Manuscripts & Makeovers

Last week was a good one!  I finally started recovering from my illness so Tom, Jude, my little brother Davy & I were able to go on a bit of an adventure one day.  The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI has had a special display going on for the last month or so of some ancient biblical parchments. One of these was the earliest known parchment of the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians dating all the way back to the second century!

You can’t help but be filled with awe as you stare at such ancient pieces of God’s word.  It hushes my intellect to consider the perfect way God has preserved His word for us.  Matthew tells us that the heavens and earth will pass away but God’s word will never pass away.  Now that’s some power!  Though the eternal words of Christ have been kept for so long and come to so many, I cannot help but think of the millions of people it has not yet come to.  Second Peter says that God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to Him.

Enjoying the wonderful display at U of M reminded me of this and the fact that the message we bring to the unreached is not one that has been broken or spoiled by all who have attempted to destroy it.  Instead it is the perfectly conserved and recorded communication from the God of the universe!  WOW.  I praise him for His power and for the fact that we can trust what we read when we open the Bible.  So, any of you who live in Michigan should definitely check out this special display at UofM, you have until March 30th!

On Wednesday night we had the privilege of sharing in our Jr. high youth group at Grace Point, our home church.  We kicked off a new series called “I {heart} the world” in which our youth pastor, Pastor Brandon will lead the students to consider some practical ways our youth group can reach out to a hurting world with the love of Christ.   The focus of our talk was taking the gospel to the unreached.  Our time went very well and we had  some great interaction!  At one point we tested the bravery of a select few of students to see who could eat a pile of larva the fastest.  Yes, they were real larva, cooked, but very real.  What can I say-Tom and I have connections!

We wrapped up our time with three tribal makeovers to show the group what they would look like as Papua New Guineans.  It was really fun and we all had a great time!  We pray that our time of sharing really impacted the students in their interest in missions and getting involved somehow!  One really cool thing is that the youth group is having really cool t-shirts made that say “I {heart) the World” and they are for sale.  A portion out of the sale of every t-shirt will be donated to our ticket fund.  It is such a blessing that they are doing this for us!  We need all the help we can get!  Thank you Pastor Brandon and Youth Group!