You guys are the Best and a word from A.W. Tozer

I am thankful to report to you that we already have 5 missionary women sponsored for our upcoming conference in Mexico following our return from Asia. We have 27 missionary women already registered for the Mexico Conference. Please continue to pray as to how God would have you be involved through prayer, going, gifting, and giving. 

We continue to count the days before we leave for Southeast Asia. Pray as we tie up all the loose ends before leaving the country.

This past week in one of my daily devotions with A.W. Tozer, he laid out a truth I believe we absolutely forget about as Christians, which can result in us walking in defeat in areas we should not be doing so. I am including the devotional here and then will comment at the end.

God’s Eternal Work

The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. Romans 8:2
Is it possible that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ have forgotten that even though we are Christians, we live day by day in unredeemed physical bodies?

Yes, brethren, this is orthodox Christian theology, given to us by the Apostle Paul in these words: “Even though we have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption of the body” (see Romans 8:23). These bodies of ours will be redeemed, for that is the promise of God. But in this life they are not yet actually redeemed. That is why we cannot do God’s eternal work ourselves, for only the Holy Spirit of God can bring about His eternal purposes.
If we are to successfully engage in the Christian witness God expects of us while we are here on this earth, we must consciously know and experience the indwelling illumination of the Holy Spirit of God. We must depend upon His gifts and His inducement and His anointing if we hope to cope with the universal blight which is upon mankind.

Lord, Your Word says that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). I know from personal experience that I need the power of Your Indwelling Spirit to overcome the influence of the flesh.  [Tozer, by A. W. Tozer]

For devotionals like this one for your iPhone, visit 43rdElement.com

Wow! Don’t forget that we live in an unredeemed body. God’s word is clear about that part. Our soul is redeemed but not this little birthday suit. So beware! The enemy knows that truth, too! And he will tempt you and attack you through sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. That is why God tells us guard our hearts. You do that by not being conformed to this world but being transformed by the renewing of your mind! Know His Word, Trust Him, and Obey Him.

His,
Vickie

News update......

First off, Southeast Asia here we come! We are just over 3 weeks out from leaving the country to minister to the missionaries in that part of the world. All the women have been sponsored thanks to your generous support. Also, lots of fun has been had by women in local churches that have come together to have Pure Joy International Work Days to make gifts for the women. Thank you all so very much. Pray for us now that everything will fit into those trunks! Ha,ha,ha,ha

As we put the final touches on Southeast Asia before leaving the country we are also gearing up for Mexico. We come back from Asia on the 25^th of September and leave with a different team to Mexico November 5^th. So, things are buzzing at Pure Joy International! We are so thankful that God allows us to continue to go!! Which means to all of you don’t let up on praying for this ministry and its purpose, don’t stop going, don’t stop giving, don’t stop gifting, and don’t stop standing beside us in the belief that no matter how crazy this world looks, God will provide and protect the ministry of Pure Joy International for His Glory!

If going as a team member to Mexico is on your heart...I need to hear from you ASAP. Contact me at vickie@purejoyinternational.org  leave a phone number in the email to contact you, thanks. At that time, I can give you details. So, if God is tugging at your heart about the trip don’t ignore it. There is a window of opportunity for anyone else wanting to go but the window won’t be open much longer. 

I apologize for being so long in getting a blog out and for not having more to share right now. I could make something up but I think God calls that lying. Ha,ha,ha,ha

Love you All....

Vickie

 

 

 

 

Does God Have a Phone?

This morning I went by the hospital on my way to the office to check on my Uncle. My Aunt took a phone call, so I was able to talk with him while the nurse changed his wound. On the way out my Aunt said, “My cousin wanted to tell me something.” I took the phone and she proceeded to tell me the following. “We had R (grandson) last night. A storm came over our house that lasted about two hours. Lots of lighting and thunder, lots!” I told her, “Yes I know we got it, too. It was major!!” She went on to say it really scared R even though he wasn’t normally afraid of storms. He finally asked her, “Mimi does God have a phone?” She told him no, and asked why? He said, “Because I want to call Him and ask Him to stop the storm.” She went on to explain to him (of course) that while God doesn’t have a telephone he can talk to Him at any time and used this as a teachable moment.

