Jeni’ai’s Story!

As most of you know, in 2005 I went to Papua New Guinea for a 6 week missions course with New Tribes Missions. It was hands down the best experience of my life. While in PNG I was able to go on a side trip into the jungles of Pawaia for a few days.

The people there were amazing and the stories they shared were very touching. One story in particular stood out above the rest, and I thought I would share it with you. It is the story of a man named Jeni’ai, as told to our group by Jack Douglas. Jack and his wife Isa were missionaries in Pawaia for about 30 years.

This is the story:

In the Pawaian culture, there are a lot of taboos and fears about child birth. It is believed that if a man sees a newborn child, that man would become sick and die. Because of this fear, ladies, when they were about to give birth, would go off in the bush away from any trails or any paths where a man might be walking. She had to be completely hidden, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, to have her baby.

So, one day, a lady was going off to have her baby. The women helping her built a little shelter with a few leaves and poles. As the lady was going off, the husband said, “If it is a boy, get rid of him. I don’t want any more boys. I have enough.” Now that is unusual because boys are the favorite. They carry on the line, they are there to help dad and so on. But he didn’t want any more boys.

So the lady went off had her baby, and, low and behold, it was a boy. And so when she saw it was a boy, she dutifully carried out her husband’s wishes and buried her little baby in a hole.

Now word got back to the village that she had had a baby boy and that she had buried it. The uncle, the brother of the father, heard about it, and said, “Well I don’t have any boys, could I have the baby?” The dad said, “Sure, you can have him.”

So, later that day they went back and dug up the little baby. By this time the insects had crawled all through the cavities in his face—mouth, nose, eyes, ears—laying eggs on him and all kinds of things. He was in a bit of a mess. They took him off to a stream and washed him down. He was still alive, so they washed him off and brought him back for the mother to look after. So his own mother raised him, but the uncle then claimed him as his own child.

So such is the life in this tribe. It is pretty cheap. Again, it is the survival idea. “I’ve got to survive! I don’t want anymore mouths to feed.”

So this boy called Jeni’ai grew up, and he was one of those who came to hear our teaching. Unfortunately, those ants and insects did a lot of damage to his eyes. He was basically blind in one eye and could hardly see out of the other eye—only with great difficulty. So his face was twisted and on the side most of the time as he was trying to see out of these very bad eyes.

Jeni’ai had a hard time walking around. He would slip off logs all the time. Its hard enough to hike around here when you can see properly, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be when you have poor eye site. People would laugh at him and make fun of him, like an idiot. He was not an idiot, he was a very bright guy, but he was treated like an idiot because he had such a time getting around.

He came and he heard the Gospel, but he couldn’t believe it was really for him. And so he came to check it out one night. He came to [Jack’s and Isa’s] house and he said, “can I believe in Jesus too?” Jack told him, “yeah, you can believe like everyone else.” And he got excited.

He had this habit where he would blow on his hands. He was in the house there blowing in his hands moving around. He just couldn’t believe it, he could believe too!

“If I believe can I go to heaven?” “Yeah, you can go to heaven like everybody else, if you believe.” Oh he was so excited blowing in his hands, and he was getting more and more excited as he went through this. And he said, “if I go to heaven will I get a new body?” “Yeah, you’ll get a new body like everybody else.” “Oh, oh this is great.” “And if I get a new body will I get new eyes too?” “Yeah, you’ll get new eyes too.” “Oh, this is great!”

So Jeni’ai believed! He didn’t think he could be acceptable to God. But he believed! And it was so amazing to him that you couldn’t stop him from telling others about the Gospel. His testimony was “I used to be a no body, but now I am a son of the King!”

Jeni’ai was a real joy to Jack. He had a sense of humor, but he was very, very serious about the things of the LORD. He was a big, barrel-chested lad who had such a rough life. He kind of walked with a very careful step because he was not quite sure of where he was walking.

But we found out later on why he had come to check things out like he did. He heard that only perfect lambs were acceptable to God. And if a lamb was blind or had a sore or anything like that it was not acceptable to God. So he thought with his eyes he would not be acceptable to God. So when Jack had cleared all that up for him, he was just so thrilled you couldn’t stop him.

He would hike the trails three days south to evangelize to the people down there. And he would get lost and he would miss the trail. But he would pray and he would get back on the trail and he would go again.

Jack and Isa were on furlough when they had received a letter that from Jeni’ai. He had a list of 50 some names of people that he had lead to the LORD and baptized. He wasn’t supposed to do that, they were the missionaries. But anyhow he had done that and there was nothing that would stop him. He wanted people to know. That was the Jeni’ai story.

