All posts by Matt Bullen

This morning the Lord lead me to forgo my devotion in order that two brothers, Dave Beach and Luis Escobar, could share some things that the Lord had laid on their heart.  Dave started out by sharing a little of how they came to the Orphan Hope International family and what God has been showing them in the last year as a result. Then he shared his vision for Colombia and what the Lord is going to do here. It was very encouraging and challenging. After, Luis shared the story that I wrote about yesterday about the girl he wept and prayed with. It was beautiful.

We headed out this morning to Amparo De Ninos (Protection of Boys) orphanage. I enjoyed the wonderful worship songs that Jair led us in on the bus and the awesome fellowship and spiritual companionship of my brothers and sisters on the way there. I sat next to Frank Kiser and we shared some heavy warfare stuff. It was powerful.

The orphanage is an old monastery out in the country that houses 100 boys 8 – 18. I was especially excited because this is the first orphanage I ever visited in Colombia. When we pulled up there were red, yellow, and blue (the colors of Colombia) balloons everywhere and the boys came out so excited to see us. They lead us into an auditorium that they had decorated with the flags of Colombia and America and red, white, and blue and red, yellow, and blue balloons and a big banner that the boys had hand made with the message in Spanish and English, “Friendship knows no limits or boundaries. Welcome!” and another banner that said, “God didn’t create borders; my goal is friendship with the world.” Everyone in the orphanage and on the team introduced themselves and then the boys did an amazing presentation of comedy, singing, dancing, and so on. It was obvious how delighted they were that we were there. It was humbling to hear that they don’t get visitors other than us every six months and that they had been planning for weeks for this presentation. I can’t describe how my heart cried out to the Lord to pour His grace on them and allow us to show them His love.

After the meeting we took a tour of the facility and my old friend Juan David, the first Colombian orphan my daughter Beverly and I ever met, came up and put his arm around me and said, “vamos” (Let’s go) he showed me all over the complex (even though I have been here half a dozen times) and we caught up and remembered old times. On our first trip to Colombia I brought my 17-year-old daughter Beverly with me. She had never flown on a plane or been out of the country except on a cruise. We arrived at Amparo De Ninas and this 13-year-old boy Jaun David took her by the hand and they became fast friends. Our second day there was her 18th birthday and all the boys sang happy birthday to her in English. Juan David begged me to be his daddy and asked Beverly to be his big sister. Jaun David took us up to the long room of bed after bed and picked up a little pink stuffed pig, the only toy he had, and handed it to Beverly as a birthday gift. She profusely refused but he would not take it back. I remember that she cried and cried that night. I saw a transformation take place in her that night that has existed to this day. She went from being a sort of serious Christ follower to a radicalized soldier of the cross overnight and that fire has not dimmed one iota. For months after we got home if someone mentioned his name she would start weeping. We tried to adopt him as well as our Goddaughters but found that we didn’t qualify economically, my health, and we had just recently adopted our African daughter. When Beverly returned to Amparo De Ninas a year and a half later she brought the little pink pig and gave it back to Juan David and they renewed their friendship once again. Well today after Juan David showed me all over the grounds he disappeared for a little while and then returned and handed me that little pink pig freshly washed and smelling of shampoo. He told me, “I just washed it, smell.” Then he said, “Wednesday is Beverly’s birthday and I want you to take this little pig back to her. Tell her I love her and that she can bring the pig back again when she comes to see me.” I took the pig and packed it away in my bag. After the tears subsided I texted Beverly and told her that I was with Juan David and gave her the message and sent her a photo with him holding the little pig. She texted me back and gave him her love and thanked me for making her cry ☺ I never dreamed that I would have a son and two daughters in Colombia that I can never bring home. The good thing is that they know that as long as I have breath in my body and God is willing I will come to see them again and again. Truth be told, my daughters and sons have dozens of little brothers and sisters living in orphanages in Colombia that they have given their heart to at one time or another and that they keep in contact with. Jesus said in John 10:16 “I have other sheep who are not of this fold, I must go and bring them also, they will hear my voice, and they will be one flock with one shepherd.” We are so grateful to be a part of connecting those other sheep to Him.

Then it was time to play. We had brought some sports equipment to give them and the boys broke out the soccer ball and soon there was a big game going, the USA vs. Colombia. It was so fun to see them out there playing their hearts out. When it was Colombia 3 USA 0 it began to rain and then hail and so we went inside and finished the morning visiting. The team had a wonderful time with the boys and then we had a nice lunch of beef and rice and potato. Half way through the meal the boys told us that they had slaughtered their cow the day before so that they could feed us this lunch. We sat stunned. Then Sandy Byrd said, “They killed the fatted calf for us.” “Wow!” Little orphan boys on another continent teaching us about love, hospitality, and sacrifice, humbling. I had an awesome visit over lunch with some of the older boys 16-18. They asked me what I do and I told them about all of the ministry things I am involved in. One of the boys said, “Are you a Christian?” (as opposed to Catholic) and I answered, “Yes.” He asked me what I believe and I was able to share the gospel and my testimony. It was wonderful. They were listening so intently.

About 3:30 p.m. it began to rain harder and the river at the bottom of the hill began to rise and we knew if we waited 30 minutes longer we would not be able to get out and get home. We said our hurried goodbyes and jumped on the bus. The road was already washing out and it was touch and go for a little while whether we would make it out to the paved road but we did and headed off to dinner to reminisce and share stories and testimonies and dream of what God is going to use us to do in the years to come. Tomorrow we go back to the same orphanage and we have many gifts and a big surprise for them. I can’t wait. I have a suspicion that we will leave the bus out at the main road and walk in tomorrow like we did the last time the bridge was out ☺

Your prayers are mightily felt here. God is at work!

Father’s Day Among The Fatherless:

I don’t think there are words to describe how amazing today was but I will try. Today was over the top anointed and blessed. We left at 7:00 a.m. and headed into Bogota to Hector and Lilliana’s church. We arrived at 8:00 a.m. and they had a beautiful breakfast spread for us. We ate and fellowshipped and took lots of pictures.

Many of the workers from the orphanages go to church there or came because they knew we would be there. Our dear sister Nelda was there and Sophia whom I wrote about in March. Some of our Goddaughters and friends from the Safe House were there. It was a great reunion and a beautiful picture of the body of Christ. One man came up and asked for a picture with me. He said he knew me from facebook but it took me a minute to remember. Ah! Brother Carlos! I couldn’t place him because his church is way over near Ecuador! He had heard that we were coming and had come all the way to see us. He asked me to come to their humble mining town and preach someday. I assured him that I would. Jose Vicente and his wife Diana were there and of course Hector and Lilliana’s beautiful teenage daughters and son and nephew. Hector came forward and spoke about the blessing of two countries worshipping together. They had a full size American flag and Colombian flag and they had me lead us in the National Anthem and then Hector and Jair led in singing the Colombian National Anthem. It was breathtaking!

Soon it was time for the worship to begin and when their children and Jair began to lead us in worship it was absolutely stunning. They would lead us in familiar worship songs in Spanish and then sing the chorus in English. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place when they sang Mighty to Save in Spanish and then English. It was so powerful to sing at the top of our lungs, “Solo Dios puede salvar, mi Dios puede salvar!” Hector then read the story of the Good Samaritan and then the music started and we didn’t know what was coming next. Then the young people came in the side in costume and enacted the story of the Good Samaritan but in modern Bogota style. It was wonderfully done and very moving. Then Lilliana introduced Jair to come and sing some songs from his latest album Viraje. It was such a blessing because Hector and Lilliana were Jair’s pastors when he was a 10 year old boy in northern Colombia and for them to see this amazing man of God in action was a crown for them. Then Lilliana introduced me to preach and Luis to translate. I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to help me represent Him properly to these people and then shared the message that God had given me for this day. I have added my sermon notes below.

The God Who Pursues To Be Pursued

The God Who Pursues

Adam & Eve

Walking in the garden in the cool of the day… “Adam, where art thou,” is still the Divine call (Gen. 3:9)

The Woman At The Well

John 4:23 “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

                  Up vistaed hopes I sped;

                  And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

                  But with unhurrying chase,

                  And unperturbèd pace,

                Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

                  They beat–and a Voice beat

                  More instant than the Feet–

                “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

                  I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a window, curtained red,

  Trellised with intertwining charities

(For, though I knew His love Who followed,

                  Yet was I sore adread

Lest having Him, I must have naught beside);

1John 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.

Or as my pastor, Frankie, says, “You crave God because He first craved you.”

God is so wonderful that if you slow down long enough, get quiet long enough He will show Himself to you and you will be ruined for anything else ever again and then you will spend the rest of your life chasing Him.

O God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and left me thirsty for more.

The God Who Must Be Pursued

Prov. 8:17  “I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me.

Jer. 29:13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Is. 58:2 “Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways, They delight in the nearness of God.

Lam. 3:25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.

Moses

At the burning bush Moses got a taste…

After walking with God through Egypt, the Red Sea, and so on Moses still wants more. In Exodus 33:18 Moses says, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And God did!

Heb. 11:27 tells us that Moses endured because he saw Him who is invisible.

David

David got a taste of God out watching his father’s sheep…

Psa. 42:1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.

In my favorite chapter of the Bible he expresses beautifully his pursuit of God…

Psa. 63:1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;

My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

2Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,

To see Your power and Your glory.

3Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,

My lips will praise You.

4So I will bless You as long as I live;

I will lift up my hands in Your name.

5My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,

And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

6  When I remember You on my bed,

I meditate on You in the night watches,

7For You have been my help,

And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.

8My soul follows hard after you.

Paul

Paul found the pearl of great price… Phil. 3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

I love the way Tozer says it… “The Holy Spirit is a Person, and as a Person, He can be cultivated; He can be wooed and cultivated as any person can be… People grow on us, and the Holy Spirit, being a Person, can grow on us… Be engrossed with Jesus Christ. Honor Him… The Holy Spirit will never, never flood the life of any man except the man in whom Jesus is glorified. Therefore, if you dedicate yourself to the glory of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will become the aggressor and will seek to know you…  As we honor Jesus, the Spirit of God becomes glad within us. He ceases to hold back, He relaxes and becomes intimate and communes and imparts Himself; and the sun comes up and heaven comes near as Jesus Christ becomes our all in all… I can walk with Jesus when I am doing the same things He is doing, and go the same way He is going and travel at the same speed He is traveling. I must be engrossed with Jesus Christ.” – A.W. Tozer

Some of you are running from God… you can feel His breath on the back of your neck. Just stop… just submit to Him… He will give you a taste of Himself that will be so fantastic that you, like the man who found the treasure hidden in the field in Matthew 13, will spend the rest of your life, your time, treasures, talents, and thoughts pursuing Him for more of that life giving Bread. Those of you, who have grown weary of pursuing God, don’t quit. Tell your Father that you, like Jacob, won’t let go until He blesses you. Tell Him that you are coming after Him and you want all that He has for you. Amen.

There were many tears and many hands raised to heaven as we prayed together aloud, “Father, we are coming after you! Give us all that you have for us!”

Next, a young woman and man came forward and played some traditional Colombian musical instruments. It was fabulous as well. The church leadership then presented each of our team a handmade Colombian gift. Then a lady came forward with a young man in her arms who suffers from acute cerebral palsy and several of us laid hands on them and prayed for them. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place then for sure. And last but certainly not least our brother Tracy Davis stepped forward with a short testimony. He shared how blessed he was by the service and especially the singing of Hector and Lilliana’s daughter Heyli and how God had spoken to him through them and that he could no longer look at them as Colombians but as family. He said that in coming to Colombia to minister to those without families, we were now without our families but the people of the church had taken us in and given us a home for the day and it was a beautiful picture.

We hugged and kissed and cried and took lots more photos and then we were on the bus and headed back to our lodgings. But God. Jose Vicente told us that he had an emergency center nearby with 100 orphans there and could we please stop and just say hi for a moment. We said absolutely! So we wound our way up the mountain a little to a house called Chamuel. We had to climb up a long stone path and there they were waiting for us with big smiles and a song.

We mingled and loved and got acquainted. Jose brought over three sisters ages 16, 13, and 10, Catalina, Geraldine, and Laura. Their grandfather died and their mother is a drug addict and they have no one in this world. They have been at this home for 7 months. Jose told us that he’s been so concerned for these girls and he thought that if he could just get us to stop there for 15 minutes we might be able to help him find a family for these girls. We assured him that we would try and he said that we had just given him the best Father’s Day gift by coming!

