Update from Samuel 9/17/10

Precious Bro Jason in the Lord,

Its been a long gap since the day Emma's home room is collapsed..

Though I was upset in my heart, but I got to take it. Unless God's
dealings, nothing can happen here.. We dont know the mysterious plans
of God.. And its been a hard time here to find a room tentatively to
keep running the Tuition home.. Though I was there on sunday evening,
but its been a hard. Parents are hesitatting now to send them..

Enemy seeks an opportunity to destroy the work God there.. but we are
prayerfully challenged to work for the glory of God more effectively..
And pray that the Lord would continue to help the children not to be
deviated from the Truth that is inserted in their minds.. As they
grow, may the Word works in their hearts and lives..

And there are places available for us to buy.. But where is the money..?
A Huge amount of money....? (This is our struggle)


Bro Jason,we are all small people and infact, we are
insignificant. And we trust God for His works.. Pray for it more..
And I believe on Friday morning , I will be surely available to you on online..

Pray for my journey tonight to Hyderabad..
Regards to all who are with you and give me the update of your ministry..
We love you and we pray for you and we miss you..

Hoping your reply,
yours Brother in Him,
Pastor Kota Samuel

Phone update from Samuel

I spoke with Samuel by phone today. Yahoo Messenger has had many problems in India and it's not a reliable way for us to chat right now. Plus his internet cafe has some virus issues, so that seems to hamper our efforts too.

We chat via google talk and email though and are still working on a solution for the kids of Emma's school since it collapsed. People in the village are watching to see what happens. They wonder if we will just go away, or if we will find a solution.

They have stopped sending their children though until we have a place.

SO, that having been said, I'm looking for some support and donations to help acquire new land where we can build our own small school.

$4,000 is the short term goal to get the land with a long term goal of about $10,000 to establish the new school.

This would be an amazing blessing to the village!!!

So, in my promise to always be completely transparent with all funds for Emma's school, here's where the money is going right now.

I have established and account at the First National Bank of Hutchinson. I will place all donations there until we have the $4,000 to acquire land. (This according to Samuel's request.) Since there is no school, there is nothing to support. These kids are waiting on God to bring education and Bible studies back to their village.

If you would like to help, you can either mail a check to me or donate securely online.

Thank you for all of your love and care for these little ones in India!

Emma's School Has Collapsed

Here's the news from Samuel I received over the weekend.

"Dear Bro Jason, on saturday morning, the supporting wall of our
Emma's home where we gather was collapsed with a loud voice. It was
arround 5 am in the morning.
A girl by name Mahabubi called to us and informed to us. Ohhhhh,it
was collapsed.. . but thank God, we were not there when this damage is caused..
So, me and vinod went to the place and removed fans, Tube lights.
Power was cut ..

We have brought mats , and other things from there... The pictures are taken..
Wait for another 6 hours to see these photos..
Ohhh, it has been heavily raining since a week...and the walls wet
with and become soft..

So Bro, yesterday ( sunday), we were there, but parents did not
send the children to us..It was watery and wet.. I am just praying
and thinking what to be done..
we thought it does not happen now, but happened.. Right now, no
houses are available even for rent in that locality..Pray for God's
direction.

Please tell our Family members about this Sad News..
Hoping GOd will revive this work for His glory..amen.
I will be here tonight to chat with you if you are available.( if rain stops).
in Hyderabad, yesterday, 2 houses were collapsed, and parents died,
but children survived.. so sad tragedy.. This is what we have in our
state.,.

Covetting your Prayers,
yours Brother in Praying for direction,
Pastor Kota Samuel

Just another drifter?

I sit in church and wonder "How do I allow myself to drift from Christ during the week?!"

He is SO good and it feels SO good when we come together to worship him.

On the other hand it feels kind of empty. We are just people and this is just a building. What I TRULY desire is not the church but Christ Himself!  I get frustrated with myself because I allow life to become SO important. I work so much that I worry about finding play time. When I play I work at playing hard. When I rest I work hard at resting as much as I can.

From time to time I throw in some lawn mowing, car repairs, home repairs... Not to mention trying to be a husband and father.
"You are either making much of Christ or making much of the world" Pastor Rick says. Well my life is filled with the world all day every day.

I hate that!

I find my life absorbed by something that will all quickly fade away. Other than my family I leave no legacy. I will die and none of the business of the day that absorbs my life will matter.

You see, that is where I was in the beginning when I came to Christ.
I knew my life didn't offer any lasting fruit. I knew I often had wrong motives. I knew I was living for a world that passes away rather than for a Kingdom that is eternal.

Why work and live for what is passing away when you can live your life for Jesus Christ through whom all things were created and FOR whom all things were created. (Colossians 1:16)

Oh I feel like such a fool when I live for the world!

Sometimes I dream of being in the ministry. I figure if Christ was my job each day, I would obviously be living for Him.

Ah, not so!

There are many pastors and people in ministry who's hearts are just as far from Christ as mine.

What is the problem and what is the solution?

The problem is the sin in our hearts that rejects Christ on a daily basis and follows after this world and the things of this world.
1 John 2:15-17 says "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  (Verse 16) For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is NOT of the Father but is of the world. (Verse 17) And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."

So again as Pastor Rick says "You are either making much of Christ or making much of the world"

If He is the Father than by faith you are His child. What kind a child are you?  You disobey, run away and don't come home to Him. You cause yourself all kinds of trouble and THEN you want Him to fix the trouble YOUR sin has caused only so you can run right back into the arms of sin and the world.

