Great Sunday

Today was a great day! Great is just not descriptive enough. I was smiling just now driving back from church. I can't explain all the resons now, but it was good in many ways. We were able to hear from many people in the morning service how God was a work in their two weeks in Peru. We heard how he answered specific prayers that were prayed and fresh realizations many had of what's truly important in this life.

I was able to eat lunch with my family then spent an hour or so reading Hudson Taylor and Maria (I found some more interesting quotes that I hope to type in here sometime). I uploaded the video I put together before church this morning to both youtube and godtube. I've been wanting to start puting church videos online for some time and am glad to have finally done uploaded the first one. Hopefully, I'll be able to upload some more Peru videos in the near future.

While in the middle of uploading the video, twelve-year-old Toy from across the street came over to ask if I would play capture the flag with them. I thought, why not - I've been sitting around all day. We ended up playing kick-ball instead and after an hour were so hot and sweaty that we had to stop. After a stop at McDonalds for a McFlurry with my neighbors family and another neat new family from church, we went to the night service. After the service, I was able to talk with some people that I've been meaning to speak with for some time. I had an idea and found that what I decided to do while not knowing if it was a good idea or a God idea was a direct answer to someone's prayer. That was fun! I guess God can use each of his clay pots in the most unusual ways - PTL!

Hudson Taylor and Maria

I am just about always in the middle of reading a book. It seems I have to read at least a few pages of either a book or a World Magazine before I go to sleep at night. My mom is always supplying me with books to read - usually faster than I can finish them. Right now I'm reading a book called Hudson Taylor and Maria, Pioneers in China by J.C. Pollock. I've not yet finished the book, but just wanted to write down these quotes before I forgot about them (or my book marks came out).

" The C.E.S. [Chinese Evangelization Society] was in debt. Taylor believed no Christian, certainly no Christian mission, should live and work on borrowed money. "To me it seemed that the teaching of God's Word was unmistakeabley clear: 'Owe no man any thing.' To borrow money implied, to my mind, a contradiction of Scripture-a confession that God had withheld some good thing, and a determination to get for ourselves what he had not given." although deep in debt the C.E.S sent the Johnes, with four small children, to China, and sent them so ill-provided that to get to Ningpo they had to depend on the missionaries at Shanghai, which rocked at the scandel." [page 75]

"Maria Dyer, she of the squint, wrote to her student brother Samuel in London concerning these autumn days: "I met a gentleman and, I cannot say I loved him at once, but I felt interested in him and could not forget him. I saw him from time to time and still this interest continued. I had no good reason to think it was reciprocated, he was very unobrusive and never made any advances." She said she was led to take the matter at once to God" [page 81]

"Maria prayed secretly that "if it was God's will, if it was not wrong, we might have an interview." She was tempted to concort an encounter "but I preferred that it should be of God's over-ruling and not of my arranging" [page 87-88]