West Texas Missioner: July 2015

Friday, July 31, 2015

From ServLife International: "Faithful Resolve"

ServLife International is a movement defined by values of God’s kingdom, not programs built around human efforts and activities. The reign and rule of God should be made apparent to every person on the planet, despite their religion, race or socioeconomic status. We believe that issues of justice are inseparable from the good news that Jesus Christ came to proclaim. ServLife exists to take the gospel of Christ and the hope of a better, more just, world to the lives of people we touch. This happens through individual contributions of time, creativity, resources and dreams.

Faithful Resolve ...
In Romans 8:6 Paul writes, “Focus the mind on the flesh, and you’ll die; but focus it on the spirit, and you’ll have life, and peace.” I don’t know about you, but that is so hard for me. I am easily distracted by the physical world and can miss the transcendent realities of the spiritual realm. I’ve been reading the story of Joseph near the end of Genesis, and have been struck by his endurance. His resolve was rooted in spiritual realities while his physical condition plummeted and ascended. This resolve and faithfulness ended up blessing not just Joseph but those around him both near and far.

In India and Nepal there are physical challenges and victories for sure. A church building is destroyed in an earthquake. The pastor of the same church helps provide temporary housing for all 44 families in his village. A child loses their parents. The child is rescued and brought into a new home and family. A mother of four loses her husband and his source of income. She is given a small loan for a sewing machine and is able to provide for her family. Despite the insecurities of the unpredictable physical world, Jesus still comes to the rescue. And He is using you and me and others to accomplish His work.

Thank you for your faithful resolve to support pastors, children and families in India and Nepal. God is using it to propel His hope, life and peace.

May we focus on the spirit and walk in step with the Holy Spirit. May God grant us abundant life and peace, and may we be a blessing of life and peace to others. Ame

Thank you,

Adam Nevins

From Adam Nevins
Executive Director
ServLife International Inc.

Join Our Mission

ServLife International propels reconciliation and justice by building global community to plant churches, care for children and fight poverty. Compelled by the message, life and love of Jesus Christ, we seek to care for the spiritual, physical, social, and economic areas of life in northern India and Nepal. Learn more about our latest news, featured stories, and how to get involved at servlife.org


Support a Pastor Our church planters spread the love of Christ in some of the most difficult environments in the world. • Support Them ...	Sponsor a Child For only $30 per month you can help give a child food, education, care and, most importantly, hope. • Sponsor Now ...	Fight Poverty The HOPE Fund, our micro-finance program, provides start-up funds for a small business, paving a way out of poverty for families in need. • Learn More ...

ServLife International, Inc.
P.O. Box 20596
Indianapolis, IN 46220
USA

From @FWMission ... Friday Story: "12th Annual Miracle of Mobility"

COMING THIS FALL ... double-down with Free Wheelchair Mission and 1st Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas. Turning 1 wheelchair into 2, then 4!
Details to come in the weeks ahead.

Founded in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission

is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to providing wheelchairs for the impoverished disabled in developing nations. Headquartered in Irvine, California, FWM works around the world in partnership with a vast network of humanitarian, faith-based and government organizations, sending wheelchairs to hundreds of thousands of disabled people, providing not only the gift of mobility, but of dignity, independence, and hope.

Friday Story: "12th Annual Miracle of Mobility"

Greetings, and Happy Friday!

As many of you know, Thursday was our annual Miracle of Mobility event. As Founder and President of Free Wheelchair Mission, I have had the pleasure of watching this event grow over the last 12 years. This year, thanks to you, I am humbled and honored to share that we far exceeded our original goal of 14,702 wheelchairs. Through your generosity, we raised $1,623,030.80 which equates to 20,832 lives transformed. What an incredible accomplishment!

There were many memorable moments ...

• read the rest of this story ...

Want to take one of these wheelchairs for a test drive? During normal business hours, visit the lobby at the Texas Street entrance of First Presbyterian Church-Midland, at the northwest corner of Texas and A streets, on the west side of downtown Midland. You can give the gift of mobility. The cost of $72.00 is a bargain to us ... but it is a life-changing gift to impoverished and disabled recipients ... and there are times when your contribution will be matched, reaching not one - but TWO, and sometimes FOUR recipients. Please note on your check "Wheelchair Gift."