Jack and Isa were out of the jungle at another area of PNG (Lapilo to be exact) when they got news on the radio that Jeni’ai was sick. Guess where he was? Over a day’s hike west of Pawaian. Guess what he was doing? Teaching people about the LORD.

They tried to bring him back so he could get some medical attention. But he wasn’t going to get back in time, and he knew it. He knew he was going to die.

So at a place called Yoro’ido, he said, “Wash me down and put my good clothes on and let me lie there because I am going to die at nine o’clock.” So they did that and he died peacefully at nine o’clock. From what they told Jack and Isa, it was pretty gruesome how he died. It was obviously a very serious illness.

The people in Yoro’ido were scared to death. When someone dies in a foreign place, the people of that place are blamed for his death. And so they thought that all his relatives would now come and wreck their bananas, and their gardens, and their houses–because he had died in their land, in their villages.

But when the Christians went over there–his Christian brothers and sisters–they were calm. They were not excited. It was a real testimony. So that was Jeni’ai.

I’m so glad Jack shared this story with us, I only wish I could have met Jeni’ai in person, but I guess that will have to wait for now.

Coming Soon….

The story of Jeniai!!

May Long

So last weekend my sister, cousin (Jennifer) and I headed off to Idaho to do some camping and whatnot.

We left Friday morning and arrived at RoundLake State Park around 6pm where we set up camp. Rachel and a couple of her friends met us there for the night.

After a nice breakfast and some relaxing around camp we all decided to go into Sandpoint for the day where they were having a Lost in the 50’s weekend so the streets were lined with cool cars.

There were lots of people out roaming the streets that day, we kept losing eachother in the crowd.

Us girls walked up and down the streets to see all the vehicles on display and then had a picnic in the park.

It was really a great day to be out on the town, however it may have been wise to put some sunscreen on! Teehe- Oops!

After a day of hanging out in Sandpoint we all headed back to the campground where Rachel and the other girls had to pack up their tents and head back to Coeur d’Alene. The rest of us ladies (Kristi, Jen and I) made our supper and just relaxed at camp the rest of the evening.

The next morning after breakfast we drove into Couer d’Alene for the day where we met up with my Aunt and Uncle at their condo. We walked down to the marina where we were supposed to go out on my aunt and uncles boat, however because of the amount of snow that Idaho got this year, the water level was raised significantly which was causing erosion on the sides of the lake so they didn’t want people adding to the problem by creating waves. Anyone that was caught cruising around the lake (unless they were doing some incredibly slow cruising) would be fined. Needless to say, we did not go out on the boat. So after walking around the marina for a bit we headed back to the condo where we all had a bbq.

Then after spending the rest of the day shopping around Coeur d’Alene we headed back to our lovely tent, had supper, hungout and then watched a movie on Kristi’s laptop. Talk about roughing it!

Then next morning we packed up all of our stuff and headed out by early afternoon. We didn’t get back to Olds ’til around 11:30pm that night. We made a few stops along the way. Actually one of the times we stopped was because there was a young moose on the side of the road, which I found pretty exciting. Unfortunately this is the best shot I could get of it.

We had a really great time on our “camping” trip, and who knows, we might do it again next year too. Maybe next year there will be a little less shopping and a little more camping going on but who knows. I really want to go to Silverwood amusement park sometime though so we might have to do include that in our plans the next trip.

The Sky Angel Cowboy

Okay so Kristi just had me listen to a little radio clip online where a precious little 12 year old boy (Logan) calls in to talk about his cow and share God’s love with others. It is sooo good, you have to listen to it.  Warning you may want to have a tissue or two on hand.

Visit this link http://ksbj.org/eblogs/morningShow/ and scroll down to The Sky Angel Cowboy and watch the first clip (and second clip too if you want).

The clip is only 2min and 20seconds long. Enjoy!

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”    Matthew 18:3-4  NIV

Ummm….

No time for blogging…I have a 6 hundred and 51 page book to read!

Why do I get myself into these things?

I love weekends!

As great as it is to work at GoodSeed, I gotta admit that I love my weekends. I just wish they were longer. It seems like we’ve always got something going on over the weekends.

2 weekends ago, some of my family and I went to Calgary to watch Riverdance which was actually really entertaining. After Riverdance was over we headed up to Wetaskiwin.

The following day we had a big 90th birthday celebration for my friends grandpa, Harvey Jespersen. I’ve know Mr. Jespersen pretty much my entire life. He is such a sweet man, and if you don’t know him you’re really missing out. Him and his wife used to run Bethany Homes for Children out near Wetaskiwin area, and have blessed so many lives. He tells me all the time how he’s praying for me. And when that man says he’s praying for you, you know without a doubt that he is. When my grandpa died, he told me that he would be my grandpa, and he kind of has been a grandpa figure to me. The birthday celebration went really well, about 160 people showed up.

