Peru Update: Guinea Pigs and Tambourines...

Hey there!!

I pray that you´re well, and walking in God´s awesome blessings. Ive heard about the crud weather y´all have been having - sorry to hear it!!

Well, after being exiled to Bolivia for 24 hours because of an expired visa, I am now safe and happily back in Peru. Just to give you an idea of what life´s like, here´s some highlights...
... eating guinea pig, which included bringing them home LIVE from the market, then watching my family kill, skin and cook them!
... at the most modern shop we have here, the supermarket (the only place I know that has eftpos), they didn´t have the right change to give me, so gave me a 10cent lolly instead
... I regularly play the tambourine in church hehe, at a church where they play the same 3 chords on the guitar, no matter what the tune is!

Funny huh

Yesterday I spent most of the day in the hospital, cos my neighbour was having an operation. It really struck me how much of a privilege it is to be here as a missionary. I got to know a lot of the nurses and doctors during the day, and every one of them now knows Im a Christian - it just comes up with the ´why are you here?´ question. And that can often lead into more conversations. I got to read the Bible to my friend who was panicking about her operation, and 2 of the nurses told me they want to come check out a church on sunday. It´s just so awesome, and I pray that I can make the most of these opportunities.

I´m still going to the community church down the road. Every week the pastor tells the church how thankful he is that I´m here in their church. They´re a very small, forgotten church in the outskirts of the city, with people who come originally from out in the villages. The other night they talked about tithes and offerings, and it was fascinating - If you have 10 rows of corn, one belongs to the Lord, and the practicalities of bringing your offering of a pig to the church! When I first started going, there were about 7 or 8 people in each service, but it´s been growing. Now we get around 15 or 16, and has been over 20 people a couple of times. Its really encouraging. And this one girl I´ve been praying for for weeks repented in front of the church and gave her life back over to God last week. It was so touching - no moving sermon, no music, not even an altar call. She just came up to the front of the church and repented.

My main ministry is English teaching. This means that I get to go to people´s homes and teach there, which is an awesome opportunity to get to know them. One woman has recently decided to become ´evangelical´ , which is very hard in such a Catholic society, and it´s great to be able to talk to her.

Thankyou for the encouragements I get, it means a lot to hear from home. Its hard sometimes being the sole kiwi, surrounded by people who know nothing of rugby, think I come from Europe, and stare at me for being white! :)

Prayer and Praise:
- Praise for good health
- Praise for the cool house I´m living in (house sitting for an American missionary family)
- Pray for wisdom to know how to reach people in the community
- Pray that my Spanish will keep getting better, so I can actually make sense when I´m talking to people about important stuff!!

Bless you all,

love, Lynda
PS Have booked my flight, and I´m back in NZ on Sunday Aug 26

Hillsong Donkeys...

Update - 26 June 2007

Lol, new experience - have removed all links to layguy's blog - this guy sounds like angry on a soapbox. His current post on Benny Hinn is really just a personal attack, so I'm not really wanting to associate with that. It doesn't really matter what you think (personally I think Benny has an obvious strong healing ministry - talk to any of the guys who have been to see him). Bless ya layguy, but I don't like the way you are putting your point across...

Ray

BTW, have left the link to Hillsong's official conference website, check it out if you want to know what it's all about.

A couple of interesting links for your reading/viewing pleasure from layguy's blog. First of all layguy has an excellent (if completely innapropriate :) ) donkey joke... Secondly, there's an awesome visually summary of the Hillsong 2007 conference coming up soon. If you want to get excited, or look at some of the reasons to attend, take a look.

Hillsong official website...

Ray

BTW: Friday Night Church last night was cool - loved doing the tag team preaching!!! Will podcast and post some of the message soon...

Samstock 07

Look, for those of you who don't know (meaning you are either from Auckland or non-christian - as far as i know they're not the same thing...), Samstock is far and above the best Christian music festival in the South Island, and I reckon the best in NZ. There is a community family feel, and the opportunity to hear some great music MUCH closer than any other environment, including the festival that shall not be named.... Also, I like the egocentricity of naming the festival after one of the founders (don't worry Sam, you know I love you in a completely male-appropriate way...)

Samstock has got a really interesting history, which is well worth a read. Also, you can have a look at the aims and objectives, which are all part of what makes Samstock the event that it is.

Anyways, the new website is up and almost-running in a typical Samstock manner - I love the fact it's reinvented every year. Tim Weil, who does the designs really deserves props for his innovative and eyecatching work.

