Holding on. (With both hands)

Ever find yourself day dreaming about the other side of the fence?

 Imagining how much better life might be if you were never a Christian? Just think you could do whatever you wanted to do, no need for self-control or morals. This may be tempting and as I even write this I feel the pull towards it. The desire to be a part of the world is so great, it’s always tugging on us, it always trying to steal our attention. Why is this?

   There is a power that lies in the darkness, a fallen angel who only lives to own your soul, for he knows that his time is short. This is the ruler of the world, and let me define the world as system. The world's system is ruled by the enemy, but the world, the earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it. 

Psalms 24:1 “The earth is the Lord 's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” 

 There are two systems, God’s and Satan’s, God’s system is good and right and it goes against Satan’s system. Satan’s System is anti-God, its evil and goes against anything that is right. These systems are called kingdoms and they are both warring against each other and we, my friends, are on one of these sides. 

 In this life we have not been given the option of being a pacifist; we either fight for God and for His Kingdom or we fight against Him for Satan’s Kingdom. Both sides require your soul, both sides require everything. But remember Satan does not fight fair, he shoots the wounded and will do whatever it takes to get us to be distracted by the world. James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”   

If you even desire to be friends with the world, with Satan’s kingdom, you will become an enemy of God; and this is why the pull to the world is so strong because Satan knows that if he can get you to just desire the world, which is his ways, he’s got you. WHAT SAY YOU? Will you fight for God or will you fight for Satan? Will you seek God with all of your heart, soul and mind and not looking to the world and to the lusts that are in it?

 One thing to be aware of, if you have decided to fight for God, it is easy to put all your focus on the enemy, but let me remind you that the way we fight against the enemy is, by FOLLOWING GOD. When we are seeking Him, when we are spending time in the word and praying, that's when we are fighting. Remember when you take your eyes off Christ and put your focus on the enemy you lose. Our striving should be to know Him, to know His world and to keep His commandments. These things are not easy to do, but its our duty as men and women of God's kingdom. 

 My biggest struggle lately has been, will I follow God or not? I feel like I have been putting God off for far too long, been saying that I will become a better Christian at a more convenient time. "God I want to follow you, but not yet. I want more ministry and then I will definitely follow you with all of my heart." I want to seek the world for just a little bit, then I will do what's right. I have been living a dangerous, compromised life, seeking the pleasers of the world, fighting for Satan’s kingdom not God’s. I don’t say these things for pity or sympathy, but to make you think. Are you compromised, are you seeking the world’s pleasures over God? Are you putting God off to seeking him till a more convenient time?

“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”  Isaiah 55:6-7 

Seeking the LORD is not getting any easier, NOW is the time to seek him, now is the time to lay aside the sins and weights that so easily entangle us. Let us grab a hold of God with both of our hands and not let go. 

God is worth fighting for, even though it may seem like we are missing out, and reality is, you are missing out, but that's ok. God is so much better then the world. He has life to give us, but we have to be willing to seek Him out.

 My ending thought is, seek the LORD while he may be found, and we must seek him through his word through the keeping of his commandments and when we do this He will make Himself know to you. 

John 14:21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 

   Keep us in your prayers, pray that God would continue to protect us from the enemy and that He would give us boldness to speak as we should.

Blessings to all 

Complete in Thee

Complete in Thee—each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;

Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be, 

I ask no more, complete in Thee.

-Aaron Robarts Wolfe

No good thing. That is not a small statement and yet it comes straight from Psalm 84: "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." No good thing. Just think about those words for a minute. I can't get them out of my mind, mostly because they prove my lack of faith. Not too long ago, I was reading Genesis and I laughed at Abram's lack of faith in chapter 15. God comes to Abram and says, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I  your shield, your exceedingly great reward." And what is Abram's response? "

God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless..?" Wow. He really missed it, didn't he? "I am," says the I Am, and Abram says, "And what else?" hmm. 

Yet here I am, a doubting Abram. 

I wrote a blog this week for The CI Journal. My post was about Faith and the verse I have been meditating on is 2 Timothy 2:13: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." I've found this holds the truth of my only hope. I can't have enough faith or belief or strength to even hold to the Rock, but He cannot fail. 

He cannot deny Himself. That's me! I don't have to try to have enough faith. I am now literally part of Christ and He will be both faithful and heal my faith. He's good. This truth will never fail, because He will never fail. 

Praise our Father! He proved Himself so faithful over this past Christmas season. We had many great times with our students and friends sharing about Jesus' birth. We also finished teaching for the semester and are now teaching a few Bible and English camps around Taiwan and Hong Kong over our 5 week break. Please pray for a restful, refreshing time with friends and family. Pray that God would heal our teammate's back. She has been struggling with nerve pain for the past few months. Most of all, pray we would find our strength and joy in our Father.