After the party some of us went to the Fire Hall because my cousins husband, Mike (who is deputy fire chief) wanted to give his family a tour. I figured I would go along and play dress-up.

The following weekend (last weekend) I was at Missions Fest in Edmonton. I think it was fairly successful, especially with the contacts we made. All in all I had a really great time. There was definitely those people that put a downer on the weekend, but most of the time it was really encouraging talking with the people that came by the booth. The response to what GoodSeed was doing was really good. It was also nice to be able to hangout with Troy and Naomi for the weekend and get to know them a little more.

Next weekend I am off to Fairmont to hangout with some of my family. I love going there, it’s so beautiful and generally relaxing. If you haven’t enjoyed a condo at Fairmont yet you let me know and maybe one of these I’ll take you.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 KJV

As you all know, yesterday was Valentines Day. Kristi had a teachers convention up in Edmonton for a couple of days so I got to spend Valentines day all by myself this year. I decided to light some candles and watch a movie and seeing as how Valentines day is centered around love, I thought it only fitting to watch a movie based on the same thing, so I put it The Passion of The Christ and watched that.

The last time I watched this movie was when it was in theatres on its opening weekend. The theatre was packed and my cousin and I ended up having to sit near the front. Never in my life has a movie affected me as much as this one. The scene where they flog Jesus was by far the worst for me to handle. I felt that they went sooo incredibly over board with that scene and yet I’m kind of glad they did. It gives us just a glimpse of the torment and humiliation that Jesus endured for us and how much He loves us.

To recap the scene, two men take Jesus out in front of a crowd and chain Him to a flogging post where they repeatedly beat Him with sticks while laughing. Then just when you think “okay, that’s enough, no more!” they bring out another weapon to use, a weapon that actually rips your flesh off and they start flogging Jesus again, over and over. It is such a brutal scene. I remember sitting in the theatre, tears streaming down my face, nearly pulling my hair out, and just screaming inside. It took all my strength to keep from standing up and screaming at the movie screen for these men to stop! I couldn’t believe how upset this one scene made me feel. Finally, one of the men in the movie tells the others to stop, and I’m thinking “It is about time!! I can’t take anymore of this!”, it is at that point that the man who told the others to stop tells them to flip Jesus over so that they can scourge His other side. I have never cried so much from one scene in a movie before (although the Notebook was a close second. LOL- I’m such a geek).

By the end of the movie I was so emotionally drained and although I really liked the movie, I didn’t think I could ever sit through it again. The next day my entire family (parents, siblings, grandma, uncle etc) decided they wanted to go see the movie, and being that our family never goes to movies together I decided to see it again with them. I was really nervous to see the flogging scene again but I ended up missing some of it because my brother had a minor seizure during it. I figured I probably wouldn’t be able to watch the movie again after that but I bought it anyways when it came out on DVD and decided to watch it last night.

It was nice to be able to watch it at home by myself because I wanted to know just exactly how much of the movie was straight from the Bible and how much of it was Mel Gibson’s interpretation. I was able to pause the movie here and there and read what the Bible said about each “scene”. I never realized before just how much of “Mel Gibson” there was in this movie (not the actor himself but his ideas).

I know there is a very Catholic spin on this movie but I don’t know enough about Catholicism to know exactly what Mel Gibson put in there just for entertainment purposes and what is in there because of his Catholic influence.

I would have like to have seen a little more time given to the resurrection and more explanation as to why Jesus had to die. Another problem is that in the bible it focuses more of the attention on the actual crucifixion not the flogging before hand but in the movie it is unfortunately the flogging scene that stands out to me the most. There are many other issues I have with this movie, but all in all I think it’s pretty good and it is this movie that actually gave me the courage to get up in front of my church 4 years ago (April 2004) and be baptized but that’s a whole other story.

What better way to spend Valentines day than with someone who loves me more than I can ever comprehend, and more than I will ever deserve.

Do Christians have a Worldview?

So I came across an article the other day called “Do Christians have a Worldview” by Graham A. Cole, and as shocking as it may sound, I actually voluntarily read the entire article (26 pages and all)!!! If I would have come across this article even a month ago, I would have thought “BORING!!” and although I will admit there were some boring parts here and there (mainly because they were over my head), I found myself interested enough to read all 26 pages because of the fact that most of it pertains to what we have been talking about in bible study.

In bible study we have been talking a lot about Creation and how all humans have eternity in their hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), we have also looked at some of the Human View Points (HVP) on this issue.