As we sat over lunch I asked my brothers and sisters what words they would use to describe today. The one that best fit I think was overwhelming… It truly was an amazing day. As we headed back to our rooms for some much needed rest I was surprised with one more story for the day. My dear Colombian brother, Luis, our main ministry translator stopped me and he said, “I know why we had to stop at Chamuel today even though it wasn’t on our agenda for the day.” I said, “Really, Luis, tell me about it.” He proceeded to tell me that he had struck up a conversation with a 13 year old girl who had been living with her grandfather in Spain but then he died and she had no one and since she was from Colombia they sent her back here. She was very sad and had become addicted to Marijuana and will soon go to rehab. Luis asked her what she thought about God and she said that she didn’t believe in Him because she couldn’t prove His existence. Luis kindly asked her if her grandfather had loved her. She replied that he had, very much. Luis asked her how she knew her grandfather loved her, what proof did she have. She told him that she could feel his love for her. Luis gently explained that this is also true of our Heavenly Father and us. We can feel His love for us. Luis told her that her Heavenly Father loved her more than even her grandfather and that He was always with her. This precious girl broke down and started weeping profusely and Luis started weeping with her and praying for her to know how much God loves her. They prayed together and then it was time to go. Dolly, one of our team members who was sitting with us said, “I saw you two weeping but didn’t know what was going on.” I looked at Luis and shook my head, “Wow!” “I guess you do know why we were supposed to stop there today.” “The Hound of Heaven was after that girl!” Praise God!

Thank you to the prayer warriors back home!

We had a little extra rest last night, which was wonderful. This morning, as was the case yesterday morning, we had no hot water in our cabin. The water heater was on high and burning but somehow no hot water. After an ice cold shower I was smiling to the Lord and I thought, “Father, was that cold shower to remind me that these children take an ice cold shower every day at 6:00 a.m.? Where you helping me to live incarnationally for a moment?” After breakfast my friend and roommate on this trip, Tracy, came up to me and said, “I was grateful for that cold shower this morning because it humbles me and makes me glad for what I have.” I told him about my musing to the Lord and he stared at me in disbelief. He hadn’t known that there is no hot water or heat in the orphanages and nights in Bogota get down in the 40’s at night all year around. He said, “Now I’m really glad for that cold shower this morning!”

In our devotional this morning we talked about Jesus the Orphan, or more accurately, Jesus the fatherless. Jesus came to earth not as a conqueror but as the child of a single teenage mother. I took some time this morning to look at Joseph who adopted Jesus. Imagine this Jewish man betrothed to a lovely young Jewish maiden and then he finds out that she is with child. What a shock! God speaks to him in a dream and he instantly obeys. He takes Mary as his wife, thereby adopting her soon to be born child, and becomes protector and provider for the infant Godman! Amazing! I’ve always pondered the thought that the angel came to Mary and God spoke to Joseph in a dream, but the angel didn’t go to the rest of the family or the town that we know of. Joseph took on a lot when he obeyed the voice of the Lord. Imagine the looks, the comments, etc. Then they have to travel to Bethlehem and the baby is born. Two years later in another dream Joseph is told to take the young child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Then later they return. The point is that Joseph literally laid down his life, his dreams, his plans to provide and protect a fatherless (as far as the world knew) child and Jesus asks us to do the same.

Dr. Moore asks an astonishing question. “When James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. is it possible that he was thinking of the example set by his father, Joseph, in adopting Jesus? Fascinating! Joseph’s story reminded me of another hero from history who spent her life loving, protecting, and caring for Jesus through the poor that she met in the streets of Calcutta… Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa believed strongly in Matthew 25:40 ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ She used to say, “We are ministering for Jesus, with Jesus, and to Jesus” She was also famous for saying, “The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved, they are Jesus in disguise.” At her death she had been influential in establishing 610 missions in 123 countries.

Every good deed done for God’s glory… even a cup of cold water turns into worship of Jesus

Like Joseph, and Mother Teresa, God is asking us to love His Son through these little ones today. We get to go out there today and live the life of these heroes…

We arrived at the orphanage and our little friends from yesterday were so happy to see us. There were 180 girls here today. We were directed immediately to the lunch hall because due to the influence of our ministry here they have started a Saturday morning worship service every week. Pastor Lucas from La Libertad Church in Bogota and his wife and teen daughter led the worship and then Pastor Lucas preached from Psalm 148 on praise. It was beautiful. We spent most of the rest of the day playing with the children; we had an official tour of the facilities and heard many heart-rending stories of the work that is going on here. It was obvious that the team was having a great time, as were the girls.

I was blessed beyond words to get to hang out with and love on my Goddaughter as well as a slew of other sweet little girls. I love them so much. If God would let me I would take them all home and I have tried very hard to take at least two home to be mine but have not been able to overcome all of the legal hurdles. But God has repeatedly assured me that He wants us to help many more than just two and so for now we continue to pour our lives into promoting the need here and working to help these kids. Some of the little girls that kept a piece of my heart today were Marta, Marcela, Karen, Yecenia, Laurita, and of course Heidy. I had many wonderful conversations and was able to share about my hero, Jesus, with many of them.

Soon it was time to gather and sing and share the gospel with the children. First though we had a wonderful presentation by them. They gave each team member a hand made card with the inscription inside in English, “In the home Santa Maria of Fatima our dream are like a light more than the stars. Thank you for making our dreams possible!” Then they sang some beautiful songs and dances and at the end we all got to join in. It was very fun. Some of the team members threatened to put video of my dancing on facebook but I reminded them that, “What happens in Colombia, stays in Colombia!” Then Jair sang some wonderful songs of praise that he has written with his band Viraje. At the request of the director of the orphanage,

I came up and gave a short message to the girls about predators and the dangers of the sex trade here in Colombia. I told them that as often as I have been here and how much I love them and the fact that I have 4 daughters of my own that I felt it was my job to be their Daddy for a minute and warn them. Many of them go to school in the town nearby and then return to the orphanage at night. Recently 5 of the girls have been lured into the sex trade by evil men who wait to catch them on their way to and from school. I told the girls that Colombia is the second leading country in the western hemisphere in sex trafficking with over 35,000 girls sold each year. I warned them not to listen to men who promise them jobs, money, or a relationship. The directors were very happy because they said that the girls look forward to us coming for months and they will listen to us. Then my friend Mike got up and told a little about his very rough past and how Christ changed his life. It was very moving. Then Lilliana told the story of how an orphan, Hadassah, became queen and how God had a plan for every girl there. It was wonderful. Then we handed out a Bible and a Spanish/English dictionary to every girl.

Finally the time came for us to leave. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place as everyone said goodbye for the last time on this trip. There were lots of hugs and kisses. Many of the girls had made love notes for the team last night and they gave them out. We finally pulled away and got on the bus and as we drove away I could hear sobs all over the bus. As Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, used to say, “God has broken our hearts with the things that break His heart.”

This week we will be focusing on Jesus as our hero.

I heard John Piper say something that changed my life. He said, “If admiration of the truly admirable is one of the greatest and rarest pleasures, and if Jesus is truly the most admirable being in the universe, then admiring Jesus is the greatest pleasure.”

I agree and I love nothing more than talking about Him.

Jesus is my hero…

I love the story of a former Taliban fighter who came to faith in Christ. He said, “I was attracted to the character of Jesus and wanted to be like Him. I thought if anyone should be God… if there is a God….it should be Jesus.” He has since led over 1000 Muslims to Christ and started 70 house churches in His country.

Here is an aspect of Jesus life and ministry that I admire…

Jesus the Missionary

Jesus left His country and came to ours…

The first gift that God gave us to demonstrate His love was His presence on earth in the person of His Son Jesus. Emmanuel… God with us. He could have written us a message in the sky but He chose to come to where we were and for 33 years to become one of us and live with us… John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He gave us the gift of His presence and today we ask Him to use us to give these lonely, love starved children the gift of His presence in us.

Jesus came as a servant…

He could have come as a king… But He humbled himself, laid aside His glory and His rights. He stepped into our world and for a few moments in time. He became one of us. His mission was to adopt us and He came into the world as a fatherless child of a single teenage mother…

Phil. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

2Cor. 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

Another hero from history who reminds me of Jesus the missionary is Hudson Taylor missionary to China. He adopted Chinese dress and hairstyle and his supporters in England were offended by it and cut off his support. He stuck to his guns and these stats reflect his legacy. In 1861 when he arrived in China there were 350 known Christians in China. In 1905 at Hudson Taylor’s death there were 18,000. When the communists kicked his ministry, the China Inland Mission, out of China in 1951 there were an estimated 1,000,000 Christians. Today there are an estimated 100,000,000 Christians in China and some analysts estimate that 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese are coming to Christ every day.

Today we get a chance to be our hero… We get to be Jesus… We get to be His hands and feet.

We climbed in the bus and headed for Santa Maria orphanage near Madrid. This facility houses 150 girls ages 8 to18. Some of us on the team have been here many times and it was a wonderful reunion as we climbed out of the bus and were thronged with little friends calling our names. Quickly the rest of the team was surrounded and led away to tour the grounds and make new friends.

My other Goddaughter, Heidy, is at this orphanage and I began to scour the grounds with my eyes looking for her. Suddenly I heard her little singsong voice calling across the complex, “Papi, Papi!!! She ran and jumped into my arms and we shared a few dozen “I love you-s.”

The morning and afternoon were spent in fun and games. Many just sat around visiting and enjoying the beautiful day. There was fingernail painting (which I fortunately escaped this time), sports of all kinds and more than a little horseplay. There was baseball, soccer, football, frisbee, ladder golf, and many other activities going on. Many discovered that love and happiness have no language barriers. They are their own universal language.

As is my habit I floated through the crowd and checked on each of our new team members and asked them how they were doing. One brother said with tears in his eyes, “I’m done. I know what God wants me to do.” Another said, “Don’t talk to me Matt Bullen or I am going to start crying.” Another said, “When are we coming back?” And I said, “tomorrow” and he said, “No, I mean when is the next trip!” All agreed that their lives were already changed. At one point Heidy sang me a beautiful daddy love song and made all the other girls squeal with delight and more than a few of the rest of us well up with tears. These are such beautiful children inside and out.

It was wonderful to see old friends again such as Pastor Lucas and his wife from La Libertad church in Bogota and Jose Vicente, the president of Fundacion Nuevo Mundo. I was so happy and surprised to look up at lunch and see Julie Dinkler and her daughters Brooklyn and Laura. Julie and her husband Chris are in Bogota adopting Laura from this very orphanage. They will be taking her home in just a few days. I’ll never forget Chris’s words the first time he came to Colombia with us. On the last day he said with tears running down his face, “The next time someone tells me they want to see Jesus, I am going to tell them that I know the address where He lives.” Now 18 months later they have a beautiful new daughter. Praise God!

In the afternoon we gathered everyone together and Jair got out his guitar and we sang worship songs and then Lilliana, the pastor’s wife from Bogota, shared a testimony about the amazing difference that Christ makes in your life when you commit to Him. Then we said our goodbyes but they were happy ones because they know that we will be back tomorrow. Tomorrow’s parting will not be so easy.

Every time I am here I gain a new appreciation and admiration for the man who said, “Permit the little children to come to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

We had a sweet surprise when we walked out of the airport tonight in Bogota with 43 team members and 70 suitcases (1/2 of which are stuffed with things for the orphans). First, I saw Pastors Hector and Lilliana from Comunidad Christiana Fundamentos where I will be preaching on Sunday. It was so good to see them. Then I saw Jair and Shannon. What a blessing they are to have on this trip. Then out of nowhere a bunch of our little friends from the Amparo De Ninas orphanage showed up to surprise us and I got many hugs and kisses and then my Goddaughter Ginary popped out of the crowd! What a joyous reunion! They quickly loaded back into the van and headed back home. We will see them later this week but it was so great to be greeted by Jesus in disguise tonight. We are now bunked down and looking forward to a Spirit filled week as we walk with Jesus through the fields of the fatherless.

Orphan Hope Marathon | Huntsville, Texas 77342 | Saturday, February 11, 2012 @ 8:00 AM

An amazing thing happened to me today. I was sitting in a meeting with the owner of the building that I just completed and Ed Wong, a landscape designer whom I had just met that day. The owner of the building, (who is a strong believer and who knows that my job has run out and that this is my last week in construction and I will be launching out by faith in full-time ministry starting next week), asks me if I know how I am going to support my family and I respond that I don’t know yet but I am trusting God to take care of us. At this comment, Ed Wong’s head comes up and he says, “You know, J. Hudson Taylor said, ‘God’s work done God’s way will never lack for God’s supply'” I smile and say, “I love that quote! I am a big fan of Hudson Taylor. Ed smiles and says, “I am a good friend of J. Hudson Taylor  IV who is a missionary in Taiwan. He calls me whenever he is in Houston and comes and visits our little Chinese church in Chinatown. Here, I have a photo of him.” Ed pulls out his iphone and shows me a photo of J. Hudson Taylor IV and his Chinese wife. Then we shared Hudson Taylor quotes for a moment and then got back to designing landscaping. I don’t know if this little exchange was a message to me from God but I am receiving it as such anyway.

As I have shared previously, we have the amazing and miraculous privilege to be a part of bringing 17 orphans to Texas in July to be hosted by 11 families in the hope that these children will find a forever family. Today we had training for the families presented by the Colombian officials. It was a great meeting.

Later tonight we had a fundraiser at the beautiful Fuller home. The total cost for this adventure is $42,000.00. A few weeks ago we held an orientation for the families that will be hosting and shared with them the financial need and asked them to share with their friends and churches. The Fullers immediately offered to host a fundraiser at their home for their friends and neighbors. We arrived tonight with our Colombian guests, Grace Fellowship leaders, and Orphan Hope Board members and were pleasantly surprised at an amazing turnout at a beautiful home, an amazing dinner, and the presence of God’s mighty hand on this night.

