Joe Holman--Live From Bolivia.

Just Like My Dad

2012-01-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

We are rearranging our furniture and downsizing in the apartment. As a result of this, stuff isn't where it always goes, nor is it where it is going to be. This event led to something strange happening this morning.

I woke up and started getting on with the chores of the day. As I walked down the hall, I saw something.

I SAW MY DAD!

My father passed away over two years ago, but right in the corner of my eye, I had seen him. I backed up and looked again. It was a full size mirror. I stopped and stared. I look like my father. I always envisioned my dad as, well, as dad. He looked like him, and I looked like me. However, here in front of me was a man that looked a lot like my dad. I never realized it. Somehow, over the years I had grown into the man that my father was.

This got me to thinking. Do I look like my heavenly Father? When people look at me, do they see Him? Do they see His love? His compassion? His mercy? His faithfulness? His patience? Do they see me, or do they see Jesus?

I hope and pray that as the years go by, more and more my image will look like Him. I pray that I reflect His Image and His glory.

Who do you look like?

Where Are You Going?

2012-01-18T08:36:00.001-08:00

We recently took a three day vacation and drove to the secondlargest city in Bolivia, Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz has about 2 million people in it, however the thing that welike about it is that it is the most “American-Like” place in Bolivia. They have a good Burger King, and a Subway,and a couple of Mexican food places. They also have a water park (it is summer here). We go there and stay in a missionary guesthouse and can do a nice little vacation pretty cheap.

Santa Cruz isabout 300 miles away. It takes us around11 hours to drive there. Yes, you readthat correctly, 11 hours to drive 300 miles. This is without stopping for anything but gasoline, no lunches orbreaks. In Bolivia, highways are notwhat they are in the States. There arereally only two interstate highways. Onegoes from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz (and on to Brazil). The other goes from Cochabamba to La Paz (ourcapital) and then on to Chili and Peru. I would say that the road in front of your house is probably better thanabout 90% of our highway.

This last triptook even longer. As you can see in thephoto, we were stranded on the side of the highway for almost three hours. There had been a landslide in the mountains,and the road was washed out. They had tobring in some equipment and get it opened. I have a question for you. Why did we sit for almost three hours besidethe road (the second photo shows how exciting it was)? What would make us add this time to ourtrip? Why do this?

We estimated 600 autos stranded

Here we are feeding the mosquitos a buffet lunch

As a matter of fact, we were not the only ones. There wereNorth Americans, Quechuas, Bolivians, and a couple we met from the Netherlands.There were a few nice cars driven by rich people, and a bunch of very poorpeople. There were old and young,married and single all on the side of the road. Why? There are two reasons. The first is because the road wasclosed. Everyone on this road had towait. The second is just as simple. This was the road we chose.

My point issomething that I have been focusing on for the last year in my life, and I willbe preaching a sermon series on starting Sunday. I am "joeizing" a series from Andy Stanley. Here it is:

Direction Determines Destination.

I will end upwhere I end up because that was the way I was going. I may not have wanted to go there. I may havewanted to go somewhere else, but it doesn’t matter. My destination will be the end of the paththat I am on. Imagine if you loved thewarm winter that you have had so far, and are bummed out about this snow. So, you tell the kids, “Pack up yourswimsuits and goggles, we are heading to Miami!” Then, you got all packed up and jumped onI-95. Only, you made a small mistake andtook I-95 NORTH instead of SOUTH. Nomatter what your intentions were, no matter how good of a Christian you are, nomatter what you want or desire…you are NOT going to Miami. If you stay on I-95 North, you will NEVER getto Miami. You can pray about it. You can talk about it. You can plan on it. You can dream about it. You are not going to Miami. Your direction determines your destination.

We can easilysee that this is true in geography and on the highways. What we don’t realize is that it is true in relationshipsin your life. It is true infinances. It is true in health. It is true in your spiritual walk.

The directionthat you are headed is more important that the desires of your heart. It is your direction, not your dreams orintentions, that will take you to a particular destination. Yet, we don’t really believe this. We think that we can take Path A and end upat Destination B. We think that we canneglect our spiritual lives and yet end up being like Jesus. Here are someexamples of how we don’t see the connection.

“I want to be healthy and lose weight”. (Can you super size that for me please?)

“I want to have a closeknit family unit.” (Sure, I can work70 hours a week, commute 10 hours a week, play golf on the weekends and watchsports all Sunday and never spend any time with the kids)

“I want my children to love and respect my spouse.” (Then we speak to each other in anger,sarcasm, bitterness and hostility)

“I want my kids to be like Jesus, giving and loving.” ( Ican’t afford to tithe, let alone support world missions until the house, carsand vacations are paid off)

Now, if we are talking aboutsomeone else, rather than ourselves, we can easily see that the direction theyare heading will not take them to the destination that they are desiring. But when it comes to our lives, we tend tothink that if we just drive faster up I-95 North, or if we drive with goodintentions, or if we love Jesus, then we will go to Miami. It will not happen. Direction determines destination.

So, here is my point and myapplication. Where do you want to be inyour spiritual life in 5 years? Are youheading in that direction? Where do youwant to be in your marriage relationship in 10 years? Are you heading in thatdirection? Where do you want to be inyour relationship with your kids in 15 years? Are you heading in thatdirection? Where do you want to be inyour health in 20 years? Are you headingin that direction?

Direction determinesdestination. (Download the podcast fromNorthpoint Ministries, Andy Stanley. It is a lifechanging series).

Holman Christmas Letter

2011-12-23T19:18:00.001-08:00

Merry StinkingChristmas From The Holmans

It is December which means it is time for the best of us towrite a Christmas letter to a lot of other people in order to make them feelbad for not writing a Christmas letter and sending it to us. So, this is for all you that do not love usenough to send us a letter. It is ourannual Christmas letter! This is thefirst one that we have sent out in 2011, so read it and weep.

This was a long year for the Holmans. It has almost been 365 days since it started. Wow! So much has happened in that time frame…to choose what to report is tochoose to influence…how do I influence you?

I started a diet in January of 2011, and as of now I havelost, (-10) lbs. I am not that worriedthough, cuz I still wear the same size socks that I wore in college.

We are now houseless but not homeless. We finally sold our house in the States. All we ‘own’ is a 22 year old truck andBolivian made furniture. It is weird,but kinda nice to actually not have anything.

What we have learned from God this year…He has a heart forthe poor, we don’t. Time to change that.

We took time off of our “missionary” lifestyle and took akiller, super, once in a lifetime, make-Christians-sin-with-envy vacation. We spent some money that I got from aninheritance and took a cruise with all 11 kids plus Grandma and Grandpa. We also went to Disney World. It was fun to see how the other 90%live. Then back to Bolivia where theonly cruise is when you have to cruise to the toilet a lot because of amoebas.

Speaking of amoebas, parasites, bugs, and other things thatsuck the very life out of you…the kids are doing fine.

We are officially out of the diaper phase of life. We are slow learners, so it took us over 23years, seriously. 23 years ofdiapers. Denise did the math. That is at least 41,630 diaper changesconseveratively.

Leaving diapers made us think of teenagers…they whinewithout the poop. Anyway, Denise pickedup a pencil and told me that we are going to have teenagers in our house for 28years. That kinda tops the diaper changestat.

Now is the part of the letter when I tell you about each kidand what they are doing. I don’t havetime to do that, so let me just sum it up.

Boys, age 23 to 13, six of them, all alive and making weirdnoises, and laughing at bodily functions.

Girls, age 12 to 3, five of them, all alive and talking, andscreaming out loud when they see new things like jewelry or hair ribbons.

Last Christmas we were in Virginia with a white Christmas.This year we are in Bolivia and it is the summer. Last year we were in a six bedroom house inthe wealthiest county in America. Thisyear the 11 of us are sharing a three bedroom apartment in the poorest countryin the Americas. Last year people wereavoiding us because they were scared we were going to ask them for money. This year people are asking us formoney. Other than that, things arepretty much the same.

Love you guys! Have agreat Christmas!

Joe and Denise

Short Term Mission Trips

2011-12-07T15:09:00.001-08:00

Cochabamba

I am putting together a small handout to give to short term teams that visit us, and thought, "Hey, I will post it on my blog, maybe someone else can benefit from it." So here you go.

WhyDo Short Term Missions?

There is a debate in theevangelical church about the effectiveness of short term missions. The idea is pretty straightforward and hastwo main points. The first one is financial. If 10 people go on a s/t trip which cost $1,500 each, then they justspent $15,000—most of it going to an airline. The argument asks the question, “Wouldn’t it be better to give a careermissionary on the field a love offering of $15,000 and have the missionary useit to further their mission?”

The other main objection to s/ttrips is that people cannot understand and appreciate the culture of anotherpeople group and therefore truly be effective in a s/t trip.

Both of these arguments makesense, but they miss the purpose of a short term trip. I do not believe that the purpose of a s/ttrip is for someone with a ‘silver bullet’ to ride in and save the day byministering to those poor lost souls in another cultural context. I would go so far as to say that I do notbelieve that the purpose of the s/t trip is really, in the end, to minister tothe target group of the career missionary. They DO serve the people, but that is a by-product of thepurpose. It is a purpose, but not theprimary one.

As a long term missionary whoBELIEVES in s/t mission trips, let me explain the purpose of your trip as I seeit. You can see these purposes in theverses below.

1. To promote and give the vision of worldevangelism.

Do you notsay, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say toyou, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white forharvest. (John 4:35)

Jesus wasgoing through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues andproclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease andevery kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them,because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. ThenHe said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.(Matthew 9:35-38)

This is the most important part ofs/t trips. It opens up the worldview,expands the horizons, and gives a missionary experience to people. A s/t trip allows someone to see the needs ofothers in the world, and to see themselves as God’s instrument to meet thoseneeds. In North American culture we arebombarded constantly with information and statistics about the pain andsuffering in the world. More than that,Evangelical Christians are given Bible lessons, shown videos, and hear messagesabout the lost, unreached people groups, pain and suffering. The sad fact is, that instead of giving us achallenge, it has given us an inoculation. We simply tune out the images we see on TV, and daydream during themissionary’s talk. For most of us, thebest case scenario is that we feel empathy towards the person in thephoto/video; empathy that is lost as soon as the closing prayer or the nextcommercial. Short term missions is, inmy opinion, the most powerful weapon that is at our disposal to motivate peopletowards World Missions. It bombards thesenses, attacks our emotions, and knocks down our preconceptions. The s/t person EXPERIENCES the reality of alost world. They smell, see, hear,taste, feel, and perceive the fact that God sent His Son for the WORLD, notjust for middle class North America. Itallows them, in most cases, to see the huge disparity of wealth around theglobe. S/T missions shakes up the worldof wealthy Christians (if you are reading this then you are one of the wealthyI am talking about—even if you do not realize it) and causes them to rethinkhow they spend their money in light of poverty and social injustice. In summary, a s/t mission trip changesyou. Consider this fact. Every long term, career missionary that Iknow went on a s/t trip before becoming, and in many cases even consideringbecoming, a career missionary. I believethat this is the most important aspect of a s/t trip, and one that cannot beevaluated financially. Short Termmissions is an instrument of God to expand the vision of GlobalDiscipleship. He uses it to create senders,people who will financially support world evangelism, and to call others tobecome long term missionaries. Theprimary reason that we want people to come to Bolivia on a short term trip isbecause we are praying for God to use our ministry to call 100 people intocareer missions. This is the means tothat end! Come to Bolivia and you willstop hearing about the plight of the world and begin to experience it.

2. To encourage and support the long termmissionary.

Therefore encourageone another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciatethose who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lordand give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in lovebecause of their work. Live in peace with one another. We urge you,brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, helpthe weak, be patient with everyone. (1Thessalonians 5:11-14)

Therefore,my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the workof the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. (1Corinthians15:58)

Long term missionaries have atough job. It seems self-serving to bewriting this, but it is the hard truth. Missionaries are unappreciated and forgotten. I asked 10 different missionaries thisquestion: “What is the hardest part of being a missionary?” All 10 of them answered with the same exactword—not even a synonym. Add to this thefact that not one of these missionaries was in the presence of another when Iasked, and not one of them even knew that we had asked the same question tosomeone else. The answer? “Loneliness”.

