Score!

Today is my and my wife's 20th anniversary. Below you'll find a song that speaks more truthfully of marriage than any I've heard thus far. Watch it full screen. Watch it more than once. Listen carefully. :)

Rain In Haiti

"He sends rain on the just and the unjust." Matthew 5:45

God's "common" grace is experienced by all who live. The love of God is seen in every place where people inhabit this planet, even in something as simple as the rain He sovereignly directs through weather patterns to fall and water crops and refresh spirits.

While in Haiti last month I saw much of God's common grace in the form of a truly beautiful country where you can view rugged mountains to your left and the green-blue sea to your right, as well as in the fertile soil and frequent rains that fall on the land. I also witnessed the saving grace of God in a community of thriving believers in whose hearts the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ had dawned.

The man who pastors the church on the property of Mission of Hope has already prayed with NINE (now former) voodoo priests and had bonfires to burn all of their paraphernalia. These men now understand the saving grace of God and His ability to dispel darkness, as well as His ultimate sovereign power.

My prayer for Haiti is that the common graces of God will be acknowledged as coming from Him and that there would also be among the populace a turning, a repentance, and an experience with the saving grace of God.

In The Meantime....

Busy, busy....first Haiti, then Phoenix. I won't be posting anything (probably) for the next 7 or 8 days, but in the meantime, you could check out my photo blog over at HISWHISPERS. If a picture is worth a thousand words, mine are probably coming in at about 37 words, but you still might wanna browse around a bit. :) Once I'm back in the normal swing of things, I'll be posting some awesome stuff about Haiti...

In His Grip,
Blainemonster

Shaming The Strong

One of my favorite memories of our week in Haiti was hearing the children from the Mission of Hope orphanage singing in the morning before breakfast. I never actually saw them, but we could hear them from where we had gathered to eat. Each morning, dozens of children would gather together before they had breakfast and sing one or two songs of worship. One morning I heard "Agnus Dei" rising gently and beautifully into the morning sky. Downtrodden, fatherless, feeble little ones lifting up the Almighty, Everlasting Father. In those moments, 60 small children were more spiritually powerful than all the voodoo priests in Haiti, piercing the darkness with their sincere praise.

Kicking It In Haiti

I just returned recently from seven days at Mission of Hope in Haiti. Unsure of where to begin relating these experiences, I'm starting with the easiest: kids playing soccer. Of all the places I've been, I've never seen downtrodden poverty like I did in Haiti. You can see it even in the eyes of many of the children. However, get those same kids to kicking a ball up and down a playing field, and joy creeps into their faces. I've posted a series of photos at my other blog that displays some serious futbol action. Also, if you want to bring joy to needy children in a very cool way, CHECK THIS OUT.

For The Birds (An Oldie But Goodie Repost)

I'm almost finished reading Reclaiming Science From Darwinism by Kenneth Poppe.

Below is a paragraph with which he finishes off a chapter that discusses how Darwinian evolution is supposed to produce only beneficial traits:

"Watch one singing bird for a few minutes with solitary attention, and then try again to explain how such a 'ridiculous' activity became highlighted in the gene pool instead of leading to the extinction of that songbird's species. Since there is no scientific reason for birds to randomly sing, and every reason for them not to, I will give credit for beautiful birdsongs, as well as my capacity to enjoy them, to their Designer."

Of course, this isn't the strongest argument against evolutionary theory, but it's a pretty simple and elegant one. I think beauty itself (its existence and appreciation) is huge evidence that nothing about this universe is a product of random processes and chance.

The amount of scientific evidence that causes evolutionary theory to crumble is actually quite large. Unfortunately, it's just not cool (politically proper) to let that (cleverly designed and created) cat out of the bag. Evolution doesn't make sense and men and women from every scientific discipline agree on that fact.

Are there changes within species? You betcha. There are plenty of small changes and adaptations going on all the time. Natural selection is at work. But natural selection only favors traits that already exist and natural selection has never made a man from an amoeba, a bird from a dinosaur or a whale from a cow. It's not just improbable, it's impossible. How do I know this? A little bird told me.

Tough (An Oldie But Goodie Repost)

About ninety years ago this little fella was enjoying a fine summer day playing Indians. No doubt he imagined himself a heroic young brave. This little "Indian" grew up to become my grandfather. Today, July 22nd, was his birthday.

My maternal grandfather George Becker Hesse was a tough guy. Not a bar-room brawling kind of tough guy, but a sun-ripened, wind-weathered, hard-working, farming-life kind of tough guy.

One of my favorite memories of him involves a fishing trip to a local farm pond. Grandpa had just caught a largemouth bass and was removing the red and white Midge Oreno plug from its mouth when the fish did some gymnastics and drove the point of one of the treble hooks straight down into the meat of one of grandpa's fingers. I wasn't too far away, and grandpa calmly asked me to come over and help him out. He held the still hooked fish with his unhooked hand, and asked me to pull the deeply inserted hook out of his finger. "Just pull it out," he said.

Easier said than done. I grabbed the treble hook, which was buried well past the barb, and began to wriggle and twist and yank until the thing came out. Not a peep out of grandpa. As a young boy, I was amazed. Grandpa's hero status definitely went up another couple notches that day.

It's easy to remember grandpa running a tractor or spading up a manure pile to find grubs for fishing. I recall his dark farmer's tan on his strong, sinewy arms and his huge appetite. He was generally fairly quiet, but he loved to laugh.

As grandpa's years drew to a close and Parkinson's disease gradually tightened its grip on him, he never once complained, nor was there any hint of him feeling sorry for himself. He passed peacefully in his sleep one January night.

I hope I can learn to face life the way grandpa did: with strength and resolution and peace. I hope I can learn to practice the patient endurance that God grants those who trust in Him. There's something heroic about calmly accepting what life brings and dealing with circumstances not as if they are threatening storm clouds overhead, but as water passing under the bridge.