Monthly Archives: January 2016

Spirit Fire Ch. 7: Share the Fire

It started out from watching a Darren Wilson movie that shared about a woman named Heidi Baker who evangelizes in Mozambique, Africa.  She travels from village to village calling the people there to bring forth their sick and blind.  She then invites children to pray with her, and God answers.  Now I’m not saying to get healed you must get prayed over by African orphans, but it stood out to me that if you open your kids up to experience God at such an early age it sets them up for an even greater awareness of Him.  When I think about my own children, I know I want that for them.

This world has been dark ever since the Fall, but Jesus came to be THE Light.  The Bible says some pretty amazing things about what we get to be a part of as children of Light:  Spiritual Gifts, healings, resurrections, demonic deliverances, and other signs and wonders.  Every generation thinks it’s living in the last days, and with the constant barrage of violent and tragic events all over the globe, it’s not hard to see why.  But along with the people in Darren Wilson’s movies, I want more of Him in midst of the chaos.  I don’t want to sit and try to find meaning in how we are doing it all wrong or try to find creative ways to kick a dead horse, but I want to be a part of what He’s doing now.

I want to be so familiar with His presence that when people look at me they see Him.  I want for my wife to be blessed with the opportunity to help others gain His Beauty that she has more than any other woman I have ever known.  I want for my children to have the opportunity to be a part of something more than simply going to church on Sundays and playing video games the rest of the week.  So as I walk this path with my amazing family, we began to go out and “Share the Fire”- the “outreach” version of our Spirit Fire times.

We go out, grab a few $5 gift cards and hit a shopping store.  We have our kids pick the person we are going to bless and off we go.  Betsy is the lead talker and after we give them the card, she asks if there is something we can pray for them about.  Responses have been pretty wild from tears of thankfulness to smiles of joy.  It gives my kids the opportunity to see His power at work through them for others.  To the people who say, “No thank you,” they are free to keep the gift card.  We still pray for them as they leave.

God has given Betsy and I many opportunities all over the world to share His love with people from Mexico to Africa to Hong Kong.  Since our days at Great Lakes Christian College we’ve felt lead to be missionaries, and though we wait for His call to go elsewhere we know for now He has us here.  We seek to live always for Him no matter where.

Spirit Fire Ch. 6: “No Longer A Slumdog”

A couple of months ago I saw an ad on Facebook for a free book about children in Asia titled “No Longer A Slumdog”, written by K.P. Yohannan.  I thought it would be an interesting read because I know people who serve the LORD there, plus it has a forward written by Francis Chan, so I ordered it.  When it finally came in the mail, I set it aside on the shelf next to where I sit for our Spirit Fires, and truth be told, I forgot about it.  Till one day I saw it sitting there and thought to give the first chapter a read.  Boy, I’m glad I did.  As I read the stories about the hundreds of millions of children that suffer in this world, and about the work of the Spirit and the light God brings to such places, I quickly thought about my own children and how invaluable it would be for them to learn and hear about it.  Most of the children mentioned in the book are around their age of 7 so it seemed even more appropriate for my kids to hear about them during this stage of their lives.

In our beginning prayer time, we talk about our Treasure Rooms which are filled with all kinds of riches from God.  When reading Yohannan’s book, I spoke to them of a rare jewel of Wisdom called Perspective, and each page of his book was loaded with it.  Perspective provides for us an opportunity to value others and ourselves, and it is something every child and adult in every culture needs.  With it we take a step out of our own shoes with our needs and wants and step into another’s and hear of even greater needs and in that trade off, a new need awakens, a need to help and do something about it.  A need to love.

Yohannen’s book provides a personal view into the dark streets of cities like Bombay and what daily life is like there for the Dalit children and communities.  Children who don’t know the love of God, let alone the many who don’t even know the love of a parent.  The harshness of dealing with a pimp who knows a maimed child makes more money begging than a healthy one is contrasted by the blinding glory of God’s redemptive love as the life of a violent child changes to that of a loving child becoming a blessing to his community.  Yohannan shares many stories of hope and joy amidst the dark, each one of these stories is a seed for my children; a seed I know that will grow in the garden of their hearts, souls, and minds.

Last night we had our recap discussion time.  Honestly, my kids couldn’t follow many of the questions I asked like:  “So what did we learn about the Jewel of Perspective?”  But when I asked them about specifics in the book, they couldn’t stop talking about the children we read about.

I know this almost sounds like a commercial, but to get the info out plain and simple here it is:  “No Longer A Slumdog” written by K.P. Yohannan was a perfect book for my family to read and talk about together.  I look forward to the ways its seeds will impact my kids and myself in the days to come.