I believe that s/t missions is anopportunity to EXPRESS gratitude and appreciation to the missionary. It is a chance to let these forgotten servantsof Christ know that their labor is not in vain and that you believe that nomatter how insignificant they feel, both what they do and who they are isimportant. Sometimes a missionary can serve for years without a singleconvert. Other times, the work that wedo is completely one-sided where we are the ones always giving and after awhile we simply feel drained. We haveall the problems that people in the States experience, plus the issues thatcome up from being in ministry, and add to that the cross cultural frustrationsand obstacles. We are thousands of milesfrom our parents, adult children and grandchildren. This is compounded by the fact that manymissionaries live next to or in financial hardship. SinceI am explaining what it is like to be a missionary, let me add one morething. When we go to the States, peopleavoid us (even previous friends). Ithink this is because they are scared we are going to ask for money or maybeour lives are now so different that they feel that we don’t have much in commonanymore. Bottom line: it is emotionallyhard to be a missionary. I am not sayingthat it is not worth it. Nor am I sayingthat all of the platitudes and the verses don’t apply. What I am saying is that several times in theBible God tells us to encourage one another, and this really applies to themissionary.

When you go on a s/t trip, you canencourage the missionary, strengthen them, speak affirmation into their lives,and help them catch their breath to stay in the game. Think about this, affirmation is so importantthat on every occasion the Father spoke out loud to the Son, He publiclyaffirmed Him. You can do this by bringing them special treats, by bringingthings to their children, by paying for a ‘luxury’. You can write them nice notes, point out areaswhere they are like Jesus, and remind them of the difference in eternity thatthey are making. Encouragement,appreciation, and affirmation is HUGE, and a s/t trip gives you the opportunityto do this face to face/heart to heart.

3. To help those in the missionary’s peoplegroup.

Jesus wasgoing through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagoguesand proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kindof disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassionfor them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without ashepherd. Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workersare few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workersinto His harvest. (Matthew 9:35-38)

For eventhe Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give Hislife a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

This is the reason that mostpeople think we do s/t missions. As Isaid in the beginning, this is a purpose, but I think it is the smallestone. However, while you are here, youcan tremendously bless those whom Jesus died for. So what are you to do? Take the heart of a servant. Humble yourself and become obedient from theheart to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Seek to build up the least of these. Strive to make the people group better in every area of their lives. Do what Jesus did for us. Step into their world, seek to see andunderstand their needs, and then in compassion meet those needs. The key is simple: love them. Love them as you love yourself. You are here to serve. The Biblical principle that you will discoveris this. The more you serve, the moreyou are blessed.

In summary, short term trips areincredible. They can honor Christ andbless everyone involved. They can give a world vision to the short term person,encouragement to the missionary, and help to the people group. If we place ourselves at the disposal of theHoly Spirit, then this trip will be one of the most important things that youever do! May God bless you!

I'll Buy Home For Christmas

2011-12-03T10:28:00.001-08:00

Adornments

2011-12-01T13:53:00.001-08:00

Our table with a lot of ornaments laid out for strategic tree placement.

We spent over an hour looking for theright one. We went in one store, out, andthen in another, down the block, and up the block, to an ever ending chain ofstores. Almost all of the stores had thesame products, with slight variation, so to my ‘man eyes’ we were wasting sometime. However, to Denise’s ‘woman eyes’ there was the perfect item yet to befound. I have to admit, that by the endof the hour I was ready to leave the hobby and stop being a collector. Do you collect anything? I have had friends that collected cerealtoys, you know, the little cheap toys that used to come in cereal boxes. He had over 1,000 unopened cereal toys and tobe honest, it was kind of fun looking at them and remembering wanting thatparticular toy. Another friend collectedshot glasses. He did not even drink, buthe had this really cool display case of shot glasses. Everywhere he went, on business or pleasure,he bought a shot glass.

We collect Christmasornaments. Although I voiced a littleguy frustration at the process in the above paragraph, I really love thefinished product. For over 27 yearsDenise and I have collected ornaments. Every vacation spot demands an ornament. If we can’t find one, we buy a key chain thatcan function as one. Every year, we havea family ornament made. Each kid gets aspecial ornament with their name and the year written or engraved on it. These ornaments have become such a treasureto us that when we sold everything and moved to the mission field, these wereone of the only things we kept. We tookprecious suitcase room and packed two bags full of bubble wrapped memories totake to Bolivia. We kept our Wedding China, a few antique quilts dating fromthe civil war, and our ornaments. Wetook our ornaments with us.

When we decorate the tree, it is awalk down memory lane. There is the ‘OurFirst Christmas” ornament that is 27 years old. We have had the privilege of visiting other countries, and each one hasits place on the tree. As we put up ourtree, we are verbally, and then silently, going over our lives together. Each child has their first ornament. There is the year we all made gingerbread ornaments,and they are still here after 19 years! Momentof honest, the coolness wears off on the kids after about 20 minutes, but forme and Denise, we take one sentimental journey after another.

I actually think that I couldextrapolate a biblical principle of remembrance and ssstttrrreeeetttccchhh itto fit what we are doing. We are markingour lives together. We are establishingmemorials for significant events, the events that shape us. It is not just fun, more than cool, it islife. Do you have anything that you dothat marks the moments that mold us? Ifnot, I highly recommend that you do. It isso much fun to take at least two times a year, putting them up and taking themdown, to remember our lives.

2011-11-29T06:37:00.001-08:00

I was going to upload my newsletter here to blogger, but it seems that you have to have a Phd from MIT in order to rescript, use an external program, blah blah blah.

So, just in case your interested and did not receive it via email, here you go. Click on this link and you can download it.

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D6440300_1908097_654554

Hope you enjoy it.

The Two Princes

2011-11-14T12:20:00.001-08:00

The Two Princes

Once upon a time, in a land faraway, lived a rich prince. The princewas a nice man, and to be honest did not even realize that he was that rich. You see, he had grown up in a rich family,living in a rich part of the land, and enjoying all the benefits of wealth andsuccess. He lived in the Land Of Opportunity. Instead of seeing his wealth, many timeshe found himself looking at the kingdoms around who seemed to be wealthier and feelingsomewhat cheated by life.

This prince lived in the Land ofOpportunity, doing what he needed to be done and helping out his fellow richcountrymen as he could. He knew thatthere were other countries besides his, and he had heard that some of them wereeven poorer than he felt, but his life was busy and other than hearing an occasionaltale from a traveling peddler he had no time to wonder or wander.

Then, one day, he decided to makeit happen in spite of his busy schedule. He prioritized a trip and arranged for someone to cover hisresponsibilities during his absence. He lefthis home and traveled past the other rich kingdoms into the land of the normalperson. This was strange to him, becausehe defined normal based upon what he knew as normal, rather than what truly wasnormal for the world.

The first thing that he noticed inNormal Land was that the people were hurting. They lacked the most basic necessities. As a matter of fact, many of the things that he had always thought of asa necessity were either unheard of or viewed as luxuries by the people inNormal Land. He had thought that hislife was harsh because he went two years without a new carriage. These people had never seen a carriage. He considered himself poor because his home wassmaller than some of his neighbors. These people wanted a roof. Inhis country, eating was a social event, and food was tailored to specifictastes and occasions. To his shame, herealized that his dog ate better than most families in Normal Land, and he wasin shock to see naked people starving to death.

Over and over he saw that people inNormal Land needed food, clothing, education, shelter, water, and basicsanitation. One night he took a piece ofpaper and figured out that the money he spent on entertainment in a year couldsave the lives of over a thousand dying people in Normal Land. More than that,most of the people in Normal Land had never even heard of the King of Kings andhad no hope of entering the Eternal Kingdom. The prince thought everyone knew of Him. This seemed doubly sad because the EternalKingdom was such a wonderful hope for people living in such desperation. If only they knew that this world was not theend, but that their pain one day could end.

He returned to his palace (funny,he had always thought of it as a house until his journey). As he looked around at the luxury, theexcess, the comfort and the ease of life in his country, he vowed to always begrateful. His heart hurt with sympathy for those that he had seen. He tried, and to some degree succeeded inbeing empathetic with them in their struggles, even though he truly could notcomprehend what it meant to be hungry and cold.

From this moment on, he would notcompare himself to those better than himself. He would remember the suffering and the struggling of the majority ofthe world that lived in Normal Land. Hewould no longer complain when a luxury was denied. He would be happy with his wealth. He would be glad that he did not live inNormal Land.

So he did. He was a happy, grateful prince living inluxury. He remembered those poor folk inNormal Land, and thanked God that he wasn’t like that.

Meanwhile, as he was grateful forhis luxury, appreciative of his wealth, and thankful for his blessings…millionsof people were dying in Normal Land. NormalPeople that could have lived off what he threw away every day. Normal People that the King of King loved whowere living in abstract poverty while he was grateful to have the money for hisentertainment budget.

He was grateful. They were dead.

Gratitude is not enough.

Empathy is not enough.

Sympathy is not enough.

They are all passive killers.

Nearby, there wasanother prince that took a similar journey through Normal Land. He returned home and vowed to be changed aswell. He was empathetic. He was sympathetic. He was grateful. However he took things one step farther. He began to GIVE out of his wealth. He decided that he did not need a newcarriage this year, or the next, or the next. He gave the money he was going to spend on a new carriage to drill awell and provide clean water for an entire village. He quit spending such vast amounts onentertainment and started construction on a church that would teach othersabout the King of Kings for generations. He took a trip to Normal Land every year inorder to encourage fellow human beings in their plight, to give generous giftsto ease the harshness of life, and to constantly renew his vision for theworld.

One prince wasgrateful. The other was good.

Which do youidentify with?

This isThanksgiving. How about we change thename to this:

THANKS AND GIVING.

Don’t just givethanks, out of your thanks, give.

Being There While I Am Here

2011-11-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

I am so pumped! For the next two weeks, I get to teach a Bible Study class at Blue Ridge Bible Church in Virginia! That is my home church, full of my friends. My focus during Sunday School will be on living a radical life, emphasizing world missions.

After Sunday School, I will continue preaching a series of messages called "Jesus and_____" I have been in this series for about six weeks, and plan on spending another 2-3 months in it. Each week we look at a place in the life of Jesus where he had a conversation with someone and see how He is speaking to us through it.

So, I will be teaching Sunday School, followed by preaching. Super cool!

Oh yeah, the Sunday School class will be in Purcellville Virginia. The preaching will be in Cochabamba Bolivia. All I have to do is travel 4,015 miles in 15 minutes (the time between Sunday School and the sermon). No problem. I have done it before. Well, not traveled over 4,000 miles in less than 20 minutes, but taught in two places around the globe at the same time.

This is what I am doing. This week I am filming the Sunday School class. (I am trying to keep it from being boring by incorporating different settings, videos, music, etc.) I will email the video to the church on Wednesday. They will set up a big screen projector and show the class for two weeks.

In a couple of weeks, Denise is speaking to the Women's Ministry at another church during their missions conference. She is doing it through Skype Video.

This is just one of the ways that we are trying to accomplish both edges of our ministry sword. We want to not only help Bolivian church leaders know God better and love Him more; we want to challenge and encourage churches back in the States to become engaged in missions.

Technology lets us do both, while staying here. We can be there, while we are here.

If you are interested in having us speak at your church, homeschool group, Sunday School class, missions conference, etc., please send me an email. We would love to do it!

It Is Not On Demand

2011-11-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most important items that we own, and one of the most important places in our apartment. It is our Big Berkley water filter, and the three pitchers beside it are clean water. We take the water from the faucet and put it in the top of the filter. It takes about an hour before we have filtered water in the bottom. That is our drinking water. Because it takes an hour to get a gallon, and thhere are 11 of us, we have developed a habit that allows us to always have clean water to drink, brush our teeth with, and/or cook. It is pretty simple. Every time we go into the kitchen, we put water in the filter if it needs it. We lift off the lid, look at the water level, and refill it if there is room. This keeps the filter working, our clean water in good supply, and mommy happy.

This is also a great analogy to the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us to "Be filled with the Spirit". Literally this means "Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit". I am to constantly look at my life. I should listen to my words. I should examine my thoughts. I can see how I treat my kids. I can check out my emotions. I can continually see in my life that Jesus died for me, and that I NEED to surrender myself to the love and power of the Holy Spirit. It is a constant process, because as I walk through this fallen world in my sinful flesh, I have to run to calvary often to be purified. The Holy Spirit leads me there.

