Monthly Archives: May 2012

What Happened in 1970…Didn’t Stay in 1970

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How cool things seemed in 1970!  As a rebellious teenager who had trouble complying with her strict parents, curfews were frequently broken.  There was a new boyfriend who entered the picture my senior year who introduced me to alcohol.  It escalated my rebellion, as my “little white lies” and “fibs” seemed to become more frequent to avoid my parents’ detection of my drinking and dating this forbidden older guy.  But, they were just a “little lies”. I thought they wouldn’t hurt anyone.

I continued to believe things like, “He loves me, and he wants to marry me.”  Within months, I went off to college, but soon realized that I was pregnant.  No more fun and games.   Panic and crisis immediately hit, and I couldn’t tell anyone.  All the little white lies that seemed so trivial became much bigger and major lies. My boyfriend’s mother suggested abortion.  I stood in a hot shower at the end of the dorm hall with even hotter tears pouring down my cheeks.  I couldn’t bear the thought of this child inside me losing his life.  It couldn’t happen.  But, what will I do? Continue reading →

Want Not

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Buzzing in and out of stores today with my beautiful mother, reminded me of one haunting thing: the buying of stuff is addicting and at the very least dangerous. As a friend said the other day, “shopping begets shopping.” Scripture says it another way in Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. I think there’s an “elementary principle” at play when it comes to materialism. The more you give in to want the more you want. Perhaps that is why the Psalmist said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Lord is my Shepherd…I have all I need. The Lord is my Shepherd...He gives all I need. The Lord is my Shepherd…The Lord is precisely what I want.

A singular desire for Jesus is hard to cultivate in a culture bent on telling you what you “need.” It couches it in terms of what you “need” lest you realize that greed is getting a grip and you’re about to slip straight into sin’s stronghold. I felt that pull today. I got one thing, ah, but it wasn’t enough. My eyes saw something else. My heart nearly choked to have it. I well imagine, in America, we all know what that feels like. I had to look at that temptation and propensity to sin and tell myself the truth. Continue reading →

Missionary Partners

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“Love is a verb.”  -John Mayer

As I am writing this, Long Hollow has two mission teams in the air.  One is in Haiti, and the other is in Uganda.  Both will be the hands and feet of Jesus, loving on our beautiful children in the orphanages.

Photo by Gretchen Jones in Jeremie, Haiti

They won’t be building impressive buildings or feeding thousands, not that those are unimportant things.  But, they will be spending time and loving precious children.  Soaking children in their smiles and kind touches.  Letting them smell their shirts and rub their faces on them tenderly.  Joking with them and being a “bright spot” in an otherwise ordinary day as an orphan.  Do you sometimes wonder what memories our children of the nations will have as adults—will they think back on when “those people” came and treated them kindly and told them over and over that Jesus saves and God loves them?

Oh, Lord, I pray that they will!  I pray that these efforts will deposit in their emotional “banks” so the spiritual deposits can fall on good soil as they mature and grow!  I pray that they will be manifested in life-change and nation-change for the purposes of His plan!

Photo by Gretchen Jones, Haiti- November 2011

Also, Long Hollow’s leadership is listening to God’s calling concerning an unreached people group in North Africa.  Unreached.  People. Group.  Let that sink in—UNREACHED.  Where tribal languages and Muslim culture are obstacles.

Wikipedia, May 2012 (dark green= UN subregion of North Africa, all green areas=geographic region of North Africa

I was telling our eight-year-old about UNREACHED groups, and she was surprised.  She is a relatively new Christian, and watching her makes me realize how “churched” we can become, where we hear and intellectually know things without allowing them to influence our hearts with a holy burden for the lost and dying world.  Seeing her face as she pondered a life without hearing the name Jesus and understanding what that means, I could see that she was truly, authentically touched.  It was convicting.

So, today, let’s all partner with the Long Hollow mission projects.  Let our hearts be united in prayer for our church’s teams who are going to the nations.  If you don’t know what to pray, consider these verses:

  • Colossians 4:3, 5- Pray “that God will open to [them] a door for the word, that [they] may declare the mystery of Christ…” and that they will “conduct [themselves] wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.” Continue reading →

Uganda

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Uganda Team May 2012

By the time you read this, our Uganda team will be well into our first
day across the world. Right now we are sitting at the Detroit airport
for six hours before we depart! I’ve been asking around and here are some
words that describe what team members are feeling: excited, anxious,
blessed with the opportunity to go, tired, ready to get there, wondering what
God is going to do, and longing to see His face in a different place.

It is our privilege to go and minister in two different orphanages
that Long Hollow has helped to build in Mbira and Kyotera. We will be
doing VBS, serving the elderly in the village church, and ministering to
the women in the village. Tony and Kristi Applegate and their five
children will be our host for the week and we hope to provide them
encouragement and help.

Uganda has a population of 35,873,253. The life expectancy is 53. 49%
of the population is under the age of 15. The orphan population in
this country alone is 2,500,000.

Please pray for us.  Our team is 15 strong and we are excited about
all that God has in store for us. If you want to be specific, please
pray for:

Our health and safety
Unity among team members
More than anything, pray that we make much of Jesus!

We will try to keep you updated through the week. Check Facebook or back
here on our blog!

Til He Shouts,

Julie Woodruff
Women’s Minister
Long Hollow Baptist Church

I Deserve

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I deserve...

