Spectrum and falling asleep sitting up

Well today was a busy day for Riley and Sawyer. They decided that they were going to wake mommy up at 5:30 and not go back to sleep. After a two hour nap for mommy, Sawyer and Riley we walked to Spectrum. On the way to Spectrum, Riley got to see motorbikes jumping and he loved it and then Riley went on the rides, He rode a Power Wheels jeep, then he jumped in a moon walk and then he went on bumper boats and a miniature ferris wheel which he absolutely loved. After some water because boy was it hot out today, we walked home.

After dinner and some playing I put Sawyer in his PJ's and put him to bed, When I went in to check on him, he had fallen asleep sitting up in his big boy bed.

Please check our blog in the next couple of days as we will try to post pictures of our second mission team who have been working very hard selling tickets at Spectrum and dealing with our hot temperatures. We want to take this time to thank West Rome for all their hard work this week and we pray for safe travels as they had back to Rome Georgia Tuesday morning. And they also have paved the way for Jason and I to start a church here in Medicine Hat. THANKS WEST ROME BAPTIST CHURCH WE LOVE YOU!

They Arrived

Our West Rome team showed up today around noon. We were supposed to go help a man with his house this afternoon, but I called him 5 times today and he didn't answer.

Everyone arrived safely, but we had a mishap at the border and one person got sent home and it was his first time flying, but if we believe God's Word than we will know that all things work out for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

Tonight I get to meet all the cool contacts the West Rome team has made here in the city. This will be a busy week and I think I will be dog tired by the end of it.

On The Radio

I called Mike, the worship pastor at Temple Baptist, today and asked him if there were any complaints about my sermon yesterday. He said there was nothing but praise about the sermon and that it will be on the radio next Sunday night at 6:00 pm Mountain Time on Alive FM here in Medicine Hat. That is an exciting time when a sermon gets put onto the radio. Can one be proud and humbled at the same time? I don't know, but I do know that I am excited about the opportunity.

Messin' Around With God's Holiness

I was able to preach this week at Temple Baptist Church here in Medicine Hat. They are currently without a pastor and their interim starts in September. My sermon title was Messin' Around With God's Holiness, and it was about the story of Achan. I gave an alter call and during that time there were people that actually came out of the balcony to get right with God and I could here people crying and sniffling at the end of the sermon. There was a man there who was born in Canada and raised in Texas and he told me that during his 12 years in Medicine Hat that he has never seen an alter call and that they went to the Pentecostal church here in town just to get some excitement in their church service.

Our Date

Leigh and I went on a much needed date last night. We haven't gone on a date in 2 months since our last mission team was here. We went to the Beefeater Restaurant here in Medicine Hat and then went and saw Prince Caspian. It was so nice to get away from the kids for about 5 hours and just spend time together. That's what God wants to do with us, did you know that? God wants you to drop your daily hustle and bustle and just spend some time, one on one with Him. Go have a date with God!

6 Years

Today is 6 years of marriage for Leigh and I. Tomorrow we will have known each other for 7 years and we have 2 boys and are church planting missionaries in Canada. What a wild ride. It's always nice to recap on the things that God has done so why don't you join me on a stroll down memory lane.

This is Jason's story, and Leigh may feel obliged to fill in her story later today, but it happened way back in February of 2001. Since 1998 I had a pray list of what I wanted in a wife. I would pray over that list every now and then and here are some things that were on that prayer list:

1. She had to be a Christian
2. She had to support me in my ministry
3. She had to be a Mennonite, or from the South because I needed someone who could cook really well
4. I had to get to know her before I dated her - since I had the habit of dating women without knowing them and therefore wasting my time.
5. She had to be my best friend

Then I had 2 bonus things that God could answer if He wanted to, but didn't need to. The first was that her dad worked in the White House, and second that she came from a family that was well off. Don't ask me why I put those in there, I put them in there when I was like 20 or 21 so it was just stupid youthful thinking. Well guess what, God answered everyone of my prayers on the list, even the bonus prayers. So, onto the story

It was spring break/seminary week at the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary and I, being the very studious person I am, was writing some essays in the library. After boredom sunk in I had what seemed to be a cigarette craving, except it wasn't for a cigarette; it was to go onto a chat room. I had never been on an internet chat room before so it was all new to me. I am a Christian so I googled "christian singles chatroom" and I picked the first site that showed up. That is where I met this girl. We started emailing back and forth and so on, and weeks later I got the nerve to ask her for her phone number. I was in Canada, and she was down in Abilene, TX. I called her later that night and she asked me, "You go to the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary, right?"
I said, "Yes, I do."
She replied, "I think my uncle went there."
"Who's your uncle?" I asked.
"Don Dilmore." She responded.
"How old is he?" I questioned.
"About 75." was her answer.
"I don't think he came here because we have only been around since 1987."
"Ok, well he went to one of those schools up there anyway."

