Ministry Update - November 16, 2011

Kevin witnessing to a soldier on Fort Hood!

It’s been a great time here on the west coast!  We continue to go to bases here, seeing what’s being done to reach the military.  Right now we’re close to Edwards AFB, which is huge land-wise, but has a very small military population.  One of our goals here is to see what is going on to reach the base.  It’s been our blessing to know that Lancaster Baptist Church is doing a tremendous job helping the airmen and women there.

Most people who are missionaries to the military either seek to start a church near a military base, pastor a church near a military base, or help a church near a base.  These folks go to the field and do the work the Lord has for them in their particular sphere of influence. 

The Lord has chosen a bit of a different route for us.  Our desire is to start churches near military bases that need a church, and to help people in existing churches reach their local bases if there is not outreach.  We have started three churches so far, two of them “military” churches – churches by a military base.  Seeing the need to help already existing churches develop effective outreaches to their local military bases, we felt the Lord tapping us for Operation Naaman: Navy, Army, Air Force Marines Action Network.

In Operation Naaman, we use our credentials in working with the military for the past 19 years and endorse Biblically sound individuals located by military bases and help them establish ministries on the base.  My husband has developed a network of connections with commanders, chaplains, and officers who are willing to help us be a blessing to our nation’s military.   

Soon we’ll be heading to Fallbrook, CA, where we will be conducting Operation Naaman by invitation, to help some folks develop an outreach to the Marines.  We were there about eight years ago and had four Bible studies on the base.  Of course, a lot has changed since then, and now there’s a whole new crop of Marines who need the Lord.  Pray that the Lord will open doors for us and our workers to establish a ministry there.

My husband’s health seems to be getting to be more of an issue.  Please keep him in prayer as we enter the winter – and illness – season.  Thank you all for your prayers!

10 Tips for Saving Money During the Holidays

"I'll be green for Christmas..."

Well, Hell-oween is over, and as soon as the “holiday” was over, the stores quickly shifted their products and put the helloween stuff on clearance and made room for Christmas items!

I don’t know about you, but when I looked around at the stores this week and noticed all the Christmas decoration, products, and gifts, I thought to myself, This is amazing!  There’s hardly a mention of Thanksgiving; these people go right from Halloween to Christmas!  That makes the Christmas season two months long!!

Yes, that’s right, folks…two months long!  That’s an incredibly long holiday season! 

That means that we may be in the stores, see the decorations, hear the music, and want to buy something because, after all, “it’s the Holidays!”  Then, as Christmas get closer, we feel that we have to buy something, because it’s Christmas!  So, in reality, we may be spending twice as much money as we normally would!

And I think the merchants really like that.

However, most of us don’t have as much money as the sand of the seashore, so we need to be careful about our expenses.  Of course, being good stewards of what God has given us requires of to be careful.

So how can you save some money this Holiday season?  Well, I’ll tell you some of the things I do.

1.       Remember that the Holidays are not about money, but about celebrating the birth of the Lord Jesus.  His wonderful gift to us is what we appreciate, and we give to others because we have been so freely given to.  So, really, it’s ok not to spend yourself into oblivion and put yourself into debt until March; give out of what you have, not what you don’t have.  And enjoy the Lord and your family.

2.      Keep in mind that moderation is best in all these areas.  Just as it’s not good to indulge your taste buds constantly, you don’t need to go hog-wild over décor.  Use what you have.

3.      Thrift stores are GREAT places for decorations!  My daughter Kathryn is a professional thrift store shopper (not really, but it sounds good!), and she is also a tremendous decorator.  She tells me that she gets all her décor – I mean ALL – at her local thrift stores.  There’s a certain joy when you find something nice for an excellent price.

4.       Be moderate with baking.  Remember there will be a ton of sweets during this time of year; you don’t need to add to it by making another ton.  Enjoy Thanksgiving pies and cookies, and Christmas candy, but do not enjoy them for the next two months, or you will wear them!

5.       Plan carefully before you buy your presents.  Taking a little bit of time every day to think about what to get for who may save you a LOT of money.

6.      Shop around!   Once you decide what to get for who, look for a good buy on that item.  Stores make the most money on impulse buys; don’t let it be money out of your pocket.

7.       Shop online, either on Ebay, Craigslist, or Amazon.  You can avoid almost all impulse buys by simply not going into the store!  

8.      Save money on postage by using drop-shipping.  I have learned that many companies will wrap items for you and send them directly to your recipient, keeping you from having to pay postage twice!  Postage can be a major killer if you have family you like to send things to, like me!  Also, since storage space for presents is an issue, I like to have things sent directly.  It has saved me a lot of hassle in my Holidays!

9.       Visit some thrifty sites, like Money Saving Mom, or Living on a Dime.  These places can save you boodles of money by giving you a heads-up on great sales and posting useful coupons, etc.  Even when it’s not a Holiday, these sites are very helpful!

10.   Make your own home into a Holiday Haven.  A few candles, soft music, and clear counters go a long way to making your place a Happy Holiday House, if not a hint of Holiday Heaven!  Not only will you and your family enjoy the holidays more by enjoying your own home more, it can also save you money - you can curb the itch to run around if your home is happy and pleasant.  

Enjoy your Holidays, dear ones, and keep the debt monster out of your purse!

Rolling on toward Jesus’ birthday… 

The Man I Never Knew...

“Don’t you worry about me, Mom, I’ll be back,” Eddie smiled at his mother and straightened – actually, tilted – his lieutenant’s cap while his mother and little sister looked on.  His mother frowned, knowing that her firstborn son was headed back out to war, even if he did call it “a cushy job.”  It was all the same to her – war.

Giving his mother a kiss and his sister a playful squeeze, Eddie strode out the door, letting the screen slam behind him.  His mother winced at the ominous sound, and she bit her trembling lip.