When was the last time you thought “I deserve to be happy, to eat this, to buy that, to feel this way…” or you may have defended some action by saying “Because I wanted to”?? We all have moments when we are tempted to make choices based on selfish attitudes and wrong thinking and …stay with me…this is indicative of a sense of entitlement. You know what that is—it’s that feeling like we deserve to have what we want when we want it. It’s a form of idolatry and we really need to be aware of our own tendencies in this area.

I recently came across a Scripture that called all this to mind. In 1 Samuel 2, I read about Eli, the priest, and his 2 sons—Hophni and Phinehas (those probably won’t make your list of fav baby names). It seems that these two brothers were prime examples of what happens when a sense of entitlement goes unchecked. Their dad, Eli, was the priest and they developed attitudes that screamed “Hey we can do what we want to do and who cares what you think”. Do you think it’s possible that sometimes our actions come across that way to God? We would never say it out loud but when we defy the Word, or when we consciously choose to gratify our selfish nature, isn’t that what we are saying?

Continue reading →

Dear God.

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I enjoyed this particular evening to myself as I re-watched “Dear John.” Have you ever watched this tear-jerker? If not, grab a box of Kleenexes because it is a heart grabber! My heart was filled with emotion after the movie and I began to reflect…

Letter after letter was written, each moment of life was shared with one another from a distance, and they had a strong felt love for one another… on the other hand, the journey grew tiresome, hard, and seemingly not worth it. While they had not fallen out of love with one another, they had fallen out of relationship. By falling out of relationship their was a brokenness amidst them, a brokenness that only forgiveness would eventually heal.

WOW… when I re-worked that in my head (the story line), the re-sounding theme was relationship and forgiveness. As we fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God, we are hearing His love letter to us. As we respond in prayer, we are writing a love letter to Him. I try to imagine the Lord anxiously awaiting my love letter to Him everyday, the kind of letter that I not only unload on Him about my days, but also where I praise Him through and through. I never want Him to think that another letter may not come, and that I may fall out of relationship with Him!  Do you grow tired and weak sometimes and feel like it is just not worth it, just as Savannah did in the movie? It causes a broken feeling, as if we are not whole. I know that when I fail to seek Him and when I choose to be distracted by what my humanly flesh craves, I am left empty and broken.

Amidst that brokenness we can be made whole again. Continue reading →

Consistent Dependency

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Do you ever struggle remaining attached to the vine? Is consistency in your prayer life difficult?  I received this devotional last week from AnGel ministries. It was a WORD for me! Hope it will be an encouragement for you too!

Remain in Me. ~John 15:4a

Til He Shouts,

Julie

 

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What Time Is It?

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SUMMER TIME!

Ok, ok. Please excuse the cheesy High School Musical reference. I just can’t help myself sometimes…

But seriously! It’s summertime people! Time for running through sprinklers, catching fireflies, eating strawberries, drive-in movies, and so many other fun things.

To celebrate, I thought it’d be fun to look at 5 fun DIYs that are totally summer appropriate!

1. Herb Pots

 

You can find a clay pot, paint, brushes, and seeds at WalMart. All for under $5! This is such an easy way to add a little life to the windowsill in your kitchen or living room. You can paint them any way you want to match your home and then plant away. It’d be a great activity to involve your kiddos in, too! Continue reading →

From Folly to Faith-Building

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“For I know the plans I have for you,”declares the LORD,” plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~Jeremiah 29:11

Marriages are restored through the Word of God alone.

When God, in His great faithfulness, gave me these verses, I didn’t know all the ways He was going to use them in my life! He used them in ways that only He can do so that I can boast only in Him as I look at the wondrous things He has done. I had given my life to Christ, made Him Lord over all, and  He had removed my addiction to alcohol. The next step in His ongoing preparation of my life was to clean up the terrible mess my marriage was in. My relationship with Christ began to grow stronger as I learned to renew my mind with His Word (Romans 12:2) He began to speak to me about my marriage.  As I read Scripture, God opened my eyes to see that marriage is a picture of what Jesus has done for the church. I saw the ugly picture my husband and I were painting for our girls, family and friends with our marriage.  My heart broke as I looked at Maxie, my husband, and thought “if only he would do what God has called him to do we would have a good marriage.”  This is the blame game and a trick of Satan where he tries to keep our eyes off of our own sin. I was prideful in thinking that I could change people. God taught me that He alone can change lives. He gave me Proverbs 26:4-5 to cling to.

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will become like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.”

I began to realize that I was the biggest fool. Continue reading →

Homemade Hero

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Do we all have the same dream? The one where our child will stand in a place of honor or accomplishment and be escorted before a large microphone with an enormous crowd and they will say those words that have motivated us to clean every dirty diaper, clean up every puddle from a case of the flu, sit through every poorly made kids movie, painstakingly tackle every school project, embrace the years of becoming a full time driver and cook, yes those words. It is almost like I can see them in slow motion as my child forms each syllable…..I …W..A..N..T…. T..O…. T…H..A…N…K…   M..Y…  M..O..M.mmmmm!

Why do I always do all the work? I know at first glance those sound like fighting words coming from my husband to me one afternoon. All the work? Really? He went on to explain. He was the one who went through a special thirty day devotional preceding my daughters 13th birthday. He was the one tasked with taking a gift by the kids to school or taking them on a special camp out. Honestly it has been so long since we had this conversation I can’t even remember all what it included, but I distinctly remember my answer. Because I want YOU to be the Hero. His countenance changed. He got it. In one moment he went from helper to hero and embraced the title. Continue reading →