Who Will Still Stand? Sacrifice and thoughts on women in Pentecost...

[Chinadoll]

Posted from my blog:

http://www.setapartgirl.com/blog/Entries/2008/12/8_Dying_to_Self%E2%80%99s_Agenda.html

I'm a huge fan of Leslie Ludy and this blog just happened to express everything going on in my life.

Pastor Craig announced that 2009 is a "Year of Miracles" and we are entering into a month of prayer and fasting -- praying through the book of Acts. PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens) is the January theme for Mountainview Christian Center.

There was a video shown on Tuesday night of the Foreign Missions Service at General Conference this year. I watched it as the preacher (don't remember who it was) talked about sacrifice and how the people of the UPCI no longer had that spirit in so many ways. How they'd get calls at Foreign Missions asking what was open, rather then someone with a passionate burden.

Then he started naming names that I had grown up with. Brother Wilhoite (not sure on that spelling) who died in Mexico and had done work in Mexico, the Phillipines, Belize and Guyana. Elder Brother Seniour had done several trips with him so I remember hearing him and knowing who he was.

Elsa Lund was another name, a woman that I remember seeing in the foreign missions poster in the back of the church -- I used to look for the single ladies on there so I remembered who she was. Liberia, the Ivory Coast... She's retired now in Canada and still gives so much financially to Missions.

The one that got me though, was Sister Nona Freeman. A woman who spoke at Ladies' Conference in Indiana on more than one occasion (and is one of my all time favorite speakers). You hear about her as much as you did about her husband. I used to read her column in Reflections magazine -- even if I read nothing else.

They brought her out, in a wheelchair now, looking frail and aged. This woman who has and still gives so much to our movement.

It got me thinking...

I know the women I looked up to growing up. The stories of missionaries that my mother told me. The Elizabeth Elliots, the Corrie Ten Booms, as I grew into adulthood, the Amy Carmichaels. And the women of our movement such as Sister Potter, Sister Freeman and some in Indiana such as Sister Rudolph (who co-pastored with her husband) and Sister Gobel, the wife of the Home missions director.

These women have aged and perhaps some have even passed on while I didn't know about it.

But who is my niece Kaylee going to look up to? Who are the women that are going to figure in her life? Is it going to be the cookie cutters of my generation? I know a few that are passionate about what they do, but I have seen so many of the young women that I grew up with that have backslid.

When the older generation dies, what will happen? What kind of women will be left?

I hope I can tell her of the Elonas who left their families to work in a home missions work in San Fransico. Or the Melodys who move to their hometown to live in an RV and work at the church.

I hope there are more women like that. So that there's someone for Kaylee and others like her to emulate.

[Rae]

Love this post.

[newkris]

that's good stuff to think about. 

it's true that we need to be people who follow the passions that God gives to us, instead of our own agendas. 

sometimes it's hard to know whether we are only following our own ambitions or His calling.  that's where the line lives. 

i've thought a lot about this because i'm at a time when i can follow whatever road God sets in front of me.  there aren't any strings holding my life down except for school.  i'm passionate about writing and teaching and kids and sharing Jesus with people.  so how do i accomplish that?



what about you girls?  what are you passionate about?  and what do you do with that passion?

good stuff to think about.