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On the attractiveness of real holiness (Lewis mentions his spiritual director, Father Adams); and on the follies, miseries, and temptations of being a young, single adult.

1 August 1953

I am so glad you gave me an account of the lovely priest. How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing (and perhaps, like you, I have met it only once), it is irresistible. If even 10% of the world’s population had it, would not the whole world be converted and happy before a year’s end?

Yes, I too think there is lots to be said for being no longer young: and I do most heartily agree that it is just as well to be past the age when one expects or desires to attract the other sex. It’s natural enough in our species, as in others, that the young birds should show off their plumage—in the mating season. But the trouble in the modern world is that there’s a tendency to rush all the birds on to that age as soon as possible and then keep them there as late as possible, thus losing all the real value of the other parts of life in a senseless, pitiful attempt to prolong what, after all, is neither its wisest, its happiest, or most innocent period. I suspect merely commercial motives are behind it all: for it is at the showing-off age that birds of both sexes have least sales resistance!

• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
• Compiled in Yours, Jack

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer. How often have you wondered, where are the young adults in the PC(USA)? Wonder no longer. The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is devoted to the theme of young adults in the church. Its stories, many told by young adults, lift up how Presbyterians of all ages are engaging and joining with Presbyterian young adults in reforming the church for Christ’s mission.

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 31, 2015

PRESBYTERY OF SOUTH ALABAMA - In recent years, worship and small-group Bible study have become the focus and starting point of our presbytery meetings, setting all formal presbytery business in its proper frame.

At our February 2014 meeting, 1001 associate Vera White spoke to the presbytery about this exciting initiative to support new worshiping communities springing up across the church. Other recent speakers included Ray Jones and David Loleng from the PC(USA) office of Evangelism, who addressed the presbytery in lift up the central themes of discipleship and mission ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

"Stuff the Bus" wraps-up THIS WEEKEND at FPC-Midland

The 2015 edition of the "Stuff the Bus" School Supply Drive is going on NOW at First Presbyterian Church-Midland. FPC-Midland is located on the northwest corner of Texas Avenue and A Street, on the west side of downtown Midland, and you can enter from Texas Avenue, or from Illinois Avenue (we're across the street from Midland High School).

Please pack something from the items on the list below into a backpack, and drop the backpack off at the "bus" in the church library, next to the elevator and gymnasium entrance.

• Boxes of Kleenex                          • Crayons
• Bottle of Hand Sanitizer                • Colored Pencils
• Composition Notebooks                • Pencil-Top Erasers
• Glue (Bottles and/or Sticks)          • Scissors
• 3" x 5" Index Cards                       • No. 2 Pencils
• Folders with Pockets and Brads   • Binders (1", 1.5", 2")
• Pink Erasers                                 • Watercolors
• Highlighters                                  • Plastic Pencil Boxes
• Wide-Ruled Spiral Notebooks      • Pens (Black, Blue and Red)
• Wide-Ruled Notebook Paper       • Pencil Bags
• Dividers                                        • Markers
• Plastic Rulers

Thanks!

In the News ... "Car Show Outreach for Midland Church"

KMID Photo

• Inspire people to get out, enjoy fellowship, enjoy each others company

Tyler Woessner, Reporter
KMID-TV

MIDLAND, TEXAS - The Real Saturday Night Live is an outreach ministry hosted by Alamo Heights Baptist Church in Midland one Saturday each month.

This month, they had a car show and as always, there was a free meal as well. The point is to just reach out to the community and enjoy some fellowship and good times with the people ...

• read the rest of this KMID report

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

On marriage.

Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I’m afraid even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.

• From A Horse and His Boy
• Compiled in Words to Live By

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 30, 2015

PRESBYTERY OF SHEPPARDS AND LAPSLEY, ALABAMA - This is a story about faith that, though as small as a mustard seed, nevertheless moved mountains. It spans decades and generations ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Day's first light ...

... breaks over the horizon and shines on the Midland College campus just as I am arriving for work.

"For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm."

