Advent in action

          

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Christmas is Waiting to be Born

Where refugees seek deliverance that never comes, And the heart consumes itself, if it would live, Where little children age before their time, And life wears down the edges of the mind, Where fear companions each day's life, And Perfect Love seems long delayed, Christmas is waiting to be born: In you, in me, in all humankind. from The Moods of Christmas by Howard Thurman (Harper & Row, 1973)

  

 I wanted to take a moment at the beginning of advent, to share one simple action step you might be willing to make in response to what I have shared so far...

In all your Christmas shopping this year, consider looking first at some of the following websites to make your purchases.  When you buy from one of these fair trade businesses, you are creating a wave of God's love around the world....a gift of love and awareness to whom you are giving, as well as helping create a new future and hope in Jesus' name for someone else around the world.


www.stoptraffickfashion.com
www.tradeasone.com
www.project7.com
www.lightgivesheat.org
www.seedlivelihood.org
www.worldvision.org
www.notforsalestore.org

May God bless your journey to the manger...

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Beginning in Bangkok

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After meeting up with Kevin Austin (NFS Faith Communities Director and FM missionary)and Ginger Coakley (NFS representative for Illinois) in San Fransisco on October 24th, we headed off to Thailand. We spent one VERY long flight getting to know each other better and looking forward to all God was going to show us and teach us over the next couple weeks. Here are a few photos of Bangkok the day we arrived, 'resting' for a day before flying to Cambodia, quite jet lagged.

   

A common site were spirit houses just like this one in front of every house, business, outhouse, you name it in Thailand and Cambodia.  People believe that they need to build a spirit house on the property they have built something on, to appease the spirits they displaced.  Every day they make offerings of incense, food, or flowers at these shrines. This was one of the very first things that I noticed upon arriving; I can't think of anywhere or any culture that I had been to where there appeared to be a complete void of things relating to Christianity in symbol or structure or anything..

This was not a common site, thanks to Kevin's knowledge of Thai terrain, and what areas of Thailand to avoid because of flooding, since he had been a missionary there for even years. This was the worst that we saw of the Bangkok flooding that was covering the news around the world. It did change our plans the last 2 days of the trip, and several areas that we traveled to this first day we couldn't come back to on our last day in Thailand. The night before we flew out, the floods had reached the area we visited our first day to Thailand.

....a Tuk-Tuk

This was our first room, first night in Bangkok.  The painting on the door was a 'blessing' by a Buddhist monk.  These were also often put on the ceiling of the taxis that we rode in.  We had many gecko friends that shared the room with us, but in general it was much nicer and inexpensive than we ever expected.  We were blessed with  a  great night's sleep.  So I am still wondering if I slept so well because I was jet lagged or because there were no 'little people' waking me up in the middle of the night?! Actually it would be a great time to thank all of you who were praying that I could sleep, He answered so I could function on all cylinders, relatively!

Packing with love...

This adventure of heading off to Asia began months ago as God called and we answered yes. I say we, as in Dan encourages the 'going' and amazingly steps up to hold down the preverbeal fort... family and friends send notes and prayers....big and biggest Lewis boys create up a storm for the sweet 'Breanna's girls' which the team will visit in Thailand.....and the body of Christ reaches it's arms around the world with one little 'ask' in the church bulletin.

Yes. WE say yes, and how could we ever want to miss out on the blessing of Him using us wherever, however that is. Right now, i am excited beyond words that means joining God's church around the world to see how we here at home can be more involved in the ending of slavery.....again.