How are you in the purified heart and cleansed thoughts today? In our house, if we don't filter our water constantly, then we discover that when we need it the most, we are out of it...and it isn't INSTANT. If we don't do this all the time, we have a problem. We cannot wait until there is a crisis in our lives, and then say, "right now I will start living this way or that way" because the consequences of the crisis are still there. We need to PREVENT the crisis by living under the leadership and direction of the Holy Spirit now...when I don't FEEL like I need Him. Keep on being filled. Purify your hearts. Cleanse your minds.

Now. And Now. And Now. And Now.........

Beauty From Ashes

2011-10-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the churchon Sunday to discover that instead of setting things up, fine tuning the soundsystem, and getting organized, we were doing damage control and itemizing whatwas missing. We had been not only robbed, but viciously and maliciouslyattacked by vandals. I know that thechurch is on the front of the spiritual warfare that is engaged in the world,but this still took the wind out of our sails.

The theft waslimited to three guitars, but the destruction went beyond that. They added insult to injury by urinating allover our sound board and frying it. Theyslashed our drum set, and then cut the wires that enable us to do simultaneous translationof our service so that we can teach God’s word bilingually. Our church has not ‘offended’anyone other than through holding to the Gospel in the midst of a catholic anda pagen society. I guess that it is ouroffensive truth that caused the vandalism. The theft I understand, but peeing on the equipment? That is just hatred. Hatred of God. Hatred of truth. Hatred of the church.

We had ourservice thanks to the hard work of a group of Christians, but emotionally Ikept struggling between anger, frustration, and pity. Since then, I have spent this week prayingabout this, a principle of the Scripture came to me, and I believe that God isgoing to practically apply it in this case.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good inorder to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. (Genesis50:20)

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good tothose who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans8:28)

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed mysackcloth and girded me with gladness, (Psa 30:11)

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty forashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit ofheaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting ofthe LORD, that he might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:3)

Here is what I am thinking. What if God used this attack and turned itinto a blessing? My church is notwealthy. We live in Bolivia, the poorestcountry in North, Central and South America. We don’t have a lot of money to put into equipment, whether we arepurchasing new items or replacing broken ones. To be honest, we could use new sound equipment, speakers, microphones,cables, computer, etc. We could use it,but don’t have the money to purchase them. However, now we are in a position where wehave to purchase some items.

So, what if theend result of our robbery and vandalism…of this spiritual attack by the enemy…wasthat we came out better than we were before? Wouldn’t it be cool if we did not just ‘replace’ our equipment, butended up with GOOD stuff? Wouldn’t it bea slap in Satan’s face if this malicious event ended up blessing the Kingdom ofGod?

It can. You can be blessed. We can be blessed. Cochabamba can be blessed. Satan can be ticked off. I have arranged with my home church in theStates, Blue Ridge Bible Church, to receive money for my church here inBolivia. The purpose of these gifts isfor our church to purchase needed equipment and supplies. My prayer is that we end up with a lot ofmoney, way more than we need to replace our equipment. I am praying that we could reimburse the twomen who had their guitars and pedals stolen, and then buy a better sound board,nicer microphones, and improve our speakers.

I am praying forbeauty from ashes, for mourning to be turned into dancing.

So, send yourmoney to Blue Ridge Bible Church 770South 20^th Street Purcellville VA 20132. Be sure and write on the memo, FOR CICBOLIVIA. We will give people a few weeksto respond, and then Blue Ridge will send a check for the amount to the Cochabamba International Church here inBolivia.

Let me make surethat I clarify something. This is NOT afundraising effort for me or my ministry. NONE of these monies will go to the Holmans in any way. This is a way for churches and Christians inAmerica to work with a sister church in Bolivia and help her live out thevictory in Christ.

In Jesus,

Joe

Migrant Worker

2011-10-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

How about a different perspectiveto all of my anti-immigration friends out there? I am an immigrant. I have moved to another country and amseeking to establish permanent residency there. Because of this, I have a, shall we say, more rounded viewpoint of thewhole immigration issue that is currently a political platform in the USA. Let me give you a little insight.

If you look at that photo, you willsee over 360 pages of documents inside. I am not finished. This threering binder is 95% complete…for my ONE YEAR visa. Before I get my permanent visa which gives mepermission to live here as a resident-alien indefinantly, I have to get a oneyear, then a two year, then a five year visa. Each visa cost money and entails a ton of paperwork. I was thinking about writing an articlemaking fun of some of the requirements (like I had to show that my Bolivianlandlord had paid his last month’s electric bill…to get my visa…what does hiselectric bill have to do with me?). Butinstead, I thought I would just talk about the process and maybe shed somelight on an issue in the States.

I added it up, and so far I havespent $6,922 on my American and Bolivian paperwork. That is $692.20 per person. The Bolivian side of this has been $4672, or$467 per person. Before I receive mypermanent residency I will spend another $500/each. It costs right at $1,000 to go from visitingforeigner to resident alien.

I am from the USA. I have advanced degrees and come from amiddle/upper middle class area. I haveresources and access to resources. THANKYOU ALL OF YOU THAT SUPPORT US!!!!

I am from the wealthiest country inthe USA, where the median household income is $46,326. My point is this: I have a great backing andsome financial foundations to stand on, and this amount of money HURTS. I was shocked to find out that it was thismuch. To keep costs down, I did all the legwork myself, including five trips toConsulates and Embassies. In spite ofthat, I am choking on the amount of money that it cost me to get my residency.

Now, are you ready forsomething? If I were a Bolivian wantingto move to the USA, then I would have to spend MORE THAN it cost for a UnitedStates Citizen to move to Bolivia. Itcost more money to legally move TO the United States from here than it cost tomove FROM the USA to Central or South America. The median income in Bolivia isabout $1,000. If I were migrating to theUSA from Bolivia, I would have to pay over one year’s salary in Americanfees. That would be like you paying$46,000 to move to Bolivia.

My first point? It is not impossible, just highly improbablefor the average person to be able to legally migrate in the USA from Mexico andSouth. (for more on this, such as the hype about the ‘free-loading’ and the ‘costto the taxpayer’ see my earlier blog http://joe-holman.blogspot.com/2011/04/christians-and-illegal-immigrants.html) Wherever you want to take this in yourthoughts/arguments about immigration, take it and run. It is just something to think about, andsomething that I have thought about a lot since I am in the process andincurring the huge financial burden of being legal. I just find myself asking, “What would I doif I couldn’t live where I live, but couldn’t afford to move somewhere else?”

My second point is this. We should all be migrant workers. Our job is to move through this desolateplace called earth, working our way to our true home. Our King and our Kingdom is not of thisworld. As a migrant worker, I should be constantlyon the move THROUGH the land, not building a castle in it. My home is not here. My home is not now. It is there. It is then. I am walking andworking my way through this world. Oneday I will be home, and my Father will welcome me into the City He hasprepared. I will lay all my burdensdown. I will enter into His Rest. I will worship Him without sin in my life, mypresence or the world. I will experiencetrue joy, true passion and truly experience experiencing for the first time.

This world is not my home, so whyam I always so intent on behaving as if it were?

The Knife

2011-09-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I don’t have very many memories of my dad growing up. He was pretty much an absentee father due tohis constantly working to try and provide for us. This is no slight on him, it was his way ofshowing that he loved us, and his generation believed that the father’s mainrole was to provide. Be that as it may, Ican probably count on one hand the number of ‘memories’ that jump out atme. However, when I think of my dad, I rememberhis knife.

Sounds funny, doesn’t it? What I mean is that my dad always had a pocketknife. It was to him what cell phones are toyou. I guess he felt naked without it,but he always had it. It was not aspecial or expensive knife, and when it would break he would go purchaseanother one. He liked it sharp. At least once a week he would sit in hischair watching television and sharpening his knife on a whetstone. He would sharpen it until he could shave hisarm, then give a slight nod of his head, fold it and put it into his pocket.

Dad died two years ago. I met with my brothers and sister as we divided up his personalbelongings at his house. I live on themission field. I cannot carry largeticket items, nor do I have room for them in my apartment. So, we would go around the room and taketurns selecting items. The big screen tvwent to one brother, the truck to another, and the furniture to my sister. I took the knife. I ended up with a small collection of oldpennies, a clock, and his knife.

I have never been a knife carrying guy. But lately, I find myself sliding that old,slightly rusted pocketknife with the loose blade into my pocket. I have no need for it. I haven’t used it in, well, I don’t guessthat I have used it. However, I carryit. I pull it out of my pocket to get mykeys or to count change. I put it on mybedside table at night with my billfold. The next morning I put it in my pocketand carry it all day.

Why? Because I loveand miss my dad. He may have not beenthere for many things in my life, but he was my dad. That knife is my connection to him. I think of him often when I see it beside myalarm clock or have to set it on the store counter as I add up the change forthe purchase. I am now an orphan, bothof my parents have gone ahead of me to heaven. I guess the knife just reminds me that even though they are not here,they are there and I will see them again. It is a connection to a childhood and a bridge to the future. All of this in a $10 pocket knife.

I was thinking about this and how my dad had no idea that hewas forming a memory in my life. He didnot know that the knife and the nightcap (he always drank a whiskey/7upnightcap) would be my childhood. Then I lookat my kids. What will they remember? If Jesus doesn’t come back before I go toHim, and my children gather around a dining room table to talk about theirlives in my home, what will they remember? What will they talk about? What mnemonicconnection am I making in their minds? What do they ‘see’ me doing? Whatdo they ‘hear’ in their mind’s ear? Whatis it in my house that says “DAD” to them?

I know what I want them to remember. I know what I want them to think. But, am I doing something to see to it thatwhat I desire is actually happening, or am I just letting life go by?

The knife is a reminder to me. I want my kids to remember me as someone wholoved God, loved my wife and loved them. I want them to think of my laughter and my silly antics. I want them to think of me as someone whoinvested in others and thought ahead. But,am I doing things that make them see this, or am I just at my computer?

Life is too short to just let it race by. I am prayerfully going to be more attentiveto the things I want them to remember. How about you?

You've Got Mail---Not Yet But Here Is Hoping!

2011-09-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

It took us four weeks, five trips to the post office and twophoto copies of my id. But it was worthit, I hope.

We have a mailbox! Yessirree. We have our very ownmailbox. Now you can send us cards andletters to your heart’s desire. Not onlydo we have a mailbox, but brace yourself, you may want to sit down.

We have a phone! Can we be more official? A mailbox so you can send us stuff, and aphone so that you can call us. Our phoneis an internet phone registered in Virginia. This means that if you are in the States you can call us just like anyother number in the States. It is NOTand international call.

We have a mailbox, email, a phone, facebook, a website and ablog. We must exist!

Here is our phone number: 571-293-2499

Here is our address:

Joe Holman

Cajón 6762

Cochabamba Bolivia

South America.

A word to the wise. Sending us cards and letters is a breeze, and it isn’t that expensive. Sending us items in envelopes up to 2 kilos(4.4lbs) will go to our mailbox for an easy pickup, but it gets pricey prettyquick. Go to your post office and findout how much it is before you decide to send us something. However, remember that you are not justsending the ‘value’ of the item in the envelope, you are sending us attentionand joy. Think of the mastercardcommercial: Small goods $12, Reeses $5,Joy upon receiving a package priceless.

If you try to send us something that will not fit into anenvelope and weigh less than 2 kilos, the item goes to the downtown post officeand then we have to go there, get a tax declaration of its value, go pay thetaxes and then get the box. It is a littlehassle, but still a nice thing to do because of whats in the box!

So, stay in touch! Don’t care how, email—mail—phone—facebook….just stay in touch!

Joe

27 Years With My Best Friend

2011-07-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

Facts About Denise

Some You May Know, Others Not. Denise…

· Started dating me when she was 14 years old. I am the only boyfriend she has ever had. I had to snag her before she was old and wise enough to pick someone better.

· Became engaged as a Jr. in High School when she was 16 years old.

· Graduated High School in May, turned 18 in June and got married in July…27 years ago.

· Graduated with a 4.0 and received two scholarships. One was a full ride Presidential Scholarship to Dallas Baptist University.

· After a year or so as a mathematics major at DBU, even though she had a 4.0 gpa, she felt that her calling in life was to devote herself to the Kingdom, her husband, her home and her kids. She left school to be a full time homemaker.

· Climbed to the peak, without oxygen, of a 17,000 ft. mountain in the Andes.

· Parasailed, snorkeled in the Caribbean, and scuba dived in St. Thomas.

· Has not only been 17,000 ft. above sea level, she took a submarine ride to 500 ft. below sea level.