I absolutely love the simple faith of a child! By golly he knew if you wanted to communicate something with another person that wasn’t there just pick up the phone and call them. Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha (He just turned 6.)

Are you in the middle of a storm right now? How severe does the storm have to get for you to recognize, just like a small child did, that only God is big enough for this particular storm?

2 Samuel 22:4 (ESV)
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

Psalm 18:6 (ESV)
In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.

Psalm 50:15 (ESV)
... and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Psalm 116:2 (ESV)
Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

Psalm 145:18 (ESV)
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Romans 10:13 (ESV)
“everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  

Southeast Asia Update!

First, let me start off by singing God’s Praises as He moved on your hearts to give to the Southeast Asia conference. All the M’s are fully sponsored! We are down to almost 7 weeks out from heading that way. The team is getting more excited and continues to work on preparation details. Gifts are being made for the M’s and Prayers are being lifted up all over the world for this trip.

Specific prayer request regarding the trip:

• Still praying for a keyboard to be volunteered from a local church where we will be staying.
• Pray for team members to all get their resources in for the trip.
• Pray for those that will be speaking and sharing testimonies. 
• Pray for Praise and Worship times
• Pray for a great time of fellowship amongst the ladies during meals, free-time, the conference, snacks, etc.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit to encourage and refresh them through the Word of Truth that will be spoken over them.
• Pray for safety for the team and M’s on the way to the conference, at the conference and coming home from the conference.
• Pray above all that we leave the sweet fragrance of Christ in the hearts of the women that will be coming to be encouraged and refreshed!

Please continue to lift up all these prayers and those that God places on your heart to be praying for them and us as well!

Again, thank you all so much for your obedience to Him to give to these ladies! I know I say this to you on each trip but it is the truth ... You are as much a part of this trip as those that will get on a plane and fly over the oceans. We could not do our part if you were not doing your part. Each part equals the whole!

Love you all,

His,
Vickie

Bumping into Christ or Clinging?

The first year of my walk with the LORD I was asked to teach a 12th grade girls’ Sunday school class in our youth department. Obviously, they needed to fill a spot (Smile). Being still immature in the LORD but dripping with zeal for Him I said, yes. The real challenge came when I was asked to address the large group before they broke out into their boys’ and girls’ smaller groups. As I sought the LORD regarding that short opening message to them, the LORD kept taking me back to Luke 8:40-48 regarding a woman that had an issue of blood. I encourage you to read all the passages but for our purpose and space I want to extract ...

Luke 8:45-46
And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.”

In the original Greek that word “touched” right there means to cling to, hang on to, hold. Did you catch what caught my attention? It was Peter’s response to Jesus when He said, “Who touched me?” To paraphrase Peter’s response, he said to Jesus, “There are a ton of people surrounding you and pressing in on you, it could be anybody!” But Jesus responded and I paraphrase again, “No, someone in the crowd actually grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go.” I love that passage. In other words, she approached Jesus intentionally with believing faith that He would make a difference in her life.

Can I ask you a question? Are you just bumping into Jesus, in your quiet times, ministry, church, Bible studies, conferences, summer camps, etc.? Or are you intentionally approaching Jesus believing by faith that HE will make a difference in your life and circumstances?

As this world continues to become more and more unstable daily, it is time to stop bumping into Jesus and start clinging to Him!! 

Southeast Asia Update...
I am excited to share with you that we have all but 9 M’s sponsored for the Asia trip. That is so exciting to us as we continue to make final preparations. For those of you that are giving to these ladies, thank you so much. I saw a picture on my mom’s face book today that I am posting below. It is a great illustration and so simple regarding the importance of the role of giving to churches and missions organizations that pray, go, and give when it comes to our M’s on the field of service all over this world.

Please continue to pray that God will continue to move on hearts to give towards the final 9 M’s.

