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I went to do some odd jobs at the church last Thursday and as I worked I noticed four raggedy little heads peering at me from the crumbling fence that separates the church property from the "house next door" (the words are in quotes, because if you saw "the house" you would probably place the words between ? Marks). "Pasthdoor, comeer!" Thadeu, is three years old but he is still sucking a pacifier which makes his "three-year-old Portuguese even harder to understand. "Can we wide your bike?" I had ridden Jackson's bike to work and Thadeu and his siblings: Marcia, Eduardo, and Edson were enthralled! "Our dad had two bikes, but one of them boke and he gave the udder one away." For the next half an hour seven kids (Edson, Marcia, Eduardo, Samuel, Mateus, Jacklyn, and Maria Julia) took turns taking the Schwinn for a spin around the parking lot. I winced a few times as they whizzed by on a rapid rush down the ramp that runs beside th...

January is our very wet, rainy, month and invariably we seem to “fight” the downpours each year during our VBS week. This year God blessed us everyday with just enough sun to keep us dry and going. In fact, every day, He held off the rain until just after our Bible School time. Only on the third day did it look like we were not going to escape without getting drowned. The clouds were ominous (and only if you've experienced a Brazil rain do you know what I'm talking about. Remember the storm scene in the Wizard of OZ?)! It was funny too because our theme was Adventure at Sea! and all of our games were water games. I told Ben, “It can't rain! If it does the kids won't want to play in the water!!” With our trust was in The God who controls the rain clouds (cf. Job 26.8) we got just a few sprinkles at the very end of game time on Saturday (and some blamed those on my weak prayer life! But, if you could have only seen those clouds!)! Praise His Name! Just as we were doing th...

The Dog days of summer are upon us and VBS happens tomorrow! We're going to have an Adventure at Sea and take a look a the life of Paul in the process. Water will be a big part of our game time and we are praying for God to work mightily in the lives of the kids who will visit the church in the next four days. The simple mention of the phrase Vacation Bible School brings back interesting and exciting memories from my childhood. It was (and still is) a BIG deal at First Baptist Church of Lake Orion. In those days Pastor Walter Balagh out did himself each year with strange skits, funny costumes, and neat tricks, to attract more and more kids! We always had cool crafts, fun games, and great themes. It was during those, seemingly less complicated, years that I came to understand my need for a Savior. That was the 50s this is the... what do we call them? The 0s (zeros)? Life is different in so many ways. Kids are so much more "street savvy". That's a bad thing. We all know...

“Dear friends and family, We want to thank you for your prayers and support for our ministry....” How many times have you read those words in a missionary letter? They seem so... general, so impersonal, so emotionless. But here is the missionary's (my) dilema, I want to communicate with each person on my support team. I want that communication to be personal. I want that communication to seem vital and important. I want it to be written personally to you. I want you to know that you are a part of our team; that what we do, we do for Christ, and because of you. I want you personally to know that without you we wouldn't be able to keep doing what we are doing. I would love to put your name at the head of every email, Dear Jack, Wilma, Kent, Sandra, Juan, Steve, Bob, Sylvia, Vicki, Jim, Martha, Rick, Sherry, Ron, Del, Glynn, Greg, Mike, Guy, Tim, Adam, Jeff, Andy, Dan, .... But I can't. I was recently verbally spanked for not communicating more. “What about the people who don...

One of my New Year's resolutions is to have a positive attitude in 2008. My wife is a positive person. Dawn can usually find the achingly sweet side of any circumstance (was that negative?). The Jewell DNA, on the other hand, often lend itself to the more practical, realistic, gloomy, side of those same circumstances. Years ago when we were listening to an “older person” grumping about what seemed a trivial matter, Dawn and I looked at each other and said in unison, “If I ever get like that, LET ME KNOW!” She let me know just last week! My “Realistic” assessments of life situations had taken even my positively lovely wife to the frazzling point. She could no longer look at me and find an agreeable slant on how I was acting. That wake-up call helped me to assign “Positive Attitude – Be an encourager not a discourager in 2008” to my resolution list. I often forget that my attitudes reflect my relationship with my Savior. Psalm 146:5 tells me “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob f...