Here’s a some what humerous and sad excerpt from the article of another HVP which explains all this:

“…. a convinced secularist, Paul Bloom, a Yale professor of psychology and linguistics, thinks that as a species we have all evolved into creationists. Believing in the supernatural is part of human nature. He writes: “Creationism—and belief in God—is bred in the bone.” So what’s the explanation? Blind evolution is his answer. Blind evolution makes mistakes and our belief in a creator is one of them. Somehow the enduring human belief that there is more to reality than the senses can detect and more to existence than life in this world needs explaining. These beliefs just won’t go away. So instead of denying the cogency of such beliefs, Bloom explains them away as an evolutionary faux pas. Bloom is committed to philosophical naturalism. That is to say, for him, nature is all there is and therefore a closed system of cause and effect. Furthermore, human inquiry must operate on that belief.”

Hopefully on a blog I don’t have to worry about properly referencing everything. Hmm…maybe I should attend a writers guild.

Anywho, if you’re interested in reading the article you can visit this link http://thegospelcoalition.org/pdf/cole.pdf

The ride of your life.

Cedar Rapids, Ohio - Top Thrill Dragster Roller Coaster.

Would you dare???

Once riders are strapped in. The ride moves forward to it’s starting position where it launches forward reaching 120mph in 4 seconds.

When this ride opened in 2003, it was the tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world.

It stands 420 feet tall.

The train races 400 feet to the ground as the track twist 270 degrees.

And there you have it. Before you know it, you are done the ride of your life, and you can tell everyone that you went on the worlds tallest and fastest roller coaster.

Height -  420 feet

Track lenght - 2800 feet

Angle of decent - 90 degrees

Vertical drop - 400 feet

Angle of twist on decent - 240 degrees

Capacity - approximately 1500 riders per hour

Cost - 25 Million US dollars!!

Sooo… whose in??

Here’s a frustrating theological topic of discussion for me…

If God knows what I’m going to do before I do it than how is it possible I have free will? I couldn’t have done anything else, otherwise God would have been wrong and God can’t be wrong.

This is something I’ve struggled to answer for years. Before I had ever heard the term “Calvinism” I would ask myself this question, then in high school one of my good friends and his entire family introduced me to some of the Calvinistic thinking. I was so frustrated because they raised some really good points, and they were able to show me in the Bible a lot of verses that supported predestination, plus this thinking helped answer my question. The answer was simple, you just don’t have free will! What my friend was saying made sense in so many ways, and yet I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that way. I felt it was wrong but I had nothing to back up my theory. All I knew was that I had not been raised with that sort of thinking and the whole idea of not having free will just angered me. I couldn’t see how a loving God could just randomly select certain people to be given salvation and leave the rest for eternal damnation. My friend and I just ended up agreeing to disagree on the matter. However, the next couple of years I would come across more and more people that believed the same way that he did. When I was in high school my church went through a major split and when we got our new Pastor, he made it very clear to the congregation that he was a 5 point Calvinist. This became such a hot topic with the Christian circles I was in, so much so that in Bible college I even decided to write a paper for one of my classes on Free Will vs. Preordination, and that’s not normally the kind of paper I would try to avoid.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember anything from the research I had done for that paper. I don’t even remember the grade I got on it, or what class it was for. The saying that if you don’t use it, you lose it is so true. The last couple of years I hadn’t really had many discussions on Calvinism with anyone and actually the topic hadn’t really even crossed my mind that much. I was out of bible college, my friend had moved away, my Pastor had toned his sermons down quite a bit, and there was just other issues that were on my mind instead, but recently this topic has resurfaced again for me, and then to top it off, this last Sunday at my church, my Pastors entire sermon was on the “elect” and how God rules every aspect of our lives.

I sat through the entire sermon very frustrated with what he was preaching, but taking notes so that I would be able to research some of these things out for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate my Pastor, he’s a good man, with a great heart and he has done a lot for our church, but when it comes to this issue we just don’t agree.

I know this can be a somewhat sensitive topic for people, and it is quite often just avoided so as to not ruffle any feathers and I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone but the truth is that I strongly believe that God gave us the ability to make choices for ourselves. He does not force anyone into loving Him. He just provided the way for us by offering us His righteousness and we can chose to accept that or not.

I’m pretty sure it will be a long time before I am able to grasp a lot of this topic, and I know that there are also a lot of things we as humans can never understand because of our finite minds, but I’m thankful for the discussions I have had (and will have) with some of my friends here in Olds, and for the bible study that Jim has been taking us through every week.  It is helping clear up some of these harder issues for me. Granted I still have many more questions. You’ve got your work cut out for you Jim

The truth of the matter is though, the main reason why I don’t understand this stuff is because I haven’t put the effort in to it that I need to in researching what God really has to say about it. I need to be in the Word a lot more than I have been to be able to make sense of this.  And starting today I’m going to try a lot harder to do that. Please feel free to keep me accountable on this.