Love You All,

His,
Vickie

Gum On My Shoe....

I don’t know about you, but it is frustrating to me to be walking along intentionally going somewhere and step in a big wad of chewing gum that someone has haphazardly thrown or dropped on the ground somewhere. It is next to impossible to get off. You dig through the tracks of your shoe with a stick, knife, your key or anything else you can think of to get it off of your shoe. You rub that shoe in the grass or dirt or gravel or pavement just to give it that extra attempt of cleaning those tracks out. Now all along the way while doing this we are having a few good talks out loud with the person that we will most likely never know that deposited said gum. You know what I’m saying is true!
 

Life is kind of like that gum on our shoes. We can be walking along doing fine on our way to somewhere and out of nowhere we step into a mess. May be our marriage relationship, our family relationship, our work relationships/peers, ministry relationships, financial issues, health issues, loss of a loved one, etc., etc. The list could go on and on.

 

If you have stepped into a mess in your life lately, may I suggest we learn some lessons from the experience of “gum on our shoe?”

 

• Stop – we don’t keep walking believing the gum is just going to fall off. It’s gum! It isn’t going to fall off! 
• Stop and assess your situation. If we are sensitive to spirit of God in us we know when something isn’t right. 
• Do your part – get off as much of the gum as you can with your stick, knife, keys, rubbing it on the grass, gravel, pavement, etc. (smile)
• Take the steps to reconcile your part.... confess it to God, seek His forgiveness, admit your part to others and ask their forgiveness. Note: you are not responsible for whether they forgive you or not. You are responsible as a child of God to ask for forgiveness, if needed.  
• Now keep walking – eventually the wear of walking will clean those tracks out.
• Trust God after you have gotten honest with yourself about the mess, confessed and asked for forgiveness.  Now trust Him as you keep walking and He will clean the rest of those tracks out.
• Pray – pray for those that haven’t figured out what a trash can is for regarding gum. (smile)
•  Pray for those in your life that have been a part of the mess, and more importantly choose to forgive them…whether they ever ask for it or not.   

Luke 23:34

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.

 Wow! The contrast in the verse is incredible! Jesus is opening the door to eternal life for them as He dies on the cross, and they are gambling for His clothes. What a picture of not assessing your situation. Wow! 

  

Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of all our sins, past, present, future. Yet, many are blinded to their need for His forgiveness because they have not assessed their situation. Pray for salvation for the lost, in our marriages, families, work places, peers, churches (yes, churches), ministries (yes, ministries) and the world. Pray that God will draw them to Himself through Jesus Christ and His love demonstrated toward us.

 

John 6:44 (ESV)

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

His,
Vickie

Streams in the Desert....

If you have never had a copy of the devotional book, Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles Cowman, it is a must for your bookshelf.  This week I want to share something that was in one of the daily readings titled “I Heard a Still Voice”.  

I Heard a Still Voice

Job 4:16 - There was silence, and I heard a still voice

A score of years ago, a friend placed in my hand a book called True Peace. It was an old mediaeval message, and it had but one thought—that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice.

I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din.

Some were my own voices, my own questions, some my very prayers. Others were suggestions of the tempter and the voices from the world’s turmoil.

In every direction I was pulled and pushed and greeted with noisy acclamations and unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them and to answer some of them; but God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Then came the conflict of thoughts for tomorrow, and its duties and cares; but God said, “Be still.”

And as I listened, and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found after a while that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power and comfort.

As I listened, it became to me the voice of prayer, the voice of wisdom, the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard; but that “still small voice” of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God’s prayer in my secret soul, was God’s answer to all my questions, was God’s life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer and all blessing: for it was the living GOD Himself as my life, my all.

It is thus that our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like a flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But as dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul. —A. B.

35 sponsored for SE Asia with 15 To Go!
P.S.   Thanks to your continued listening to God and obedience we have 35 missionary women sponsored with only 15 to go! I love watching God bring in the resources for these missionaries. God, thank you for your faithfulness to your vision and the ministry of Pure Joy International to minister to our missionary women on the field internationally. Help us to always walk by faith and not by sight regarding the world around us! Bless those that partner with us in prayer, gifting, giving, and going!

