December 15 update from Senior Pastor Byron MacDonald and the team in Jordan: Like it is being experienced all over the world, the extremes of weather again impacted our day. The Mideast, in the lifetime of people we talked with, has never experienced so severe a winter storm as we have been through the last four days. The storm after four days here in Jordan is just now moving out, leaving snow on streets so significant that the government has - for the third work day in a row - called for a holiday for schools and business. The storm was vast and severe. Cairo for the first time in 112 years had significant snow. The impact among the refugees is profound, and signals a winter that is predicted to have great severity. As we gathered as a team before we left for Jordan, Steven Bunyard, Associate Pastor for Outreach Ministries, shared the verses God had led to shape our thoughts as we left. He shared from Hebrews 12:23-29, See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised saying, Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this, Yet once more, indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. There is no question all over the world God is shaking things, so that things which cannot be shaken, lives built upon Jesus, will be revealed. For the 28 million people in Syria their world is being shaken and collapsing. Our hope is that out of this we might show Gods mercy and see people find the only foundation for life and eternity, a life built on the saving grace of Jesus. As the church at Rolling Hills Covenant Church we get to be at the fault lines of life, sharing the love and truth of Jesus. Today we were able to shape plans of how we as a church can best be part of resourcing the Bible Society and the church in Jordan. We leave Jordan tomorrow but the people of Syria, the children, the mothers, the fathers, wont leave us. We met two fathers are seeking to raise their children after their wives, the mothers of their children, were killed in the war. Our truck carrying bedding, blankets, gas grills, was met by numbers of desperate people pleading for help. A father shared with a quiet desperation that he had two special needs children, one blind. It tore the hearts of the workers to tell him he had to register with the church to get help, and all we had on the truck was for people who had already been promised help. Those cries of people for help go with us in our prayers, and as God enables us, to help. Tomorrow, Lord willing, Jerusalem.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Dec 2013 18:46:24 +0000
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