Extended Update at WEPC

Haven't had a chance yet to hear about my time Sudan? I will be sharing at WEPC after the second service this Sunday. We will be in room 35 in the basement.

Check out the Facebook event to RSVP or send me an email. We would like to get a general count since lunch will be provided.

From the Myhres Blog

From the Myhres blog:

"This is the real context of Easter--no bunnies or lilies, instead the shocking hubris of desperate men, the hate and terror that must be radically healed before our world is redeemed. Our hope lies not in minimizing or softening evil, but in overcoming it by love."

Read the whole post:

http://paradoxuganda.blogspot.com/2011/04/evil-abounds.html

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Wish List

Some friends have asked if there is anything they can get for me as I am heading back to Sudan.

I have created an Amazon wish list with some items that I could use at the Secondary School and some things that I would personally enjoy. If you order an item from the wish list, it will be sent to the address where I am collecting things that I am taking back with me to Sudan.

If you would like to be sent the wish list, send me an email. I may also share it on Facebook.

Meditation

"As digestion is the turning of the raw food into chyle and blood, and spirits and flesh, so mediation, rightly managed, turneth the truths received and remembered, into warm affection, raised resolution, and holy and upright conversation. Therefore, what good those men are like to get by sermons or providences, who are unacquainted with, and unaccustomed to, this work of meditation, you may easily judge. And why so much preaching is lost among us, and professors can run from sermon to sermon, and are never weary of hearing or reading, and yet have such languished, starved souls, I know no truer or greater cause than their ignorance and unconscionable neglect of mediation. " ~ Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest


One of the pastors at WEPC shared this passage at a teaching fellowship this Sunday morning, and I immediately thought, "That is me." In this season while I am living in Richmond, I have been taking in a lot of truths from sermons, conversations with friends, teaching fellowships, books, and Bible studies. I have not however been making time to meditate on those truths.

I think I have been trying to take in as much as possible while I am at WEPC before I head back to Sudan, and as a consequence, I haven't really processed much of what I have heard or read.

This weekend I went for a jog through two adjoining parks in Richmond and took some time to just think. After I got back to the car, I got out my camera and took some pictures of the beautiful spring leaves and flowers. (The top picture I took in CT a few last week)


Taking in the beauty of the morning, meditating on creation itself, and allowing myself to think with out any end or result in mind helped me to really experience of God's holiness and His great love for me that He would pursue relationship with me.

I realized after hearing that quote from Richard Baxter that I have not profited as much from most of the sermons, Bible studies, books, and conversations that I took in this month without any further mediation or consideration, as I got from two hours of thinking and meditating on creation that morning.


Please pray that God would bring the things I have heard in the last month back to mind as I take time to meditate on the truths that people have shared with me.

Praising God Across the Ocean

I have been so blessed by Sudan Christian Fellowship while I have been living in Richmond! This Saturday I had the privilege of joining Sudanese women from several communities in Virginia and North Carolina gathered to hear teaching, praise God, and encourage one another.

The Sudan Christian Fellowship children's choir shared a song with the group of women in Arabic. Many of these children were born in the US, but their parents have taught them about Sudan. Even though I didn't understand all the words, my heart was encouraged, so I hope this song encourages you also.

Daniel 7:14
He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Home

My Facebook profile doesn't list a hometown or a current city for that matter. Lots of places around the world are part of the idea of home for me. No single place is a complete picture of home, but Richmond is a part of what I consider my home.

I only lived in Richmond for two and half years after I graduated from college. I enjoy the running the Monument Ave. 10k, seeing movies at the Byrd Theatre, and spending afternoons at Maymont Park in the spring, but these aren't the things that I think of when I remember Richmond.

Richmond is a part of the mosaic that is my concept of home largely because of my church community.

Lots of things have changed at WEPC and in my Bible study in the last two years, but some things have stayed the same.

Every sermon still ends with Jesus and the cross. I can take a class called "Theology for Living", but more importantly WEPC is still a community that daily lives out their theology. I can still laugh hard with the women in my Bible study. It is also still a group women that have the freedom and love for one another to be able to share openly about our lives.

I could go on for paragraphs about the things that have stayed the same about my church community that make it home, but I will just share one more example.

My pastor still gives the same benediction every Sunday. The first time I heard it again after two years, well I really don't know how to describe how I felt and I'm not great with words, but I guess I could say it was like the peace and joy of being welcomed into a place you can rest and comfortably be yourself because you are loved. Okay that was cheesy, but the benediction really does mean a lot to me.

Today I attended Sudan Christian fellowship, and during the greeting time, I shook hands with everyone in the congregation. This Sudanese custom again brought a feeling a home to me. Sudan is now a part of my mosaic of home. I practiced a bit of Juba Arabic with Sudanese believers from many different tribes, and their joy over the very simplest phrases I managed to piece together also reminded me of my home in Mundri.

But ultimately, as a friend commented recent post, "Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:20)

Advertisements and Choices

One thing I noticed when I got back to the US that I'm pretty sure wasn't around or at least wasn't as common when I left are those square bar-code things in public places.

I recently learned they are actually called QR (quick response) codes. The image above is for the mobile version of Wikipedia.

I haven't tried this out, but I hear you can use a smart phone to scan the code, and it will take you to a website related to the advertisement. According to Wikipedia, that is called mobile tagging. I have seen them on "For Sale" signs on houses in Richmond, on trains, in malls, etc.

I'm guessing that most of you have known about these for a while and may even use them on a regular basis, but it was new to me. =)


One thing that hit me pretty hard when I got back was the number of choices available for nearly everything. I was completely overwhelmed at the grocery store when I had to choose between between over ten different kinds of onions. In Mundri, you go to the market, and onions are either there or they aren't there. You may see two different types of onions, but they are probably the same price. In the US, in addition to the different varieties, you then have to choose if you want to get the organic type or not. Most of the onions at the supermarket were huge, so I really only needed half an onion. It took me about ten minutes to make a decision and that was after I walked away to calm myself down and remind myself that they are all onions and pretty much any onion would work for the meal I was planning on making.