Love You Friends,  (Have you heard His voice lately?)

His,

Vickie 

Vomited upon the dry land..... And update on Conference in Asia

Jonah 2:10 (ESV)
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Now isn’t that an interesting lead-in for us as we open the weekly blog. Not necessarily a good word picture (ha,ha,ha) but something that might cause you to go “whattttt?”

Well, let’s back up a little and lay a quick foundation for our topic today.

Jonah is a prophet sent by the LORD to the city of Nineveh to preach a message of repentance. But, because of fear (Nineveh was an enemy of Israel) and pride, he didn’t really want God to save his enemies; Jonah ran from God to avoid his mission. As we all know he boards a ship headed to Tarshish across the sea in the opposite direction. He makes his way down into the lowest parts of the ship and goes fast asleep. Of course, all heck is breaking loose up above him and strong winds blowing so hard as to almost break up the ship. The crew is crying out to god (theirs) and throwing all the cargo overboard trying to save the ship. Finally, the captain goes below and says, “Wake up, sleeper, and call upon your God perhaps your God will consider us that we may not perish.” They then cast lots and it falls on Jonah. He finally comes clean and admits that all this craziness is his fault, he had already told them was running from the LORD. He instructs them to throw him over board as the way to save them and the ship. Immediately, the sea is calmed and the crew calls upon God and makes sacrifices to Him and takes vows. God was using Jonah to draw men to him even in his disobedience. God had also provided a Great Whale to swallow Jonah up for 3 days and 3 nights.
 
Now get this picture so far........Here is one of God’s children being disobedient to God’s direction and plans for his life. Hello, remind you of anyone you know sometimes, like maybe ourselves? Jonah Chapter 2 is the discourse of his time in the whale’s belly. Please take time to read it. But for space sake let me summarize....

Jonah has already admitted to the captain and crew, “yeah this is my fault because God said ‘go right’ and I wanted to go left instead,” if you will. Now he is in the belly of the whale crying out to God describing his situation because all of a sudden he is experiencing what it means to have that separation from God’s intimacy. He says (and I paraphrase), “I cried out to God in my affliction from the depths of hell, the bottom of the sea and He was listening.” Jonah hears and feels the movement of the billows and waves pass over the whale. He feels hopeless. I want you to picture this; the man is inside a whale’s stomach along with sea weed, and every kind of marine substance which that whale was picking up along the way. It was all being digested in stomach acids, etc. Blahaaa!! Not a good thing, as we would say. However, it was a God thing because it was exactly what was needed to bring Jonah to his senses. To recognize that he should never put his trust in anything but God alone.

 

Today my questions are these....

1. Are you running from God? Has He told you to go right and you decided to go left and trust your own ways?
2. Has going your own way put others in jeopardy? 
3. Has going your own way caused you to be encompassed with darkness, tangled in a web of disobedience, dimming the light of Christ in you? Stealing your very life away as you are surrounded by other dead things with no life to them.

It is time to call out to God! It is time to get honest, bare your soul, He already knows! He is just waiting to have you vomited out of the belly of your whale on to dry ground. Then you can pick up your feet and go right instead of left! Notice, once on dry ground, God gave the same direction to Jonah that he was given before. Only this time Jonah was obedient. 

 

My sweet friends, He has work for you and I to do. Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

 

If you are in the belly of a whale, pray for God to vomit you out on dry ground. And then be obedient to what he has called you to.

 

We have 31 missionary women sponsored for Southeast Asia with only 19 left to sponsor. God is soooooo working on their behalf. I love it!! Continue to pray for God to move on people’s hearts towards giving. Also, the team for Southeast Asia is solidified and we actually bought our tickets today! Thank you, Father, for the team you have in position to go minster to the frontline soldiers for such a time as this. I will be giving you more specific prayers to be praying in the days ahead.

Love you all Bunches,

His,
Vickie