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As it is shared in Revelation 7, vs. 9 & 10, "After these things I looked, and behold a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, wth palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
There have been many times when I have read these words and meditated on what a beautiful picture and time this will be. Every tongue, every tribe and every nation., robed in white, kneeling before the throne.
Then I contrast this vision to things I experience in my daily life. Here's an example. I am the person at SWI who writes and posts the majority of the news articles to our website. And while I was recently working on the website, cleaning it up a bit, I had the opportunity to look over the articles that had been written over the past 3 years. It revealed one horrid story after another. One story of pain and suffering after another. Horrid persecutions befalling Christians and their precious families. Unnecessary wars that continue year after year to kill precious people without an end in sight. And if all that weren't enough, there's been disaster after disaster demonstrating the unseen power that lies hidden in the world in which we live. This brought me to a very somber place, where I cried out to the Lord, "Why? Why must these things happen? Why must these things plague Your people Lord?"
While I don't know the answers to these questions, I do hold onto the authority of scripture and I do believe that people from every nation will indeed be robed in white and be present before the throne of God. But, I must admit that when I look at the world in which we live, I have huge unending questions as to how this will come to be.
Thankfully, I have God to clutch onto and it is only in Him that I can completely trust that His will will come to fruition.
Help us Lord in our failings.........and meanwhile, please strengthen us to minister to these suffering souls.-MORE-
Here is a recent email we received from one of the people from Kenya:
"Morning, my name is DANIEL M. from Kabazi village in NAKURU DISTRICT, KENYA, where you and your team from U.S.A came visiting us the internally displaced people, following last year general elections. We want to thank you and the team for the coming for our aid when we had given up,
Me and my dad are especially thank full for the Swahili bible you gave dad and wrote your name on it,we read it everyday and it encourages us,am 32years now,but when we lost all we had, life dint have meaning anymore. But the more we read it the more life makes sence. My parents don't understand English, but were amazed by your love, U.S.A. is far away, and you made sacrifices and came , even on those dangerous times.
We are thankfull as family, and we may send a photo and well come you as our guest, but after we get somewhere to live.
thanks again and we Hope to hear from you again. "
Daniel
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Serving with SWI has been such a blessing in my life. I thank my Heavenly Father for this amazing opportunity and simply marvel in the reality of His love and grace in choosing ME out of millions of people to intern for SWI.
I can not tell you how many TRUE friendships I have made here nor how many times the Lord has used one of my dear bothers or sisters to minister to my heart. SWI is one big family. I am never alone. If I need something someone is always there to help, talk, and pray for me. I am not afraid to be true and honest about myself, my struggles, my faults, and my praise for what God has done. I am cherished and respected as a child of God. Being trusted and appreciated constantly makes me want to work harder to earn my place here, and whatever I do, I do it for my Lord.
I have always had a heart for mission work and kept praying that God would make His will 150% clear to me. I honestly don't feel that I deserve this blessing in any way at all, but God brought me here for a reason. He opened all the doors for me to be able to come so I know for a fact that this is where I am supposed to be... and being in His will is the only place I want to be.
As I am waiting for God to show me His plan for my future with SWI, I soak up every moment I have here, basking in the blessings that living every day to the very fullest can bring.
Thank you SWI team. I look so forward to what opportunities the Lord will bring us in the future to work together to further His kingdom.
Love in Christ,
Joy D. Jansen
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DART 2006 was an incredible conference and I just wanted to share how we, as a staff, are incredibly blessed in the process of serving the Lord by offering this type of training. As anyone who has attended one of these conferences can attest to, there's a lot of work that goes into them. And many times we have so many things on our "To Do" lists to prepare that one can easily loose sight of the big picture, which of course, is helping others to be ushered closer to God. Our prayer as a staff is that people will have personal, intimate times with the Lord during the week. And I wanted to share that I am always incredibly blessed by the people that He leads to our conferences; brothers and sisters of great faith, who are willing and ready to see what the Lord has ahead for them. There are many others who attend who are already working in the field, allowing wonderful networking. And what a blessing it is for us when other, non-committed people attend, in that we have the opportunity to show our passion for the Lord Jesus Christ. Many thanks to all who attended and may the Lord bless you as you continue down His path.
Treasuring the Precious Moments from the Conference,
Lisa Beaty <(((><-MORE-
Down in a valley, surrounded by the beautiful, snow topped Hindu Kush mountains, sits the town of Balakot, epicenter of the earthquake that has left 3.5 million people homeless and has killed 80,000 people.
While the mountains are certainly very beautiful, when one diverts their eyes down and sees what the people there are struggling through -- well, it's a horrifying sight; whole villages have been leveled, leaving families with many children who still have no shelter at night and we are now 4 months after the earthquake. -MORE-
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