Then next day I asked my friend who was the manager at the bookstore if she knew a student there by the name of Don Dilmore. "I have some of his books in the back." she replied. I was a little upset because we are a small school and you have used books you weren't telling me about? "No, Jason, Richard Blackaby wrote in his books."she replied.
"So what's the big deal? Richard Blackaby writes in my books." He was the president of the seminary at that time.

"You don't understand Jason. This is Don Dilmore's new book, New Beginnings, Richard Blackaby did the forward in it, Don was the Vice President of Development for the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary."

Wow.

Anyway, her dad got wind of this and flew me down to Houston to meet his daughter on May 19, 2001, and that week I asked her to marry me. May 18, 2002 we got married in Houston. That is the short part of the story, I will see if Leigh wants to write anything else.

Go and Learn What This Means

I love reading Jesus Stories in the Bible. I am reading Matthew right now and Jesus is hanging out with pre-Christian people - the ones that religious people won't touch with a 10 foot pole - and actually eating and having a party with them. Jesus isn't there by Himself, he has some of His disciples with him and they are out enjoying the company of these people who are not yet connected to God. As I read the Scriptures I see that there were some religious people that Jesus got along with - like Nicodemus because he was searching for the Kingdom of God, but there were many others that Jesus couldn't stand because they thought religion was the way to God.

So these religious leaders find out that Jesus and His cronies are hanging out with the "wrong" people - and that just looks bad. I've run into that before. Religious people trying to do the religious thing don't want their religious family and or friends hanging out with "sinners" because their family or friends may get defiled.

So Jesus catches wind that these religious leaders don't think hanging out with these people is a good thing and basically tells them off in a nice way. He told them to "Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

I figure there are 4 camps one can be in.

1. You are religious and have no non-Christian friends and can't stand being around people who smoke, drink, cuss and other stuff. They're sinners and deserve to die.

2. You are a Believer, and have non-Christian friends that you hang out with, but don't know how to bring Jesus into your conversations.

3. You are a Believer that hangs out with non-Christians because you love being around them, and they are attracted to the Jesus you represent.

4. You are not yet a a follower of Jesus Christ.

If you in camp 1, please take a look at the Scriptures and realize that disenfranchising yourself from people not connected with God is not healthy at all, and you may be on the road to making sure some people will never enter the Kingdom of God. Start being more like people in camp 3.

If you are in Camp 2, start spending more time with Jesus. Jesus will start rubbing off on you and pre-Christians are attracted to Jesus, they just aren't attracted to church because of people in Camp 1.

If you are in Camp 4 and have been hurt by people in camp 1, please accept my most sincerest apologies. Just try this, I know it will seem silly, or you may not want to do it because of past experiences with "Christians", but ask God to bring somebody into your life who can introduce you to the Real Jesus. If you have a Bible - I know this is asking a lot - but try reading the Book of John, it is the 4th book in the New Testament in the Bible. If you want to start reading it right now, just click here.

You see, Jesus was The Sacrifice. He did it all to bring people not connected with God into a relationship with Him so they could find fulfillment and start their lives over again. He wants to give you purpose and joy in your life - in both the good times and the bad times, and He does this through His mercy. I am trying more to work on the mercy part, but it's coming...slowly. Just remember that mercy is not getting what we deserve.

Small World

We keep on receiving mail for other people at our house and this morning we received mail with a very familiar name on it. It was the name of a girl that I went to school with from kindergarten to grade 11. We even used to live on the same street in Spruce Grove, AB. She now teaches English at a school in Korea and she is on my facebook, so I thought I would facebook her and tell her that I got mail with her name on it. It turns out that she used to own this house while she was in college her in Medicine Hat. What a small world!

Our day at the Park

Last Sunday after church we spent some time at the park. Riley got to go for a bike ride and Sawyer played at the playground. We took stuff for sandwiches also and had a picnic. There are some beautiful parks here in Medicine Hat and we spend a lot of time on the trails that run right next to the river.

First Bible Study

We were planning on having our Bible Study on Monday night, but scheduling said that couldn't happen, and last night it had to be postponed, so we had it today at 9:00 in the morning at the hospital where our kids get together and play for their therapy. Raelynn who is a Christian, but doesn't know the Bible very well, brought her step sister, Nichola, who has never been to church and never read the Bible. It went really well, Nichola had a lot of good questions and seems really interested in the first chapter of John.