Keep popping into the website for updates, and in the meantime, get your samstock on using the "cool and hip"young person interweb sites below:

Samstock on bebo
www.samstockmusicfestival.bebo.com

Samstock on myspace
www.myspace.com/samstockmusicfestival

The 2007 Samstock festival - State of Grace will run from 28-30 September, @ the Mosgiel A&P showgrounds (just outside Dunedin).

Peace out,
Ray

PS: I actually have nothing against the other music festival in NZ, it's actually pretty cool too.

Kairos - God's timing is not our timing...

Just a quick post to respond to the excellent message Pastor Terry preached on tonight. He talked about Kairos and how God's timing is not our timing...

My understanding (and I could be wrong here...), is that there's a number of things that God has ordained for us to do (see Jeremiah 29.11), life defining events where we can carry God's vision or not. Simple as that. This is kairos. Kronos on the other hand, means the time in between, the time between when these significant events happen. It's where we get words like chronological from.

It's up to us whether or not to live with a kairos mentality, stepping in to all that God has for us. Because, if we don't, all that'll happen is kronos - the chronological passing of time. We'll wait. And wait. And wait. The strange thing is, I'm not really sure for what.

Me, I'm thinking that the more I seek out kairos moments, the more there will be. So many of us are looking for significance. I think that God is looking for Significants - people willing to live a significant life for Him.

And when it comes down to it, isn't it the kairos moments we remember?


Anyway, it was a really great message which I really haven't done any justice to. I just love the implications of there being a difference between chronological time and God-time. Contact the church office if you'd like a copy. Check out the links below if you'd like to find out more about the historical background.

Peace out

Ray

Kairos on Wikipedia

Kairos by Francesco Salviati

Technorati Tags: kairos, preaching, jesus, invercargill, christian, centre, iccnz, reson8rs, resonate

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Community and Connection in the Church

Over the last wee while we've been looking at the whole idea of community and connection, particularly how we can use community to be relevant to a lost and dying world.

To me, community is all about connection between people, the links that bind people together. Sometimes we get so busy doing church, that we forget to do life together, and it's clear in the New Testament in particular, that doing life together was an integral and inextricable part of what being part of a church meant.

We have to be relevant to the communities in which we are a part of and who we serve. If not, then we are just a historical institution, far outdated, and a far cry from the early church (See the end of Acts 2 for more information).

The local church is the hope of the world.
If it's not going to be us that's relevant, then who?

Anyways, here's the latest podcast episode - I really hope you get something out of it. Oh, and BTW, some of these guys have not really spoken in a public environment like podcasting can be before, so full respect. As for me, I'm still learning how to do this well, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Get off the couch

and come down to Friday night church tomorrow at 7pm... I'm speaking which means things will probably be pretty loose and random (ask anyone about the 80/20 principle which I employ when speaking...). Should be a great night.

Ray.

BTW, the topic is GET OFF THE COUCH. And yes, I realise that the people who may need to hear the message will actually have trouble getting off the couch. As a temporary solution, after the recording is finished, I'll post it on the podcast player to the right. Although, I realise that the computer may not in fact be in reach of the couch, so get your trained helper monkey to do it. You do have a trained helper monkey, don't you? See here for details...

Lonely - Ray's Rant...

Drawing from http://el-a-stupid-boy.blogspot.com/

I've been thinking about a couple a things, kinda to do with community...

Like, you know how we see quite a few people come in, particularly about our age, sit by themselves, listen to the worship (which is usually awesome), take in the message (ditto), and then quietly slip out as soon as the final song starts never to be seen again...

There's something wrong with that picture... and it's bugged me for ages... and i think I've finally nailed it...

People aren't supposed to sit alone.

People aren't supposed to be alone.

Sure, alone time is good, but it's not meant to be a permanent fixture...

How do i know this? Simple - God didn't want to be alone.

He created us in his image so that he had someone to hang with. In simple terms, he wanted friendship, fellowship, and that "togetherness" that comes with being with other people.

Do you remember the song "Piano Man" by Billy Joel? There's this one line which has always resonated with me:

Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness;
But it's better than drinking alone.

Interesting ay? Most kids at school fall into bad crowds because they're accepted there. And it's better to be bad together, than good alone.

So, snap back to our picture of the person sitting alone in OUR church, listening to OUR awesome music, being impacted by OUR awesome preachers, teachers, and just crazy awesome random people. The awesome church that we have, could be THEIRS too.

Y'know I think our church is pretty awesome. I think that our church could really find a place for the broken, the alone, and the lonely (in fact, Jesus in the gospels made it pretty clear that was part of his mission...). So, I'm praying for a time where there'll be no one sitting by themselves. You know who is going to sit by those people? ME.

And now, hopefully, you.

Peace out.