Edwin Way Teale

In the News ... "After head injury, man spends sleepless nights painting Bible verses"

• A pane of glass for each verse of the first chapter of Genesis

Tumbleweed Smith, Columnist
Midland Reporter-Telegram

DUBLIN, TEXAS - When David Scott of Dublin was working for a school he had an accident that caused a head injury. He became disabled and was spending time at home. He had trouble sleeping and would have bad dreams, visions and occasionally heard voices.

“A doctor told me I was having post concussion syndrome, which means you will have weird dreams and you might hear voices,” he said.

He didn’t say anything to his wife because he was afraid she would think he was having mental problems. During one of his sleepless nights he got out of bed, went to his shop and put his head down on his table. His Bible was nearby ...

• read the rest of this column

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Screwtape reveals Hell’s intentions for human marriage:

The Enemy’s demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father’s first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them. The latter, for the last few centuries, we have been closing up as a way of escape. We have done this through the poets and novelists by persuading the humans that a curious, and usually shortlived, experience which they call ‘being in love’ is the only respectable ground for marriage; that marriage can, and ought to, render this excitement permanent; and that a marriage which does not do so is no longer binding.

This idea is our parody of an idea that came from the Enemy. The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by absorbing them. A self does the same. With beasts the absorption takes the form of eating; for us, it means the sucking of will and freedom out of a weaker self into astronger. ‘To be’ means ‘to be in competition’.

• From The Screwtape Letters
• Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 29, 2015

NORTH ALABAMA PRESBYTERY - In June of 2013, Marie Marlin, a ruling elder for New Market Presbyterian Church, posted a note on the congregation’s Facebook page. According to the school nurse at New Market School, Marie said, “Some of the young children do not have underclothing, or what they have is too small or ragged to wear. They also frequently need dry changes of underwear for the younger set and are generally stranded when this happens” ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Mercy Trips Summer Outreach: "Arrived Uganda"

Partnering with local healthcare workers and churches in medically underserved countries, Odessa, Texas-based Mercy Trips Healthcare Outreach provides free medical clinics and surgical care as an outreach of Christian love for our fellow man.

Arrived Uganda ...

The team has made it to Uganda and is getting ready to bed down for the night at the Speke Hotel. All team members and all bags accounted for. Thank you for your continued prayers for our team. ---- Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Jake Mahone family, Jake has been in Uganda for the past 3 weeks ahead of the team and was to be our second surgeon for the team. He lost a family member and has had to return home to be with his family.

The team getting ready to go through customs with our bags.

Van pic, on the road in Uganda.

Famous Chinese restaurant stop in Jinja - on the road to Mbale.

• visit Mercy Trips' Facebook page

Mercy Trips Healthcare Outreach
P.O. Box 13795
Odessa, TX 79768

In the News ... "1st Baptist hosts foreign students"

FSP Photo

• Began hosting the students in 2007

Whitney Acosta, Reporter
Fort Stockton Pioneer

FORT STOCKTON, TEXAS - More than a hundred exchange students stayed at the First Response Ministries shelter earlier this month. The students, from many different countries, are on a 30-day tour of the U.S. that Rotary International offers to those who complete a year residency.

The students arrived in Fort Stockton on the 10th day of their tour, which started in New York City. Hosts gave a warm welcome with hamburgers, hotdogs watermelon, chips and drinks at Rooney Park, followed by a swim in the Comanche Springs Pool.

Fort Stockton has been a stop on the tour for many years. First Baptist Church began hosting the students in the emergency shelter in 2007 when an oilfield boom filled local motels ...

• read the rest of this FSP report

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

On confession.

I think our official view of confession can be seen in the form for the Visitation of the Sick where it says “Then shall the sick person be moved (i.e., advised, prompted) to make a . . . Confession . . . if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter.” That is, where Rome makes Confession compulsory for all, we make it permissible for any: not “generally necessary” but profitable. We do not doubt that there can be forgiveness without it. But, as your own experience shows, many people do not feel forgiven, i.e., do not effectively “believe in the forgiveness of sins,” without it. The quite enormous advantage of coming really to believe in forgiveness is well worth the horrors (I agree, they are horrors) of a first confession.