Bill Byrd and I were able to present the ministry and share the need. Others spoke whom we had just met tonight and their excitement for Orphan Hope and what God is doing in Colombia was wonderful.

We believe that we will see a good response financially and spiritually from the terrific people we met tonight. Time will tell how this night will impact the children of Colombia. To God be the glory.

Our family has the pleasure of hosting two Colombian officials today. We picked Sandra and Maria Elena, up at the airport this morning at 6:00 a.m. and have been shopping and eating ever since! They are in town for the weekend to meet with our ministry, Orphan Hope International, regarding this summer’s Texas Vacation Host Program where we will bring 17 Colombian orphans to stay for 3 weeks in July with 11 host families in the hope of finding a forever family. The festivities officially start tonight as we gather for dinner with the remainder of the Orphan Hope board of directors and their wives. Tomorrow we will meet with the host families and our partners for this program at Grace Fellowship UMC in Katy and then a fundraiser tomorrow night graciously sponsored and hosted by one of the vacation host families where we will give a presentation of our ministry. Sunday we meet with more families and another dinner and then Monday they return to Bogota. As we were walking around today I was thinking that if you had told me two years ago today that I would be hosting these two ladies today or be involved in all of the initiatives in Colombia that we are involved in, I wouldn’t have believed it. Thank you Lord for letting me be on your team. Greater things are yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city.

Here are some of the amazing events that God has called us to and we covet your prayers and support…

1. Texas Vacation Host Program. Bringing 17 Colombian orphans on July 15, 2011 for three weeks to stay with 11 families in the Houston area. This program has been very successful in helping children to find forever families. Working to raise $42,000.00 to fund this summer’s program.

2. June Mission trip. Taking 40 people to Colombia June, 2011. Planning a way to take 10 ea. 40 gallon bags of feminine care products, 30 baseball bats, and a pickup truck load of t-shirts donated last week by YMCA. Coordinating with the Colombian pastor whose church we will visit on June 19, 2011 where we will preach, sing, and have lunch with the church. The Colombian/Houston band Viraje (www.virajemusic.com) (https://www.facebook.com/virajemusic?sk=wall) will be traveling to Colombia with us and doing mini-concerts in each orphanage. Working to raise $20,000 to fund this trip.

3. Vision trip to Bogota for local church leaders and pastors sometime in October.

5. Mission trip, January 2012. Sign up now!

6. 2nd annual Share the Hope fundraising dinner, February 2012 with a goal of raising $250,000.00 for orphans.

7. Orphan Hope Marathon February 11, 2012 at Huntsville State Park. Look for the new website at www.OrphanHopeMarathon.com coming soon. Hoping to raise $250,000.00 for our Safe House operation that gives orphan girls vulnerable to sex trafficking a loving Christian home and a chance at life.

God is moving mightily! The team here at OHI could each write a book about the miracles we have seen this year. To God be the glory!

Bill Byrd and I received a great blessing yesterday. We were able to spend an hour and a half at the feet of Omar Garcia, missions pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy. Omar has lead more than 60 mission trips all over the world. Bill had introduced me to Omar’s blog, Go Beyond: Live Adventurously For God about a year ago and what refreshment and affirmation it has brought us on many occasions. Well yesterday we had the chance to visit with him and what a well of wisdom and insight he is! I wanted to share some of the tidbits that I came away with.

First, he explained his passion for “Go Beyond”

In each of our lives there is a line that marks the farthest we’ve ever been or the most we’ve ever done for God and His purposes. Everything on our side of that line is familiar, convenient, manageable, and comfortable. No big surprises, no daunting challenges, no uncharted territory. Crossing that line requires a commitment to venture to places we’ve never been and the willingness to engage people we’ve never met. Only those with the courage to overcome their fears and who have the determination to persevere will dare to cross that line. All others will keep a safe distance away from it.

We must go beyond — stepping boldly across the line in order to advance the interests of God’s kingdom in our world. I have heard people remark about how they long to be a part of something exciting for the kingdom, only to watch them aggressively avoid the context in which these things happen. We must be willing to place ourselves in a context where we will see God work in and through us in new and exciting ways, in ways we never imagined. We must be willing to spend ourselves for God and His purposes — to work toward the day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

Step across the line and Go Beyond. Adventure awaits!

Omar said that danger, and sacrifice, and hardship are on the other side of that line but the miracles are also on the other side of that line… wonderful thought! Another way that he described it that just fascinates me is this, “When Jesus saw Peter, Andrew, and John on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and said to them, ‘follow Me and I will make you fishers of men’, had they not followed and instead continued their fishing enterprise, it wouldn’t necessarily have meant that they couldn’t have still been supportive of Jesus and believed that He was the Messiah, after all, He only asked 12 to “follow” Him in the way that He was asking them to, BUT if they hadn’t left the shore and followed Him think about what they would have missed out on. The Sea of Galilee was their “comfort zone.” Jesus essentially asked them to leave their boats, nets, and the greatest one day catch of fish their little business had ever seen. (Luke 5:1-11) He was asking them to cross the line and Go Beyond. Think of the things they witnessed and participated in though because of that one decision to leave the shore and follow Him. Theoretically they could have still been good believers and gone to heaven if they had stayed at the Sea of Galilee but they never would have known Jesus intimately and they never would have changed the world. Omar said, “We always have to be examining, ‘has this become my new Sea of Galilee and am I now comfortable here and is Jesus calling me to Go Beyond?'”

Second, Omar talked about the difference between being “missions minded” and being “missional.” You can be missions minded and give to missions and pray for missionaries and not be obeying the great commission. Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world.” Missional is when we take ownership of the great commission and we start ministering to people everywhere we go, here and abroad. He also talked about “peripheral compassion” where as we go through our daily lives we keep our eyes peeled for things happening right next to us that if we are not living missional lives and not realizing that we are to be “Jesus with skin on” we could very easily walk by and not notice but if we have peripheral compassion then we see these things and stop and do something rather than just walk on by.

Third, Omar said something that absolutely brought a battle that has been raging in my soul for the last several years to peace in one moment. It was incredible. He used this example. If you ask a person in the west, “who is the best Christian alive?” most people would say, “Billy Graham,” but if you asked a person in the east the same question they would say, “Mother Teresa.” Omar went on to point out that this illustrates the difference in thinking between the east and west. Billy Graham represents “proclamation” whereas Mother Teresa represents “incarnation.” Then Omar said something that blew my mind. He said, “what we need to do is get Billy Graham and Mother Teresa to the altar and get them married because true Christlikeness must be an equal dose of both proclamation (speaking the gospel) and incarnation (showing the gospel).” Wow! That is the answer! Jesus embodied both and so must we. I was reminded of two of my favorite verses in the Bible relating to Jesus, Acts 10:38 “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Mark 1:38 He (Jesus) said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

Fourth, Omar shared with us the difference between ministering “Attractionally” and “Incarnationally.” The modern American church, for the most part, employs the strategy of ministering by attraction. Come and see. Come and hear our special speaker, or partake in our many programs, or attend our concert, etc. (But this model, this strategy is never employed in the scripture. Jesus didn’t rent out a coliseum and sell tickets to come see the Messiah. – my thoughts)

Omar pointed out that the strategy of ministering by incarnation (being Jesus with skin on) earns us the right to speak into people’s lives. When we serve and help and invest in people and the community then the church becomes indispensable to the community. Omar gave the example of the time that Gallery Furniture burned down here and because the owner Mattress Mack has given so much to the community, people were donating and helping and pleading for Mack to rebuild because they couldn’t imagine Houston without Gallery Furniture and yet churches close down every week in Houston and no one is pleading with them to stay, no one is saying, “this community needs you pastor” all because the church has not become such a help to the community that they can’t imagine not having them around. Stunning observation.

Fifth, Ways vs. Works. Omar shared with us another nugget which came from Psalm 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His works to the sons of Israel. He pointed out that throughout the story of the Exodus Moses is calm and trusting the Lord because he understood His ways i.e. that God is always working even when we can’t see what He is up to. But the children of Israel were always whining and complaining because they were only looking for His works. Three days after they see Him part the Red Sea and then close it upon the Egyptians they are whining about not having water and blaming Moses for bringing them out there to die. The difference between them and Moses was that Moses understood God’s ways and knew that God had brought them out there and that He would see them through (faith) whereas the Israelites were only surviving from work to work, sign to sign (sight). We must learn the ways of God so that when we don’t see His works immediately we can remain calm and strong and keep moving forward. This reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It appears in what we call the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. It is talking about the things that Moses did by faith and in verse 27 it says, By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. If we are going to persevere in missions, ministry, marriage, etc. we must see Him who is invisible. We must know His ways.

There was so much more but I will end with one last thing that was very encouraging. Sixth, he talked about being a “bigger – picture person.” This is someone who keeps the overall view of how all the little tasks, little struggles, and little contributions to God’s kingdom add up by the power of the Holy Spirit to make world changing differences. He talked about how the people who hold the ropes back home are just as critical as the ones climbing down the rope to rescue the lost. Omar recently wrote a blog on this very subject and I hope you will go there and read it. It is profound.

We were so blessed to visit with this soldier of the Lord and we look forward to continuing to glean from God’s working in his life and ministry.

Today I want to highlight a young man who has been a great inspiration to my life in the short time I have known him. Tyler Cox is the kind of young man who raises your hopes in the next generation and in the future of the body of Christ. Tyler is in his early 20’s but he has a passion and a vision beyond his years. Tyler and I have been to Colombia together a few times in the last year and I have been amazed at his heart and devotion. I recently had opportunity to interview Tyler about his missions vision. I will share his answers below and then follow that with an article that he recently wrote that really expresses his heart for Christ and the nations. Enjoy.

Tyler what got you interested in missions?

What got me interested in missions was God calling me to go to Brazil which was my first mission trip. I can’t say that at the time I was interested in missions, but when I got back from Brazil that completely changed my perspective. It never really occurred to me that Christ’s passion was to spread His name to all of the earth, and not just America. I have now been on 5 mission trips since then and planning on going on another 2 over the summer. God completely provides all the funds and He is surely glorified.

What was your first mission trip like?

My first mission trip was Soa Paulo Brazil. It was a street evangelism trip with Restoration Ministries. We went out into the slumbs and proclaimed God’s word to the poor and unloved. It was an incredible experience. I saw a lot of things that I never would have seen in the states. Christ revealed Himself to me in a way that I’ve never seen.

How many countries have you visited?

So far I have been on 5 trips. Once to Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and twice to Colombia. All brought different challenges and different experiences. I’m very humbled and blessed to be apart of these trips. God’s grace has allowed me to cross paths with many great people. People who love and fear God and long for the lost to get found.

What was your greatest experience on the mission field?

I must say the greatest experience I had was the second time I went to Colombia. Going once to a country is one thing, but going twice is a whole other. We visited different orphanages in Colombia. Well, the best experience (and also one of the most joyful moments of my life) was going back to the orphanages and the kids saying “Tyler Tyler Tyler”. It was awesome. They really do remember you. I fell in love with those kids.

What are your plans for the future?

This summer I plan to go back to Colombia (which is now becoming a second home to me haha) in June, and El Salvador again in August. As for my long term plans? That’s up to God right now. I hope and pray that he uses me for great things that will glorify his name. I do plan on getting some sort of seminary degree. Hopefully I will work for some sort of ministry. But God could lead me anywhere in the next couple years and I will go wherever He tells me to go.

