Buy Nothing Christmas

Check out the BUY NOTHING AT ALL song and the website buynothingchristmas for more resources to fight off a commercial robbing of the meaning of Christmas this year.
While you are at it - why not give someone a gift that keeps on giving at justsalvos.com (the justgifts campaign aims to help us celebrate the real spirit of giving - it is of the course the greater gift!).

Up close and personal

At Maclead youth meeting last night we took a quick look at Jacob in Gen. And the progression of his experience with God. His first encounter of course is in the wilderness while he runs away thinking he 'stole' the blessing from his brother. While sleeping he is visited in a dream by God and reminded of the activity of something bigger... something otherworldly and the promise of his heritage. He named that place the house of God.
I'm praying for a generation to wake up to the heritage God has promised. To be children of the blessing is to understand that salvation is so much larger than our own little lives. I wish we'd stop stealing it, tucking it away and treating it like something to be 'had' and we'd get a glimpse of the boundlessness of it - and lose our lives in it... like a boundless sea (sound familiar?).
Jacob comes to recognize God's presence but not until years later does he have a personal encounter that moves him from bethel (house) to peniel (face). This encounter costs him. But it's this ecounter that solidifies him into the generational blessing of the Covenant... it will be through Jacob that the whole world is blessed. wow.
Do you see the progression?
House of God. Recognize the presence of God and the promise is for YOU.
Face of God. Costly. Recognize that through you the world is to be blessed.

I'm praying for a journey from bethel to peniel in many lives today. God grant it not that we should give a gift that costs us nothing. (King David).
Grace
D

Mandela to Obama

Text of Nelson Mandela’s Letter to Senator Obama

Published: November 5, 2008
5 November 2008

Senator Barack Obama,

Chicago

Dear Senator Obama,

We join people in your country and around the world in congratulating you on becoming the President-Elect of the United States. Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.

We note and applaud your commitment to supporting the cause of peace and security around the world. We trust that you will also make it the mission of your Presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere.

We wish you strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead. We are sure you will ultimately achieve your dream making the United States of America a full partner in a community of nations committed to peace and prosperity for all.

Sincerely,

N R Mandela

Prayer for the Congo

With all the hype about the US Elections it is easy to skip over the realities facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Please take some time to read over and pray for them with this dispatch from Commissioners Mungates on the front lines:

Dear Friends:
Thank you for the double assurance of prayerful support. The DRC needs
that every minute.

Please, pray for:

1. Laurent Nkunda to respect human life and stop waging war against
innocence women and children
2. Pray that Rwanda should stop sponsoring and supporting an unjust war
3. Pray that the voice of the Church leaders be heard and listened to by
the rebels, Rwandese, Ugandans and Congolese armies
4. Pray for the Salvationists in the villages and corps that are caught
up between cross fires
5. Pray for our Corps Officers that are counselling and comforting
people
6. Pray for the many women and children starving for food since they
left their homes and long disturbed from subsistence farming

We are in the rainy season and people just sleep in the open with their few
belongings and children as you might have seen on the news.

Thank you for your love and support. We are over 2,000kms away from Goma
but in touch with our officers everyday. 80% of the stone the world needs
for the mobile phone is found in Goma including other precious minerals
hunted for by many powerful countries of the world. That is why the DRC is
in trouble. A blessing has become a curse for the country.

The Lord bless you.

Yours truly in Christ

Stuart & Hope

A Brand New Day

Without choosing sides in the American polarized and popular election let me just say that the election of Barack Obama is amazing. It's not amazing because of the republican versus democratic stuff, the money spent, the other running mates, the speeches, the colossal waste of time etc... it's amazing because less than 50 years ago it was impossible to imagine. It was.
Only a generation ago it was impossible to imagine a black president in America. Martin Luther King Jr. was shooting for equal votes and integrated schools. While he was shooting for measurables goals someone was shooting for him....and now... Now, it's in front of us in living colour... in a beautiful new suit - with a smooth voice and a rhetoric about dreaming... it's here. Isn't it amazing? A Brand New Day.
And so I'm somehow bolstered in my spirit - for that which we can only barely hope or imagine can stand in front of us one day... right in front of us. Jesus said don't buy it when people say the kingdom is over there or over there... because the Kingdom is right here... in you and in me. Here it is - the Kingdom of God. What are you dreaming for... let today be a witness that you should let your dreams soar and then work like made and die as seed to let those dreams live... A Brand New Day.

The Idea of Prostitution

I've been reading a great book by Sheila Jeffreys, 'The Idea of Prostitution' that outlines the history of feminists opinions on prostitution and the connection between human trafficking. Very enlightening. The state of victoria (where I live in Australia) decided to legalize prostitution fourteen years ago - I think in the hope that it would 'liberate women'. The reality of course is a harsh one... fourteen years later:
- more men go to more and bigger brothels
- each week 60,000 men spend $7 million on prostitution
- the number of illegal brothels is 4 times more than legals ones (400 vs 100) 2002
- legalization makes men more demanding of practices which women do not like - and makes women more powerless to resist them because of greater competition and gives more power to the brothel owners
- 80% of street prostituted women are drug users and 85-90% are homeless
- legalisation and decriminalisation lead to the growth of the industry of prostitution. The traffic in women to supply the legal and illegal brothels is an inevitable result
- trafficked women are placed in both illegal and legal brothels.. women are sold to both for $15,000 each. Police suspect they are forced to have sex with 800 men to pay off debts to the traffickers before they receive ay money (Murphy 2002)
- legalisation creates a culture where men's prostitution behaviour is normalised and takes an ordinary everyday place in the culture
- brothel owners are welcome in the Rotary Club and are profiled as role models in respectable newspapers - brothels are even listed on the stock exchange

I'm wondering how many more years will pass before we decide to treat Australian women with some dignity and stand up for their real rights by offering them meaningful work! check out this site for more info: CATW

Adelaide and Social Justice

I've been at the One Mission conference in Adelaide this weekend.
Some very helpful things happening... with exciting reports of social justice initiatives from all different demographics and in a myriad of colourful ways! Exciting stuff really.
It's amazing the things God will do through us if we will spend ourselves on behalf of justice (check out Isaiah 58 for more details). We were talking today about the barriers to moving towards lives that are about the deeper things of the kingdom... and I had just finished some research on Elizabeth Fry who wrote 'I fear that my life is slipping away to little purpose' in her diary just two days before being invited into a women's prison which sparked the future direction of her life... it's like that isn't it - the will of God will not be forced upon us... it is as we go that we will find the sweet spirit whispering amen as we extend God's kingdom on earth. I wonder how many of us are tempted to sit inside and reflect as we write in our diaries that our lives have no purpose... all the while there are thousands of people - all around us, everyday who need to know the reality of God's Kingdom come.
Jesus said it this way, 'the spirit of the Lord is on me to preach good news to the poor...' - now that sounds like a purpose worth living for to me!