An example to follow

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On Maunday Thursday of this year, the newly elected pope broke out of the tradition of popes before him to wash the feet, not of fellow priests, but of 12 young offenders from a detention center.  This has been fairly controversial in the Catholic Church, but as soon as I heard this, I was so impressed!  Finally, someone in the spotlight who ‘gets it’.  Those whose feet were washed were not priests, they weren’t considered holy by religious standards, however, the disciples at that time probably weren’t either.  A tax collector, a doubter, and even a betrayer.  Yes, Jesus even washed Judas’ feet.  The pope washed the feet of 2 girls, 2 Muslims and all those who he washed were from different nationalities.  The pope said during a speech that day, ““We need to go out, then, in order to experience our own anointing (as priests)… to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight”.  Sound familiar?  Sounds kind of like what Christ tells us to do huh?!  So, why aren’t we? 
 
In this time, sandals were primarily the only shoes people wore and imagine walking in dirt with sandals how dirty your feet would be.  This act of footwashing was usually set aside only for the servant of the house, not for the guest of honor and certianly NOT for Jesus.  He flew in the face of tradition, taking on the heart and act of a servant to be an example to his disciples and to us that THIS is the heart we should have-one of service and humility. 
 
In John 13 it reads…

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

I find it interesting also that in the same chapter, Jesus talks about a NEW COMMAND.  This new command? 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I would much rather be known as a Chrisitian because of my love for others instead of other reasons.  How about you?
As Christians, as sinners, were we not once as dirty as feet in sandals walking in the dirt.  We are no better than the tax collector, betrayer or delinquent.  We should be living as those who have been washed by the blood of Jesus!  AMEN?

So, instead of being frustrated or angry or indifferent to ‘traditions’ being broken, lets embrace it!  He himself says he has set an example and we SHOULD do as He has done.

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Happy Easter-Goshen Style

Happy Easter from Goshen, IN.  We celebrated together with the Delp’s (Joel’s parents) on Saturday and Sunday by coloring eggs, church, Simeon’s first annual Easter egg scavenger hunt, yummy food, and time together celebrating Christ’s resurrection.  We had a great time and it was nice being together.  Simeon caught on very quickly to the Easter egg scavenger hunt and had a great time with daddy and all of us watching him hunt the eggs and find his ‘presents’.We do miss our Ecuador family as well and wish we could be celebrating with them as well.  We know God has given us this time together with family in the States and we cherish it so much.  Enjoy picutres from our Easter festivities…

1st clue for the Easter egg scavenger hunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headed to the 2nd clue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding a well-hidden egg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think Simeon likes the egg hunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A family affair (3 generations)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Say ‘cheese’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coloring eggs together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to you all!  We trust that the joy and celebration of the resurrected Jesus gives you hope and excitement for this season and the future.  May you celebrate together with family and friends in knowing the Good News that He arose!

Joel will be speaking at Northwest Covenant Church in Mt. Prospect on Saturday for their Annual Men’s Lenten Breakfast.  Your prayers are appreciated!

Finally, have you read Kim’s personal blog recently.  There are some great posts there: http://joelnkim.blogspot.com/

 

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Updated Calendar

  • March 30: Northwest Covenant Church for Men’s Lenten Breakfast, Mt. Prospect, IL
  • April 7: Trinity United Methodist Church, Hartford City, IN
  • April 14: Trinity United Methodist Church, Hartford City, IN
  • April 15 – 19: Joel on trip to Ecuador
  • April 21: Church of the Good Shepherd, Crest Hill, IL
  • April 27, 28: Coshocton Christian Tabernacle, Coshocton, OH
  • May 5: Hilltop Community Church, Mansfield, OH
  • May 19: First Covenant Church, Willmar, MN & Winthrop Covenant Church, Winthrop, MN
  • June 26-30: Evangelical Covenant Church Annual Meeting for Commissioning and Ordination, Detroit, MI

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The prayers were felt and answered!

Yesterday, prayers were lifted up for us around the world!!!  Many of you received our email earlier in the week and prayed for us.  Our friends in Ecuador received and got word about our final interviews and were praying for us.  Here’s the God thing that happened yesterday.  The Covenant Church has a missionary prayer calendar in which two missionaries/missionary families are prayed for every day.  Well, it just happened to work out that our day on the calendar came up yesterday so we had people all around the world who pray for Covenant missionaries praying for us yesterday.