Love,
Anna

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men

Over the past few weeks, I've shared the Christmas story with many people who have never heard it before. I found this to be pretty eye-opening for the sad state of my heart. My first thoughts, when sharing, concentrated on being understood and I wondered how anyone would believe me when there were so many things about the story that don't really make sense. It felt like I was simply explaining random facts to an old song. Not to say the Christmas story is exactly like a fairy tale, but in a way, it can sound a lot like one when you are sharing about all the angels and such.

Thankfully, I told the story to children. Children love stories and have little problem with fantastic details. In fact, they are usually fascinated with the most unbelievable parts. Isn't it true that most people enjoy fairy tales because they are too wonderful to imagine in real life? It seems like everyone wants to believe in the unbelievable; children are simply more open in their desire. Deep inside we want to believe in something fantastic. Maybe because we were made for faith.

As I continued to share with my classes I found the story taking a new shape in my mind. You know, the Christmas story is fairly mind-bending when you see it with new eyes. But its not so unrealistic as to make you turn away, its wonderfully, wall-implodingly, beautiful. Each part of the story is not randomly there, but a piece in the message God was sending to earth. I started thinking: Why all the angels? Why did he send shepherds as His first worshipers? Why bring the kings from afar? Why was He born in a world so desperate for a physical salvation, when His life has little to do with the liberation they expected?

Then I thought about the angels message:Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger...Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2:10-14)This world teaches us that in order to get a message across or to bring about order, we have to be the loudest, the prettiest, or the strongest, and stomp over everyone to be the last standing. Isn't it interesting that peace came in such a humble state? "Peace on earth." Doesn't that seem a little hard to believe at times? That peace has actually already come?

All these thoughts brought me to the stiff realization that my heart was very slow in believing God's message of Christmas. Peace and joy are here. I hope this year you find your Christmas celebrations find out the state of your heart. May you receive the gifts of faith and peace!

(The amazing Nantou team of English Teachers)

Prayer:
-We are so thankful for how God has answered our prayers and brought many people into our lives who want to hear about the Bible.
-Praise God! My schools have been wonderfully receptive of the Gospel this Christmas season and they let me give the children tracts about Christmas. All the kids have been extremely attentive as I shared about Jesus.
-Pray for all those who are hearing the Gospel for the first time.
-Pray for our continued health and unity as a team, as we have many extra activities with our schools this month.
-Pray for the salvation of the Taiwanese people.

Merry Christmas!
Anna

I have a fabulous little brother (who I currently am dearly missing) who is an enthusiastic storyteller. Tim has been telling stories since before he could form words clearly. And as he is now 7, that gives him nearly 6 years of experience. When something happens, or maybe he just hears a good story in a movie or book, he is almost compelled to tell it to everyone around him. I love hearing his stories and, even if I know what happened or heard it from someone else, I want to hear it from him because it will have his own little twists and applications. Seeing life through the eyes of a seven-year-old can be quite enlightening.

This spring, our family had a little encounter with a few kittens. It all started when Hope, nine-years-old at the time, prayed for a cat just before she went to sleep one night. And, this faith-filled child was very specific about the kind of cat she wanted. She prayed for a kitten that Daniel (another brother) would not be allergic to, because he normally has a reaction to animals. Amazingly, through a few abnormal circumstances, Hope woke up to find a kitten had indeed ended up in our living room that morning. We named the kitten Jacob, because later that day we found his sickly brother, who was unfortunately deemed Esau. Well, the story continues because within a few days we ended up finding another kitten and this third one was named Surprise. Eventually, we ended up with only keeping Jacob and it was discovered, to most of us quite shockingly, that Daniel is not allergic to Jacob.

Perhaps none of this should really be such a surprise, after all, Hope prayed very specifically and knew that her Heavenly Father could answer her prayers. I think this is what you call child-like-faith. It assumes a few things that I often forget. One of those things is that God wants to hear what we need. I've been listening to a sermon series by Malcolm Smith on prayer and one of the things he talks about is how, despite God knowing everything, He actually wants to hear it from us. Hope could have thought, "God knows I want a cat and He will give me one if He wants me to have one." But, she didn't. Instead, she told God she wanted one and asked if He would give her one. Its kind of like me wanting to hear a story, that I already know, told by Tim. I love him and I love the way he tells it and the way we connect over that story when he is sharing it, whatever it might be. I think this is like what God feels about us. Just because He already knows what has and will happen, doesn't mean He doesn't want to hear it from us and hear us ask for what we need and, most amazingly to me, He delights in hearing it.