This is an article that Tyler wrote shortly after returning from Colombia in January 2011…

Todo gloria a ti Dios! All the glory to you God. This entire trip has vastly exceeded our wildest expectations and today was the crowning glory. I will attempt to share how awesome our God was today but as you know He defies words. Several weeks ago our brother and fellow board member Shoby had lunch with a Colombian man, Jair, who is in ministry in Houston and the Lord really knitted their spirits together. When Jair found out we were coming to Colombia he sent Bill Byrd the name of his former pastor and his wife here in Bogota. We connected with the wife, Lilliana on Facebook and they were very excited to meet us and invited us to their church today. When we called Lilliana yesterday she said, “Oh, I have been praying and praying that you would come!” They started this church 10 months ago and it is thriving. It is called Comunidad Cristiana Fundamentos. Three of the Goddaughters were able to come with us and so we arrived at this church about 10:00 am. Other than Lilliana, Jair’s friend, whom we had spoken to on Facebook, we knew no one there or so we thought. How wonderful for God to surprise us again because as we walked in we saw several of our dear friends from Fundacion Nuevo Mundo! We hugged and then met Lilliana and her husband Pastor Hector and many new friends there at the church. It was beautiful. There were even a couple of our young friends from the safe house that always visit on our mission trips. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked over this beautiful congregation of Colombian believers whose faces were beaming because they were so excited that the Americanos had come to worship with them today. Shortly after we walked in I got another surprise. Pastors Hector and Lilliana asked me if I had come prepared to preach the word today. At first I thought they meant a small testimony about Orphan Hope so I said, “Sure, how much time do you want me to share” To my great surprise and joy they said, “Oh, 30 or 45 minutes would be fine.” I immediately thought, “I wish I had brought some sermon notes.” Then I looked down and saw my laptop bag in my hand and laughed at myself because I have all of my sermons on my computer. Praise God! Be ready in season and out of season… I quickly shot a text to everyone in my family at home and said, “Pray for me, I’m about to preach on the waterfall of grace in a church in Colombia!” Then I turned to my dear brother Luis and said, “Are you ready to preach with me?” And like he always does he said, “I got your back brother!” Whoo hoo! We gathered for worship and the pastors daughter led worship with her guitar and it was so anointed I started weeping and I thought, “Lord, how am I going to preach if I’m crying like this?” It was indescribable worshipping with these believers. The songs we knew but they were in Spanish but they had the words up on the wall so we were able to sing along fairly well. There was reading of scripture, and exhortation and then it was my turn. Luis and I stepped up and began to share about the amazing grace of God. The Holy Spirit helped us greatly and there were amens, and applause, and tears, and raised hands and it was a blessed time as we shared a Cascada de Gracia or Waterfall of Grace. You can click on the title to hear the sermon. I shared my testimony and then told about my 8 trips to Colombia and of our vision for the nations. Luis did a tremendous job translating for me and then also gave his testimony of standing on the stage at our Share the Hope event in December and looking out at 340 Texans who were gathered to help the orphans of his country and how that moved him and touched him. The people were very moved by his story. After a few people gave testimonies about the message. One lady stood weeping and told us that she had been orphaned at 7 years old and that she was so grateful for what we were doing for the orphans in Colombia and she wanted to help. Another lady was crying because she had her son taken away three years ago and now she has given her life to the Lord and been transformed and she is working to get her son back. She said she wants to help. A man stood who is one of our friends from the orphanage and told how wonderful the work we do is and how the children wait out the months until we return again and how happy we make them. Then a lady came forward with a little boy in her arms that suffers from hip displacement and asked Luis and I to pray for his healing. We laid hands on him and prayed. Then the most amazing thing happened. Our friend from Nuevo Mundo stood and she was weeping and she looked straight at me and said, “I want to praise God for Matt’s heart and for the vision that this ministry has for Colombia. 16 years ago when I was a new believer I heard a foreign preacher in a conference say, ‘I believe that God is drawing people form around the world to Colombia because it is going to be His headquarters for reaching the rest of Latin America. I believe there is a great revival coming to Colombia.'” and then she continued, “I have been praying for 16 years for that revival and I believe that you are the answer to my prayers.” I looked over at Dave and Gail Beach because it was almost word for word what we had said to each other before coming on the trip and it was almost word for word with what Ed said to us on the plane on the way down. Dave’s face was bright red and he looked at me and I looked at him knowing that the hair was standing up on the back of his neck like it was on mine. Bill was smiling from ear to ear. I looked over at Luis and he just shook his head and smiled. We then spent some time hugging and kissing everyone in the room (which is Colombian custom) and then getting photos with everyone. It was over the top blessed. We sat down with Pastor Hector and Lilliana and talked about the future. Amazingly enough, he is also a psychologist who works in an orphanage and she is an educator. They offered their help and time and they want to come on the mission trip in June. It is unbelievable how precious these people and their two daughters that we met are. They will be great assets in our ministry. As we broke up our meeting with them we made plans to bring our whole team to their church on June 19, 2011 and invite some other local Christians that we know here in Bogota and bring in lunch and have a wonderful day of it with God’s people here. They were very excited and asked me to preach again when we come. I agreed but we told them that we also want to hear Pastor Hector as well so we agreed to split our time and both bring a message that day! I can hardly wait! Praise God! The next personal blessing was as we were walking out Luis called me over and introduced me to Sophia. She shared that she is a linguist and a translator for the Colombian army. Today was her first time at the church and she called it a miracle that she was even there. She told me that she started weeping when I prayed before my sermon and didn’t stop until the end. She said that when I prayed for the Holy Spirit to anoint my lips and their ears that she felt the presence of God surround her. Then she said something that was very touching for me personally. She said that the part of my sermon about multi-generational discipleship and the fact that one family can change the world really impacted her because she believes that the revival that is coming to Colombia as shared in the prophecy by the other lady must begin in the family and she was glad that I told about my family because God has prepared me to heal the families of Colombia. Wow!! What a service!

What sweeter way to start the day than having a group of orphan girls come bouncing into the hotel just as we were finishing breakfast? We shared hugs and kisses all the way around and then pulled out the gifts that we and others had sent for the girls. It is a joy unspeakable every time we are in the presence of these sweet little forgotten lambs. I was touched beyond words when my sweet Goddaughter Ginary, who just spent 3 weeks with my family in December, squeezed me tight and said, “I love you” in English. No success, money, position, rank, or earthly treasure can compete with the joy these children bring me and the rest of our team each time we are here. They were delighted with their gifts and we shared some catching up stories and then it was time to head out to our first meeting with the girls in tow.

We had received word that there was a safe house (there are only 3 or 4 in all of Bogota) that we hadn’t heard of or visited before and so we headed out to find it and see if we could tour it and find out how they run their home. We pulled up to the nondescript brick building tucked in a row of similar buildings along this street. We rang the bell and to our utter surprise and amazement our sweet friend Lilliana opened the door. She was as shocked to see us as were to see her. What a sweet little providence that in a city of 8,000,000 people, we go to a strange house and our friend answers the door. Lilliana used to work at the girls orphanage in Madrid that we always visit on our mission trips. She was a big help to two of the girls that are or will be adopted soon. Anyhow, unbeknownst to us, Lilliana had began working at this new safe house 4 months ago because it was much closer to her home. She gave us a tour of the home and shared with us many important pieces of information that go together like a giant puzzle with the other things we have been learning this week. We really admired their model and many of their strategies. It was a very profitable meeting. They also have orphanages as well and she begged us to bring our team to their orphanages the next time we come.

We took the girls to lunch and then to the park for a relaxing afternoon of horseplay, and hugs, and jokes, and some testimony. It never ceases to amaze me at the transformation in these children just because we have reached out as the hands of Jesus to love them and share with them our passion for God. My own Goddaughter Ginary has become a secure, content, and hopeful young woman since my family met her and made her a part of our long distance family 2 years ago. Ginary grew up in the dump rummaging for scraps. Consequently, when I met this beautiful girl she was completely illiterate. Because she was excited to have a Godfather and wanted so bad to be able to communicate with me she finally agreed at the age of 15 to start school and learn to read and write. Now she is well on her way and very motivated. She told me today that she can’t be with me tomorrow morning because she has school but she will come after lunch when school lets out and spend the afternoon with me. Wow! Such a change in a short period of time. The love of God demonstrated through His children is a very powerful agent of hope and change. Praise God.

Luis Escobar’s dad lives 1/2 the year in Bogota and the other 1/2 in Florida and he was in town today so Luis invited him to join our merry band for dinner. We had a marvelous time and it was really sweet to watch Luis’ dad enjoy the girls and perhaps catch a little of the vision of what his son is trying to do for the children of Colombia. He ended up buying our dinner and assured us that we would see him again. What a blessing!

It was a wonderful day and we came back to my room for some strategy and prayer and then off to bed. Thank you all who are supporting us in so many ways. We love you all.

Another wonderful day today in the presence of the Lord and some of His choice soldiers. We started out the day with a meeting at the national headquarters of ICBF. We met with the head of adoptions for the nation of Colombia and her assistant for 2 1/2 hours regarding our upcoming Texas Vacation Program. We obtained the answers to many of our questions and learned many new things about the vacation and adoption processes in Colombia. Some amazing statistics came through today that play right into everything Orphan Hope is working on. There are 27,000 adoptable orphans in Colombia between the ages of 8 and 15. The shocking thing is that this represents only about 20% of the total number of children in orphanages in Colombia and that larger number only represents the small portion of orphans who are in orphanages. No one knows the number of orphans living on the streets and in the sewers. Children On The Brink estimated the total to be 577,000 in 2005 but the people we have talked to here say that it is in the millions. This is why we must continue to bring mission trips here and have vacation programs and facilitate adoptions. And here is the reason we must have safe houses once the children age out of the orphanages at 18. Every year in Colombia 5000 children age out, 800 a year in Bogota alone. 15% of these kids will commit suicide within two years and another 60% will end up in prostitution or prison. This is why we are here. We must work and push and pray to help these beautiful children to find Jesus and have a life in His grace. We cannot look the other way and pretend that it is someone else’s problem. God has clearly called and equipped us to turn this country upside down for Him and we must obey.

We had a marvelous meeting and they were very complimentary of our vacation program last December and the adoptions and Padrinos that came out of it. They said that the older girls who couldn’t be adopted came back on fire for education and felt like they were not alone in the world! Then they said something that we kind of knew but it stunned us to hear them say it. They said, “You know, before you guys started coming Colombia’s Padrino program was solely internal in this country. Then you Texans started coming down and becoming Padrinos and then you helped us develop a program so that we had a defined, national Padrino program, and now we are taking that program to other agencies and other countries from what you guys started here.” We were stunned. God took some ordinary guys and gals over the last 4 years who came to Colombia and fell in love with some kids and wanted to have a way to take them out of the orphanage and spend family time with them and were committed to coming again and again and used them to change the program of an entire nation and develop something that will impact hundreds of children in the next few years. Who says ordinary people can’t change the world?

We left there giddy with what God is doing for us at national government levels and went to have lunch with 2 dear brothers from Fundacion Nuevo Mundo that we partner with here and we spent the whole afternoon learning from him about safe houses and orphanages and Jesus and spiritual warfare and facts and figures. It was amazing! We strategized about how we can work together in Bogota to impact more children. It was over the top anointed and we left there with a greater sense of urgency and surety that we were on the right path and working with the right people. We left there giddy with the possibilities and rejoicing at the people and counsel and help and resources that God continues to send us as we take one step of faith at a time. On the way to the restaurant for our dinner meeting we babbled about multiple safe houses and short, mid, and long term missionaries and interns and bringing radical sold out for Jesus college kids down to work in the streets and alliances with Christian ministries and Tres Dias Colombia and how it would be our training for servant leaders and on and on. “I AM the Lord! Is there anything to hard for me?” Dream Center Bogota anyone? 🙂

At our dinner meeting we met with the directors of two orphanages and our in country team and just had a wonderful time of fellowship and fun. We talked about old times and dreamed about the future and God just strengthened these relationships all around. It was a blessed time.

We came back to the hotel beat but blessed beyond words. We all gathered up in Luis and my room for prayer and some more dream building and strategizing and then drifted of to bed. God is doing this, it is huge, and we are tremendously blessed to be a part. Thank you all for your love and prayers.

We all said, “What a miraculous 48 hours this has been and we have 48 more hours to go! Tomorrow we go to visit a new safe house and learn from them and then we are having lunch with the Goddaughters!!! and spending the rest of the day with them. Sunday we have several ministries to meet with and the Goddaughters will be with us all day. Praise God.

I was so tired and weak last night as I was writing my Flight Down segment that I forgot a very big providence that occurred on the plane as well. Not long into our conversation with Jose, he handed us back a magazine with an article about orphans and said, “I just read this today and it sounds so much like what you guys are doing it is uncanny, you have to read it.” So we all read it and were amazed. It was about a fellow in London in 1843 that started a Safe House to take in street kids and disciple them for Christ. He started with one and then another and another and eventually 60,000 children came through his houses and many became doctors and lawyers and politicians, etc. So many things about the article were exactly what we have talked and dreamed about. It was a blow by blow description of what we want to do in Bogota. When we all finished the article and finished our oohing and aahing, I turned the magazine to the cover to see what it was and it was a Decision Magazine from the Billy Graham Association dated October 1995! Think about it! God put us right behind a missionary from Canada headed to Colombia who happened to be reading an old magazine from 1995 which happened to have an article about Safe Houses and he happened to overhear us talking about our ministry and started up a conversation and then handed the article back to us… Wow. Ok, now about today.

