Our first update of the year.  We created a totally new website, still not great in Internet Explorer, and are hoping to regularly update it throughout the year.  This is the first entry at www.steveandmegan.org

The end of the year is here and I guess it’s time to start with the New Years Resolutions.  Along with tightening my glutes and cussing less, consistent upkeep of the website has made my list of things to do this new year.  So welcome to our first blog post...of this year.

Honestly we have no great expectations for this year.  We know that God will continue being a loving and perfect God and we’re going to do our best to work with Him to establish His kingdom on earth.  Outside of that Megan and I have no clue as to what we’re going to experience this year.  There are things we want to do, and things we know we’re going to do in the unforeseeable future, but we don’t quite know what changes this year will bring.

Maybe there won’t be any changes this year.  Maybe this year will be the exact same as last year.  If so, that’s no problem.  We work with great people who love Jesus and desire to help others love Jesus.  Megan’s still teaching the Reading class (Read Kindergarten class) and I’m teaching in both School of the Bible and in the third grade.  We know this is where we’re going to be until the end of summer 2011.  After that we’ll hear from God where we’re to go.

Actually, there is onething I’m excited about this year.  The merging of the prayer movements with the missions movements.  What does that look like practically?  I don’t know, but it’s happening.  The International House of Prayer and Youth With A Mission are increasingly coming together as are other ministries.  There’s so much talk about it, especially from the International House of Prayer that we’re bound to see something tangible this year.  That’s also what God is calling Megan and I to in the future.  To have a ministry that disciples and outreaches to the Indigenous of the Americas that is bathed in 24/7 prayer.  Read more about that on our Vision page that isn’t posted yet :)

Continue to keep us in prayer as we teach and continue to ask God for our next step in the next new year.  Also we’re still trying to find a cheap used car to get us around Tyler while we’re here.  And we could use prayer to find monthly supporters who want to partner with us.  If anyone has a prayer request as well, email us and let us know.  We’d love to join with you in seeking the heart of God. 

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We have 13 students from six different countries.

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The first week has come and gone.  We’ve been systematically going through Larry’s book, A Time To Understand, this week and onto the next.  The book focuses primarily on apologetics and worldview stuff, so we’ve had great talks with the students about our (human beings) inherent value and how we need to live according to our God given design.

My first teaching in the SOTB was this week.  I taught on the three ways people try to define moral standards outside of the Bible.  The three ways are Hedonism (Moral Relativism), Majority Consensus, and the Social Elite.  In two weeks we’ll be covering Hermeneutics, which will be my teaching track.  That means that I’m in charge of working with Larry to get the teaching and homework schedules set up as well as print out their notepacks.

This year has already been extremely busy and I don’t see any let up in the near future.  Please pray for both Megan and I as we do our best to work hard and help our students, of varying ages, come to a better understanding of God and how He works.

Steve.

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From Salon:

Movies not to miss: “Munyurangabo” - Beyond the Multiplex - Salon.com

“Munyurangabo” is an independent feature film shot in Rwanda by a young American director, and in a case like that, the story of how the movie got made always threatens to overwhelm the movie itself. So, yeah, it’s a hell of a good human-interest story and let’s get it out of the way first. Director Lee Isaac Chung (who also shot, edited and co-wrote the film) isn’t just a 30-year-old American with no African connections or heritage. Just to ramp up the improbability index a bit more, Chung is also the son of Korean immigrants who was born in Denver and raised on a farm in rural Arkansas, but who found himself, in 2006, making a movie about a troubled Hutu-Tutsi friendship with a class of 15 Rwandan film students, some of them genocide orphans and returned refugees.

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YWAM Tyler Discipleship Training School film.

Remember that YWAM movie trailer promo video I posted a couple days ago? Well the full length short film is finally up. I really like it and I think it captures the heart of YWAM.

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The trailer to YWAM Tyler's 13 minute, soon to be released, documentary. Really just a promo piece, but it's shot wonderfully. 

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After church we drove some, ate at McDonalds, then read at Barnes and Noble.  At three p.m. JesusFirst then threw us a wedding shower.  Pastor Kim was great as this shower was more than Megan and I ever expected.  Overall, I think there were nearly 20 people that came bearing gifts. Here’s a non-definitive list of our swag (p.s. I never say ‘swag’):

• a toaster oven, my fav.
• a blender
• a crock pot
• a mixer
• a five piece baking set
• a blanket
• some decorative things, Megan knows more about that stuff than I do.
• and cash.

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In January of 09, instead of returning to Multnomah Bible college, I joined Youth With A Mission once more. I joined School of the Bible staff and so far I'm loving it.  Being here for two months has been good as God’s been pushing me to doing things that I would normally hesitate to or wouldn’t take up at all.  Already I've given four teachings (Consequences of Sin, Saving Faith, a reading of Charles Finney's conversion, and Establishment in the Life of Sanctification) and I’ve been learning how the admissions department works as I’ll be taking over the role come next year.  God's placed me somewhere where I thrive.  Somewhere where I can get experience and walk out the desires of Gods heart that He has shared with me.  It hasn’t been too easy for me learning right away how to prepare a teaching and to give the teaching in ways that are understandable, but God’s hand has been on me the whole time I’ve been here. I’ve felt able to discuss more openly the goal God has given me and have told various people here in YWAM Tyler.  All have been interested in it so far, and maybe eventually I’ll be able to share with YWAM Tyler staff as a whole about the ministry. All in all, it seems God has taken me off a path of aiming for my goals and given me new direction that partners with his heart, and it’s not a bad thing.  I may have gotten everything I wanted at Multnomah, but attending the school for the reasons I was going there would have benefitted me nothing in the long run.  Maybe God saved me from a life that I would have hated.  I life where I would appear to be doing everything right and working in ministry, but at the heart level wouldn’t be connected with God.  There’s a strong possibility that God was still actively seeking my heart.  That he was patiently working with me and moving me to a place of obedience that has a better outcome than my own plans. I would love to finish my degree at some point in the future and attend another bible college.  At least this time I may be doing it for God instead of myself.

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