Another part of faith that I learned from Hope was in the way she specified what she wanted. She knew Daniel was allergic to cats, but that didn't stop her from believing that God could give her a cat to which Daniel wasn't allergic. She saw the situation clearly, she needed a specific kind of cat and so that was the one she asked for from her Heavenly Father. Praise the Father! He wants to know the nitty-gritty details and He wants to answer our very specific requests.

Back to Timothy and his stories. You see, the best part of all of this for me, was hearing Tim tell this story to a friend. He went through and gave all the little details of who did what and how all the kittens ended up in our house and, when he got to the part about naming the third kitten, he explained it like this: "We wanted to name the third kitten 'Surprise' because it was so surprising when we found her. You see, the first kitten wasn't a surprise because Hope had asked for that one..."  :)

May you know the Father today! Know Him. Know Him in all your ways. Know Him in the littlest detail. Know Him in the innermost part. He can handle you at your ugliest (Praise Him for that!). He can handle the nastiest lies that you are believing. He wants to hear your desires and needs. Be known by Him and know Him, listening and answering and delighting in you.


You can pray that David and I would know Him this week, for that is our deepest need.

Me and a few of my students on a field trip at the ice cream shop. :)

I must apologize that it has taken this long to write an update on this blog. So hopefully this update will be good. Being here in Taiwan has been much better than I thought it would be. Now that may sound bad, so let me explain. I love Taiwan and I have really loved living here and wanted to live here, but I was not looking forward to teaching. I have been surprised that teaching has been wonderful and a lot of fun. God has been very faithful in his calling upon my life, for I came with a hesitant heart doubting that I would enjoy it. He is a good God, but often we doubt that we will actually enjoy God’s goodness. It is one thing to know that he is good, but it’s another thing to enjoy it. God wants us to enjoy life and to enjoy him. I have found myself doing these very things or at least learning how too. Teaching English may be hard, but it is quite rewarding. The kids are so cute and simply want your attention. God has proved me wrong, for I thought that teaching would not be enjoyable or fun.

Praise God for his faithfulness and his kindness, that he truly wants us to enjoy the life that he has given us.

Keep us in your prayers for the darkness is great here and wants to overcome the light, but praise the Lord that we have overcome the darkness through Jesus Christ.

Peace out everyone

David Lukachick   

Prayer Update

Thank you so much for your prayers! We are extremely grateful for all of you and for all that God is doing! Praise God for a great first two weeks of teaching! I found out that one of my (Anna's) principals is a Christian and it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise because that school is so peaceful and happy. Many of the schools our team works with have Buddhist temples nearby or as part of them. Some of the experienced teachers explained that its not uncommon for the schools with temples to have many children who scream during the entire lesson. Neither David nor I have seen this yet, but some of the other teachers on our team have. Please pray that His light would shine through us into the darkness.

We are so grateful to have many adorable students, but you can pray for continued love and grace in working with each of them as well as the teachers. Also, pray that we would be filled with God's rest and peace as we seek Him and are filled with His Spirit and His Word.

"Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen." -Romans 16:25-27

(some of the children pretending to be a Koala bear)

Slimy Serendipity

Anna:
I'm sure you all know that moment when you are slurping a delicious peach lemonade slush and you get your first little slimy chunk of chewiness. You forgot you were in Taiwan and, of course, everything under the "Slush Mouthfeel" section of the menu is going to give you a mouthful of something. And yes, it did say "Mouthfeel". It must be in the English language somewhere, friends. Well, maybe you haven't had the moment, but I just did and, strange as it may seem, it reminded me of the past week of teaching. 

When I knew I was supposed to come teach English in Taiwan, I knew without a doubt that God wanted me to go and I also knew that it would be hard. Those two facts have not wavered, but another fact is slowly gaining dominance in my mind: My Father is good. He never fluctuates in goodness. And while His very Being is good, all that He does is also good. 

When I ordered my slush, I thought I knew what to expect, but then there was the little slimy chunks to take the train of my experience and set it on a whole new track. That was week one of teaching, for me. I started out thinking that I knew what to expect. I knew I was supposed to be there and I knew it would be difficult, but I got a lovely surprise. It was that moment when I stood up in front of the class to teach and all five of my students looked at me expectantly and I knew my God is good. I can't explain exactly how it all connects or makes sense in my mind or even why I realized this in that moment, but somehow its like ordering a delicious drink and taking your first sip and getting the delightful slush with a slimy surprise that in the end is very yummy. After all, who doesn't like chewing a little bit of goop while drinking a slushy?

(Another slimy surprise -A Taiwanese Passion Fruit, very yummy)