freedom

For the past 48 hours I have been praying for six Afghan Christians as they made efforts to leave the country to escape the violence, persecution and certain death for following Jesus if caught at any of the checkpoints as they made their way to the airport. I am ashamed that it took a prayer request from a friend, that had direct connections to this group of people, to humanize the tragedy that is taking place in Afghanistan. As events unfolded, I received updates of their progress, their setbacks, and their uncertainties. As more people joined together and prayed for them to make it safely through airport gates and onto a departing plane, God provided. After two days we received report that they had boarded a plane in Kabul to begin their journey to the states where a community of believers are waiting to receive them into their family.

Photo represents the urgency to leave the country and not a picture of the six described in this post. It does represent many others that need our prayers.

How must God have felt during this tumultuous journey? How sad must He have felt that His children had to endure such suffering? How disappointed must He have felt that there were christians around the world that saw the news of what was happening and didn’t cry out for God’s intervention. What will it take to humanize the stories that we are hearing in the news media?

We have freedom in our lives and in our faith but are we taking it for granted? Are we looking at our freedom as an unconstrained opportunity to share the gospel with as many people as humanly possible or are we wasting the blessing that God has given us through this freedom?

“Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom.” 1 Cor 7:13

As we continue to journey through this year together, let’s not allow distractions to keep us from learning, growing, sharing and delivering the word of God to those around us. We must move forward, making Jesus the priority and urgently sharing His word with others. We don’t know the hour or the day that Jesus will return but we do have the good news of Jesus and how to guarantee eternal life with Him. How many will you reach with that good news?

Winter was warm and fuzzy during the Ability Tree AT Station winter retreat. A group of campers and chaperones came together from New York to Oklahoma. No traveling involved since this was our second virtual retreat. But this didn’t deter the camp from having fun. Again we got to meet everyone in their home environment and meet some of the special family members in their lives. The weekend was a mystery as we tried to figure out the theme for 2021, it had been taken!! But how, who, when, where? What were we going to do? Fortunately, AT Special detective Burt Macklon was on the case. We played games, had group BINGO (a camper favorite) saw our medical team in action and learned from our recreation team how to make a HUGE mug of cocoa. But most importantly we were able to spend time worshipping and learning more about God during our service times. In the end, through all of the activities the theme was recovered. 2021 brings with it “FREEDOM”. Freedom to be who God created us to be and to walk in faith and discover our purpose as we serve HIM! What will 2021 look like? Stay tuned for the next episode of AT Station.