90 with the heat index of 99.  Today is worse. Benay checked the temperature an hour ago and it was 93 with the heat index of 103.  It's supposed to be 96 today. Not bad if you have central air.  We don't.  I just looked and it's 87 in Giovanni and Carys's room which means it's that hot  in the entire house (and even hotter in the kitchen).  

Even our new pool is suffering.  Look at this sad little guy:

That goofy shape  is 100% heat related.  

It's so hot that we are taking showers using only cold water and even then we sweat as soon as we get out.  

It's tough sleeping at night as Benay's parents can attest to.  They were here last summer and swore they would never come back during that season.  It's tough to get used to.   You literally sweat in your bed.  Not fun.  

It's tough but it isn't our first summer here.  We do the best we can to fight the heat.  

Yesterday we went to the pool and boy did it feel good.  We played together:

We happily hung out together.

Okay, that was a lie.....these two lost pool time for fighting.  I couldn't resist taking this joyful picture.  Notice the joy flowing out of both of their bodies. 

Anderson got to play with one of his best friends and his family. 

Giovanni got to play hide and seek with his big sister. 

We love the pool. 

Even so, you can feel to pray for rain and cooler temperatures. 

By the way, Bronwyn has a new post on her blog.  Go here if you want to check it out.  

More Andersonisms

Believe it or not, we actually get, from time to time, requests from people to share more Andersonisms. So here are a couple from over the weekend.  

On Saturday we bought a little swimming pool to put in our backyard. 

It's very hot and we thought the kids would like some quick relief when we aren't able to go somewhere cooler (i.e. the beach, a real pool or a nearby waterfall).  

After we put some water in the pool and then got in Anderson asked this important question:

"Do waves kill blubber?"

The only thing we can figure that took his brain there was earlier he talked about going to the zoo and seeing some whales (which never happened, by the way).  

Yesterday we had our house church.  Everyone was traveling because of Christmas.  I mean everyone. For the first time in three years our house church consisted of just Americans. Our family. We had an all English worship and that hasn't happened in a few years.  Just our family singing and sharing.  It was kind of cool for us to have a day like that.  

Anyway, Benay shared with us about when Jesus was tempted in the desert after he had fasted for 40 days.  Anderson listened to what she was sharing and then asked this question:

"Who is more hungry?  Jesus or Africa?"

He's a pretty deep thinker.  No one had an answer to either question.  In quoting our current president all we could say was: "It was above our pay grade."

We'll share more as he shares his wisdom with us.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "If Christians lived according to their faith, there would be no more Hindus left in India."  This great leader of the Indian nation was fascinated at the thought of knowing Christ.  But when he met Christians, he felt let down.  Unfortunately, the world is filled with people who feel the same.  They are intrigued by the claims of Christ, but they shrink back because of disappointment with his offspring. 

"Don't look at people," we might protest.  "Look at Jesus."  But while that may be true, the sobering truth remains:  Whether we like it or not, we're the only Jesus some will ever see. 

Dwight L. Moody put it this way:  "Of one hundred men, one will read the Bible; the ninety-nine will read the Christian."

From the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver. 

Faith Like Potatoes

During our recent visit to the states Benay and I did some shopping at a Christian bookstore.  

We noticed a movie with an interesting title and bought it.  

It was called Faith Like Potatoes. 

Our family just got through watching it.  Pretty strong movie.  It's based on a true story. 

Benay said it just became her new favorite Christian movie. 

If you want a movie without 50 f-bombs, without sex, without twisting things that Christians believe and also want a movie that is based on real life and will encourage  you then this is your movie.  

Check it out.  We think you'll like it.