· Rock climbed, kayaked and canoed in the Rocky Mountains.

· Been to England, Netherlands, Italy, France, Burkina Fasol, Ghana, Belize, Panama, Mexico, St. Marteen, and a few islands in the Eastern and Western Caribbean.

· Been in 41 of the 50 States.

· Lived in 14 different houses.

· First home was a trailer house we moved into when we got married. Denise was a Texas Redneck.

· Had her own horse all her life until late High School.

· Her first car was a Camaro.

· Has 11 children who were born in three different states and on three different continents.

· Has taught hundreds in various formats.

· Been published in two different magazines, on the radio, and television.

· Turned down a chance to be on Nightline in a homeschooling segment.

· Was invited to the Presidential Ball for President Bush.

· Has been given private tours of both the White House and the Capitol.

· On two occasions literally gave away all her (our) money to the poor (I just smiled and waved).

· Has had two World Vision children.

· Helped at least five other people adopt internationally.

· Led many people to faith in Christ.

· Homeschooled two kids for all the way through High School and has nine more to go.

· So far has changed over 41,000 diapers. (5/day for 23 years).

· Plays the piano and clarinet.

· Volunteered in different retirement homes for over three years playing piano for worship services.

· Gave away a lot and walked away from the rest of her belongings, including her dream home, to serve Christ on the mission field.

Denise is the most Christ-like person that I have ever met. She is my love, best friend, and confidant. I want to be like her when I grow up.

Thank you Denise for 27 wonderful years. If Jesus doesn’t return, I look forward to at least 50 more!

Topics Wanted--Please Help Me

2011-05-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

When we return to Bolivia in August, I will begin a new facet of ministry that the Lord brought to me. It is pretty cool.

The largest newspaper in Bolivia, the Los Tiempos has a magazine insert every Sunday. It is much like the Parade Magazine that many papers here in the States has. This is not a Christian paper or a Christian magazine.

I have been asked to write a short article each week on marriage and family to be published in this magazine. It is called "Happy Families". It is published on three continents (Europe, North and South America). What a cool chance to meet the needs of people, and then perhaps initiate an email and the ability to respond to the lost with the lifesaving and changing message of grace!

Here is what I need from you. Please brainstorm and send me as many specific topics as you can think of for me to write on. I want to know your needs, your interests, your problems, your opportunities, your desires, etc., on the topic of marriage and parenting.

email me: Bolivianjoe@gmail.com with your suggestions, as well as comment here and on FB when this gets posted as a note there.

Thanks!
Joe

Cover Fire (from the SCHS Newsletter)

2011-05-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

The other day my son sent me a cryptic text. It said, “Sharing Christ need cover fire”.What do you think that he meant? It was obvious to me as soon as I saw the text. I began to pray.

Cover fire is a military term that I have never looked up, but I have seen many times in movies. :) If I am correct, then it is when one of your fellow soldiers just fires in the general direction of the enemy. The goal is to keep the enemy penned down, hunkered down, or just heads down so that they can not shoot back for a few moments. In this small time frame of rapid firing with no general target in mind, the other members of the team can advance to better and more strategic points, or they can do a quick rescue of an injured soldier, or they can run to different cover. The idea is simple. Dump a bunch of ammunition in the general direction of the bad guys so that we can accomplish our mission.

This can be done when you have a lot of ammunition. If I am sitting in a covered area with a fully automatic weapon and several thousand shells, then I can just raise my gun and start shooting hundreds of bullets off while you advance. But, if I am in a dugout with two bullets left and there are about 25 enemy combatants in various positions and some flanking us, I cannot shoot my last two rounds into a wall. I can’t give you any cover because I am out of ammo.

This is also different from targeted fire. In targeted fire, I do not just dump off hundreds of rounds into a general direction. I choose my target and aim specifically.

Here is the point before the point. The enemy has been successful in convincing us that we have limited ammunition. Therefore we save our prayers for the big, the important, the high stress, the life changing, the life threatening, the huge prayer request. We don’t pray a lot for all kinds of things, instead we shoot a prayer or two to heaven when we know of a specific target that is of tremendous strategic importance. Folks, we have unlimited ammunition, lets just pour it into the enemy! We don’t to be highly trained snipers or special force members, we just have to pull the trigger and hold it down. A child can, and should, do it.

Now wait a minute Joe. This is a newsletter for Christian Home Educators. Aren’t you being a little graphic? Well, the truth is, we are in a war. We are in a war of eternal significance. We are not trying to take a hill, or bring democracy to a different people group, or end a threat to our way of life. Instead “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:12)”. We are not employing human strategies to fight a human enemy. Humans are not our enemy, even the ones that we have been told are our enemies. No, you have to “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert (because) your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1Pe 5:8). We are fighting an enemy that seeks to “steal, kill and destroy. (Jn 10:10)”.

And, in one of my favorite movie quotes from Megamind, “here is the dealio”. We have the ability to not only fight, but the promise to win. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2Co 10:3-5)”

So here is what I need. Denise and I are the keynote speakers at this year’s Sandy Cove Homeschool Week. We need cover fire. We need targeted fire. We need for you to realize that you are not short on ammunition, instead you have the unlimited supply of omnipotence available.

We are sharing Christ, need cover fire. The conference is in a few weeks. We need people to begin to slam the walls of hell with bullets. We need for you to just pray wholesale. Start with what you know, with individuals and circumstances that you are aware of, and then just pray. Pray for the power of God to be with us as we prepare our talks. Pray for the Holy Spirit to anoint our studies and direct our minds. Pray for us to abide in Him and to be filled with Him. Pray for the ones that will be at the conference to have ears to hear…not what we say but what God says through us or in spite of us. Pray for families, for marriages, for prodigals, for your generation and for the next. Pray for single moms and struggling finances. Pray for hurting parents and depressed teens. Pray for pray for pray for pray for pray for. That is cover fire.

Please, join us in praying. This is my prayer for you. To be honest, this is God’s prayer for you…it is His Word I am just repeating with all my heart. Let it soak into you and seek to be the answer to it. Also, join me in dropping this prayer bomb into hell as often as you can.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:14-21)”

Not For Me

2011-04-20T14:41:00.001-07:00

The other day I was in line at a store, and someone’s cell phone started ringing. There were about 12 of us in line, and I can almost guarantee that probably all of us had a phone (I think my goldfish is the only one without a cell phone in America). Yet, I did not even look at my phone. Neither did 10 of the other people. One lady instantly started digging in her purse, frantically trying to find the phone which was buried under the three tons of receipts, pens, makeup and assorted items that women carry in their purses. Why did she look for her phone and no one else did? How did she know the call was for her, and I knew it was not for me?

I did not recognize the ringtone. I have downloaded various ringtones and assigned them to my family, then I have a unique one for general calls. My current default ringtone is “Dust In The Wind” by Kansas. Denise is “This Magic Moment”. Ben is “American Idiot”. Caleb is “Dream On” and Jacob is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. When the phone started ringing in the store, it wasn’t any of those tunes, so I knew it wasn’t for me.

It wasn’t mine. The call was not for me. I will know it when I am called, and until then I don’t need to worry about it. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t being rude to the person calling by not answering—it wasn’t for me. I wan’t being rebellious to an authority trying to get ahold of me—the call wasn’t for me. I was not ignoring or missing something important—it was not my phone and not my call.

Not taking that call had absolutely no impact on my life whatsoever, and I am surprised that I even remember it happening. I wouldn’t if I were not about to get on a soapbox and was trying to find a way to illustrate what I think is a near heretical doctrine that has entered the church. Here it is…(drum roll with fearful anticipation)

We have taken all of the verses that require us to obey God and have made them into CALLS. The great commission is not for me, it is for those unique, highly gifted people whom God ‘CALLS’. I am not doing anything wrong by not going into the world to make disciples, because I was not CALLED to do it. I did not ignore the CALL, it wasn’t my spiritual ringtone. I will know it when God CALLS me, and that wasn’t it. I do not have to minister to, take care of, give to, or provide for the poor. The thousand or so verses in the Bible that teach this are for those special people that receive the CALL. If God CALLS me, then I will answer the CALL because I will know it is for me. I don’t have to help the orphans—I am not CALLED to do that. I am not required to help the stranger, the foreigner, the outcast, the weak, the feeble or the hurt because I am not CALLED.

I can keep virtually all my money (the average Christian gives $20/year to world missions) and spend it on bigger, better, faster, and more stuff because I am not CALLED to give sacrificially. As a matter of fact, unless God CALLS me to give anything, I will do what almost everyone else in American Christianity does and throw a tip in the plate (average Christian gives 2% to church).

I recently heard this horrible doctrine applied to the extreme. Someone was thinking about going on a short term mission trip and they were told, “Make sure that you are CALLED because if you go and you are not CALLED to go then it will hurt your spiritual life.” WHAT? Going on a mission trip is a bad thing unless you have some metaphysical CALL to go? You can go to the beach and surf, but don’t go to the child in Africa and feed them, that could hurt your soul?

This is like me reaching over and jerking the phone out of the lady’s purse and answering it I guess. She was called by her husband, and suddenly I am talking on the phone and telling him that I will run to the store and buy milk. It may not be the best thing to do.

Well, if God CALLS someone to do something, and I try to do it without being CALLED, then I am in a way a spiritual thief. I am listening to your message, opening your mail, taking your assignment. You were the one CALLED but I am the one answering. This is messed up. So, the only solution is for me to just stay comfortable, lean back, relax and use my gifts and resources to increase my comfort level. I need to be ready to answer the CALL if I hear my ringtone, but it would be at least a mistake and at most a sin to do something that I am not CALLED to do.

Only problem with this is that it is not in the Bible. By the way, notice how we assign the verses dealing with the responsibility of self-sacrifice in order to obey our Lord and reach the world to the CALLED, but we think that the verses teaching us about God’s incredible resources and blesses are for everyone. “Come to me all of you that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”. That verse is not for the CALLED, it is for everyone. “Go therefore and make disciples” is obviously for the CALLED not for me. It is amazing that all of the verses telling me that as a child of God I should sacrifice of myself, maybe even suffer for the betterment of others or give generously are for the CALLED, but the verses telling me to receive from God and others—those verses have my ringtone assigned to them. They are for me.

Go back to the ‘CALLED’. How about this? Do a quick concordance search for that word. In almost every case in the New Testament where it is used, it is used in the ‘naming’ sense of the word, like “a man called Peter”. The only time that I can find it used in the sense that we use it is in Acts about God’s unique call for Paul, but taking this example and applying it to every other place in the Bible that requires me sacrificing myself, such as Matthew 28:19-20 is simply a poor method of reading the Bible and no one who just read the Bible would ever think it. We have to come to the verse already thinking that it does not apply to us in order to not apply it. There is no other way around it. We have to decide in advance, that this is NOT our ringtone.

There is no Biblical reason to delegate helping the poor to the CALLED. There is no Biblical reason to say that evangelistic endeavors are for the CALLED. There is no Biblical reason to assign missions to the ‘CALLED’. Does this mean that every one of us should go to the mission field? I don’t think so. I think that we can make a case for serving in a local church and reaching our local community in the Bible. If every Christian left every church, there would be no church anywhere. However, you CANNOT allocate participating in missions, in outreach, in evangelism, in giving, in discipleship, in community or in the meeting the needs of the poor to the CALLED. You can say that you are fulfilling these responsibilities by doing ______ until God leads you to do something else. But not doing anything because it was not your ringtone that went off—as I said at the beginning that is near heresy.

I think this is the most ‘prophetic’ blog that I have written, but I am passionate about it. All of us have the responsibility given by God to minister out of our resources to the world. If we are not doing it, it is not because we were not CALLED….

It is because we are in SIN.

Nuff said on this,

Joe

Time Is Money

2011-04-18T12:06:00.001-07:00

The other day, Denise and I went to Five Guys and Fries to eat lunch. As we were sitting in the blue collar town that we happened to be in and chowing down on a bacon cheeseburger all the way plus fries, I looked around the room. It was full of hardworking tradesmen. The people obviously did not work in an office environment. Yet, I told Denise this…”There are two things that everyone in this room has in common. The first is that every single one of us is rich, and the second is that none of us think so.”

Let me show you what I mean. I recently came across a great little website, just a thing to think about. I recommend that you stop right now and do this, cuz it gives us some pretty cool insight.