Well, we felt the prayers!  Yesterday, we felt surrounded and were bathed in prayer.  The prayers paid off.   We were both approved for recommendation to be commissioned as Long-term Missionaries, for Kim to receive the ministerial license of a Consecrated Missionary and for Joel to be ordained.  The reason that we are “recommended” at this point is because the Annual Meeting (which will occur in Detroit at the end of June this year) is the supreme, governing body of the Evangelical Covenant Church and is the highest authority for deciding on these things.  In the end, the vote at the Annual Meeting is more of a formality but an exciting one in that we will be approved by all of the churches in the U.S. and Canada to be missionaries of the church.  Pretty exciting, huh?

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Special Prayer Request

We would like to share a Special Prayer Request.  This Friday, March 15th, Kim and I will be having our Final Interviews in the process of being commissioned as Long-term Missionaries.  These interviews are the final “test” in our process of seeking ordination (Joel) and consecration (Kim).  We will need to still be voted on by the assembly of the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church in June and as long as that goes successfully, we will be Commissioned as Long-term Missionaries, Kim will be licensed as a Consecrated Missionary and Joel will be ordained.  So you can start calling him “Reverend” after that!

These are our final interviews in a long process.  If you remember, we had two interviews right after we returned from Ecuador in October (see 1 Down… and What we’ve been up to… to refresh your  memory).  We also had a three day psychological evaluation as well as we had to write numerous very long papers about our theology and such.  Well, the interviews on Friday are the last “test” so to speak as the Annual Meeting vote is more of a formality.

On Friday, the 15th, we will be interviewed individually once again at the Evangelical Covenant Church offices in Chicago.  Kim’s interview is 8:30 a.m. CST and Joel’s is at 2:00 p.m. CST.  Your prayers for these interviews and at these times specifically are greatly, greatly, greatly appreciated!!!  We’ve felt that it has been by the grace of God that we have gotten this far so we just need a little more grace to push us through!!!

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Simeon turns 3!!!

Simeon turned 3 yesterday and we celebrated in a way that he would love: Chuck E. Cheese.  He loves his family, pizza and arcades so we were able to combine everything he loves in one place.  It was nice to be able to celebrate Simeon’s Birthday together with family this year.  Here are some pictures so that you can see a little bit:

Driving a car

His favorite, the Horse Ride

 

Getting his birthday crown from Chuck E. Cheese

 

Blowing his Thomas the Train Whistle

 

Opening presents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Receiving a train

 

 

Kim and her brother Todd

 

 

 

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Thank You Hope Covenant Church!

We just want to say a big THANK-YOU to Hope Covenant Church in Indianapolis.  It was a real pleasure to be with them yesterday at their service, have the opportunity to share and be prayed for during the service and to have so many wonderful conversations with quality folks before and after the service.  We could see that you all are genuine, caring people who love the Lord.  It was a privilege for us to get to know  you.  Thank you especially to Pastor Tom and his wife Laura as you both helped us out tremendously in getting things setup and during the service yesterday, Don Masten who did so much to get our trip organized and Colleen and Stan Kaat and your wonderful hospitality.  Thank you all so very much!!!

 

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Hope Covenant, here we come!!!

On Saturday, after celebrating Simeon’s birthday with friends and family at Chuck E. Cheese (Simeon is going to love it!), we will be traveling down to Indianapolis, IN to speak at Hope Covenant Church on Sunday.  This is an exciting day for us because they are a church of which we do not have a previous relationship.  Joel and Pastor Tom Miller, the pastor of Hope, just met one day over lunch in Indianapolis a little over a month ago.  But what is neat is that they have folks that will be leaving later this month to be a part of a Medical Mission team to Ecuador.  So that is a really neat connection that we weren’t even aware of.  We, and Pastor Tom, both feel as though God orchestrated our meeting and our visit to their church so we are very excited to be with them on Sunday.  Your prayers for a good worship service and clarity in speaking are very much appreciated!

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A Lenten Reflection from Joel

Lent is a season of soul-searching, repentance and reflection.  It is a season for contemplation and taking stock.  Lent originated in the earliest days of the Christian Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism.  In observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days, which is equal to the amount of time it rained for Noah  as well as Moses when on Mt. Sinai for the ten commandments and forty was the number of years that the Israelites were in the wilderness wandering.

You all know that a big part of my “work” during this year of Home Assignment is to visit churches and share about our ministry in Ecuador but my “job” during this time also includes much more than that.  One aspect that you may not be aware of is that of education.  During my year of Home Assignment, we hope that I can use this time to grow and further my understanding of what it means to be a minister, especially in the context of international mission.  I have been meeting (as much as is physically possible) with my mentor, David Mark, and he has helped me in developing a reading list that will help me with this.  In addition to this, Kim and I both met with a counselor right after returning from Ecuador and he was able to help us out in developing plan for the year.  I also have met with a Spiritual Director who was able to help me out in seeing where I was at in my spiritual life, my day-in and day-out relationship with Jesus.