Also, there is the gain in self-knowledge: most of [us] have never really faced the facts about ourselves until we uttered them aloud in plain words, calling a spade a spade. I certainly feel I have profited enormously by the practice. At the same time I think we are quite right not to make it generally obligatory, which wd. force it on some who are not ready for it and might do harm.

• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
• Compiled in Words to Live By

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 28, 2015

PRESBYTERY OF MISSISSIPPI - Over the last two years, we at Westminster Presbyterian in Hattiesburg have been on the receiving end of grace, blessings, and love. In February 2013 an F4 tornado ripped through our city, leaving an 80-mile swath of destruction. It demolished half of our 60-year-old church building and completely destroyed three homes on our campus. Our congregation, which has itself been active in mission across the United States and abroad, now found itself in a place of need ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Monday, July 27, 2015

From ChinaAid: "Two legal training sessions successfully concluded in Henan"

The China Aid Association is a non-profit Christian organization - based in Midland, Texas - with a mission to uncover and reveal the truth about religious persecution in China, focusing especially on the unofficial church. They do this, they explain in their website, by exposing the abuses, encouraging the abused and equipping the saints to advance the kingdom of God throughout China.

Two legal training sessions successfully concluded in Henan
Distributed by ChinaAid, June, 2015 ...

ZHUMADIAN, HENAN, CHINA – Two sessions of the Chinese Christian Faith and Legal Training Camp, founded by Bo Ai, were recently conducted in China’s central Henan province. Bo reported that he conducted a three-day training session in Biyang County, in the city of Zhumadian, on June 9-11 ...

• more on this story from China Aid

LAST WEEK for "Stuff the Bus" at FPC-Midland

Thanks!

In the News ... "Alamo Heights' new pastor follows ‘strange journey’ to West Texas"

MRT Photo

• Church members hope to see the congregation grow with the new pastor

By Megan Lea Buck, Reporter
Midland Reporter-Telegram

MIDLAND, TEXAS - Ask Robert Murphy, new pastor at Alamo Heights Baptist Church, what his goals for the church are and he’ll give a candid answer.

“I obviously have what any pastor would have as an idea — I’d like to see all the pews being full and lots of lives changed,” he said. “I’d love to see that, but really the main thing that I want to do is what God’s got in store for this church.”

Murphy’s trust in God brought him from his native northwestern Arkansas to the west Midland church. He wasn’t looking to leave the small church he was leading near Fayetteville when he started seeing signs that convinced him God had other plans ...

• read the rest of this MRT report

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also, forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. They keep on replying, “But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise.” Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enoug.

• From The Weight of Glory
• Compiled in A Year of C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 27, 2015

PRESBYTERY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE - The Nueva Vida Hispanic Presbyterian new church development (NCD) in Nashville began its ministry in January 2013. Meeting three simple but crucial needs of the Latino community—language training, child care, and fellowship—has been the foundation of our ministry ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

This morning at 1st Prez

This morning's early service at 1st Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas included a musical offering ... "Arm, Arm, Ye Brave" from Judas Maccabeus by George Frideric Handel, performed by baritone Bryan Wilson and accompanist Laura Brown.

I feel, I feel the deity within,
Who, the bright cherubim between,
His radiant glory erst display'd;
To Israel's distressful pray'r
He hath vouchsafe'd a gracious ear,
And points out Maccabaeus to their aid:
Judas shall set the captive free,
And lead us all to victory.

Arm, arm, ye brave! A noble cause,
The cause of Heav'n your zeal demands.
In defence of your nation, religion, and laws,
The Almighty Jehovah will strengthen your hands.

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On rejoicing over answered prayer; and on our prayers being God’s prayers.

6 November 1953

Oh I am glad, I am glad. And here’s a thing worth recording. Of course I have been praying for you daily, as always, but latterly have found myself doing so with much more concern and especially about 2 nights ago, with such a strong feeling how very nice it would be, if God willed, to get a letter from you with good news. And then, as if by magic (indeed it is the whitest magic in the world) the letter comes to-day. Not (lest I should indulge in folly) that your relief had not in fact occurred before my prayer, but as if, in tenderness for my puny faith, God moved me to pray with especial earnestness just be- fore He was going to give me the thing. How true that our prayers are really His prayers: He speaks to Himself through us.

