Prayers! Pray for continued wisdom as Lori seeks to administer and improve a program that is bigger than ever. Pray that the teachers and staff will have wisdom and compassion with the students and families in every situation .
Praises! We thank God for provision as we attempt to manage our biggest budget yet. We thank God for a full, experienced staff. We praise God that Lori has a therapy machine she can use at home, enabling her to be at school more.
Busting Out All Over By Herb Pinney Executive Director of NIMA
What a wonderful, fantastic year we have ahead of us. I have been asked to put on my prophetic thinking cap, and with no claim of divine aid, check out where Morning Glory and the “chain of pearls” Christian churches will be by December 31st, 2016. As an Overseer in the church, my thinking and goal has always been way past the pizza party coming this month on to the future kingdom work of the ornery teens shooting ice or spit balls at each other while I was trying to teach a lesson. So many of those glances past puberty have proven a blessing in so many ways. The very plans for the conversion of the Navajo Reservation from the “church is not allowed” to the church that is covering the plains and valleys and Morning Glory itself began in 1961. So, I guess the next ten months will be no sweat.
First and foremost, trusting God is not only the best way, for our Mission of Faith, it is the only way in a year of political turmoil and economic predictions of disaster to down-turning economy, depending upon to whom you are listening. Our motto is to obey God and leave the consequences to Him.
The great big “Amen” and “Praise the Lord” going into 2016 is that after a decade of phone calls, meetings with supporters, and notes and emails wanting to; no, demanding, to know what on earth are we going to do when Herb dies, and who is replacing Lori; (as if she has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel). Dean and I had and still have a contingency plan but felt no pressure as God was assuring us He was and is and will be in control. In February of 2016, both Lori and Herb are in the best health of the past several decades. At the same time, never have we had the quality of first and second tier leaders both in Guatemala and in the States. God is in control and our historic work has never been in better hands. So, we are on the move.
The secret code for our matching the will of God is that our supporters desire to do so. In John 5, Jesus has returned to Jerusalem for the feast and is passing the Sheepgate (Bethesda in Aramaic). He met a man lame for thirty-eight years. Now, there were special blessing at that pool according to the local traditions that when an angel troubled the waters of the pool the first crippled, blind, or sick person in the water would, by faith, receive healing. The cripple talking to Jesus had a pathetic tail of woe; he had no one to help him. Thus he was always in second or last place and nothing was happening.
While talking to the man and listening to his sad tale, Jesus asked a simple question: “Do you want to be healed?” You might think that was a dumb question, but it is a common question coming from Jesus. When Jesus got an affirmative answer, he did what he always does; he asked the impossible of the man.
Jesus looked at the cripple and said, “Take up your bed and walk!” At that moment the cripple had a decision to make: did he really want to get healed? If he did he needed to put forth his best limited, crippled, totally insufficient human effort. He looked at Jesus and gave his best grunt of effort and at that second, Jesus did what he is best at, supplying all the strength that the cripple did not have and “Bingo!” the dude is standing, reaching down with a smile, picking up his bed, and walking into the pages of the Bible.
This past week I wired the February budget to our schools and churches in Guatemala. It was right at $22.000.00 for one month. Even with the downturn of American employment and economy due to the problem in the coal, oil, and gas, worlds and the loss of support from effected churches and areas, Lori has set a “toad-strangling budget”. It is going to do wonders for my prayer life. We are not backing down, slowing down or looking back. 2016 is planned to be a winner of a year and the only question is the question Jesus asked one question as we look at a record-breaking budget and student body, new first and second tier leaders, the need of a full-time assistant to Queno, the need of another high school classroom building, the need of our Bible institute, the continued training of our current staff and teachers so that in the future when we multiply to two and more Morning Glory campuses in Guatemala the staff and teachers will be already trained. The question is, “Do we want to see all that happen according to the will of God in 2016?”.
Lori, Dean, dozens of local staff members, and I are ready to answer yes; we are ready to trust God and leave the consequences to Him, However, just as Jesus faced the thirty-eight-year-old and asked: “Do you want to be healed?” He is asking our supports from Europe to the Americas, “Do we want to see Morning Glory have a record-breaking year with new buildings, more first place wins for all the schools, the coming Bible institute and so much more for 2016?” If, like the renewed hope cripple at the Sheepgate we say, “Yes,” then he asks the impossible of us: “Do it!” If we put forth our best, renewed, sacrificial effort then Jesus will do what he always does, make up what our efforts are lacking, and by December 31st, Morning Glory will be breaking headlong into a record- breaking 2017. “Do you want to?”