Till That Soil

I rented a rototiller this morning from Home Depot and began to till our garden. Our garden was full of weeds and was as hard as rock, plus I pulled up some huge river rock from deep in the garden. I'm talking about 70 lb rock that the frost heaved up high enough for our rented rototiller to jump around on.

We have a fair sized garden, it took me almost 4 hours to rototill the thing. As I was tilling this ground the parable of the sower came into my head, and I couldn't help but to look at how these tines from the tiller would scrape away at this tough soil and break it up and I realized two things.

The first thing was that I have to let God till my heart, and a lot of times that is painful. Just think about getting run over by a rototiller - not fun at all. The second thing that came to my mind had to do with church planting.

I need to be asking the Holy Spirit to continually be tilling the hearts of the people in Medicine Hat. This isn't a long process, but it is a hard process getting the land ready for planting some good seed. Then God waters it and grows it and soon we will have a harvest. (I hope)

After I finished tilling the garden, I walked through it and sunk ankle deep into nice soft black soil. We will start planting our garden next week. Our neighbour behind us used our garden for a few years and says he has pulled out potatoes the size of ball caps.

I also got a call from Temple Baptist Church today and will be preaching the Mother's Day service this Sunday for them. The worship Pastor, Mike Deibert, also wouldn't mind if people from his church came and helped us in our church plant because he wants to see the Kingdom grow in Medicine Hat.

Dwight, Brooks, Medcine Hat and Elk Water

We had a great time with Dwight yesterday. We prayer walked my community - The Flats, Crescent Heights, and Elk Water. On our way to Elk Water I was telling Dwight that there are a few thousand Sudanese in Brooks. Most of them work at the meat packing plant. He knew of the Sudanese community in Brooks and wants to help me get a Swahili Bible Study going - I don't even speak Swahili! Tim G. is on Dwight's staff, and he was IMB in Africa for many many years, and speaks Swahili fluently. He has some contacts in Brooks where I may be able to start a Bible study. I can start it with his help and facilitate as we pray for a Swahili pastor. So please pray for that situation.

We went to Elk Water, and the wild turkey's were out. Dwight was out there calling the wild turkeys and having them strut by the car. They were huge birds. There are well over 250 houses in Elk Water, but only 40 people that live there year round since it is a cottage community inside Cypress Hills Inter provincial Park; however the amount of full time residents doubled this year from just over 20 last year. Grangerland First Baptist Church from Grangerland, TX has adopted Elk Water and wants to serve the community the way West Rome Baptist Church has served Medicine Hat for the past four years.

I have one more semester left before I graduate - only 3 classes. The cool thing is they are all freshman classes too, so I can take them at Medicine Hat College next semester. I was away from my degree plan for over 3 years so it changed on me, for the better. When I started my degree, it was not accredidated, but now it is. There is no official Baptist work at Medicine Hat College, so as a student I have full rights to start something there. Dwight told me there may be funding availble for me through the Convention if I started a Baptist work in the College.

I just want to thank Dwight and the CCSB for the tangilbe gift they gave us yesterday.

Ozzy, Romans, and Prayer Walking

When I became a Christian 13 years ago, somebody told me to pick up My Utmost For His Highest, so I did - and guess what - I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. He was just too deep for me to understand as such a young Christian; however, this week I have been picking him up again and now his writings seem so elementary. I am very impressed that his Scripture reading came from the Moffatt Translation. The Moffatt Translation was equivalent to the Message in the early twentieth century.

As we go about starting Pathway, I must remember that there was a time when I didn't understand Mr. Chambers - he was just too deep, and that I should keep the Bible Studies pretty basic for right now.

I am going through Romans right now. It has been a while since I studied Romans, and the book has become even more profound now since I just finished my Joshua course. The main things I have learned from Romans in the past two days is that when I live by faith, I am really living out truth, it is possible to know God and still not honour Him as God of my life (which can be a daily struggle for me), and that calling oneself a Christian by creed alone does not qualify one as being a Christian, but rather by living out the commands of Christ (love God with every bit of my being, and love others as myself).

So, today I will be out with Dwight Huffman from the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists and we will be prayer walking the city, meeting lost people and the such. Pray that I would not live for myself, but rather live out God's commands and that I would not be starting a church for Jason's ego, but rather letting Christ build His kingdom through us.

Also, I am so proud of my wife. I know she will read this, so I want to make it known publicly how much I love her and respect her; she is a great wife and mother. We only saw each other 3 times before we were married, and we have been married for six years on May 18. She was very shy when we married, and I have seen her heart change to reach the lost. She can strike up conversations with lost women and get them interested in Jesus.

My wife makes me the best breakfasts, and I am starting to get a tummy again. Baby, I love you.