I wanted to share my friend's story of ministry to the street kids exploited for sex on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand, to remind us to pray for missionaries serving the Lord. Davey had toured with KKSM for five years beginning his sophmore year in high school, then served as a youth pastoral intern at Village Bible Church under Matt Chandler, before hearing God's call to come to ABBA House's ministries in Chiang Mai a half a world away from Dallas, Texas. You may follow his ministries under "Mission Sites" found on this blog ("ABBA House") as well as his personal blog listed below. Please keep all of God's servants in prayer who serve in these very difficult and dangerous markets of sex, money, addictions and exploitation.
skinhead
**********
http://davevoetberg.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
eggs & rice
Serving God in "another life" in KKSM ministries
Abba House Foundation Vimeo video link
http://www.abbahousefoundation.org/
sour patch kids
by Davey Voetberg
Monday, June 6, 2011
If we're being real, I think we would all agree that sometimes life just gets hard. I mean, really hard. Now the term "hard" is somewhat subjective, being that the definition of difficulty differs from person to person. But life gets hard for you, whoever you are. And life gets hard for me. And sometimes the struggle & strain become so wearisome that we feel as though we may not be able to endure another day. We have those points in our lives where our hearts feel ready to break & we, like king david, wish that we "had wings like a dove" so we could "fly away & be at rest". And those laments from the 55th psalm are in good company with many others that were uttered out of the mouth of the man who ferociously went after the heart of God. I think mourning is almost seen sometimes as unspiritual & to acknowledge pain/difficulty as being a sign of weakness. I would say it's more a sign of being alive & not living under a rock. Even Jesus, our Savior, was a "man of sorrows" who, even though he was fully divine, "offered up prayers & supplications with loud cries & tears".
So I'm not even speaking right now about those outside the body of Christ. I'm talking about blood-bought disciples. It's not as though when you become a christian you take up residence on a cloud high above this fractured world. What happened is that you were, by the grace of God, broken & contrite enough to fall at the feet of The Hero. Not being one yourself, rather, you're simply a recipient of His heroism. With that being true, it's only pride in us that would try to give off the notion that upon trading our sin for Jesus' righteousness, we gave him our tear ducts as well. The day will come when He will wipe away all our tears (and I imagine that when it does, the hands of God will be very pruney!) but we're not there yet. The temptation many times can be to act as though the weight of the world has not penetrated our souls. To put on a face & appear unaffected by it all seems to be the more mature, godly route to go. Some might even think the one crying the hardest at the funeral has the least amount of trust in God's good purposes.
But just because someone weeps doesn't mean that they're not trusting God. It's not that the children of God have dry eyes from the moment of conversion, we just don't "grieve as others do who have no hope." We're told in Acts that the early church "made great lamentation" over Stephen after his death. There is a way to mourn that is available to the family of God & even more so, encouraged when necessary as the Bible calls us to "weep with those who weep."
So we still feel pain and, I would argue, even more so now that everything has been infused with meaning for us, but the tears of the saints contain elements of hope that the unbeliever's tears don't possess. That's the difference. Our tears don't have the same make-up as they did before our adoption. Every tear that falls into God's bottle from the eyes of His elect are laced with His Romans 8:28 designs. This is what makes it possible to be "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing", even when the darkness will not lift.
The rainbow of God's providence is overarching every storm the christian goes through. And when the clouds are dark & pouring, that doesn't mean God will necessarily give you an umbrella, but He will most definitely stand with you in the rain. The rock solid assurance of His sovereignty & loyalty doesn't make pain painless by any means, but it does infuse our pain with meaning as God is, as John Piper says, "plotting the course & managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good & for the glory of Jesus Christ."
And The Lord, in his mercy, has given His people books like Revelation & Isaiah, giving us glimpses of how the story will end. It isn't with sorrow & sighing triumphing victoriously over us. It isn't in despair with weeping & death eternally permeating & plaguing our existence. Just the opposite is true, actually. The victory has been secured by the blood of Jesus & one day he will return with fire blazing in his eyes & tear away the "covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations." "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return & come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness & joy, and sorrow & sighing shall flee away."
by Davey Voetberg
Monday, June 6, 2011
If we're being real, I think we would all agree that sometimes life just gets hard. I mean, really hard. Now the term "hard" is somewhat subjective, being that the definition of difficulty differs from person to person. But life gets hard for you, whoever you are. And life gets hard for me. And sometimes the struggle & strain become so wearisome that we feel as though we may not be able to endure another day. We have those points in our lives where our hearts feel ready to break & we, like king david, wish that we "had wings like a dove" so we could "fly away & be at rest". And those laments from the 55th psalm are in good company with many others that were uttered out of the mouth of the man who ferociously went after the heart of God. I think mourning is almost seen sometimes as unspiritual & to acknowledge pain/difficulty as being a sign of weakness. I would say it's more a sign of being alive & not living under a rock. Even Jesus, our Savior, was a "man of sorrows" who, even though he was fully divine, "offered up prayers & supplications with loud cries & tears".
So I'm not even speaking right now about those outside the body of Christ. I'm talking about blood-bought disciples. It's not as though when you become a christian you take up residence on a cloud high above this fractured world. What happened is that you were, by the grace of God, broken & contrite enough to fall at the feet of The Hero. Not being one yourself, rather, you're simply a recipient of His heroism. With that being true, it's only pride in us that would try to give off the notion that upon trading our sin for Jesus' righteousness, we gave him our tear ducts as well. The day will come when He will wipe away all our tears (and I imagine that when it does, the hands of God will be very pruney!) but we're not there yet. The temptation many times can be to act as though the weight of the world has not penetrated our souls. To put on a face & appear unaffected by it all seems to be the more mature, godly route to go. Some might even think the one crying the hardest at the funeral has the least amount of trust in God's good purposes.
But just because someone weeps doesn't mean that they're not trusting God. It's not that the children of God have dry eyes from the moment of conversion, we just don't "grieve as others do who have no hope." We're told in Acts that the early church "made great lamentation" over Stephen after his death. There is a way to mourn that is available to the family of God & even more so, encouraged when necessary as the Bible calls us to "weep with those who weep."
So we still feel pain and, I would argue, even more so now that everything has been infused with meaning for us, but the tears of the saints contain elements of hope that the unbeliever's tears don't possess. That's the difference. Our tears don't have the same make-up as they did before our adoption. Every tear that falls into God's bottle from the eyes of His elect are laced with His Romans 8:28 designs. This is what makes it possible to be "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing", even when the darkness will not lift.
The rainbow of God's providence is overarching every storm the christian goes through. And when the clouds are dark & pouring, that doesn't mean God will necessarily give you an umbrella, but He will most definitely stand with you in the rain. The rock solid assurance of His sovereignty & loyalty doesn't make pain painless by any means, but it does infuse our pain with meaning as God is, as John Piper says, "plotting the course & managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good & for the glory of Jesus Christ."
And The Lord, in his mercy, has given His people books like Revelation & Isaiah, giving us glimpses of how the story will end. It isn't with sorrow & sighing triumphing victoriously over us. It isn't in despair with weeping & death eternally permeating & plaguing our existence. Just the opposite is true, actually. The victory has been secured by the blood of Jesus & one day he will return with fire blazing in his eyes & tear away the "covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations." "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return & come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness & joy, and sorrow & sighing shall flee away."