I am also most moved at hearing how you were supported through the period of anxiety. For one is sometimes tempted to think that if He wanted us to be as un-anxious as the lilies of the field He really might have given us a constitution more like theirs! But then when the need comes He carries out in us His otherwise impossible instructions. In fact He always has to do all the things—all the prayers, all the virtues. No new doctrine, but newly come home to me.

• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
• Compiled in Yours, Jack

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 26, 2015

MINUTE FOR MISSION: METROPOLITAN/URBAN MINISTRY - “Hey, mister, can I have one of those hot dogs? Are they free? Can I have more than one? Why are you giving all this food away? What’s your name? Can I help you cook?” Such was the barrage of questions from my new young friend, Trell, at our church’s annual Big Lunch event. You see, here in Rochester, New York, we take the actions of Jesus as seriously as his words. On several occasions, Jesus fed hungry people. So every summer on the first weekend in June, each of the 10 congregations in the consortium we call Urban Presbyterians Together invites its neighbors over for free food, fellowship, and fun ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

We say a great many things in church (and out of church too) without thinking of what we are saying. For instance, we say in the Creed “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” I had been saying it for several years before I asked myself why it was in the Creed. At first sight it seems hardly worth putting in. “If one is a Christian,” I thought, “of course one believes in the forgiveness of sins. It goes without saying.” But the people who compiled the Creed apparently thought that this was a part of our belief which we needed to be reminded of every time we went to church. And I have begun to see that, as far as I am concerned, they were right. To believe in the forgiveness of sins is not nearly so easy as I thought. Real belief in it is the sort of thing that very easily slips away if we don’t keep on polishing it up.

We believe that God forgives us our sins; but also that He will not do so unless we forgive other people their sins against us. There is no doubt about the second part of this statement. It is in the Lord’s Prayer; was emphatically stated by our Lord. If you don’t forgive you will not be forgiven. No part of His teaching is clearer, and there are no exceptions to it. He doesn’t say that we are to forgive other people’s sins provided they are not too frightful, or provided there are extenuating circumstances, or anything of that sort. We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don’t, we shall be forgiven none of our own.

• From The Weight of Glory
• Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Today in the Mission Yearbook: July 25, 2015

PRESBYTERY OF THE MID-SOUTH, TENNESSEE/ARKANSAS/MISSOURI - UKirk Memphis is a new manifestation of campus ministry at the University of Memphis. Energy, passion, and joy are palpable as our college students gather for weekly Bible study and prayer. Through that study and prayer, the students became interested in giving back to churches that had supported them. So they began leading worship at nearby Buntyn Presbyterian Church, which encouraged them to create a new worship service on campus. ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Friday, July 24, 2015

From ServLife International: "Long Road"

Long Road ...

Your contributions are making a significant difference in Nepal. Having just returned from there I know firsthand the value of the relief efforts you’re supporting through ServLife. So, I want to let you know how deeply appreciated you are by our partners in Nepal and the team here at ServLife International ...

Read the rest of this story ...

Thank you,

Adam Nevins

From Adam Nevins
Executive Director
ServLife International Inc.


Support a Pastor Our church planters spread the love of Christ in some of the most difficult environments in the world. • Support Them ...	Sponsor a Child For only $30 per month you can help give a child food, education, care and, most importantly, hope. • Sponsor Now ...	Fight Poverty The HOPE Fund, our micro-finance program, provides start-up funds for a small business, paving a way out of poverty for families in need. • Learn More ...

ServLife International, Inc.
P.O. Box 20596
Indianapolis, IN 46220
USA

From @FWMission ... Friday Story: "Song of a Wheelchair"

Founded in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission

Friday Story: "Song of a Wheelchair"

Greetings, and Happy Friday!

Last week we received a poem from our partner in China, titled “Song of a Wheelchair.” It was written by a young woman, who received her very own GEN_1 wheelchair this past March. We were all so touched by her story and the beautiful poem, I had to share it with all of you. Here is what she wrote ...

• read the rest of this story ...