Carrie Underwood felt the sting recently of tweets that took shots at her recent Sound of Music Live performance.
 
She replied curtly: "Plain and simple: Mean people need Jesus. They will be in my prayers tonight... 1 Peter 2:1-25"

It seems to be a trend in modern social media society for people to trash others publically. It seems that some feel secure in the protection of their own living rooms, or in their mother's basement, to bully and pick on others.

I preached my first sermon yesterday since the stroke in July. I spoke in the Evangelical Free Church in Aschaffenburg - the date had been set up early in the year prior to the stroke. The church had heard about my condition, prayed for my welfare and requested an update on my condition. So I briefed the church about being in the Uniklinik in Frankfurt. It is always a joy to relate how God has performed a miracle and touched my recovery - beyond all expectations. 

 
Following the sermon, a woman dressed in yellow stood before me (not in scrubs, but in a nice yellow outfit)to thank me for bragging on Jesus. She stated, "everything you said is true I am the nurse that monitored your vital signs during you surgery - I remember you clearly. It is good to see someone so sick standing, talking articulately following such a damaging stroke. We would not have expected this, seeing what we saw on that day."
 
It brought tears to my eyes to be able to thank one of the team that labored so valiantly to save my life, and to encourage her - her work has paid rich dividends.
 
What a joy to be able to express gratitude and invite her to pass it on to the rest of the team - Jesus has done so much. Praise His name. I am so amazed how He arranges such meetings. Way beyond anything I could ever imagine. God is amazing!

We have changed. Again.

We have always been committed to small group studies. In my lifetime they have been called different terms:

  • Sunday School
  • Home groups
  • House studies

When a few of your heroes in your field desire to get together and you have the chance to hang out with them, you jump at the opportunity.

That is how I feel about Tim and Barbara Downs, and as well about Bob and Judi Hines. Tim and Barbara have spent decades in Africa, have planted scores of churches, have weathered civil wars, are seasoned in cross-cultural ministry and have just chosen to allow us to be their friends.

1500 square feet of newly renovated office space is now the new home of a church plant in Alytus, Lithuania - a former Russian satellite state in the Baltics. This is the second home for the church body, which has already had a high attendance over 60.

Orphaned at 18 with the sole responsibility of caring for his kid sixteen year old sister, Marian Kozak was adrift and alone. At 19 years of age he would be adopted ... into the family of God, because a missionary had been commissioned and sent.