Yes, his navigator’s job on the PBY was a cushy job, compared to flying the Burma-India hump.  He had many missions over the hump, and had just finished a brief time of leave to visit his family before he headed out to the Pacific.  This time, he was navigating a plane to rescue downed pilots.

He arrived in Iwo Jima in July and quickly set up camp.  Soon, he wrote a letter home, “The sand here is black, but fine.  Our tents are on the top of one of the mountains overlooking the airstrip.”  Again, he reassured his mother, “don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine.”

When Eddie and his crew reported for duty the 13^th of August, they received word that a pilot had gone down in the Sea of Japan.  Within minutes, their unarmed PBY and their two escort P-51s were in the air, headed for the coordinates they had been given.

What happened next has been the subject of conjecture for the past fifty years.  It is a known fact that the PBY found no pilot or wreckage in the area they were told to go to; the escort planes must have gone ahead in search of him, thinking perhaps they had been given incorrect information.  Regardless of what happened, by the time they got back to the PBY, it was down, sinking quickly, and surrounded by burning fuel.

Eddie was never coming home.

Word reached his sister and parents not long after the war was over.  Usually a very reserved and quiet man, Eddie’s father immediately went down to the basement in hopes that no one would hear his loud sobs.  His mother went right to her room, while his sister stood frozen in the kitchen.  The wails, sobs, and cries coming from the basement pierced her soul.  She would never be the same again, and neither would her parents.

This story was told to me personally by the young girl, who is my mother.  Eddie is the uncle I never knew.  Her brother, Eddie, was shot down only two days before the war was over, and it affected her – all of us - the rest of our lives.

Eddie never got to finish his engineering degree at Purdue University.  He never got to rub noses with his own baby.  Once he went overseas, he never again got to enjoy American soil.  He gave all so we could be free.

To those who have given so much for our country, I know that “Thank you” could never really be enough, but it is still spoken with a heartfelt gratitude and reverence for your sacrifice. 

To all veterans and their families….thank you.

Orange Dreams

What a cute little place!

The other day, a dear fellow took us out to lunch at this cute little place in the fruit growing region of The Orange Works is a converted orange packing place amidst acres and acres of orange groves.  It's a really beautiful restaurant that is only open from 11am to 4pm - just a lunch place - with a very sparse  but delicious sandwich menu.  Most of us ordered the tri-tip sandwich, a slow-roasted marinated beef on a monster bun!  The specialty garlic sauce brought out the flavor of the meat, and the meal came with a bag of chips, a soda, and their daily special flavor ice cream.  That day just happened to be orange or lemon ice cream, so I chose the orange.  It was just like an orange dreamsicle, with a little bit of pulp!  Yum!

Now I'm hungry again!

May your blessings outweigh your burdens, and your burdens be rolled onto Jesus, dear ones!

When You Are Tired...

This is the way I feel sometimes!

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

-Sir Winston Churchill

Rest when you need to, but never lose your vigilance on the home front.  Keep rolling on for Jesus, dear ones!

The Human Icicle

This is nothin' compared to how I felt this morning!!

Just in case you think life on the road is all peaches ‘n cream, allow me to lay that myth to rest.  One way in which living in a converted bus is different than living in a home is plainly obvious in the shower.

To start with, all of our plumbing is under the floor of the bus, and that means it is neither heated nor cooled.  It is merely outdoor temperature.  Our water heater can only heat the shower water so many degrees warmer than the water going into it.  So, that makes the shower frustratingly hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. 

Today, another dynamic was added: having to greatly conserve water because we’re running on the tank.  Now, our onboard tank hold 100 gallons of water, which gets us through a whole day’s worth of showers for 6 people plus one load of laundry.  That’s not bad.  And that usually works fine until we get to our destination where we can hook up to a water source…unless something happens and we don’t make it to our destination, like last night.

Everything was going fine until my husband, Iron Stomach Raub, got sick…terribly sick.  The odd thing is, in all the years I’ve known him (which is about thirty-three!) he’s NEVER gotten sick like that.  He’s gotten sick in other ways, but not stomach sick.  Unfortunately, he’s the only driver of this mess, and so we didn’t make it to our destination.  Instead, we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot.

That means that the water which was slated to last for a day has to last for an undetermined amount of time.

But, back to the shower.

 

This morning, I had to take a shower that used about 1 to 2 gallons of water. 

But to complicate matters, it was cold last night, about 31 degrees.  And our shower room has no heat.

 

I estimate my water temperature to be about 50-60 degrees, and the shower room air temperature to be about the same, but the floor of the shower room was about 40 degrees.  Add to that, the fact the condensation builds up inside the rooftop vent (35 degrees) and drips down on my back (no longer 98.6 degrees) because there’s only 2 feet worth of space in the shower room.  Yikes!

I think I was an icicle when I got out.  

But I succeeded in only using my allotted amount of water!

Hopefully, My Beloved will be better soon…(like, in the next few hours??) and we can roll along.

They may look innocent, but...

See that cement post on the left?  It's not as innocent as it seems!

We got hung up today trying to get the bus into a tight spot to get fuel on our way out of town.  We didn't know the cement post was there until we ran into it, but run into it we did!  I thought it was funny how about half a dozen men came out of nowhere, swarmed around and offered their opinions about what to do.  It was quite a scene; I imagine it probably made some of those guys' day to help us out.  (Excitement is hard to come by in Albany!)  Thankfully, with prayer and a lot of fancy maneuvering on my husband's part, and we were on our way again.  It'll take some buffing to get the blue scrape marks off the side of the bus, but it should come out.


Off we go to Southern California!


Keep rolling on for Jesus, dear ones!