Oh fellow soldiers! Today was a vision expanding, dream building, major mission accomplishing day! Praise the Lord. Our team on this trip is, Bill and Sandy Byrd, Dave and Gail Beach, Luis Escobar and me. It has been a delight and honor to be here with these sweet saints. They are big thinkers and a huge encouragement to me. Our first order of business today was a meeting with our in country team. We had a wonderful 6 hour meeting where we finalized plans for our Texas Vacation Program this summer, and plans to open our first Safe House in Bogota. Some of our time was pure vision casting. Thinking and talking way outside the box and into the “miracle gap” as Matthew Barnett calls it. We talked about multiple safe houses, we talked about the prostitutes that stand on the street corners in south Bogota trying to sell their babies and strategies that we might employ some day to impact them. We talked wildly about our BIG God and what could be done in this city of 8,000,000 people for the Kingdom of our Savior. We talked about discipleship, and job training, and education, and staff, and young people coming down as interns, and 6 and 12 months missionaries coming down to minister. It was RADICAL and biblical and super enjoyable. We were able to get clarity on many details and that was very exciting as well. Our team was so like minded and harmonious and we just felt the Holy Spirit guiding the conversation and pushing us forward. Thank you Lord for sweet confirmation at every turn. After the meeting we drove to the headquarters of ICBF, (translated it means the Department of Colombian Family Welfare) and had a meeting with the representative that the Colombian government has assigned to assist us in establishing our first Safe House. He was a wonderful man and we talked about many subjects relating to helping Colombian children. The most encouraging thing though was as I was explaining about how God had drawn us to Colombia, his face brightened and he said, “You are Christians?” and we said, “yes” and he said, “wonderful, welcome to Colombia, we are excited about working with you because you will bring the example and the values that our children need.” He was very excited and animated and it just warmed our hearts that of all the people that could have been chosen to be our government representative, God has chosen this man who was excited about working with Christians. Thank you God. We left that meeting and went looking at properties for a potential Safe House. It was very exciting. One house we looked at was suggested by our in country representatives mother. I have met this mother and she is a radical believer. Well, this mother gets this feeling that she should go check out this one neighborhood in Bogota and so she drives through it and sees this house with a For Sale sign on it and calls her daughter and says, “I have found your Safe House.” 🙂 We don’t know anything about the property yet but it is exciting that people are out there looking for us. As we are driving through the neighborhoods Bill Byrd says, “Do they have any abandoned hospitals for sale?” (You would have to read the new book “The Cause Within You” by Matthew Barnett to get the full impact of the radical nature of that question) We all laughed at Bill as the goosebumps popped out on my arms… “I AM the Lord, is there anything to hard for me?”

We finished up the evening with more dream building talk and rejoiced that our little team had operated today so harmoniously, and with such shared faith and urgency, and that we had enjoyed the very real presence of God all day. To Him be the glory.

I usually don’t start my blog of each trip until the first full day but the plane ride down was so eventful and providential that I had to say something. Bill had arranged for all of us to sit together on the plane and so we were enjoying dream building and vision casting for the future of Orphan Hope, sharing things we were reading, and generally discussing what God was doing through us and around us. Suddenly the man in front of Dave, Gail, and I turned around and introduced himself as Jose. He was born in Mexico but went to Christ For The Nations college in Canada and stayed. He was on his way to Bogota with a team called New Beginnings International Christian Society that does camps for up to 500 kids all over Colombia. We had a wonderful visit with the whole team and exchanged contact information and ideas about how we might work together in the future to bring Christ to the children of Bogota. It was very exciting to meet with people who are, like us, just people whom God has touched with a radical passion and vision and have just launched out in faith and seen God partner with them in miraculous ways. It was refreshing and confirming for both ministries to hear how similar our stories were. Ed, the leader of the group said something that all of us here at Orphan Hope have felt and said and it made us look at each other when he said it. Ed said, “I believe that God is drawing people and ideas and resources to Colombia because it is going to be His headquarters for reaching the rest of Latin America.” Wow! We have all felt that very definitely and very strongly. I believe with all of my heart and I have felt the Spirit impressing upon me very strongly that we are only looking through the keyhole right now of what God wants to do for us and through us in Colombia and all of Latin America. I have also felt that we cannot ask anything too big from God for this ministry because His passion, vision, and urgency for this ministry is way ahead of ours. Like a patient Father, He is allowing us to see a little at a time until we catch up to Him in full faith and vision. It is mind blowing exciting and we all agreed on the plane tonight that we are very grateful and humbled to be on His team. Praise God!

Some more fellow soldiers that I would like to tell you about today are Clay and Ashley Vaughn, missionaries to Haiti. Ashley and her family, the Boriacks, are dear friends of ours and I had the privilege of pastoring them for awhile. They are a delightful representation of a godly family. Tom and Tammy, Ashley’s parents, have encouraged and supported our family and our ministry in Colombia greatly. The Boriacks also supported and helped us bless our friends the Villalobos at Monte De Gracia with the initial funds to build their school for orphans years ago. When Ashley was a young teenager I remember her passion for missions and her passion for books. I had heard stories about Ashley meeting Clay at Frontier Camp in Crockett, Texas and how he proposed to her in the back of a truck under a tarp in the pouring rain with 20 other missionaries huddled around them but I didn’t get to meet him until their wedding and I was very impressed with this young man and very happy for Ashley and her family. Clay and Ashley and the Boriacks supported our Share the Hope dinner in December for the safe house in Bogota and I got to see a little more of Clay’s heart. He and Ashley have several things going on that I believe God will greatly expand in the years to come and I am blessed and honored to call them friends and fellow soldiers. See what all they are doing at these sites and please consider supporting them:

Another P from the ministry of Jesus that intrigues and convicts me and brings tears to my eyes is Personal touch. If we are to be His hands in our world we must imitate this.

Matt. 8:3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him,

Matt. 8:15 He touched her hand,

Matt. 9:25 He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.

Matt. 9:29 Then He touched their eyes,

Matt. 14:31 Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him,

Matt. 17:7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”

Matt. 19:13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them.

Matt. 19:15 After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.

Matt. 20:34 Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes;

Mark 1:41 Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him,

Mark 7:33 Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva;

Mark 8:22 And they *came to Bethsaida. And they *brought a blind man to Jesus and *implored Him to touch him.

Mark 10:13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them.

Luke 5:13 And He stretched out His hand and touched him,

Luke 7:14 And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!”

Luke 13:13 And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God.

Luke 18:15 And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them.

Luke 22:51 But Jesus answered and said, “Stop! No more of this.” And He touched his ear and healed him.

Jesus not only touches people with compassion and tenderness, He allows others to touch Him with the same healing result.

Matt. 9:20 And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well.”

Matt. 14:36 and they implored Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were cured.

Mark 3:10 for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him.

Mark 6:56 Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured.

Luke 6:19 And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.

Luke 7:39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.”

Luke 24:39 “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Touch is a wonderful part of love and compassion. Mother Teresa exemplified this. Paul E. Miller in his book Love Walked Among Us has this to say of her,

“The image of her holding a destitute and dying person — not repelled by the squalor of feces, vomit, sputum, and blood — elicited love and admiration from the whole world. Mother Teresa said, ‘We train ourselves to be extremely kind and gentle in touch of hand, tone of voice, and in our smile, so as to make the mercy of God very real.’ She consciously imitated Jesus’ touch.”

If we are to do what Jesus would do, we are going to have to get used to touching people and being touched by them. Paul Miller goes on to say,

“When Jesus touched people, he gently intruded into their lives. Whatever He touched became clean and whole. He touched the blind, the deaf, and the lame when He healed them. He moved toward people that others pulled away from. He couldn’t seem to keep His hands off lepers.”

I have always thought that a pastor should have a shepherd’s gentleness of touch and be quick with a hearty hug or arm around the shoulder. Churches that I have pastored have been known for their love and familial relationships. We have also been marked by robust hugging. Imagine how elated I was to run across this quote from one of my heroes, pastor John Piper. It sums up beautifully what I feel about the pastoral hug.

“I think there are many people in the world who probably haven’t been hugged for ten years. I had a woman in her fifties say to me one time—she had been a widow for probably about ten years—and she said to me, ‘I haven’t been hugged for a long time.’ And it was just so revelatory for me for a moment that there are people who actually go through life—and they are good people! They’re not eager to jump into bed as a prostitute or to fool around on the weekend. They know they’re going to be pure—but they’re not ever touched. Nobody ever touches them.

And so I thought, “Boy. God, make me a good hugger. Make me a good, clean, pure, trusted, pastoral hugger.”

I just love that. I can’t count the times in my ministry that someone, man or woman, has wet the front of my shirt with their tears because I was available with a hug. There is an anointing of the Holy Spirit and when it is upon you, your touch can be healing. Sometimes physically but many more times spiritually and emotionally.

We must keep ourselves pure. We must keep our hands, hearts, and minds pure so that when Jesus wants to hug someone He can use us to do it for Him. Paul Miller reminds us,

“Of course, some people touch inappropriately. When talking about the danger of sexual lust, Jesus exaggerates for the sake of emphasis, ‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off’ (Matthew 5:30). Our hands are meant to gently touch with love. How can you even think of using your hands to touch people as objects?”

If we are to do what Jesus would do, we must reach out our hands and touch people in love.

In my work among the orphans of Colombia, one of the things that I never cease to be amazed by is their hunger and thirst for adult affection. Without a mommy and daddy to meet this deepest of human needs, they become famished for love and attention. Often our team members will have five or six children hanging on them, holding their hands, asking for a kiss on the cheek, and touching their face. Yes, we tell them about Jesus over and over again but it is an unspeakable blessing to be able to imitate Him and hold them and touch them and bless them. The first time I was there I came away with a whole new appreciation for the sweet God-Man of Mark 10:13-16

Mark 10:13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.

Lord, help us to “see”, “feel”, “do”, and “touch” and “be touched” like Jesus!

In part 3 of our look at a P from Jesus’ ministry, Passion, we see that Jesus’ seeing and feeling led to action. He didn’t just see and feel compassion and then do nothing about what He saw and felt. Jesus saw, felt, and then acted. If you look at every one of the scriptures that we have cited in the last two posts about how Jesus saw and then how He felt, you will find that the next phrase tells you what He DID about it. There is a very concise statement in the book of Acts that gives us, I think, great insight into the life of Jesus and consequently into how our lives should be.

Acts 10:38 “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

These phrases “doing good” and “good works” are general descriptions of the work that we are to be about as Christians. The scriptures use these frequently. Let’s look at some of the passages.

Psa. 34:14 Depart from evil and do good;

Psa. 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good;

Psa. 37:27 Depart from evil and do good,

Psa. 119:68 You are good and do good; Teach me…

Psa. 125:4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good

Eccl. 3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime;

Isaiah gives us a little idea of exactly what this phrase “do good” means:

Is. 1:17 Learn to do good;

Seek justice,

Reprove the ruthless,

Defend the orphan,

Plead for the widow.

Jesus rebukes the Pharisees because they were more interested in their rules than they were in seeing a man healed on the Sabbath,

Matt. 12:12 “How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Paul encourages us to “do good” and to keep “doing good.”

Rom. 2:7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;

Rom. 2:10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Gal. 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. 10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

2Th. 3:13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.

1Tim. 6:18 Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,

Heb. 13:16 And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Eph. 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Col. 1:10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

2Th. 2:17 comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.

1Tim. 2:10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.

1Tim. 5:10 having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work.

2Tim. 2:21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.

2Tim. 3:17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

And finally John sums it up for us,

3 John 11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

The evidence of the genuineness of our conversion is not merely our subscription to a set of beliefs or our having responsively quoted a certain “sinner’s prayer” on a certain date in history. No! The evidence of the genuineness of our conversion lies in our actions. At the great white throne judgement all men will be judged by their works.

Rev. 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.

What is it that Jesus says to the righteous and the unrighteous in Matthew 25?

Matt. 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

Matt. 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

Matt. 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

If we are truly Christians and the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwells in us, then our lives will be characterized by “doing” “good works.”

John 5:19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. 20 “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.

John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

Lord, help us to “see”, “feel”, and “act” like Jesus!

The Shoults are friends we met at a church we helped plant in Magnolia, Texas years ago. They are now missionaries in Mexico. They were in Houston today on their way back to Mexico and I was blessed to get to spend an hour with them.

First, I would like to share an email that I received from Phillip Shoults last year explaining what God was doing for and through them and then I will tell about our conversation today.

Last March I received this email from Phillip.

Brother Matt,

It was good to see you on Facebook. I am not much on social networking but have enjoyed finding and catching up with old friends and believers we have known from our many travels. I will provide you with a brief note of encouragement and say a small thank you for the impact you and your wife have had on Ashley and me over the years. It all started when we were first exploring home schooling and we enrolled Forest & Madeline in the program (PACES) Ted and Johnnie Seago started to help parents, just like us, navigate the early stages of this journey. We learned to endure the challenges and focus on the long term goals and intentions of instilling character first, values then academics. We learned to stand on our own Biblically-based convictions in the face of family scrutiny over our choices to home school and build a stronger family with our central focus on Christ our Savior and Redeemer and living an abundant life in Him. We will enjoy the first fruit of our labor with Forest graduating this May! Praise God.

Coming into to the community of believers at “Grace” in 2003 had a tremendous impact on me. I needed more role models and examples of how I could do a better job supporting our vision for strengthening the family and serving God….. I found it in the wonderful families and Godly men of grace. It was tough leaving TX for Nashville in 2005 and I saw God provide for the move, although I believe that many of my motives were not entirely honorable to Him (namely pursuing money and position/promotion). Ashley and I never forgot the impact of the “model” we experienced at Grace and when we first moved to the Nashville area, we prayed and prayed over finding a community of believers similar to the ones of Grace. Within about 6 months, we were fellowshipping with about 18-20 other believers, meeting from house to house and I was thankful for the experiences we had found back in Conroe.