Go to www.globalrichlist.com and enter your annual household salary. For the purpose of this exercise, input the salary of everyone that lives in your home, which you claim as a dependent, in the form. For example, Caleb is making $200/week right now, so I added his annual salary of $10,000 to mine. I also added Jacob’s salary. Punch in the number and see where you rate.

Surprising isn’t it? The fact is, we are affluent CHRISTIANS in a poor world. We are just blind to it. We compare our wealth with the wealthier instead of seeing ourselves as a means of helping the poorer.

There is something else on that website that grabbed me, and I want to ask you to do it, only with our ministry. If you look back, it takes your household salary and gives you an hourly estimate of it, then challenges you to donate an hour to help others. I did this when I worked at General Motors for the United Way. Every month, two hours of my pay was automatically deducted from my check and donated. When I saw this website, I thought, “What a great idea!”

If you are reading this, then you are a facebook friend, a ministry partner, or follow my blog. So, it is to you. If you are not currently one of our regular investors, then why not invest one hour a month to help us reach the nation of Bolivia (the poorest nation in North, Central and South America—second in poverty only to Haiti in the Western Hemisphere)?

Sure, you could do something else with the money. You could grab a latte, rent a couple of movies, eat a burger, purchase a new toy, or get that cute item at Walmart. You could buy a change of season blouse or download a new album. This is what consumerism is all about, bigger, better, faster and more. Madison Avenue spends billions of dollars in marketing to get you to buy their products. So you could spend that money on a gazillion things…or you could invest it in the Kingdom of God and help CHANGE A LIFE.

Time is money. Will you give one hour a month to help someone who needs it?

Go to www.Holmanfamily.org and follow the “How To Give” button. Start your investment in eternity today.

Camera Shy

2011-04-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Denise bought me a really cool camera last year. It is a Canon Rebel digital. It is not only a camera; it is also a video recorder. It has at least 13 settings plus 8 buttons. Not only that, it also has an extra zoom lens. This is the type of camera that professionals use. It will do close ups, distance shots, portraits, and more. Several of the settings have sub-settings, so I think that it has a total of 20+ options and then the eight buttons.

One of the settings is automatic. You just click on it, and it will automatically focus and take the shot with an automatic flash if needed.

I have had the camera for several months. I had it on our Disney vacation and on our cruise. I had it when we took two of our fundraising trips to various states. I had it with me for Christmas, for all of our birthdays, and for our anniversary.

The only setting that I have ever used is automatic. Think about it. This super expensive really nice camera that can do really cool things, and I treat it like it is a $49 point and shoot from Walmart. Why? Because it is easier and I like easy. I would have to learn how to use the other settings. I would have to maybe even, get ready for this, I know it is hard to understand and a little scary….but I might even have to read the manual! Who wants to do that!!

So, I just use the simplest setting. All of that potential, and I choose easy and nice over fantastic.

I picked up my camera to snap a shot of Mercy being goofy, and thought, “This is just like us.” We gravitate to the easiest setting in life. We have so much potential. We could be used by God to do incredible things in the world. We could be such a blessing to others.

If we put effort into it, our marriages could go from ‘not fighting’ to ‘happy’. You know what I mean. Most christian couples describe their marriages as home businesses. Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities and they all work together to keep the ‘marriage’ running. However, few people rarely say that they are happy, joyful, and ecstatic in their marriage. Few people look at their spouses as their best friend in the world and love to hang out together. Why? It is because the automatic setting on our marriage makes it good enough, especially when we compare it to the underexposed relationships of our friends.

If we really sought to improve ourselves, to apply ourselves, then perhaps our parenting skills could take our families from keeping the house clean and finishing schoolwork to the happiest place on earth. But, we don’t have time to read the manual (Bible) or even books on how to improve, so we leave the setting on automatic and do our three meals/day, laundry, and math. No one likes it much, but it takes a good enough picture.

If we wanted to we could cause our lives to go from maintenance to mission. We could start to do more than exist, and really start to live. We could look ahead and grab God’s vision for the world and for us rather than remember when… Consider this, how many of you who are reading this talk a lot about what has happened to you in the past, but rarely about what you are going to do in the future. For most people, when you leave life on automatic, you settle for a print of the life other people want you to have instead of the work of art God wants to create. Life on automatic happens, but it is usually boring. Nice photos of boring events. Like taking a picture of a sign when you are on vacation. Later on when you are looking at your photos you just breeze right past that one don’t you? It is a good photo of a boring event. Like the mundane, routine, ordinary lives of most Christians. Where is our joy? Where is our passion? Where is our excitement? Where is our adventure? Where is our power?

It is all on another setting. A setting in which you stop just living on automatic and start looking at accomplishing God’s incredible purpose for you in the world.

Would you join me on this adventure of being who God made us to be, rather than automatically copying the crowds around us?

World Coffee--I Mean Missions

2011-04-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is just cool. It is a great idea, and easily reproducible for anyone, and it honors God!

Here is what happened. I was sipping a cup of coffee at the coffee shop and writing when a young college aged man stopped by to say hello. He and I chatted and he told me that he had decided to support world missions (he has become one of our donors, yeah!!!). But his method of supporting it rocks.

He got to thinking about how much he loved coffee and how he drank so much of it. So, he is sharing. Every time he buys a cup of coffee, he keeps his receipt so he won’t forget and then at the end of the month donates that to the mission of God. He said that he anticipates giving $1000 to missions ‘one cup of coffee at a time’. He figures if he can enjoy a cup of java, why not at the same time let someone else enjoy hearing about Christ.

What a cool idea! How about you? Can you buy a cup of coffee for world missions?

Christians And Illegal Immigrants

2011-04-05T10:37:00.001-07:00

I recently commented on a couple of fb statuses that were asking questions about illegal aliens. I was actually shocked by the emotional responses that I was reading. After this, a pastor friend of mine from Texas posted a question on his fb page. It said, “What should be the church’s response towards illegal aliens?” He received over 100 comments in four hours. I commented on his status question, and then because I was intrigued, I put it on my status as well. “What should be the church’s response towards illegal aliens?”

My fb people were not nearly as emotional as some of his were, probably because he and his church are in Texas, but two things jumped out at me on both of these statuses. First of all, the vast majority of the responses were answering a different question. They were answering the question, “Should the American government give free programs to illegal aliens?” People were talking about immigrants receiving education, health care, and other benefits without paying taxes. They were saying that the laws should be changed and enforced. This word, ‘law’, surfaced a lot. Remember the question, “What should be the church’s response to illegal immigrants?” That question by and large remained unanswered.

The second thing that jumped out at me was how so many people that did not know each other, people from various parts of the country, people with different levels of education, people that were not friends almost all said the same thing. These people were evangelical Christians, the people that you think would be on the facebook friend list of two different pastors, but other than that they had nothing in common. But their responses were like they were quoting each other. They all spoke of the vast amount of money being spent on welfare, Medicaid, law enforcement and education. In some cases, it was almost as if one person copy/pasted another person’s comments…but I know that these people do not know each other. You know the weird thing? I was at a friend’s house and he had Fox News on, and I saw the same comments being used. It was as if Fox News Commentaries got their information from our statuses. J

So, this blog is born. It is NOT POLITICAL, but I will refer to economics in the first part. This is because in one of my comments on my friend’s status, I said that I did not know, but that I thought maybe the ‘illegal aliens are taking all our money’ attack was a scarecrow. I did not know, but I wondered if illegal aliens really are syphoning our taxpayer dollars. In response I was told that I must not watch the news. On another thread I asked the same question and once more the response was about how ignorant I must be, all you have to do is turn on your television and you can see reports about how much money illegals are costing taxpayers.

So, I have done something rather weird. I have researched it on my own without listening to talk radio or having the television on. I looked at several sources as I googled to make sure that I did not report a slant either way. I honestly started off having no information and just wanted to know if illegals really are taking large sums of taxpayers money. This is not an official research paper, my only sources were the internet, but you can easily google and yahoo for yourself. I tried to avoid blogs and obviously biased articles and use only news sources, periodicals, scholarly journals and official government websites for my information. Here are my figures, but please do your own research.

Our total budget is $3.552 trillion. This is our budget, not our deficit or our debt, but estimated actual expenditures. Of that, we spent $10.4 billion on illegal aliens, however much of that was spent on the US born children of illegal aliens—therefore US Citizens. I did not try to factor them out. If you do the math, this is .0029, or .29%--less than 1/3 of a percentage. I arrived at this number using several sources and although there was a little variance, no matter what number you ended up with it was very, very small in comparison to our budget.

Do the numbers support that illegal aliens are taking our taxpayer dollars? No, they are receiving less than 1/3 of a percentage and that includes the legal children of illegal aliens. For argument’s sake, triple that number just in case some of my sources were erroneous. That would take it up to a whopping less than 1%.

So, why are all these people so concerned with illegal aliens taking taxpayer dollars and receiving benefits that they don’t deserve? Why was this the answer to the question of what should the church do? I don’t know. I can only speculate that we all receive our information from the same basic slant and then we just repeat it over and over. I think that I did not know the rhetoric or share the opinions of many people because I don’t watch Fox or CNN. I don’t watch television or listen to talk radio, conservative or liberal. I did not even know who Glen Beck was until a few months ago because I live in Bolivia. I am an ultra conservative Christian, and a proud American, but I am removed from the conservative or the liberal sources. I was just overwhelmed by the similarity of the responses and then by people thinking I was silly by asking if there really was a huge economic burden brought by illegals.

Now, I have NO IDEA what the American Government should do, what laws they should have, what policies should be enforced, or what punishments should be enacted upon violators of the law. I do not even want to argue the political aspects because it isn’t my passion or something that I know anything about.

But I am passionate about what the church, no, about what we Christians should do in regards to helping illegal or legal immigrants. I do not think that it is my job, nor my responsibility to enforce the law. I should obey it. However, I am a pastor and a missionary, not an agent for the US Department of Immigration. It is not my job to enforce the immigration law any more than it is to look at your 1040 to make sure you paid all your taxes or to set up radar and enforce speed limits. I am to obey the law, that does not mean that I must make sure that everyone else obeys it.

Think this through. If I limit what I do as a Christian only to those people who are NOT breaking the law, then in effect I am saying, “Our church will not help sinners. Stop sinning and then come on in.”

Should Christians help illegals cross the border? Wow. Tough question. I think not at this point, but I could see why some would disagree with me. People who appeal to the fact that this is breaking the law are correct, however is there a time when we should break the law? Is there ever a moment when breaking the law is the morally right thing to do? What if the law said you could only have one child so you had to abort your baby when you got pregnant with your second? Would it be right or wrong to obey the law? What about Christians preaching in countries where it is illegal to preach? What about missionaries getting a business visa to enter a country because missionaries are not allowed in that country? How about speeding in order to get to church on time? (I digress).

I do think that there are times when the higher good, the greater law of life is more important than human laws. I know it is a dangerous game to play when you start appealing to this ‘higher’ law, but nevertheless it is there. Is it in place now for illegal immigrants to the USA? I personally do not think so. I don’t think that the church or Christians need to be compelled to break the immigration laws because of following a higher law.

My question is, what should our response to illegal immigrants be? They are here. They have broken the law. I did not break it. I did not help them break it. I am not a coyote smuggling them into the country. But, here they are, so what do I do?

I believe that we do for them exactly what we should do for everyone. Meet their needs to the best of our ability. We should love them. We should serve them. We should bless them. We should help them. We should try to bring them to Jesus. We should disciple them. We should include them in our lives.

We should erase the ‘THEM’ and replace it with ‘US”. THEY should become part of US.

Here are a few verses just to think about.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Mat 28:19-20)

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)

Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me. Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me. Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You? Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Mat 25:34-46)

. . . From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. (Luk 12:48)

Add all the verses in the Bible telling us to help the poor, serve the outcast, support the weak, and on and on and on.

We need to separate our political idea of what the United States ought to do in regards to making and enforcing immigration laws from our responsibility of loving people to Jesus.

What should our response to illegal immigrants be?

What should our response to legal immigrants be?

What should our response to US Born citizens be?

The answer to all three questions is the same. Love them to Jesus and then help them become more like Him.

Search And Rescue

2011-03-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Search And Rescue

We have all been watching the horrible events unfold in Japan over the last few weeks. From the moments of the earthquake, the incredible and shocking videos of the tsunami, to the photos of the aftermath during search and rescue, we have been overwhelmed by images. We see hurt people, a devastated nation, and more importantly, we see an international response. People are doing what they can to help.

