Archive for November, 2008

A Christian Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26th, 2008 by admin

Happy Thanksgiving! But what are you giving thanks for? Is it your church? What if you didn’t have a church like many Christians in North Africa? Is it your family? What if you had been kicked out of your family like many Christians in North Africa? Is it your job that provides food for your plate? What if you didn’t have a job like many of your brothers who have been fired for their faith in Christ in the middle of very difficult economies? Is it your health? What if you were dying? 

So what’s my point? A Christian Thanksgiving is one that says, “I thank you Lord for Christ alone! He is my all in all. You can have all these other blessings and give me all cursings and I’ll still have reason to say, Blessed be the name of the Lord!” 
Christ should not be our number one reason for thanks but he ought to occupy so much of our thanks that all other accomplishments are counted as dung.
I heard a man say once that God is God and He deserves our praise and our lives even if he sends us to hell. The truth is that the reason He receives my praise and my life is because I have an eternal confidence in Him that he will NOT send me to hell. His intrinsic character caused him to provide me a sure salvation and his intrinsic character is what will fulfill that promise. 
So have a Christian Thanksgiving and get totally wrapped up in your thanks for Christ alone.

Just talked to Rachid

Posted on November 24th, 2008 by admin

Please pray for Rachid in the south of our country. I just talked to him on Skype. He is the one that we met back in September who had accepted Christ five years ago but had never met another Christian. Hopefully he’ll be joining us for Christmas. Imagine celebrating Christmas for the first time! What do you think you would do? Do you think you’d set a $400 budget to buy your family gifts? Or do you think you’d have a snowman or Santa Clause? I bet it will all be about Christ for him and us this December 25th. I’m excited about it. 

Playing with the Enemy

Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by admin

GI Joe’s have a new enemy: Muslims. My son got a pre-Christmas toy today from his grandparents. It was GI Joe-ish guys with two different flags. One side were the good guys with the American flag and the other side were the bad guys with the enemy flag. Whose flag? The Islamic crescent and star. So I am supposed to take this to North Africa? I guess my son could play with his little friend Osama (4 years old) and Noah could take the American side and Osama could take the Muslim side. Then whenever Noah is old enough to witness to Osama it won’t be about Jesus anymore, it will be about changing nationalities and physical armies. 

Not a good idea.
Muslims are not our enemies! They are the object of God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice. 

How to guide: Latin Missionaries to the Muslim World

Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by admin

You probably don’t have any idea what it takes to get someone from Latin America to Africa so I’ll let you know about what we are doing currently. There are two families and one single who we are trying to bring to North Africa from South America in 2009. Here are the issues:

1. Money. This is the biggest issue. It will cost $1,300/month for one family with three kids, $1,000/month for the other family, and maybe $200/month for the single guy. The family without kids is going to Burkina Faso, Vicente and Gabriella Garcia, from Mexico currently serving under Chris Gardner in Peru. So we need to raise a total of $2,500/month. We probably won’t end up raising most of it. We’ll just take most of it out of our own funds. That is the monthly cost. Not to mention plane tickets equalling about $2,000 per person. The single guy is coming over in January or February and the family with kids in the summer (Lord willing). It is a lot of money but the benefits are incredible. We desperately need laborers so we are willing to do whatever it takes. 
2. Training. The single guy is going to be working exclusively in TV production. he was trained for years by Chris Gardner in their TV station. One of the couples was a pastor for ten years. The other couple graduated Bible College last year and have proven to be effective in the ministry. So they have been in training for the last year or two years to be ready to learn a different culture, language, family adjustments, Islamic studies, etc. 
3. Visas. The guy going to Burkina will be easy. All they need is $40 and they’ll give you a five year visa. In North Africa, however, it is much more difficult. The single guy and the couple will need the following to obtain a visa:
1. A job contract with a business (we are going to extend them one through our business)
2. A contract on a rented house (minimum $300/month for two bedroom and $150 for one bedroom)
3. Investigation. The police will review it. Come to your house. Your office. Etc.
4. Time through beaurocracy. It is amazing how many papers you have to have from how many different numbers of ministries (Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of the Exterior, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Etc)
4. Preparation on paper. In order to bring a pastor we have to “reinvent his past”.  Since passports in Latin America say their job we have to get them a new passport that says a new job. It’s hard to pass yourself off as a businessman in a Muslim country when your pastor says “PASTOR”. We have to also come up with different papers about their job experience and education. Again, Bible College diplomas don’t go over well. 
5. Stamps. Once we have these new passports we have to make them look well travelled. It’s not good to show up from one third world country into another third world country with NO stamps in your new passport. So right now we are paying the trips of one family and the single guy to travel in and out of borders in South America until they have a few pages full of stamps. Cost: around $1,000. 
Initial cost is great to get a missionary to the field. If you read this blog and have a heart for reaching Muslims in North Africa with the gospel, maybe you could brainstorm about how to help us with these costs. I’d love to hear your ideas or receive your checks!
Project North Africa PO Box 519 Braselton, GA 30517

Back at it

Posted on November 21st, 2008 by admin

Well, I have felt so unconnected since I stopped my blog in September! So we are starting it up again just one week before our return to North Africa. I have had a lot of people ask me to start this up again and I know how much I love reading the blogs of my friends in China, Burkina Faso, Turkey, Ghana, Peru, and Atlanta so…

I almost don’t know where to start so I’ll just tell all you super dedicated PNA fans how my right lung is doing. On Oct 30th I had my most recent procedure with the pulminologist. She is a professor and surgeon at the University of Cincinnati. I’ll start with the problem: After my lung surgery in May in which they took out my middle lobe and reconnected my lower lobe to my upper lobe by a procedure they call “resection” which is where they reconnect the bronchial tube that leads from the trachia into the actual lung they thought that it should heal up fine by July. So we were set to return in July when I was back in the hospital with fevers. They found that my lung had collapsed. A bronchioscope revealed the reason for that collapse: my bronchial tube had covered over with scar tissue and granulation. So that’s when they started the procedures:
1. On the first time in during the month of July they cut out the scar tissue with a laser. All was good so far. Now they were going to see: would it grow back?
2. In September they went back in and  found that not much had grown back…just some. At that point they told me, “Let’s do this again in two months and maybe that’ll be the last time.
3. Two weeks ago Dr. Starnes went in for the third time and found that my bronchial tube is getting week and collapsing along with further growth of scar tissue blocking off the lung. So she took a balloon and stretched out the tube. Bad news is she is worried that my bronchial tube may need expanded with that balloon every three months from anywhere from the next two years to the rest of my life. She said if they did nothing it would no doubt completely collapse and cause me to have to undergo surgery to have the lower lobe of my right lung taken out through another painful surgery. wow. 
So anyway, we are going back to North Africa and then I will have to fly back alone to the states (this is a specialized surgery and also a sensitive situation that, if messed up by another uninformed doctor, could cost me my lung or life) every three months in 2009. All I can say is that I am learning to trust in the Lord. We have had about $12,000 in unexpected medical costs this year and God has provided over $6,000 of it so far. I am waiting on him for the rest of it! 

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