Monday Reminders

This is a update blog for all of you brothers and sisters in the Trinity family. Please be in prayer for a few matters. Our friend, Harold Coleman is in the hospital and battling lung cancer. Please pray that God would provide for his dire needs at this point in his life. Also, pray for peace and perseverance through this time of trial. Crystal and Steve also need prayer as they help him out in his illness and recovery. Pray that God gives His grace. Our sister Sarah Peters needs similar prayer as she battles cancer. Pray for Ken as he gives care. Pastor also needs prayer for healing in his life. Praise the Lord there is no spread internally of his skin cancer. But, he now must go through another round of radiation. We all know how that affected him this last year.

In other matters we are continuing our study of 1st Corinthians. We looked at chapter 1 and verses 10-17. The passage is all about following God not man. Paul mentions three great Bible teachers and is disappointed that the Corinthians were following these men rather than keeping their eyes focused on the Lord. I believe this passage is important for American Christians. We are bombarded with the megapreachers of megachurches. Man of these men are not preaching the whole counsel of God and have distorted the Gospel for their own gain. I'm being general here as to not lump all radio preachers in one big lump. But, some of the most famous of the tv preachers are in the midst of preaching doctrine that is unbiblical and should be pointed out as heresy against true Biblical Christianity. We need to be discerning! I urge you to stay in your Bible and be like the Bereans and "search the scriptures".

Acts 17:10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Home At Last

Praise the Lord we (Pastor Craig, Jeanette, Caleb, and Esther Rose) arrived home safe and sound from a grand trip to the Mediterranean region. God blessed us and gave us a relaxing but exciting trip. We made it a pretty long adventure. In fact the 7 weeks we were gone is the longest Sarah and I have been gone since we've been married.

As we were gone God used others to minister in a fantastic way for the Lord. The two young men from IBC were, from what I hear, oustanding and great encouragers in the Lord. My Brother-in-Law Ken came and encouraged the believers and got our new projector operational and ready to use and of course our own Lee Cooper, Steve Braun and Dad carried on the work of the ministry in a excellent and Biblical way.
Sunday was my first Sunday preaching since I went away. I preached in chapel but never was able to preach on Sunday morning.

I was excited to start a series on 1st Corinthians. Sunday I introduced our people to the Corinthians. We were challenged about how the Corinthians walk was filled with challenges from the World. They are not unlike the church today. Paul exhorted the Corinthians to "perfectly framed together". May we avoid the pitfalls that the Corinthians struggled with and put aside the world and live a dynamic separated life for Christ.

Please Pray for our kids at Camp Ironwood. There are some that need to accept Christ as Savior. Let's pray every day that God would convict and encourage. Also, don't forget to send the kids an email. Go to the ironwood.org for instructions on how to send a note to one of our campers. The campers are: Andy Dell, Caleb Evins, Kolby Bly, Jeanette Evins, Samantha Craig, Crystal Waters, and Britny Waters.

Another Congrats for Scott B.

Check out the article in the MV News about our champion Little League team. If you squint you can see Scott in the picture. Congratulations to Scott and the team. They will be off to the state tournament next. Good Job.

Germany Quick Trip

So many of you may be wondering what in the world are you doing in Berlin, Germany? The slide show may have caught you by surprise. Well, Mrs. Esther ( my mother-in-law) was about to go back to the states for a short tip and needed someone to take her to catch the airport in Frankfurt. I was nominated to do it. It was much less of a cost to stay for four days. I had the time so I planned a trip. I enjoyed taking the train around and visited three cities: Wittenburg, home of the Reformation; Berlin, filled with tons of important history and Frankfurt, a very modern interesting city. The slide show shows mostly Berlin. I tried to include pictures that represented phases in its history beginning with reference to Kaiser Wilhelm, the leader of the Germans in World War I to the present.

The most memorable part of my visit in Berlin was looking at the places where the Berlin Wall had been. Just 19 years ago the city was divided. In fact, Germany was divided into East and West. The West was basically a free democratic government and the East was a Soviet backed communist controlled totalitarian state. The people had no 1st Amendment type freedoms. There was no free speech, press, assembly nor religion. The communists had total control of the people. What made Berlin unique was that it was a city that was wholly in the East-around 100 miles I believe inside East Germany. But, the city became a divided city. The United States was not willing to let the Soviets take all of Berlin, because it was such an important city. So a wall was built and the city divided. More than any other place in the world it represented the Iron Curtain. The reasons were because the western part of the city was sealed off in the middle and all around with a lone road that led to West Germany. It uniquely was a haven for freedom in the middle of a Soviet block country. Many East Berliners tried to escape. Some succeeded and some failed. Many were shot in doing so. The border was well-protected by both sides.

The rest you might say is history. The Soviet Union fell apart and so did the Berlin Wall in 1989. There were huge celebrations the night the wall fell. I remember seeing live the first section falling to the ground. Berliners from both East and West celebrated as the cities united again for good.

Being in Berlin now is amazing. All that's left of the wall is purposely left parts to memorialize the struggle. I enjoyed looking at the outdoor museum with pictures and text of the history of the wall. Particularly I remember the Berlin air-lift crisis when President Kennedy stood down the Soviets and then later went to Berlin and said "I am a Berliner." And then seeing the picture and reading the text of Ronald Regan's great speech when he asked President Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." It has been one of history's greatest struggles for freedom and seeing the city really challenged me about being thankful for the freedom we have in the USA. We should never be complacent about the government of the people that we have in our home nation.

Freedom in Christ: there is nothing like it. Perhaps a great illustration would be the East Berliners who experienced the feeling of freedom back in 1989. We can truly trust the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that His redemptive work has made us free from the chains of sin and certainty of Spiritual death.

Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature's night;
thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Charles Wesley, And Can it Be, 3rd verse

Berlin, Germany and the Wall

Witnessing and Islam

Today we went to the seafront and passed out a few gospel tracts. Cyprus is filled with workers from India, Ceylon and Banlgadesh. These folks speak their native language and often times pretty decent English. As we were roaming around giving out tracts to those who would accept them, I came upon a man from Bangladesh. This man was a Muslim. I asked him if he was good enough for heaven. He then started on explaining how Christianity was "not relevant" anymore. He made this claim based on the worldliness of "Western Culture" that he said Christianity accepts without any reservation.

I tried my best to steer him back to his own sinful condition and his need of redemption through Christ, but he continued to complain about the sinful culture that indeed does surround us in this 21st century world. Before we parted I was able to explain how true Bibllical Christianity is all about Grace and the redemption that comes only through Christ's blood as opposed to the cold, negative religious system of Islam which is based on keeping very strict laws and religious customs. I tried to show him that a true Christian won't be affected by the worldliness of "Western Culture". I don't think I got very far with him. I pray, though, for the seed that was planted.

Sadly, I had to agree with part of what this Bengali man was saying. Western Culture has done great damage to the standing of true Biblical Christianity. In an attempt to reach out and get "in touch" with the sinner, I'm afraid American Christians have let the world affect their own personal walk with Christ. Don't get me wrong, we need to take the gospel to every creature, no matter who they are. But, must we act like the "world" to do this? Shouldn't the righteousness of Christ have a life-changing impact on the lives of sinners who are converted? These are questions I hope all of you will contemplate. Let us reach the world for Christ, but at the same time, let us preach a life-changing gospel that puts to death the sinful lifestyles of a lost world.

I John 2:15
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him

Refugees and Border Crossings

Well, we've been busy here in Cyprus for the week of the 4th of July. Sorry for the lack of posts this week. But, we were out and about. In fact we were all over the island. We saw some amazing sites. You probably are wondering about the title of my post. Most people don't associate such words with the peaceful island of Cyprus. There is a history of conflict on this island paradise that you would never notice if you just came for a weekend holiday at one of the plush resorts along the sea in Limassol. This week I got to see first hand some interesting history of the conflict in Cyprus.

We got to see the north this week. It was Sarah's first time since 74 that she's been able to go to the north. Wow! it had some very beautiful spots. I'll try to post some more pictures here. We passed over the border crossing amidst the barbed wire fences and drove through the two major cities. All the city names had been changed and everything was written in Turkish. I'll give a brief summary of the reason Cyprus is divided.

Cyprus is divided into two parts. There is the Turkish north side and the southern Greek side. We, of course we are staying in the South. Before 1974 both Turks and Greeks lived together in relative harmony. Although the two groups have battled for control of the island for centuries, they basically got along ok. Cyprus had only been a nation for a decade or so (receiving their independence from Britain in 1960), when in 1974 a radical political group attempted to overthrow the coalition government (Greek and Turk) in order to merge Cyprus with Greece. The Turks of Cyprus were not happy and asked Turkey to intervene. Turkey immediately attacked from the north and kept this Greek radical group from taking over the entire island. The Turks which had a much stronger army than the Greeks did-easily pushed back the Greeks who were now all fighting together for their lives. In the end the island was divided and there was a mass migration of both Turks from the South and Greeks from the North. This migration was not unlike the great Kashmir migration of Indian Hindus to the south to India and Indian Muslims to the North to Pakistan.

This military conflict left many casualties and thousands of regufuees on both sides The majority of the regugees were Greek from the North. Many of these souls were ministered to by the Yergatians and other ministitries. In fact, there are many believers today that in the throws of despair called out to the Lord for repentance and today are living for Christ. Yesterday I spend time with one of these regugees. Yiannakis is a pastor of a Greek evangelical church today. He came as a refugee to Limassol in 1974 as a high school kid after being a prisoner of the Turks during the war. In the war the soldiers came to his house and arrested he and his father and they were taked as POW's. When the war ended they met the rest of their family which had migrated to Limassol. Sarah's Dad, seeing the need to help out the refugees instituted many relief efforts. In doing this he came in contact with Yiannakis. Eventually Yiannkis came to Christ as a result of the contact he made with Brother Levon's ministry. Later, Yiannkis went to Bob Jones University and trained for the ministry. Today he continues on as a Pastor here in Limassol.

So, what impacted me most about hearing these stories of the refugees? Well, I think it would be the whole idea of being a refugee. Mrs. Souri a friend of Sarah, told us this week that " you never will understand what it is like to be refugee unless you go through it." She told of packing two suitcases and leaving because the Turks were coming to invade and take over her village. She would never see all of the things she had collected for 30 or so years. And then there was the transition to a new home. These thousands of people escape to the south with what they can carry in their hands to new villages. They are refugees, living in places set up for temporary residence and trying to start new lives. Many of these folks were treated poorly by the local people. Even though they were Greeks, there was a bit of a threat. Jobs were scarce and the refugees were now competing for jobs, for homes, etc.

As I comtemplated the plight of the refugee, I thought of the various refugee situations around the world. Of course the Armenians were refugees during their genocide; there was the Jews of the Holocaust. Throughout the world, where there is military conflict there will be refugees which may never return to their land. Can you imagine the Children of Israel and their trek to Babylon. Again, they left with little and began new lives in a strange land. God used many of these refugees for his purpose. I think of Daniel who was used to tell us of many of the details of Christ's coming. God used this time of despair for His glory. So has he done the same in many of the lives of the Cypriot refugees. Our God reigns and will always. He will use whatever we are going through for His Glory.