This search and rescue is something that is hardwired into us. We know that when someone is hurting and we have the ability to help them, then we should. But there are a couple of things that we need to deal with.

First of all, we have to open up our eyes to see the facts. People are hurting. The world is fallen. People suffer. People are persecuted. People are oppressed. People are hungry. People are dying. People need help. People need help. People need help.

And we can help them. I will write more about this next blog, but for now, let me put a cool video up for you to watch. Denise showed this at our banquet. She pointed out that the man wanted something that he thought Jesus could not give, and Jesus wanted what the man would not give.

I love the opening verse. The song and lyrics are by Derek Webb.

Constant Exposure

2011-03-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

Eighteen years ago, in 1993, Denise and I made a decision one afternoon that changed our lives. Actually, it was in the evening, after the five o’clock news. We had eaten dinner, and then mindlessly watched the news as they talked about the weather, sports and the stupid behavior of celebrities. After we turned off the television, we started talking about what a waste of time it had been. Then we just expanded to how much of a waste of time, which meant life, that watching television was in general. At this time, we had three children four and below in the house. Denise said that she had watched Oprah that afternoon, and afterwards decided that a nap would have been a better use of time.

Now we were not a television family, watching hours upon hours a day. We limited our kids viewing to the Disney afternoon (we did not have cable) and we would watch the news and maybe something else together at night. We probably watched less than two hours a day.

But we decided that was too much. Life was too short to waste on knowing about the worldd’s dumbest celebrities or who won a sports game, or what the weather was like three thousand miles way. That night, we disconnected the antennae (it was 1993) and stopped watching television.

That was, in my opinion, at least in the top three if I list the best decisioins that I have ever made. We got back our two hours a day, fourteen hours a week, sixty hours a month, 720 hours a year, and almost 13,000 hours or us time later we are still…or were…still accumulating time away from the tube. The benefits have been tremendous. Now remember, this had nothing to do with morality or spirituality. It was simply this. This is the question that we used, and actually still use: “Is this beneficial to my life and/or family? Is this the wisest use of my time, or could I be doing something better?”

In the words of Denise, “A nap is more beneficial than watching Oprah.” So we quit watching television.

We also quit being exposed to Madison Avenue Marketing. A great way to illustrate this is at Chrstimas time and Birthdays. Our children never have an idea of what they want to get. We ask them for gift ideas, and they cannot think of anything. As a family, we don’t feel cheated because we don’t have what the tv says everyone either has or should have.

Fastforward to now. We came back to visit the States, and I felt that we were a little out of touch with American culture, so we started watching television. Once more, we do not watch any ‘questionable’ shows.

Yesterday my daughter Hope came to me as I was paying bills on-line. She asked me if I had car insurance, and I said that I did. She then, with full confidence in her opinion said, “Progressive looks good, but Geico has a lot to offer as well.”

Understand that she does not even know what insurance is! What has happened? We saw this at Christmas time as well. Our children went from not having an idea last year, and of being grateful for getting a box of Pop Tarts (true story) to having a wish list that would make Toys R Us jealous.

Exposure. That is what happened. They have been bombarded by ideas and opinions to the point that the ideas and opinions have become their own.

I was thinking about this and thought, “This is EXACTLY what God tells us to be in community!” God wants us to be a part of a group that shares His beliefs. He wants us to be exposed, constantly, to His truth. This is why we teach our children as we stand, walk and lie down. It is a constant exposure to the Son.

We are to be with people that push God’s agenda the same way that Progressive sells insurance to a nine year old. By constantly reinforcement of the idea.

This is one of the reasons that you should go to church. It is a reason that you should have a close Christian community. It is why we should prioritize our relationships above individual pursuits like computer games, shopping or television. In Christian community, we will rub off on each other. We will nudge each other towards Jesus. We will share our wish list of virtues with each other.

We help each other.

That is church.

That is Christian community.

That is what we need.

What Is Your Story?

2011-03-09T09:03:00.001-08:00

As he told his story, his eyes filled with tears and he actually stopped talking. It is always uncomfortable to see a grown man get emotional, even when it is over a good thing. I mean, guys are supposed to spit on the sidewalk and laugh in the face of a tear duct. Yet, in that hour long second that it took him to get control so that he could talk, I saw God working.

He was telling me a cool story of how he had been led by God to give to a missionary and the following week God blessed him over and above the sacrificial gift that he had given. He closed by saying, "You just can't outdo God. He always blesses you, maybe not in money, but always blesses you when you give."

After we left his house, Denise and I started wondering...what is your story? Many of you that read this blog have donated to our ministry. So, how about doing us a favor and letting us know how God has blessed you for doing it. You can send us a private email (Bolivianjoe@gmail.com) or just comment.

We really would like to hear from you. How has God blessed you for your generosity?

joe

The Best Is Yet To Come--The Summary

2011-03-08T13:07:00.001-08:00

I watched little Mercy the other day as she hit the lid to the trash can over and over. It would swing open, then shut and she would laugh out loud, then do it again. The next day, Patience, our six year old, dressed up and ran around the house singing silly songs—just being goofy for fun. David and Joshua spent three hours building a lego world with legos someone gave us. Caleb is working diligently at his first job, and Benjamin went to a Disciple Now weekend. Jacob is saving for college. I look at my kiddos and think about their age and the benefits that it has. I don’t remember when I was two, but I do remember dressing up like a cowboy, being goofy, building things with tinker toys, my first job and working through college.

Good memories, but to be honest I would not want to be two years old, or ten years old, or twenty years old again. Each age had a world of wonderful things, but each age was simply a journey preparing me for different, but more wonderful things. I would have never had the joy of parenthood if I stayed a ten year old, nor know the passion of mission if I were still 16. Every age is a gift, that when opened reveals the next present in God’s hand for us.

I was thinking about this and it hit me. I can see in hindsight that every year behind me was a stepping stone to a new adventure following it. Every year simply led to greater things. So, if that is how it is in the past, then isn’t it the same for the future?

I am 48, and ahead of me is the incredible year of 49! Who knows what God has in store for 50 year olds! Here is the problem. At some point, we stop dreaming and start remembering. We replace our ‘What If’s” with “What Happened’s” and our visions of the future are now reruns of the past.

I have it! The key to overcoming a midlife crisis is to keep looking ahead! Don’t stare in the mirror at what is behind you. Look at what God has in front of you.

I am 48 years old. If Jesus doesn’t come back, I have every reason to believe that I will live another 40 years. That means I have 40 years to change the world. I think that I will start today!

How I Feel About My Mid-Life Crisis

2011-03-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Middle Age Math

2011-02-16T14:47:00.000-08:00

I love having children. Yesterday we went to the mall for a few moments, and the youngest girls wanted to experience the escalator, which they rarely do at home (there are only two buildings I know of that have escalators and 90% of the time they don’t work). So they asked permission to ride up and down. I let them do it three times in a row, and they were laughing and jumping like it was Big Thunder Railroad at Disney World. I waved to them and thought how cool it was to be so excited at everything. Being young is great.

Then I thought, that as wonderful as it was to be a six year old, I would not want to be a six year old. I would not want to spend all of my life as a six year old. Can you imagine being a six year old for sixty years? Being six is fantastic, but being 10, 16, 21, and 35 also have their advantages. So, if I would not want to be six again, why do we cling to 40? Do we think that all of life has happened by that age? Do we not believe that God can do things through us, use us, and bless us at 50? Or 60? Or 70? I would not want to be six, not because six wasn’t a fun time of life, but because of all that I have experienced since then. I know that life has so much more to offer than liking an escalator.

As we get older, we tend to replace our dreams with memories and our vision with nostalgia. That is when we start withering away. I believe that our dreams should grow with our age. But, the problem that we face is how to do more with less energy. How can we make a difference when it hurts our back to make the bed?

The key is to do what Jesus did. He focused on the few and the result was that He changed the world. We need to change our perspectives of what it means to impact. Let me explain with a simple math example. We need to stop adding value to the lives of others, and instead multiply ourselves in the world. As we grow older, our ability to produce goes down, but our ability to influence goes up. We need to do what Moses did in Exodus. He realized that he could not do everything, so instead of doing everything he started simply seeing that everything got done. Instead of doing the work, he trained workers. Instead of teaching the millions, he taught teachers.

I asked in my last blog how I could do more with less energy, and received a lot of good feedback. Here is the answer that I see. I need to invest my time and my energy in people who will invest themselves in others. In a somewhat humorous way, it is an eternal multi-level marketing format. I can impact people who impact people.

For example, I taught at a school for pastors in Bolivia. Each person there led a church…I led them. As I taught these pastors how to better equip, train, teach, plan, administrate, communicate and lead their churches, I was in effect impacting the lives of every person who they touched.

This is what I want to do with my life. This is the key to my midlife crisis. Invest in people who invest in people. Change the lives of change agents. Make a difference in difference makers. Impact impacters.

Join me in praying that I could be effective in multiplying myself in the lives of others…so that a model like 2 Timothy 2 could happen in my life.

For those of you who are my age, near my age, or slightly older…are you impacting lives? Are you really living as you change others around you, or simply existing by meeting your own needs?

Lets live!

The Pain Doesn't Lie

2011-02-10T16:58:00.001-08:00

On December 19^th my son had a problem with his car. He asked me to look at it, so I followed him outside and checked it out. I figured out what the issue was, and told him that we would have to take it to a garage for repairs, because the bracket holding his alternator was in need of welding. I turned to walk away, and suddenly, there was a little something ‘funny’ in my back. No pain. No noise. No real identifiable or explainable event, I just felt a little weird spot as I walked. Now mind you, I had not lifted anything, bent over, or fallen. I just turned to walk away.

The next day, I could not tie my shoes, brush my teeth, put on my socks, or even put gel on my hair. My back HURT. It hurt bad. I don’t have insurance, so I did not go to the Dr., instead I ‘borrowed’ some meds from a friend. (is that illegal…don’t judge me! I was in pain). The meds were just muscle relaxers. They did not help.

I hurt bad until last week, and it was this morning, February 10^th, that I put on my shoes with no pain. I still cannot touch my toes.

This pain is another reminder that I am growing older. My teenagers and twentyagers do not understand at all how much it hurts, or that it got hurt doing nothing. They cannot relate to a pulled ligament. I couldn’t either when I was young. But, alas, I am not young. I am not old, but I am not young.

These are the things that I have been thinking about lately. My mid-life crisis is not the same as many men have. I am not going to go purchase a sports car and start wearing bling. I am not going to try to relive my High School/College days. I do not want to act young.

But I don’t want to be old.

I don’t want to be old because it is a reminder that my life is not a line, it is a line segment. It had a beginning and it will have an end. I am mortal. This mortality that I face as I wince while brushing my teeth due to my strained back tells me that I do not have that many years left to invest my life in the lives of others. I do not have that many years left to put treasure in heaven. I do not have that many years left to impact this world.

That is my crisis. My life is here for a reason and I want it to count. I am not scared of dying. I am not scared of living. I just want to live a life that outlives my life. As I look at the years ahead of me, I must realize that even though I have years ahead, each year I will have less ability to be productive than the year before. My energy and ability are declining.

My mid-life crisis is this. How do I make the second half of my life impact more people and invest more treasure in eternity than the first half has…when I know that I will have less resources to invest?

Suggestions? I have been thinking about this a lot and have some ideas, but what are you thinking?

Midnight Delivery Courtesy Of Amoeba Air

2011-02-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

I was really sick one night and had thrown up so much that I was about to go to the hospital (this was in Bolivia of course). I was dehydrated and sick of being sick. At this point, I actually thought of the fact that people my age die. Where did that thought come from? I had never thought about dying before. Seven times in my life I have had guns pointed at me. I have been tied up, laid on the floor and had a shotgun pressed against my forehead. I have been threatened by mobs and robbed. Yet, in all of these things, even when staring death in the face, I was not scared of it. Yet, here I was with an amoeba and thinking of—actually scared of—dying. Once more, where did that thought, that fear…where did that idea come from?

It was hand delivered to me by my midlife crisis. I think it was sent to me by the death of my father. When my dad died, it meant that I was at the top of my living generations. All my grandparents and both my parents are gone. Whatever the psychobabble reason for it, I was thinking that I could die. Well, I lived, (so much for the cliffhanger) but after everything was cleaned up and I was healthy, I just kept thinking about this truth: I am going to die. Hopefully not this week, but in the scheme of life and eternity, my death is just around the corner. This life is a blip on the scope of eternity. I have already lived over 47 years; many of the people I graduated High School with have grandchildren. It is like I blinked and 30 years went by. I now understand what my dad meant when he said, “The older I get the faster life goes by.”

