Grandma And Jesus

My daughter has been walking around saying something lately that I just have to share. There is no point or application to this story. It's just cute:)

Gabby with her doll that Grandpa and Grandma Benefield
sent her for Christmas

Several days ago while talking to her mom on the phone, my wife let our 2 year-old daughter, Gabby, talk to grandma for a minute. When she got off the phone, she spent the next several minutes telling everyone who would listen that she had just talked to "Grandma and Jesus". At first I didn't think anything of it, because she has been known to say some pretty interesting things "out of the blue". But over the next couple of days, she kept saying the phrase over and over. When relaying her conversation with Grandma to someone, it was "Grandma and Jesus". When talking on a toy phone, it was "hi Grandma and Jesus". When telling us something she forgot to say on the phone, it was "oh, I forgot to tell Grandma and Jesus". But she wasn't doing this when referring to both grandmas. Just my mother-in-law. (Sorry, mom!) 

It finally dawned on me why she was saying that.

Guest Preacher - Evangelist Dave McCracken

We were blessed this past week to have Evangelist Dave McCracken preach two nights in our church. He and his wife, Nancy, were passing through Cambodia to see their long-time friends, Ray and Sharon Shull, and Bro. Shull graciously "loaned him" to us for two nights.

Since it is a rare treat to have a guest speaker like this pass through our area, we invited some other missionaries to bring their families and/or some folks from their church and join us for the services. What a wonderful time we had! We averaged over 90 people each of the two nights. The singing was phenomenal both nights as we sang encouraging hymns like Revive Us Again, All Hail The Power, and Power In The Blood. I absolutely love to hear our people sing, and when we added the people from several other churches, it was even better than normal. Bro. McCracken paid our combined churches a real compliment when he said he wished he could take the whole group back to America with him to show some of the Christians there how it's done!

Discouraging Times & The Christian Worker

© Ron Chapple | Dreamstime Stock Photos

If you are a Christian worker of any kind, you have faced discouraging times. I remember when we were starting the Good News Baptist Church in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Several times when it was time for our evening service, I had the church cleaned, the chairs set up, hymnbooks laid out, music playing, my sermon tucked away neatly in my Bible, and threw open the door ready to quickly step out of the way lest I be trampled by the surging throngs of people hungry to hear God’s Word! Then…(crickets chirping)…nobody came. Pastors certainly go through times when it seems like for every 1 step forward, their church takes 3 steps backwards. Missionaries no doubt feel at times that not one person in the entire country cares a whit about what they have to say. A bus captain may at times wonder why it seems the harder he works, the less interest kids seem to have. A Sunday School teacher may feel like throwing in the towel because even when their students attend the class, they don’t seem to listen to a word that is said. A soulwinner will occasionally return home with one thought on his mind: “What’s the point?”