Here’s why I shared that tangent.  And I’m being a little bit transparent here for the sake of sharing a prayer request and the desire for accountability from those close to me.  It has become increasingly obvious over the last 8 – 10 years that I am needing to develop a significant sense of Sabbath in my life.  From Kim and my extremely busy time during our years in Chicago, transitioning to an extremely hectic and stressful first-term as missionaries in Ecuador (which included raising a small child for sure), I’ve got working hard down, though I’ve always had that one down.  For those of you who know me well, you know me as the typical Type-A, driven, task-oriented person who takes pride in what he is able to accomplish.  That is what I do well.  What I don’t do well is resting.  This is  one thing that I have always appreciated about Kim as she helps me (sometimes forces me!) to bring balance to my and our lives as she does properly understand the need for rest and play and their importance for our well-being.

But I need to grow in this area.  I share all of this for a couple of reasons.  One important reason is so that you all can know and understand this area of weakness for me and pray for me and hold me accountable to this area of growth for which I am striving.  Secondly, I wanted to share a book I’ve been reading.  I want to share this book and some concepts from it not only because it has been meaningful for me, but I think it can also be meaningful for you.

I know what it means to be an American (and also Ecuadorian in this case because they are very similar in this sentiment).  It means you work hard and you have very busy lives, one in which it seems every minute is scheduled out.  We live in a culture that applauds “hard work” and the fact of “being busy” is bragged about and anyone who is doing too much “resting” could be considered to be “lazy.”  The time period has very much passed us by in which Sunday is a sacred day, devoted only to God and quiet time with Him.  I know that and understand that, so I don’t think I would even try calling for a return to that.  That’s not my point.  My point would be is to not do as I have been doing but strive for something similar to that which I am striving for now.

We all need to have a sense of Sabbath in our lives.  We need a time for pause and reflection, a time to be with God and to not allow distractions to get in the way.

A book was given to me and Kim (as well as the rest of the families in his church) by a friend and minister, Tyler Harford, pastor at Pleasant View Mennonite Church in Goshen, IN.  The book is called “The Sabbath” by Abraham Joshua Heschel.  Abraham, for those of you who like me did not know of him before, was a renown Jewish rabbi and theologian.  This book is one of his earliest and most celebrated works in which he discuses Jewish spirituality and ritual based living that is found in the Sabbath.  I think that there is much that can be learned about the Sabbath for us and after reading this book, I see how a Jewish rabbi is the perfect person to be our instructor.

Before sharing some bits and pieces from the book, just a quick explanation of the Sabbath for those for whom that would be helpful.  The word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word “Shabbat” and basically refers to the seventh day of the week, which is a day dedicated to resting.  Our Lord instituted the seventh day as the Sabbath as He demonstrated it to us by resting after the six days of creation (Genesis 2) and then commanded it for His people (Exodus 16 and 20).  The point of the Sabbath from the beginning has been a planned time to rest from work and spending dedicated time with our Lord.

Here are some thoughts from “The Sabbath” by Rabbi Heschel:

In his prologue, he discusses the conflict that exists in humanity between space and time, namely our preoccupation with things that are spacial in nature or that in our physical world.  Please know that this book was written in 1951, so you can only imagine what Rabbi Heschel would think of this day in age.  On page 3, he states, “Technical civilization is man’s conquest of space… To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.  The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.  There is realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.  Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”

He later in the chapter tries to bring in the Biblical perspective on the topic. “The Bible is more concerned with time than with space.  It sees the world in the dimension of time.  It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography.  To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept its premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own.”  All of this is on page 6 and earlier on that page, “The higher goal of spiritual living is not amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.”  He concludes this chapter, “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.  Six days a week we live under the tyranny of space; on the Sabbath, we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” (Page 10).  It is helpful to see how the Sabbath fits in God’s perspective and the importance of time and time that is set aside for rest and for Him.

I’ve always seen the Sabbath as time at the end of the week in which we can rest and rejuvenate.  Rabbi Heschel helps us in looking at things from in a different light: “The Sabbath is not for the sake of weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath.  It is not an interlude but the climax of living.”  (Page 14)  And then later, “The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated.  The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.” (Page 22).

Words like these have been helpful for me in understanding that not only am I neglecting myself but I am neglecting God in not allowing myself to rest.  If I am going to make it through a life of busyness in ministry and not become run-down, I need to develop a proper sense of Sabbath in my life.

I have not finished this book yet and I will probably share more as I go along but I wanted to share this reflection with you at this time.  May these words be an encouragement for you in finding your own sense of Sabbath in your spiritual life.

I’ll close with the words from my friend, Pastor Tyler, “I, for one, have been challenged to consider what I do about the longest of the 10 commandments, the one we appear to pay the least attention to.”

 

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