So, my midlife crisis is here. An unexpected friend has moved in with me. I call him a friend because in a way he is like the verse that says it is better to go to a funeral home than to a party (Eccl. 7.2) because going to the funeral home makes you stop and think.

Stop and think. It is funny that I am doing this after so long, when one of my life verses is this, quoted from “The Message” translation because I like the way it translates the meaning…. “God says, ‘Take a good, hard look at your life.’” (Haggai 1:5)

A good, hard look at your life. Stop and think. Consider your ways. Examine yourselves. I have been doing that, and in some ways it has been pretty and in others, well, it is ugly.

You see, as I look at my life with criteria greater than personal gain and comfort, it gets scary. I kept hearing questions like this: How much of your life is oriented around your comfort? How much of your life is focused on personal gain? How much of your life is about your life? What is your purpose and why are you here?

Life is either meaningless or it has a purpose. I think it boils down to this. If my life is a cosmic accident then there is no purpose to it and even looking for a purpose is a waste of the short life I have. However, if my life was intentional, if it was formed on purpose then it has a purpose. In this case, NOT looking for the purpose is a waste of the short life that I have.

I believe and am certain that my life was given to me by God and that there is a purpose to it. Therefore, if I am to truly be the person that I SHOULD or COULD be, then I must find that purpose and fulfill it. My fulfillment in life will happen as I accomplish that for which I was created. Having said that, I am confident that the purpose of my creation is not my personal comfort and/or power over others.

What do you think? “God says, ‘Take a good, hard look at your life.’” (Haggai 1:5). Look at your life as we journey together over these next few blog entries. Are you fulfilled? Are you satisfied? Are you being or becoming who you could be?

Middle Of The Night, Middle Of The Life

2011-02-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

It started in the middle of the night, about a year ago. I woke up for my nightly jaunt to the toilet and then could not go back to sleep. As I lay in bed, my mind began to think on serious things, really serious things. I began to have an anxiety attack. I was wide awake. I got out of bed. I prayed. I got back in bed. I got out of bed again. I walked around. I thought. I jotted notes down on a piece of paper. Finally, a couple of hours later, I went back to sleep.

It happened again a few nights later. Then driving down the road. Then on a date with Denise. During a sermon at church. It has been happening over and over. Finally, I think maybe as a cathartic, I am going to jot some things down on cyber-paper.

Here is what is happening.

I am having a mid-life crisis.

I thought I was immune to it. Yet, here I am just looking at my life, at the accomplishments behind me and the road ahead of me and asking myself, “What am I doing that really matters? Is the world a better place because I am alive? What am I doing that is more important than me? What will outlive me? Why am I doing what I am doing? What is the purpose of all this?”

Now before you start spouting off answers, let me tell you that I KNOW all the answers. I have counseled people on this issue. I have preached on it. I have a life mission statement (I have had one for the last 15 years). I am a pastor and a missionary. I have devoted my adult life to the pursuit of eternal purpose. I KNOW the answers.

But this is the first time I have ever struggled with the questions. It is weird. Knowing the answers when you haven’t really dealt with the questions is not the same thing as having the question scream in your spirit when you try to go to sleep. “What are you doing that matters!”

My midlife crisis has me thinking of my future, of the future, of death, of eternity, and of significance. I have been looking at the years of productivity that I have ahead of me and wondering about my investment portfolio. My eternal investment portfolio. Am I laying up treasures in heaven? Am I changing the souls of men? Am I going to have anything that will last at the judgment seat of Christ?

I am going to write a few blogs on this, but let me close by asking you my readers this: “Have you ever dealt with the real meaning of YOUR life, WHY you are here, and WHAT you are doing?”

Frosty's Bad Day

2011-02-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

The Best App.

2011-01-31T17:30:00.000-08:00

I have to admit something, and I hate doing it. I used to be a techno-savy dude. I knew about the newest, the fastest, and the best. I read PC Digest and stayed up to date on software and hardware. Then I moved to Bolivia, and all of the cutting edge stuff slowly became a dull blade. Now, I am cutting edge 'classic'. I was so pumped to get Windows XP...and my computers in Bolivia use it. How many of you use XP?

So, and here is another confession, I decided to do something not too smart (and it flies in the face of the blog Denise is writing in the other room at this moment). I purchased an iphone. It is my 'I never get any cool toys' toy. I love it. When I go back to Bolivia, it will be a cool ipod and I can use it for wireless internet, but I really don't "need" it there. However, I bought it anyway. I just wanted a toy. I wanted something techy.

Now, it is loaded down with apps. I can keep my financial records and receipts on it with iexpense, track my miles with trip cubby, or read my kinde with the kindle app. I have pandora and food smart. I have three pages of apps and a little over 1,000 songs on it. It rocks.

Now, I find myself looking periodically at the app store. I don't do games, but I look for utility and personal development applications. I will peruse them and ask if I need them. Before writing this blog, and what gave me the idea for it, I looked at the top 10 apps for 2011 on line.

Then it hit me. This is what we should be doing, only with the Scripture. We need to not just have the Bible, but have Bible applications. We should be showing our children, our friends, and ourselves how to APPLY the Bible to every area of our lives. Financial Bible App. Marriage Bible App. Parenting Bible App. Growth Bible App. Purpose Bible App. Church Bible App. Missions Bible App.

Application...the point of the Scripture.

So, let's do something different, and if you are reading this on my Facebook, comment there. Here is what I want to know.

What are three Bible Apps you are going to do this year? Literally, name three applications to your life that you are going to do.

After all, God said to be doers of the Word, and not just hearers only...

Face To Face Is Not The Same As Facebook

2011-01-20T07:40:00.000-08:00

I, like a gazillion other people, use facebook. I enjoy it. Just before I started this blog, I sent a friend request to someone in Bolivia. If they accept, then I will have 959 friends.

Lets be honest for a moment. Do I really have 959 friends? I mean, it sure makes me seem popular and important, but do I REALLY have that many FRIENDS? No, I don’t. I have that many people that have enough common interest in me that we befriended each other ON FACEBOOK. Now there is the rub. Facebook friends can be friends, but they can also be people that we have never and will never meet.

I was chatting with a real friend, face to face, this past week and he said this. Facebook is changing the way that we do relationships. I can log on to facebook, gather some information about you by your status or profile, and then feel like we have connected. It is all information, no heart, no emotions. We have stopped, and Facebook has played a part of this, connecting emotionally with each other. This may not be a problem for a computer app, but it presents huge issues for the real relationships of our lives.

The older, and I think wiser, that I become, the more I see the need for going beyond information and into identity. Getting to understand just who my kids really are, what they really think, how they really feel, what they really want, where they really hurt, what makes them really happy. The same for my friends, and especially my wife. This doesn’t happen with a status report, even if I comment on it.

I have an assignment. Look at your Facebook friends and find someone that is/was a friend before Facebook. Give them a call and go to lunch. I think you will be glad you did.

Close Enough To Connect

2011-01-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

I wrote my last blog about the energizer bunny, and just had another little reminder of the way that we can empower each other.

My son, Caleb, went outside to go to work and discovered that his car battery was too low to start the car. It had power, just not enough to crank. So, I grabbed some jumper cables and hooked them up. In one second his car was running. All he needed was a little boost from me and he was off and on his way to life.

What did it cost me? My battery is fine, and it is connected to my alternator so in reality I did not even give him any of my power. I just connected him to my overflow. He received power from me, but it did not decrease my supply. Isn't that how it is in the Christian life? We connect to God, and have an infinite supply of love and other fruit. So, we connect our hearts and lives to others and they receive from our overflow.

Are we living in such a manner that our lives are connecting? You see, before I could connect the cables, I had to get CLOSE enough to his car for the cable to reach. Are we close to other Christians? Are we connected to them? Does the power of God flow only TO us, or does it flow THROUGH us to other people?

Just a thought,

Joe

Keep On Going and Going And Going

2011-01-14T11:30:00.001-08:00

I met a friend yesterday that I have not seen for a couple of years. We sat down to drink a cup of coffee and chatted for almost two hours. When we finished and said goodbye, I got in my car and realized something. I felt good. I was happy. I was affirmed. I was encouraged. I turned left out of the parking lot and as I started the drive home it dawned on me. I feel this way every time that I talk with this guy. He is the most encouraging person that I have ever met, and it is always a joy to be with him.

This started me thinking. What do people feel like when they turn left and leave the parking lot after talking to me? Do they leave with a skip in their step? Does being with me lift people up, bring them down, or just leave them where they are?

I spent probably thirty minutes evaluating my life, and realized that most of the time when people leave me, they are neither discouraged or encouraged. I want to change that. I want to be an encourager. I want to be an energizer bunny in the lives of other people, and just help them keep on going.

How about you? Do people leave you built up or torn down?

The Holman's Christmas Letter

2010-12-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

Here is our annual letter that we sent out to everyone on our email address. I figured that I would take advantage of the blogging followers and send it out to you guys as well. If you did not get this on email, it is because I do not have your email address so send it to me.

Wow! It seems like only yesterday that I sent out our Christmas letter, and now it is time to write another one. It is amazing that another year has gone by and I am still not in jail. So, what has happened in the last year? A lot of stopped up toilets—why our children think that you need 12’ of toilet paper is beyond me (wait, I digress—this is a Christmas letter)

The last year has seen a lot of action in the Holman house. We moved again, this time into an apartment. It has three bedrooms and is about 1100 sq. ft, so it is cozy. We have 5 boys in one room, 5 girls in another room, and then Mom gets the biggest. Dad just passes out on the couch and drools on the carpet. I can’t tell you everything that has happened, this is to be a letter not a book, but that is why we have a website and blogs. If you don’t read them, then your life is empty and meaningless. Change your life! Go by and check them out. The biggest event right now is that we are in the States on our Home Assignment. Because of our family size, immigration laws, and money, we can only come to the States as a family about every three to four years. So we decided to take advantage of being here this year and we took the mama of all vacations. I had received a little money from my dad’s estate when he passed away, and we decided that the wise thing to do would be to put the money in the bank and save it. Since that was the wise thing to do, we did the opposite (we are the Holmans) and went on a never to be forgotten vacation to Disneyworld and on a cruise. Go to my Facebook and check out the photos.

Now to catch you up with us individually:

Joe has almost too many cool attributes to list, but his biggest virtue is his humility, therefore he must depend upon the accolades of the crowds and the discussion in the chat rooms to talk about his marvels.

Denise turned 27 this year, an impressive feat for a woman her age. She is more beautiful than the day I married her, more like Christ than anyone I know, and my best friend. Not only that, she will read this and I will probably get a big smooch for writing such public praise. She is still homeschooling the kiddos, mentoring younger women, and serving Jesus in the world. She also spends a lot of time cleaning and looking for the day that her kids will rise up and call her blessed. I think it is going to happen next Thursday, but she isn’t holding her breath.

Seth turns 22 on January 1. He is living in Alexandria VA and is working as a waiter. We are glad that we are back in the States for a short time and able to see him on a more regular basis. It is so hard being so far from him.

Jacob has temporarily moved back home with us while we are in the States. He is a great young man, loves Jesus and is showing tremendous wisdom with his finances. Any gals interested? He plans on going to college next year and has strong teeth. (if interested, send your dowry description to us)

Caleb is 18 and a senior in High School. We gave him the option of finishing school here while we are in the States or going to Bolivia for another year or two with us. He has chosen….drum roll please……going to Bolivia! He always was my favorite. He says it is because he loves us, but I think it may be that the missionary school is way easier than Mom’s scope and sequence. He can now legally drive (he has been illegally driving for two years in Bolivia, but we cannot mention that) and starts his first ‘real’ job next week.

Ben is 16 years old and 16’ tall. He is in the 10th grade and may have the best attitude of any 16 year old in the world. Or, it may just be that my heart is hardened and I simply ignore him. He still talks about being a pastor, but we are doing what we can to steer him towards professional gambling due to the better pay scale. He loves Bolivia and keeps asking when we are going back. Mom is homeschooling him while in the States, so he will enter the missionary school in the 11th grade.

