Living Dangerously for God

Living dangerously for God. What does this mean and why do i want to talk about it.

I have been reading Joshua recently. Near the end of his life, Joshua challenged the Israelites to make a life changing decision: Choose for youselves this day whom you will serve, whether the Gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the Gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24,15). The people responded with `Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other Gods (Joshua 24, 16). They were taken aback, perhaps even offended by Joshuas challenge.

Then Joshua emphatically stated `You are not able to serve the Lord, He is a Holy God, a jealous God (Joshua 24,19). Can you imagine the indignation you would have felt if you had not been in the crowd that day. I am not able. Who does he think he is?

Israel missed the point. Their faith was based on what God had done for them not who he was. Joshua meant that God is so holy that we cannot to begin to fathom the depth of his character. he is so jealous that he will not accept anything less than total commitment. A token resolution to follow God is not transformational. Joshua was not asking for lip service, but for a life of absoloute and constant surrender to God.

How does this work practically.Is God really first in your life? I feel like God has brought me to a place where I am not completely certain of where he wants me to be in the future, but still that i am completely walking in his will. I have an amazing peace about the direction my life is taking, I trust the Lord completely and I am very content to live out a dangerous faith. There is nothing to fear.

Engagement and marriage

I am very happy to say that Jennie and I announced are engagement just a couple of days ago. I spoke to Jennie`s father and asked for his permission to marry his amazing daughter. We are both very excited about what the future holds. God has opened up so much for us in the last few months, and we are excited to see what adventures he holds in store for us over the next few years. We plan to be married at the end of July, in Denver USA. This obviously means that I will not be extending my Medair contract at the end of May.

There are some things we would like people to pray into for us over the next few months

Fiancee Visa. To get married legally in the USA I have to be granted a fiancee visa. These normally take 5 months to process, and I will even have to go for an interview in the US embassy in London. So theroetcially, we should not have a problem with the timeframe. If you can pray for us anyway, that there will be no delay`s in this process.

From now until the end of May I will be living and working in the DR Congo. Jennie will be working in Kampala. I will be able to see Jennie on my visits to Uganda for holiday, but please pray for protection over us as we will sadly have to spend some time apart over the the next few months.

Please continue to pray for us as we prepare to get married and spend our lives us together, that the Lord will bless us, continue to guide us and show us exactly where he wants us to be. Please pray that God will always be at the centre of our relationship and that he continues to work so actively in our lives. Please pray we can surrender our life to him.

We are truly blessed.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from the Congo! Its strange being in a warmer climate at Christmas, especially when its snowing so much at home. I dont like being away from my fiancee Jennie or my family, but there is one good thing about being in the Congo at this time of year. I escape all the commercial hype that Christmas means in the Western world. A friend recently sent me a link to the Advent Conspiracy website. www.adventconspiracy.org/

The story of Christ`s birth is a story of Promise, hope and a revolutionary love.

So what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a Savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams and shopping lists.

And when its all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to clear, and this empty feeling of missed puropse. Is this really what we want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world changing event again?

An opprtunity to focus on the message Jesus brought to this world.

I will leave you with that message, a very merry Xmas to all.

Dungu Update

Sorry I have not written in a while, but Im in Dungu now...and there is very little internet coonection here. I took up my new role as base support manager 2 weeks ago. I had a fantastic holiday with the beautiful Jennie in SW Uganda, visiting Lake Bunyone and the Virunga volcano range. Pretty spectacular. (I'm sure most of you have seen the photo's on facebook by now - I certainly don't have the bandwith to upload any photo's here)

And now im in Dungu. Whats in Dungu..well not much to be honest. Its a small town in North East Congo, approximately 250 km from the Sudan border. About 1 year ago the LRA crisis exploded here. The LRA have long since been forced out of town, but they are not that far away. There are reports of LRA attacks about 60KM away from here, with Congolese and Ugandan armz forces present everywhere.

What are Medair doing here? We run an emergency health project, providng equipment, medication and supervision, in the main hospitals and health centres. At the moment, treatment for the local population and IDP's is completely free in all Medair programmes. Thats an amazing gift we can give the impoverished population here. Martin Luther King said it was every persons human right to have access to health care.

We have just had our programme extended here for another year Praise God. The LRA are still very much a present force in north Eastern Congo, and continue to penetrate CAR and South Sudan. so there is much work to be done.

I promise to write more soon. I will be in Congo for Christmas, in Bunia next week, so I will have a much better internet connection in the base there.

Bye for now.