God really started to work on my heart and in 2007 as I felt him challenge me with a stinging question “….. what is the most important thing in your life? And if it is not me, would you give it up?” It took me 6 months to verbally give him my answer, but I did. I knew that I had made money and my job a higher priority than my spiritual growth, my wife, my kids, etc, etc so I told God he could have everything and told Ashley that we should “get ready for change.” I left LP in October of 2008. That move did not make much sense to a number of people, considering that the economy was tanking and times were getting tough. I kept thinking in my mind, “… what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul, or his children’s soul, or his family… or anything of eternal value for that matter.” God has been so good as I started a small consulting practice, working out of my home, eliminating a 65 mile round trip commute and about 40K of travel miles each year. Wow, breakfast with the family each morning, Bible Study and devotions each morning at 5:00 a.m, time to invest in my wife and children through family devotions and one-on-one discipleship with my kids have all been a real blessing. God has provided and blessed in so many ways and I thank Him daily for it.

Ashley and I are now earnestly praying over an opportunity we are pursuing/considering to move to Mexico and join our dear friends, David and Maria Skinner in helping expand the Gospel of Jesus Christ through from their hub in Oaxtepec, Morelos MX. The last “link” here in TN is to sell our home and make a short transition back to TX, prep then move. We are praying for clarity and confirmation around this decision.

I wanted to say thank you for your obedience to the calling God has placed on your life, to demonstrate to other men (and families) how to embrace the Christian Life and enjoy the fulfillment of serving our Lord and Savior and not ourselves (or man) in everything we do. You, Ted, Dan, Voddie and so many other men were a great example to me of how to accept and joyfully fulfill the calling God has placed on every man who has surrendered His Life to Christ and accepted the responsibility of being the Priest, Prophet, Provider, & Protector of his home. I just wanted to return thanks to you, I already thank my heavenly Father each day! Your wife gave Ashley a book years ago, Created to be His Help Meet and she has been so grateful for that experience. She has done that study in our home for other ladies at least once, bought a case of books and given them as gifts to every sister-in-law, friend and young lady about to be married. Some seed fell on fertile ground, other seed perished. I have been a direct beneficiary of her being impacted by that book and more importantly the Truth in God’s word. Please pass on to your wife that encouragement and testimony from Ashley.

Thanks brother Matt, In Christ…. his humble servant.

Now, speed forward to today. Phillip and Ashley and their children have been in Mexico for 6 months loving and serving the indigenous migrant sugar cane harvesters and their families. They are also preparing a place for short term mission trips to come down. It was exciting to hear about the many creative ways that they are teaching the gospel to these uneducated peoples. The whole family is involved and it thrilled my soul to see how excited the young people of this family are about what God has called their family to. I hope that in the near future we can go down and help them in some way.

For more information on their ministry go to http://www.globalforce-mx.com/Page/Home/1

 

I recently shared about our fellow soldier, Hannah, who is serving in Uganda. I would also like to share about another fellow soldier, Miriam, who has a wonderful ministry to orphans in Matamoros, Mexico. I was privileged to meet Miriam and her family several years ago and they have been a blessing to me ever since. We have helped them with a few projects and I hope very much that in the future we can help them more. We are so blessed to be able to know and share with such wonderful saints of God. Their ministry is called Monte De Gracia (Mountain Of Grace). Here is an update that I received from Miriam today. Enjoy.

Passion For People Continues With Feeling

In my last post we looked at how Jesus passion began with seeing. The next thing we see in the life of Jesus is that His “seeing” resulted in feeling. He didn’t just see and then remain unmoved and untouched by what He saw. Here are a few places where the scriptures give us insight into the heart of Jesus.

Matt 8:9 He marveled

Matt 9:36 He felt compassion for them

Matt 15:32 “I feel compassion for the people

Matt. 20:34 Moved with compassion, Jesus

Matt 26:38 “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death

Mark 1:41 Moved with compassion, Jesus

Mark 3:5 After looking around at them with anger,

Mark 3:5 grieved at their hardness of heart,

Mark 6:34 He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion

Mark 8:12 Sighing deeply in His spirit

Mark 10:13 He was indignant and said to them

Mark 10:21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him

Luke 7:8 He marveled at him,

Luke 10:21 He rejoiced greatly

Luke 22:44 And being in agony

Luke 22:44 He was praying very fervently;

John 11:33 He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled,

John 11:35 Jesus wept

John 11:38 So Jesus, again being deeply moved within,

John 13:21 He became troubled in spirit

The Lord Jesus Christ was the opposite of apathetic! He not only saw, He felt strongly about the needs of the people around Him. This was not a man who was afraid of passion in His ministry! His fervor was so great that those around Him noticed it enough to comment on it when they wrote their gospel accounts long after the events had actually taken place.

Yet in religious films today, Jesus is nearly always depicted only as meek and quiet and He seems to be moving in slow motion. One person has pointed out that if you look closely, Jesus never blinks, He never cries, He never gets angry, He never smiles in these movies. The cinema version of Jesus is not the Bible version.

Jesus was a man who felt deeply and expressed His feelings openly. If Jesus was walking the earth today many churches and Christians would consider Him fanatical, unstable, crazy, or worse, just as they did in His own day.

Mark 3:21-22 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

I believe that we should be worried about the authenticity of our conversion if we can preach about, sing about, and believe in things such as heaven and hell, sin and death, poverty and disease, Satan and evil without becoming passionate about it. If we can look around at the suffering in our world and not be torn up about it, if we can read about human trafficking and not weep, if we can see pictures of hungry orphans around the world and not be moved to give and/or go, does the Jesus of the Bible really live inside of us? Because when He saw, He was “moved with compassion.”

An 18 year old girl who my family is ministering to recently sent me this message that touches perfectly upon this subject with a boldness that is refreshing…

“We call ourselves Christians…We profess to know Christ…What then is wrong in churches today? What causes such turmoil…such overthrow of harmony…such strife and malice…? What is it that is the deciding factor of the prosperity of the Church today as we know it? It is simply this: If we want to allow pharisees to lurk in the dark corners of the church and sulk in the shadowed pews…we should quit calling ourselves “Christians”…it is at this miserable point that we should give up…we cannot allow apathy to poison our churches…for by simple inaction on our part, we petition satan to come sit on our doorstep…we plead with him to make himself at home in our god-forsaken churches…we unashamedly invite him to join in our “worship”…by our apathy…we call down the wrath of God…”For you were neither hot, nor cold, but lukewarm…therefore I shall spew you out of my mouth, saith the Lord”…Look around you friends…are you beckoning the Lord’s anger? Can you in good faith call yourself a “Christian”? Do you have a zeal for God that consumes you…this is where I want to be…I want to be so consumed with Christ that it would appear that our candles are melting into one…our hearts kindled together into one flame…This is the vision…who will pursue it?”

Lord, help us to feel like Jesus!

On the second day of our recent trip to Colombia I shared another “P” from the ministry of Jesus, Passion, and I would like to expand on that topic further in the next few posts.

Jesus’ Passion is People and begins with Seeing…

Another of the “P’s” from the ministry of Jesus that the team and I explored on our recent trip to Colombia was Pleasure. If we want to have a ministry like Jesus ministry then we must have His pleasure. Our motivation for ministry must be our joy, delight, and pleasure in God. Duty will never suffice as a suitable motivation for missions…

Enjoyment empowers effort. Doing is the fruit of delighting. Performance is energized by pleasure. – Sam Storms

I want to elaborate on that thought some more. God was motivated by joy, delight, and pleasure, first in Himself, and then in us…

God’s complete joy in Himself as a Trinity led Him to want to double that joy by extending it beyond Himself to the human beings He created. Likewise, we will want to double our joy by seeing how adequate God is to meet our need – love as we use our resources to perform the greatest service to others – helping them to experience the joy in believing in God’s wonderful promises, guaranteed by the finished work of Christ. – Daniel Fuller

The Father’s pleasure is His people…

Psalm 149:4 For the LORD takes PLEASURE in His people;

He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

Therefore He found great pleasure in His plan to draw us back to Him by the sacrifice of His beloved Son…

Isaiah 53:10 But the LORD was PLEASED to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good PLEASURE of the LORD will prosper in His hand.

The Bible says in Hebrews 12:2 that we are to look to Jesus as our example and then it goes on to say that Jesus’ motivation for enduring the cross and despising the shame was the JOY that was set before Him.

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the JOY set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That joy was redeeming us back to Himself! So the Father’s pleasure and the Son’s pleasure is the redeeming of lost sinners. And He wants us to share in His pleasure by first knowing and loving Him,

Psalm 16:11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of JOY; In Your right hand there are PLEASURES forever

Psalm 36:8 They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; And You give them to drink of the river of Your DELIGHTS.

John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My JOY may be in you, and that your JOY may be made full.

John 16:24 …so that your JOY may be made full.

John 17:13 “these things I speak in the world so that they may have My JOY made full in themselves.

I bear my testimony that there is no joy to be found in all this world like that of sweet communion with Christ. – C.H. Spurgeon

The most precious truth in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of His grace by making sinners happy in Him. – John Piper

and second by sharing Him with others. When we are full of Him, His love and joy will naturally spill out on others. I think Joni Eareckson Tada says it so well…

“God happily shares His gladness, His joy comes flooding over heaven’s walls filling my heart in a waterfall of delight, which then in turn always streams out to others in a flood of encouragement, and then erupts back to God in an ecstatic fountain of praise. He gets your heart pumping for heaven. He injects His peace, power, and perspective into your spiritual being. He puts a song in your heart. I want to know God like this! Shove me under the waterfall of the Trinity’s joy, which splashes and spills over heaven’s walls. If He’s always in a good mood, I want to catch it”

But how do we stay under this waterfall? John Piper says it like this…

“Grace is power from God to do good things in us and for us. It is an ever cascading, infinitesimal waterfall. How then do you serve God? You posture yourself, and you maneuver your life, and you devote energy and effort and time and creativity to positioning yourself under the waterfall of God’s continual blessing, so that he remains the source and you remain the empty receiver. You remain the beneficiary, he remains the benefactor; you remain hungry, he remains the bread; you remain thirsty, he remains the water. You find out where the waterfall of grace is falling and you get under it. When it moves, you follow it so that you stay wet. And usually it takes you overseas…”

Our joy in God is magnified and doubled when we share it with others in missions and evangelism…

For all of us it should be unthinkable to keep to ourselves the knowledge that God’s ultimate delight is to do the greatest good for others by letting them share in the supreme joy He has in Himself. How could any of us enjoy heaven unless we mobilized our time, talents and treasure to do our utmost to get the good news to the rest of the world? – Daniel Fuller

Missions is the automatic outflow and overflow of love for Christ. We delight to enlarge our joy in Him by extending it to others. As Lottie Moon said, “Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.” – John Piper

Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God. – John Piper

Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world He came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of His eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards. – J. Campbell White, The Laymen’s Missionary Movement, 1909.

I believe that I have experienced in 28 years of ministry a little taste of joy in God both by knowing Him and by sharing Him with others. I have stood in the pulpit and felt His mantle on my shoulders. I have seen Him do incredible things and I have enjoyed seeing His fingerprints all over my ministry. I have walked through the orphanages and felt His presence so thick I thought I could reach out and touch Him. I have seen Him in a thousand faces. But I want more… so much more…

In Paul’s greeting in Philemon 2 & 3 he says, “to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I am blessed to know some fellow soldiers. One of them is a girl named Hannah that I pastored for several years and is like a daughter to me. She comes from a family of fellow soldiers. I remember Hannah and her brothers and their shining smiles sitting under my preaching as I would thunder out the call to “Go to the nations.” God was eating my own heart up about missions and it spilled over into many of my sermons. Sermons like “Lift up your eyes” and “Other Sheep”. I remember how I would pray that God would send some of the young people in my church to the nations.

Hannah was the quiet one who served faithfully but never out in front. She always had a baby in her arms, one of her many siblings or another baby in the church, and a smile on her face. She and her mother held a little Bible study once a week called Young Women of Purpose. My daughters loved to go. They benefitted greatly from the books studied and the God saturated conversations.

Later when Hannah was in Bible College we communicated often and it was such a joy to hear her heart and to say a “you can do it” or “God is faithful, He will take care of you.”

Today Hannah lives in an orphanage in Uganda, being the hands and feet of Jesus. She is loving and serving the children of Uganda.

I am so humbled and blessed and thrilled to call her Our Fellow Soldier.

One of the P’s from the ministry of Jesus that I shared with our team on our recent trip to Bogota, Colombia was Power. At the end of the devotion I shared that the path to power is weakness. Here are some more thoughts on this subject.

Wonderful words from the book Spirit Empowered Preaching by Arturo Azurdia about power through weakness. Applicable to preacher and Christian alike.

“In a vestry in Aberdeen these words were used to confront the preacher ere he mounted the pulpit stairs: ‘No man can glorify Christ and himself at the same time.’ If the Holy Spirit is to speak through the preacher and the preaching he must have clear passage – not through a void, but through a mind and personality laid open in all its delicate and intrinsic parts to the operation of the Spirit, to the end that his total powers may be willingly and intelligently bent to the present purpose of God.” – William Still

“What is the requisite of such dedication? A man must recognize the significance of his inabilities. All that has been thus far set forth in terms of prayer and exegetical diligence grows out of one all-encompassing recognition: any attempt to proclaim the word of God will prove futile if the only strength in which to do so is less than divine. A major step toward experiencing the power of God necessitates a thorough-going recognition of our lack of it. Herein, then, is the third responsibility given to the man of God: the preacher must recognize, and even revel in, his own human inabilities.”

