He Leads Me Beside The Still Waters.....

From Day "1" of our sabbatical, we have purposed to be strategic about our time away. We are now moving into a time of reflecting and recharging our soul.

Reading Psalm 23:1-3 "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul." As we think about this portion of scripture it talks about the still waters. What comes to mind is that the best way to see your reflection is to look into waters that are stilled. I think this talks to us about getting to quiet places, removing us from our every day hustle and bustle and taking the time to reflect. As we do so, the scripture says, "He restores our soul". What a great promise!

For those that attend Bend Christian Fellowship, we want to let you know that we won't be at the church campout this year. We wrestle with this decision because we love being with you but we also know that in order to have our soul restored, we need to be by the still waters. We will be praying that you have a great time as a church family and look forward to September when we are together again.

Love, Pastor Dave & Kimi

Reading the menu doesn't fill you up; eating the food does.

The refreshing of a soul sometimes takes time. Knowing what refreshes it and doing what refreshes are two different things. Kimi and I are in that process. We are so thankful to be able to have this time to remove the harness and stop the plowing for awhile. The every day tasks for pastoring carries some burdens that can wear on you at times. Being freed up from those have been a great blessing, but then we have to be disciplined enough to lay down by the still waters. Saying no thank you to people, stilling yourself down to be refreshed is harder than you think when you are use to plowing. To quote Wayne Cordeiro "Reading the menu doesn't fill you up; eating the food does." We are off to eat some solitary pie.

“Free at last; free at last; thank God Almighty we are free at last.”

The title of this blog is a quote by Martin Luther King and accurately states the truth whether we are enjoying the freedom as a country or our freedom in Christ. As we have returned from our travels in Israel and Greece we are so thankful to be back in the USA celebrating our freedom on the 4th of July. Whether we were in Crete seeing the fighter jets flying over daily bombing Libya, the riots in Athens, the shooting off of live rounds from tanks in the Golan Heights, crossing into Bethleham through Palestinean territory or seeing military on the roofs of Jerusalem or swarming the streets, it makes us very thankful for where we live. To them it is a way of life, to us, we are so far removed. But today, we want to say we are extremely thankful for the place that God has allowed us to live! It is our prayer that you enjoy your day with whoever you are with, very aware of the things that God has blessed you with. We are currently in California spending some time with family, again thankful for all the blessings we enjoy!

Why We Do.... What We Do....

As we celebrate our 22nd anniversary with you from Israel, we have titled this blog... "Why We Do, What We Do", because of the picture to the left. This picture was taken of a sign that hangs just outside the Church of the Annunication. A church in Nazareth that represents the place where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was with child and that she would have a virgin birth, as it states in Isaiah. The Muslems have put this up and we think the sign speaks for itself.

Even tho we aren't there, we are celebrating our anniversary with you. That's what we are all about, the proclaimation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! He IS the Way, the Truth and the Life! There are many detourants and obtacles to that message, but as you stand strong, we stand and celebrate with you! We wish we were there! We love our church family and are thankful for the call of God that put us in Bend, Oregon! Enjoy the tri-tip! We love you all!

Pastor Dave & Kimi

Thank You!!!

Wow! We started our tour two days ago and man have we traveled and been busy! From Jaffa to Caesarea where Cornelius and his household heard the Good News of the Gospel and the Lord opened the door for the Gentiles to be converted. Then to Megiddo, which is the site of Armageddon where "the game ends", that was amazing to see and as you look over the valley, you could see Nazareth, the Mt. of Transfiguration and also where Gideon fought the Mideonites. This land is power punched in every place you look there is a Biblical stories played out before our eyes! There have been so many places, we can't mention them all, but today we took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee (see picture) and to our amazement, they played beautiful worship music that we sing in church as we crossed the sea. About 1/2 of the people on the tour seem to be Christians and it was a very moving experience. We saw sites like Tabgha, the site where Peter caught the fish with the coin in his mouth, and the other picture you can see Dave got one of those too! We visited the place where the Sermon on the Mount was and Caesarea Phillipi where Jesus told Peter, "I will build my church". We also traveled to Capernaum where 5 or 6 disciples were called and saw the house where Peter lived and Jesus did the miracle healing of the parapaligic. Days full of great Biblical sites, watching the Bible come alive is a trip of a lifetime!

On top of all of the Bibical sites, we traveled through the Golan Heights, from there you could see Lebanon and Syria, the place where the Yon Kipper war was fought. In fact, when we were traveling through you could see the Israeli army doing military exercises and you could see shooting from their tanks and watching them explode. Our tour guide, who is a reserve soldier explained the Israeli lifestyle as living with a gun in one hand and a shovel or agricultural tool in the other. Meaning, you could see military sites and neighborhoods right across the road. The average Israeli lives with that reality on a daily basis. It sounds like the days of Nehemiah

We want to take a moment to thank those from BCF and all of the others that have made this trip possible for us! This trip, in the first couple of days, has been more than we could have ever imagined, and we are reminded that it is because of all of your generosity to us that we are even able to see and take in all of these things. For that, we are forever grateful!

Thank you so much! Pastor Dave & Kimi

Jaffa

We have now been in Israel for a few days, we are staying in the Jaffa area which overlooks Tel Aviv on the Mediteranean coast. Jaffa is mentioned a handful of times in the Bible. In Acts 9 & 10, where Peter raised a woman from the dead named Tabitha and he also stayed with a tanner named Simon. This is where he had the vision of the sheet being lowered, which ultimately opened the door of the Gospel to the gentiles. In fact, as we were wandering around the old town of Jaffa, we came across a little house that is thought to be Simon the tanners house, which is the picture you see. As we looked over the ocean, we also realized this is the place that Jonah fled from God and was swallowed by the whale. Amazing! As you see the ocean, you can also imagine the log rafts that came into this area for the building of Solomon's temple. We find it exciting to imagine all of the things that took place in history in a place like this.

Our accomodations are at Beit Immanuel Hostel for a few days, which is a great place to rest and relax before we join up with a tour group in a few days. The hostel serves as a place of prayer and worship. It was so refreshing to go down to breakfast the first day and hear worship music coming out of the kitchen. We were invited to attend their Messianic Jewish service since we were here on the sabbath. The worship was so beautiful, all in Hebrew, but made us miss our BCF family all the more!

We have been wandering the streets during the day, stumbling upon little shops, flea markets and Biblical sites all around. It is very warm and muggy here so we are always drinking lot's of water and spend short shots of time outside for now.

Until next time, be blessed in every way!

Pastor Dave & Kimi

John's Cave

We will be traveling today back to Kos Island by ferry after finishing our time here on Patmos. The picture you see is in John's Cave. On Sunday morning, we were able to go back to John's cave for a church service with the Greek Orthodox Priests. We couldn't understand what they were singing, but it was beautiful as it echoed out from the cave. After their service, we were able to take communion together in the cave. We spent some time reflecting on what we were experiencing while we were there. We believe in time there will be other things revealed to us about what was imparted to us while being there.
We have so enjoyed our refuge and quiet place here on the Island of Patmos. It is slow season, so few travelers, at times we have felt we had the whole place to ourselves. We were upgraded to a nicer room, a really nice room. We found out today, that it is saved only for "special guests", which has confirmed once again that the Lord's favor is resting on us. Thank you Jesus for your continued goodness to us.

We love and miss you all! God Bless you TONS!!

Pastor Dave & Kimi