David is 14 and eating like an elephant. I don’t know where he puts it, but I think he eats at least 10 pounds of food a day. He just got a good pair of glasses, for some reason his North American prescription was 10x different than his South American prescription (this is not an exaggeration). It can’t be the medical care of Bolivia; it must be a Southern Hemisphere thing (that was sarcasm). Anyway, he is so excited to actually see stuff. I think we will call his glasses a Christmas present and save some money.

Josh is 12 and is smooth. That is the best way to describe him. He just flows. Although he is small, he is extremely athletic. He reminds me of the squirrel in the cartoon “Over The Hedge”. He is energetic, always on the move, and loves to work. Seriously, have you ever had a kid that loves to work? It is an anomaly of the universe. We take full advantage of it and have decided in order to truly let him be him, as parents we will let him do all the housework. I mean, wouldn’t it be wrong to do the work ourselves and rob him of his passion?

Faith is 11 and is my first experience with a girl entering puberty. Can someone loan me a gun? She is fashion conscious, always trying to look good, and wears high heels around the house. She is our little mamma and takes such good care of the other girls that we are thinking about signing legal custody to her and calling our parenting over. She can raise them and we write them off our taxes. Works for me.

Hope is 9, almost 20. She is the sweetest thing and loves to just sit by you and talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. She helps out around the house a lot and talks. She is like Benjamin and misses Bolivia more than the other kids. I think she just wants to talk in Spanish.

Joy is 7 and right now has three broken bones in her arm. This doesn’t surprise anyone that knows her. Joy is active and does not know fear. She is also still maintaining her namesake and always joyful. She was even joyful in the ER when waiting to have her arm put back together. That may have been the morphine drip giggling, but it was still cute.

Patience is six. She has adapted well to being an older sister and loves playing with Mercy. She may be the funniest kid and is always cracking a joke or hiding behind something to jump out and scare you. She is Joy’s best friend and they are always holding hands. It is precious. She has the toughest time with Bolivia and ‘The States’. To her, ‘The States’ simply means where you are not currently living therefore she is talking about when we go to the States of Bolivia.

Mercy is the greatest. She is two and is the most spoiled child in the world. She has 10 older siblings who think she is da bomb and cater to her every whim. They call her “Princess” and she spends most of her day pointing and giving out orders which are promptly obeyed.

On the whole, it has been a great year. God has blessed us and helped us to become more like Him. We have learned more about dependence and walking by faith, and the importance of having fun with each other. I pray that this year you discover more than ever how much He loves you. I mentioned earlier our websites and blogs. If you do not keep up with us that way, and/or through facebook, please do so. It is like getting a Christmas letter every month. 

Joe for The Holmans

www.holmanfamily.org

The Other Side Of The Incarnation

2010-12-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

Jesus became a human. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We celebrate this at Christmas, and although we know it is true, it still blows us away when we try to ponder exactly what it means. God became a man, while maintaining His Deity.

We celebrate Jesus coming to us and we should. However, have you ever thought about what it meant for Him to leave His home? I never did until I went to the mission field. We are overwhelmed at His coming, but how did Heaven feel about His leaving?

When we knew we were going to Bolivia, we began the process of saying goodbye. It was a process because it did not just happen. We said good bye to different groups of people, to various layers of relationships, at different times. From coffee and informal meetings, a going away party at our church, to the tear-filled hugging of Denise’s parents at the airport, saying good bye hurt. We knew we were in the plan of the Father. We knew that it was best. We knew that our lives were going to impact others. We knew that through the pain, good would come. It still stunk. It really, seriously stunk.

Think about what we experienced on our human level. We have imperfect relationships. We live in a fallen world full of pain and sorrow. We leave for school, get married, take jobs in other locations, and die. Good bye is a part of the fabric of our lives. We say good bye constantly.

Jesus never did. He was omnipresent. He was fully present. For all of eternity He had been in the perfect world with the relationship of the Trinity. Good bye was not part of His vocabulary nor His experience. He NEVER left the presence of His home. His family, His Father, the angels, and all of creation were always there. Death was not part of His life. He never had to leave to go somewhere else.

Then, that moment before the conception…that immeasurable microsecond of time when the Word said something He had never said before…”Good bye”. Can you imagine what I was like to leave? What Jesus did for us! He left perfection. He left heaven. He left the angels. He left His worship. He left His Father. He left His home. He gave up His throne. He gave up His omnipresence. He gave up His….I cannot even imagine the list. Christmas was not just Jesus coming into the world, it was Him leaving the Heavens.

This Christmas, take a pause in your shopping, spending, driving, eating, and wrapping and try to meditate, not on the first Noel, but on the first Goodbye.

Wow! God loves you so much!

Merry Christmas!

Blessings From The Grave

2010-09-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this seem like a weird photo to put under the title of this article? How is Disney World a blessing...from....the...grave.... (read that in a spooky manner).

Well, this is whazzup. Last July my father passed away. He was a blue collar, hard working man his entire life, and when he passed away--well the truth be told his estate wasn't very large and it was divided into fourths for each of the kids, but it was more than we thought it would be. Now, here Denise and I are with some disposable income in our hands. What to do, what to do.

Should we save it for a rainy day?

Give it to the ministry?

Pay for 1/19 of the kids college?

Blow it on cool stuff we never are able to do?

The last time that we took a real vacation was in 2006. The next time we will be in the States as a family will be in 2015 (we think). When we are in Bolivia, it is almost impossible to leave due to visa nonsense and money, so we figured that we have one really good chance in a nine year period to take a killer vacation. I wholeheartedly chose BLOW THE MONEY NOW AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT!!!

Dad is paying for it. That is the blessing from the grave. When dad was alive, we always tried to get him to go on vacation with us, but he never would (which made us and makes us very sad). When we received the money, we thought...why not let dad pay for the vacation of a lifetime, and tell the kids over and over that this is a gift from Grandpa!

That is what we are going to do. We are going to Disney World! It is going to be a nine year blowout blast doing things that no missionary could ever do on a missionary salary!!!!

Dad, I know that you are in Heaven because you knew Jesus, so, "Thanks!!!" for the upcoming memories!!!

A Totally Foreign Concept

2010-09-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

I was with a friend the other day, and we were chatting about Bolivia on the way to pick something up out of a storage unit that he rents. When we got to the Storage facility, there were over 100 units and no vacancy. This got me to thinking, so I did about 2 minutes of on-line research and came up the the facts that there are around 55,000 self storage facilities in the USA, with a total average annual market income of $30,855,000,000. Look at that number again! Many of these facilities are even climate controlled, and to be honest, almost all of them are better than the average home in a developing country like Bolivia or most of Africa.

My friend asked me if, when we left Bolivia, we had placed our stuff in a storage unit. I told him that to 90% of the world, storage units are not only unheard of, they are an extremely weird concept. Lets think about it for a minute.

I have too much stuff for my large home and property to hold. I have more stuff than I have room for. So, what is my solution? Do I give it to someone else? Do I allow another to use it? Do I sell it and use the money for something else?

No. I rent a storage facility. Here I can put the stuff that I do not use or maybe not even want into a safe location where others cannot use it. I don't need it. I don't use it. However, I am going to keep it because this is what we do...we acquire and accumulate.

Can you imagine this happening in a third world country? Can you see a row of huts out in the countryside of Africa where people put unused items so that no one else can use them? Can you imagine a poverty stricken nation having storage facilities?

Don't read a bad attitude here...I am just saying that only in a place where wealth is so great and taken for granted would someone not only own things that they don't use, but pay someone else to protect them.

Unlike the first century church that sold their possessions and met the needs of others, we pay others to keep our possessions.

So...here is a challenge for you that could benefit the country of Bolivia.

How about you have a garage sale, then another one, then another one...until your home can hold all your possessions. You can give the proceeds of your garages sales to our ministry, and then also give to world missions the amount that you were paying for renting! If everyone did this...it would mean $30,855,000,000 each year going to the expansion of the gospel from the USA alone! Now, I know everyone isn't going to do this...but couldn't you? Go by our website to see info on how to give! :)

Until next time....how about you start using the Storage Unit of the Heavenly Depository.
Joe

The Battle Of The Bugs

2010-08-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

The girls were sitting in the floor by Denise and she thought that she saw something. She called them over and looked at their hair. She could not believe it. They had lice. Not just a little louse, or even a few lice. It was Lice Metro. Thousands of lice had set up an entire world in their hair. We could not believe it. We had lived on the mission field for three and one-half years and never had them. Now we were in Loudoun County Virginia and had an infestation. We think that they caught them from someone at church, because we cannot figure out where else they came from.

Here we are, almost three weeks and $100 later and we think that we have defeated them. It was amazing how much work it took. Washing their hair in insecticide shampoo, then soaking their hair with olive oil and wrapping it in saran wrap at night, washing sheets, blankets and pillow cases on hot every day were the most time consuming part of the process. Denise also had to comb their scalp in two square inch sections and dig out the egg sacks and dead lice. They missed three weeks of church because we did not want to have evangelistic mice venturing to the mission field of others kid's heads.

I was thinking about this and how it related to our lives. You know, for most of us, it isn't the big sin that gets us. It is the 'little' vices. (I know this is erroneous theology--but you understand what I am saying).

We are not out murdering babies through abortion. We are not embezzling funds. We are not cheating on our husbands or wives. We are not ___________ (fill in the blank with your mad lib verbal sin).

It is not the big sin...it is the constant little sins that undermine us. The angry retorts, the bad attitudes, the unforgiving heart, the judgmental spirit and the self-righteous soul are the ones that nibble at our heads and suck the spiritual life out of us. It is the harsh way that we respond to our rebellious teenager and in the unkind manner we treat the cashier at WalMart. It is the music we listen to and the things we let not just flow through our minds but take us residence there. These are the internal lice that eat away at us.

However, the good news is that the treatment is easy, fast and complete. It is called Calvary. Why not go there right now!

Faith with head wrapped up in olive oil and saran wrap.

Mercy following her sister's example

The saran wrap singers

Mercy doesn't seem too bothered by her new doo.

Too Many Options

2010-08-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

I went to blockbuster the other day for the first time in 1,285 days (really, I did the math just for fun). I was in the store for about 45 minutes, and then left. Know what I rented? Was it a sinful ‘R’, a border line ‘PG-13’, a questionable ‘PG’, or an acceptable Veggie Tales?

After 45 minutes I left the store empty handed. Do you know why? I simply had way too many choices. I could not make up my mind. I only had time to watch one movie, and if I picked this one, then I could not watch that one…and that other one looks really great! Hey, here is an action, a romantic comedy, a family or a drama. There were new releases, manager’s choices, summer blockbusters, past Oscar winners, and employee picks. There were classics, westerns, and my favorite, science fiction. I could watch foreign films or Bollywood (whatever that is). I was overloaded.

I went out to eat with some donors to say ‘Thank You’ for their support of us. The menu had 12 pages…seriously, 12 pages! There were 9 hamburgers to choose from. Here are the questions I was asked.

“What do you want to drink?” Tea.

“Fruit tea or normal?” Normal.

“Sweetened or unsweetened?” Unsweetened.

“Would you like a sugar substitute?” No thankyou.

“What would you like to eat?” Steak

“How would you like that cooked?” Medium well

“It comes with two sides, what would you like?” Here I was stumped because there were 10 sides to choose from. I finally settled on a bake potato and salad.

“Garden salad or Ceasar?” Garden

“What type of dressing? House, Ranch, Thousand Island, Blue Cheese, French, or Vinegar?” I was starting to get worn down like when you child keeps asking the same question three hundred times. I settled on Ranch.

“Would you like butter on your baked potato?” Yes.

“Sour cream?” Yes.”

“Chives?” (in an Eeyore sounding voice) Yes.

“Bacon bits?” AAGGGGHHHHH!!!! Just bring me something to eat I don’t care!!!!!!

The same scenario happened with everyone else.

Options and options and options. It is an American value. We have so many choices. Count the various chip options that you have, or soft drink options, the next time you go to the store. Look at your closet and see how many shirts (or women—shoes) that you have to pick from.

We have so many choices to make every day that we are bogged down with them. We leave the store empty handed, or worse than that, with buyers remorse because rather than feel grateful for what we have, we wonder if we should have picked something else.

So, here is the point where I usually have a spiritual application. I really don’t have one except maybe that this passage could apply:

(Luke 10:41-42) But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

Are we bogged down and bothered by so many irrelevant choices, that we are too tired to make the right choice about what really matters?

Just A Thought,
Joe