“Of the many paradoxes that appear in Paul’s Corinthian correspondences, one of the most significant is his recurring theme of power through weakness. Certainly this emphasis is taken because of the triumphalistic spirit so prevelant in Corinth. Such self-confidence invalidates the need for divine power and thus compromises the success of the gospel. Hence, Paul sets forth this apparent paradox on at least three occasions. The reader should take note of three similar phrases, or purpose clauses, translated ‘that’ which magnify the power-through-weakness motif. Consider the first:

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Cor. 2:3-5).

Stated simply, Paul’s conscious weakness gave way for the faith of the Corinthians to come into existence by the means of God’s power. A second, and similar, phrase appears in 2 Corinthians 4: ‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels’ (2 Cor. 4:7a). The message of the gospel, given to Paul and his associates, existed in frail, limited, and weak physical bodies. Paul elaborates:

we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus…(2 Cor. 4:8-10).

What purpose did this serve? ‘…that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves’ (2 Cor. 4:7b). Paul’s evident weakness served to magnify the greatness of God’s power. Finally, Paul raises this paradox again in 2 Corinthians 12:

And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me – to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distress, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:710).

If human weakness is the channel through which God most readily communicates His power, Paul was prepared not only to affirm his weakness, but to revel in it. Hence his steady theme is undeniably evident: God’s power is expressed through human weakness.”

“It may be asked, is this theme unique to Paul? One may answer ‘yes’ if the perspective from which this is being asked concerns the specific explanation of this power-through-weakness concept. However, without hesitation one must answer ‘no’ if the perspective from which this is being asked concerns the record of God’s dealings with His spokesmen. That is to say, the Bible records the similar experiences of men like Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Jeremiah and Hosea. The fact is, it is highly unlikely that any man will ever know of the Spirit’s power until he is willing to confess before God, ‘If You must hurt me to make me a suitable channel of Your power, then do so.’ Sometimes this pain may be visible to the naked eye. On other occasions it may be hidden from public view. But this is God’s most frequently employed means of equipping His servants.

Hudson Taylor once stated: ‘All God’s giants have been weak men.’ Why is this the case? Because a weak man possesses no confidence in his own strength. When desperate for power he searches outside of himself. Taylor went on to say, “God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.”

Christian preachers are notorious for touting the successes of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the ‘Prince of Preachers’, and rightly so. Unfortunately, few are aware of the weaknesses that providence inflicted upon him. Spurgeon was a man who experienced deep bouts of depression for extended periods. In 1858, at age twenty-four, depression struck him for the first time, and consequently afflicted him for the rest of his life. He confessed of occasions when he ‘could weep by the hour’. When his wife Susannah was thirty-three years old she became a virtual invalid and rarely heard Spurgeon preach for the last twenty-seven years of his ministry. Spurgeon suffered from gout, rheumatism, and Bright’s disease (inflammation of the kidneys). In fact, ‘one third of the last twenty-two years of his ministry was spent out of the pulpit, either suffering, convalescing, or taking precautions against the return of these illnesses’. In addition, Spurgeon endured a lifetime of public ridicule and slander. Occasionally, it was directed at him from unbelievers. Often, the source of the attack came from other preachers. How, it must be asked, did Spurgeon himself interpret these manifold experiences of suffering and affliction:

‘Instruments shall be used, but their intrinsic weakness shall be clearly manifested; there shall be no division of the glory, no diminishing of the honor due the Great Worker. The man shall be emptied of self, and then filled with the Holy Ghost… My witness is, that those who are honored of their Lord in public, have usually to endure a secret chastening, or to carry a peculiar cross, lest by any means they exalt themselves, and fall into the snare of the devil…. Such humbling but salutary messages our depressions whisper in our ears; they tell us in a manner not to be mistaken that we are but men, frail, feeble, apt to faint.’

God will have no competitors. For this reason He manifests His power through weakness.”

Now for some of my own thoughts on this. It is endemic to our human nature to loathe weakness and love strength. Every little boy wants to be Superman, Hercules, and the Incredible Hulk all rolled into one. But “God’s ways are not our ways” and “He has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.” Our Father wants us to rely completely on Him. He wants to be strong for us and receive our praise in return. He says, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He knows how bent we are on idolatry. He knows that if we had strength we would rely on it and not on Him. He wants us to be as little children totally dependent on our Father. When things are really rough and I am in a lot of pain and I have to preach or counsel someone, I don’t have to discipline myself to pray. It is automatic. All I can do sometimes is cry out “Father, Father, Father.” That is when the power comes. When I’m in Colombia and I see the great need and feel my utter weakness to accomplish it I hear myself in my spirit saying “Jesus YOU are sufficient for this” or “God overcome, God overcome.” Many times I just cry out from Psalm 63:1 “Oh God.” Sometimes all we can do is lean towards our Father in our spirit. We don’t even have the words, but like a little child we turn to our Father with a pleading look and “the Spirit helps our infirmities” when we don’t even know what to pray, He prays for us with “groanings which cannot be uttered.” I believe that we would see the hand of God in our lives much more than we do if we would quit trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be tough and muscle through and instead do our work diligently but always with a sense of dependence and leaning on Him.

Spurgeon had all those difficulties but he continued to preach to over 10,000 people for 40 years. It is said that there were 15 steps leading up to his pulpit and as he ascended the pulpit, every time his foot would land on one of those 15 steps he would quietly say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” He knew that he didn’t have to be strong, just obedient. Hallelujah!

Remember Gideon in Judges 6 & 7? He had 32,000 men to go up against a much greater force of Midianites but then, “The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’” (Judg. 7:2) so in the end, Gideon has 300 men. Total weakness. Why? So that it would be obvious to everyone that God had done it. He will not share His glory with anyone.

Even Jesus Christ, the God-Man accomplished His greatest work of all time and eternity through weakness, “since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. 4 For indeed He was crucified because of weakness, yet He lives because of the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, yet we will live with Him because of the power of God directed toward you.” 2 Cor. 13:3 and Jesus gave all of the glory to His Father and His Father in turn glorified Him, “So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him,

“YOU ARE MY SON,

TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU”;

just as He says also in another passage,

“YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER

ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.”

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” Heb. 5:5-10

 

We constantly see Jesus in the gospels being “childlike” “I only do what my Father tells me to do…” and so on. He is our example. We must rest in our own inability and depend in faith on His ability and then we will see God pour out His grace and glory.

Why does God command us to do so many things that we are totally incapable of doing? So that we will come to the end of ourselves and realize that we cannot do it unless He does it through us.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”

Read Part II HERE

Every year for the last 12 years I have written a New Year’s letter to friends and family and every year I have started the letter with “this year was our busiest, most exciting, or most stretching year yet.” Well 2010 so exceeded any previous year in every category that I will not even try to compare it to any other year to date. It was a year of miracles, battles, loss, great advances, and most of all, it was a year of drawing ever closer to our sweet Savior and drinking deeply of His sufficiency in everything. The year started off with a bang in January as we reached out to a devastated young woman named Jana who was in a courtship with our son Levi who was in Chicago in the Navy. We took Jana in on January 15 and the next day Rebekah, Beverly, Brooke, and I left for Bogota, Colombia for a week. We had a marvelous time of blessings and ministry in Colombia but all during that week the story of what Jana had been through was unfolding and by the time we returned home we were in an all out battle with her adopted parents, the church I was pastoring, and the hordes of hell.

Over the next three months we learned what it means to fast and pray and sing and speak His name as we wrestled many days and nights with principalities and powers. In February I was laid off for the 3rd time in 2 years, had a car accident, had some major Lupus flare ups, was in court several times battling evil, and spoke at both the men’s and women’s Tres Dias weekends. God was so near to me and His power was so evident that I felt like I was in a dream. Rebekah was able to attend the women’s Tres Dias and God used that weekend to take her up about 3 notches on the radical for Jesus scale. I was so blessed to be there and to speak on the waterfall of Grace. One young woman who was there named Tanya really related with my messages on our Heavenly Father’s delight in us through Christ and how earthly fathers are supposed to reflect that with their children. She later asked me if I could be her “stand in” Daddy because she had never experienced that kind of love before :-). She is now a part of the family and like a big sister to the girls, especially Rebekah.

Through all of this Beverly was leading the charge to complete the adoption paperwork to bring our beloved Colombian girls home. In April Lisa and I traveled to Bogota to spend 5 lovely days with our girls there. It was Lisa’s first time in the country and first time to meet the girls. We had a dream week together. It was beautiful. We came home very excited and completed the last leg of the adoption paperwork. Unfortunately there were more battles to fight. The pressure of the prospect of having two Colombian girls to share us with proved to be too great for our 15 year old African daughter, Mercy. In the week after we returned home from Bogota she ran away 3 times and eventually CPS kept her and determined that we were not qualified to give her the psychological help that she needed and eventually terminated our parental rights. We were broken hearted to lose Mercy and equally devastated to learn that this incident had also disqualified us from adopting our Colombian girls as well. Once again though, God was nearer and more real than ever before.

In May, due to me standing up against serious sin in the church and holding the people involved accountable, defending Jana against her abusers, and our troubles with Mercy, our little church that I was pastoring dwindled to nothing and we closed our doors saddened but constantly assured in multiple and sometimes miraculous ways that we were on the right path and that God was preparing us for a greater vision. Even in all of this, Lisa and I still were able to counsel and encourage 2 to 4 couples a week throughout the spring.

Also during the spring a wonderful blessing from God was taking shape. Jana, who is a gifted musician and songwriter, began to write song after amazing song and Rebekah, Beverly, and Brooke began to help her to develop different harmonies Some of us got inspired by Jana’s writing and wrote a few songs ourselves to which Jana composed and added the music. Before long the girls had several songs with absolutely beautiful harmonies that they were singing around our piano every day. The anointing was so heavy that over the summer God brought scores of people through our home to hear them sing and there was never a dry eye in the house. It was like a kiss on the head from our Heavenly Father. The girls began to call themselves Purchased and started blogging about their songwriting at http://1cor619-20purchased.blogspot.com/. They are in the process now of recording their first CD.

In June we took 27 people to Bogota, Colombia to minster to about 400 orphans. God opened many doors and blessed in many ways. When we returned home, we determined that God was leading us to form a non-profit ministry to work on behalf of orphans everywhere. We named the ministry Orphan Hope International. It was a very exciting time. We began immediately to lay out a mission and vision for the ministry. Our mission statement reads “Transforming the lives of orphans and those ministering to them through Christ centered Mercy Missions, Padrino Programs, Adoption Awareness, and Haven Homes.” Our initial focus is on Colombia, then Latin America, and then the world. The ministry has literally exploded and we are running full blast just to try and keep up with all of the opportunities God is bringing us. God has put together a wonderful team of people who are like family to me. I am so honored to stand shield to shield with them and defend the fatherless. Our web address is www.OrphanHopeIntl.org. I have also blogged about the journey at www.mattbullen.blogspot.com

August was another miracle laden month for the Bullen family. God is so good! On Sunday, August 1st the parents of our precious daughter in law, Misti, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, on Monday, August 2nd our beautiful daughter Brooke turned 17, on Tuesday, August 3rd Lisa and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, on Wednesday, August 4 Luke and Misti gave birth to our first grandchild, a beautiful little girl named Joy, on Thursday, August 5th our son Levi came home from the Navy to join in the week of celebrations!

The rest of the summer was packed with orphan ministry endeavors. In September our board of directors made a trip to Bogota to meet with the Colombian government and establish official relations regarding our work there. The trip was successful beyond our wildest dreams and when we returned we began planning for a Christmas vacation program where we could bring our Goddaughters home to the U.S. for Christmas and our first annual fundraising dinner entitled Share The Hope.

October and November were grueling as we worked through mountains of paperwork and planning to be able to pull off these two events and spoke at two Tres Dias weekends. God walked right with us though and held our hand through every part of it. It was exhilarating to see Him knock down road block after road block to make this all come together. God sent another little miracle to us in November when Jana brought home a mentally ill homeless girl named Jessica that she found hungry and freezing outside of the Walmart where Jana worked. I’ll never forget the way the text started that Jana sent me to ask if it was ok, “Papi, please don’t say no right away…” Jana went on to remind me that this girl was Jesus in Matthew 25 and that she needed to be clothed and fed and so could she please stay with us. Of course I was overjoyed that God was raising up my girls to have this kind of heart and compassion and I assured her that she could indeed bring Jessica home with her. She stayed with us for a month and reminded us that people like Jessica are truly Jesus in a distressing disguise.

God blessed mightily, our work paid off, and on December 10 eight precious orphan girls stepped off of the plane to spend 3 wonderful weeks with us. It was a joyous and magical time and we were able to share all of the Christmas season with them. The Share The Hope fundraiser was wildly successful with over 300 people attending. My girls sang and I and other board members spoke. The orphan girls shared beautifully and tearfully about their hopes and dreams and asked for our help. It was an anointed evening to say the least. Levi and Jana were engaged in November and began planning a wedding for April of this year but the Navy changed their plans on them and so when we found out that Levi was going to be able to come home for Christmas we quickly scrambled and got the paperwork together and they were married on December 18. They still hope to have a reception with all of their Texas friends sometime this coming spring. God brought our whole family together and a few more for Christmas. I still shake my head and chuckle at my Heavenly Daddy when I think that 3 continents were represented at my dinner table on Christmas day. I have blogged in more detail about all of these events so I hope that you will check them out at www.mattbullen.blogspot.com.

Finally, this month we took 30 people to Colombia for a week and God rained down on us with blessings and opened doors. All of my girls went with me and sang and ministered in the orphanages. The ministry is poised to help tens of thousands of children in the years to come and I am so humbled and honored to be a part. We gave up our house this week and moved into an apartment as we try to prepare ourselves to be ready to minister in whatever part of the world that God needs us in that particular month. (We have many pleas for help from around the world). I can’t even imagine anymore not living daily in His hand, depending totally on Him for everything. I believe I can speak for my family when I say that we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He is all we need. He is sufficient! We can lay back completely in His arms knowing that He will carry us through.

Our little family has grown up. Luke, Misti, and little Joy live in Willis, TX. They are planning on going with me to Bogota in June to minister to the orphans. Levi finishes his training command in Virginia this spring and he and Jana will find out then where they will be stationed long term. Rebekah will start classes at the All Nations School Of Missions in Houston this spring. She plans to be a missionary somewhere in Latin America. Beverly will attend Beauty College this spring. She plans to get her degree and then possibly teach cosmetology to the girls in the orphanages since there is a great demand for that trade in Colombia. Brooke plans to finish high school this spring and then move to Colombia to teach English in the orphanages there. All of our children love God and love others extravagantly and they are a continual blessing and inspiration to Lisa and me. Two other girls who have become like daughters to me are also headed to work with orphans. Rachel Humphrey who played the violin for the Bullen girls band Purchased is leaving this week to go to Mexico for a year and Hannah Loomis whom I pastored for years and whom I love dearly is leaving this week for a year in Uganda, living in the orphanage there and ministering to the children. I stand in awe of what God has done and how He has blessed me to be around some of His choice saints this year. All I can say is He is sufficient. He is all I need. We love you all and pray for the nearness of Christ to you and your families in 2011.

The Bullen Family

Today is our last day in Bogota, Colombia for this trip. Like I keep telling the children here, “Mi corazon vive en Colombia pero mi cuerpo vive en Estados Unidos.” (My heart lives in Colombia but my body lives in the United States). It has been nice to reunite them for awhile :-).

As I started this morning’s devotion I assured our awesome team that I was aware that they were probably tiring of hearing a new P every day so today I was going to share with them TWO P’s from the ministry and life of Jesus. 🙂 Provision and Protection. Jesus didn’t only come and share His Presence, His Passion for People, His Power, His Pleasure, His Purpose, but He also spent much time involved in temporal Provision and Protection.

Provision

He fed people who were hungry again the next day. He healed people who later died. He even raised people from the dead who eventually grew old and died again. He wasn’t only concerned with Eternity but with the welfare of His lambs today.

Part of the ministry of Orphan Hope International is meeting the physical needs of orphans as we find them. On this trip we have distributed supplies, food, socks, and underwear, Bibles, Spanish/English Dictionaries, clothes, Christian DVD’s, and more. This falls under our Mercy Missions pillar.

Protection

Another pillar of OHI is Haven Homes where we hope in the next year to establish a safehouse for children who age out of the orphanage system at age 18. Here are some statistics relating to this.

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted worldwide annually, but…

Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age eighteen.

Each day 38,493 orphans age out

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

Studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen

These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals

Interpol estimates there are 35,000 women and girls trafficked out of Colombia every year for the sex trade, with estimated profits of $500 million, making Colombia second only to the Dominican Republic in the West. It is beyond comprehension the horror that these women and girls face as they service on average 40 clients per day. (Interpol)

The Example of Job:

Job 29-31. Job was a godly man. Just listen to God’s description of him in chapter 1 verse 8, The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Wow! What an amazing accolade from the Almighty!

In Job 29:2-11 He tells us some things about His relationship with God that ought to make us sit up and take notice. He says…

God watched over me… His lamp shone over my head… by His light I walked through darkness… the friendship of God was over my tent… the Almighty was yet with me…

Then Job goes on in verses 12-17 to tell us why he was so blessed…

Because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the orphan who had no helper. The blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me, and I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I investigated the case which I did not know. I broke the jaws of the wicked and snatched the prey from his teeth.

Job’s wonderful relationship with God resulted from his faithfulness to God’s own passion for diligently ministering to the poor, needy, widow, orphan, lame, and blind. He defended those who were being mistreated and punished the predators. Job lived God’s and our vision for orphan ministry.

We get another glimpse of Job’s passion for the orphan in Job 31:16-22 where he says very passionately… “If I have kept the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my food alone, and the orphan has not shared it (yet from his youth the orphan grew up with me as with a father, and from infancy I guided her), If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or that the needy had no covering, if his stomach has not thanked me, and if he has not been warmed with the fleece of my sheep, if I have lifted up my hand against the orphan, because I saw I had support in the community, let my shoulder fall from the socket, and my arm be broken off at the elbow.”

Old and New Testaments teach us to give provision and protection to the needy.

Matt. 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

Mark 9:37 “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”

After her second trip to Bogota in June, 2010 my daughter Brooke wrote this poem to express her feelings about Jesus’ words in Matthew 25.

How many times have I longed

To see my Lord, to sing Him songs

To stand before Him, to give Him love?

To live with Him in His home above?

How many times have I cried

He said He was here, I felt He lied

“Lord I want to see you, to touch you”

And then I learned what I never knew

I found Him right were He said

In his tiny home, in his tiny bed

A little child, across the world

He warmed my heart, which once was cold

I found what I sought in the least of these

Now to my heart he holds the keys

Jesus’ true face, without pride or care

A find like this though humble is rare

This is why I write this rhyme

I will never cringe at the dirt or grime

When I kiss the cheek of mi amigas

I am kissing the face of Jesus

Our last day was the best yet. We headed first to an emergency center where children come in off the street or are brought in by the police. We have been there before but today was a great blessing. The staff, including the pastor for the foundation, had a presentation prepared for us. The children sang praise and worship songs in Spanish and then Pastor John gave us a message from Acts 8:26-40. It was awesome. Then the girls and I got to sing Jesus Messiah for them in Spanish. They gave each of us a gift of a Colombian handbag. Then we went across the street to their safe house called Casa De Egreso and had a barbecue on the roof. It was wonderful. We saw many of our old friends at the safe house and had some awesome fellowship with the staff and some government officials that came to meet us. After the barbecue we went to the “Baby” orphanage where they have children 0 – 6 years old. They were so cute and we had a fun time playing with them. I held a little 3 year old boy named Bryan. He didn’t respond to me at all until I put him on my knee and did ride a horsee and then he smiled once. Later we passed out little bags of chips and he sat on my lap and ate a whole snack sized bag of Doritos. When I asked him, “Le gusta?” He nodded and kept eating. He was so cute. My dear sister in the Lord, Sandy Byrd, and I agreed that we had never seen a child enjoy a bag of chips so much. We hadn’t realized it until we got to the Baby House but it is right across the street from Amparo De Ninas where many of our Goddaughters live.

As we left the Baby House to head for the airport we saw that we had about 7 hours before our flight. We all mentioned to our in country representative, Sandra, that we sure would love to go say one last goodbye to our girls. She said, “impossible. Airport” We sighed and reluctantly agreed and the bus began to pull away. I was sitting next to Sandra and I sighed out loud, “Ginary and Heidy” she looked at me and then she told the bus driver to stop. I know it was for everybody but I’ll accept it as a personal gift from the Lord 🙂 She called the orphanage and my brother and the excellent director of this mission trip Bill Byrd said, “Matt, why don’t you lead the bus in a prayer that they will say yes.” and so we did and so they did and we pulled into Amparo with a promise to only stay 1 hour. The girls, of course, had no idea that we were coming. I will never forget the screams of joy and the girls pouring out of the dormitories when they saw us coming up the walk in the dusk. My sweet girls jumped into my arms and then clobbered each of my daughters with hugs and kisses. I was surrounded by sweet girls hugging me and thanking us for coming back before the airport when Marianna found me and nearly hugged me in two. She clung to me the whole hour as I moved around from group to group standing under the streetlight in the courtyard. It was a beautiful, happy, joyous scene and I could feel the Father’s smile as He enjoyed what He is doing in this place through His people. The hour passed too quickly and we said our last tearful goodbyes. Marianna wet the front of my shirt with her tears as I told her to never forget that Jesus loves her and so do I. I finally pulled away and walked into the darkness, past the guard, and through the iron gate to the awaiting bus. I have shed many tears on this dirty little alley leading away from this compound where a large portion of my heart lives and tonight was no exception. But I was also filled with joy to know that every trip I take down here, every meeting with high ranking government officials, every new pastor, pastor’s wife, and family that comes with us, and every new connection that we make brings us closer to helping all of these “other sheep” (John 10:16) that the Shepherd of Souls desires to bring into His fold.

We have not had internet since Thursday night so I am catching up today. Friday morning’s devotion covered another P from the life and ministry of Jesus, Purpose. Christ’s coming had many purposes. John Piper has written a book entitled 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die. But the two that we focused on this morning were preaching and adoption.

Mark 1:38 He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

Mark 3:14 And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

Jesus came to preach and He sent each of us to preach the message of the good news of salvation as well. This is one of the main focuses of the Mercy Missions pillar of Orphan Hope International and we have enjoyed seeing God bring many souls to Himself this week in groups and one on one.

The most amazing purpose for Christ’s coming though is the adoption of a bunch of rebels into the family of God.

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name… AMAZING!

Eph. 1:5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will… AMAZING!

Jesus’ primary purpose in coming was an adoption… yours and mine!

That is another pillar of Orphan Hope International, Adoption Awareness. John Piper calls the adoption of orphans by Christians in our world today, “the living gospel” and I think he is right.

Adoption is a scary word for many Christians and frankly it should be… it is literally laying down your life for another…

I had so many wonderful conversations with so many girls and workers. God is moving mightily here. Praise His name! As I walked to the park with a cute little girl named Marcela, I asked her what her dream for the future was. She said she wanted to be a defender when she grows up so she could help lots of children. A defender is the legal representative from the government that oversees the care of each child under protection by Colombian child welfare. I told Marcela that I was very proud of her and that I believed she could, with God’s help, do that very thing. As we walked farther I explained to her about faith and about the narrow way and the broad way and about how Jesus would hold her hand and walk with her as she put her full faith in Him.

Another blessing for me this day were the prayers of the righteous availing much, my brother in the Lord… Goliath… I mean Chris Dinkler, and my other brother in the Lord, Shoby the masseuse. The schedule of the last several months and the lack of rest on this trip pushed my Lupus over the edge today and by the time we got back from the park I was very ill. All of my joints were so inflamed they were nearly completely immovable and I was in excruciating pain. As I sat in a chair in the shade praying for help our Venezuelan Evangelistic Dynamic Duo, Nep and Dona Reyes walked by and I called them over and asked them to pray over me. They are familiar with my predicament and have prayed for me before. They immediately came over and laid hands on me and prayed a beautiful prayer in Spanish for God to give me strength and take away the pain. Within a few minutes I was feeling much better and was up moving around and then went on to enjoy the rest of the day with the girls. Later that night Chris, who is 6′ 4″ came over and picked me up, all 250 pounds of me, like a doll and cracked my back really good, then Shoby came by with a little massage tool and worked my back over good with it. None of them knew what I was suffering or what the others had done for me but God sent them one by one to bless me and keep me going. I know many of you were praying for me all week as well and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My treasured Goddaughter, Ginary, surprised me with something beautiful today. She came up and gave me a big squeeze around the waist and said, “Guess what?” “I am starting school next week.” I hugged her up and said excitedly, “I am sooo proud of you Ginary.” She giggled and hid her face in my chest and said, “I’m a good Goddaughter” she said. I said, “You are the best Goddaughter in the whole world.” She giggled again. You see Ginary is 16 years old and completely illiterate. She grew up in the city dump scavenging for scraps. At age 10 she got a job as a maid. The lady beat her severely and at 12 she ran away and ended up in the orphanage. I have been after her ever since becoming her Godfather over a year ago to go to school and learn how to read and write but she was always too embarrassed to be a 16 year old first grader but after coming to America and spending 3 weeks with us and meeting many of our friends and family she was so encouraged that she wants to get educated and make something of herself now. Praise God. Ginary walked by not long after where I was sitting with one of our team members, Patti Hammond. Patti looked at her and said, “that girl looks like a classic model” “she has the posture and the beauty.” I agreed and then shuddered to think what would have become of her in two years when she was turned out on the street but for the grace of God, our family, and Orphan Hope International.

I was able to love on and listen to Marianna’s heart more today. She is a precious, precious girl. I would take her home with me right now if I could. She cried and cried and hugged and kissed me and told me she wishes I was her Papito.

There are so many here like her. I wish I could adopt them all. I have enough love for them all that’s for sure… actually I’m just the conduit… it’s His love for them flowing through me that I feel… and it is beautiful… and it makes me love Him more.