You think you can spend your life chasing the world?  When you die what will you say?  Let me come live in Your heaven even though I lived as your enemy?

OK what we will really say is "I tried to be a good person. My heart was always near you."

Yet our actions each day betray Him.

God is no fool and you can not fool Him.
We only fool ourselves.
Let's face the fact that we are just foolish children who think we have it all figured out.

OK the solution:
I know it begins in my heart.
I must pray that my heart would even be turned to pursue Him
Next, I must keep Gods word flowing through my mind. Scripture is an amazing thing.

It does amazing things to your heart and mind. In it you not only get to know God, but also the folly of mankind.

If you take in more scripture than you world, it will begin to make you think more like Christ and in turn make you act more like Christ.
I love my sin and so like a sick man who can not eat I push away the plate when Gods word is there to nourish me.

I must turn my heart to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I call Him my Lord, its time for me to act like He is my Lord!  (My master, my king, my LORD!)

Update from Pastor Samuel 8/17/10

Pastor Samuel has been preaching FAR away from home. On the other side of India. He is back and sends this update and greeting.

"Precious Brother Jason in the Lord,
Thank God for His enablement to do the ministry in Bhadravathi.. On
sunday, I gave baptisms for 6 people.. They used to believe in
Sprinkling.. but , they were immersed ..Praise God that this Lutheran
church took a stand for Immersion mode of Baptism.
And I have preached 3 sermons and I was reported that the church
was blessed by the sermons.. Praise God.. If God willing, I may
visit them again..
Brother, you are there in my mind always and I prayed for you..
And we thank you and Bro Adam and Bro Jeannie and MOm Louise for
sending Support. Each penny is used in the ministry and I will come up
with the update on Emma's ministry here..
We thank God for you all and keep praying for us.. And we wish you
to come soon to India and preach to us..
Bro Jason, I will try to be here on online tonight,
Regards to you and all,
yours Brother in the Lord,
Pastor Kota Samuel
B.Th.,M.Th.
# 7-6-1149/1, Sanjeevaiah Nagar Extension
Guntur-522002
Andhra Pradesh state
India

Latest Pics from India

I can't remember if I posted this video on this blog or not. I know I put it on facebook.

Anyway, here's some fairly recent pictures of India

Hold On Christian...

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; (1 John 2:3-4)

So we read verses like that and are very convicted by it. "I can't even name the Commandments, let alone KEEP them!" I used to think.

I have been Catholic I have been Protestant. I have seen many sides of many different "flavors" of Christianity.

When I became a follower of Christ 8 years ago I wasn't looking for help or for a crutch. In fact I wasn't even seeking anything. I felt I was a pretty good guy living a pretty good life with my good little family.

It just happened that God drew me toward the scriptures. It seemed right that I should read this Bible if I wanted to be in Heaven one day. After all, if I was going to call myself a Christian I figured I should at least read it ONCE right?

Well, what I read and what happened was life changing.

It was God whose Holy Spirit taught me from the scriptures about who He is, what He is like and what He wants from us. What His holiness DEMANDS from us! Oh how I realized I had created a false god in my mind! I was living according to the god of my own imagination that I had created based on what I heard from others, was taught growing up and what SEEMED right.

But you know what the Bible says about that?

Proverbs 14:12 "There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death."

My religious activities from my youth had some heart behind it, but was pretty robotic. It FELT good and it FELT right. When I was taken captive by the Gospel of Christ in the Bible in 2002, I realized that true faith has more to do with God and HIS work than me and MY work.

What JOY that filled my heart with!

Today I heard a woman tell a story of why her son was in heaven. Her little boy died and she said she is confident he is in heaven because of a prayer they prayed together. He had "asked Jesus into his heart".

Our family has also experienced that extreme pain of losing a child.

Our losing baby Emma impacted me pretty deeply in two ways. First, it reminded me of my faith in the work of Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. It reminded me that because Heaven is a free gift, there is nothing we can do to "earn" that gift. If you have "earned" it, then it is not a gift, but what is owed to you. That is SO opposite of the whole teaching of the Bible. God out of His love for us sent His Son to bear our punishment for us and offers eternal life as a FREE gift to us. A gift we receive by faith in Christ's work, not ours.

The second way it impacted me was kind of freeing. Our family endured what I imagine as the worst pain a family can experience. The death of a child. God has lovingly and graciously to this day sustained us. His grace has been more than sufficient.

OK, now let me set this next part up by revealing some of my baggage:

I FLEE from labels.

Other than "Christian" I don't like to be called anything. We have these labels that we use to try to figure out where people stand. Danger in that is we are taking on the properties and beliefs of MEN rather than Christ.

We are called to know and imitate Christ. Not Piper, MacArthur, Spurgeon, Pink, Calvin, Luther or your priest or pastor. I don't want to be an evangelical, reformed, protestant, Calvanist, dispensationalist. I want to be a Christian who follows Christ and reads the Bible.

Today though I see all "flavors" of faith working, trying to do what feels right, leaning on their experience and emotion rather than God.

This really has nothing to do with your "flavor" of faith. This has to do with you before God. This is about me and God. You and I and our personal relationship with an amazingly holy, loving, merciful, gracious, patient and longsuffering God.

If we would spend more time in God's word, our minds would spend more time dwelling on knowing God.

Our thoughts of who God is would be more accurate and pure. Our knowledge of the true state of our own hearts would be more accurate. Our outward actions and living out of our faith would be more faithful to Christ.

I guess my point is this. We not only don't know God very well, we don't know ourselves very well. Since we don't we fake it. We act "Christian" whatever we think that is supposed to look like. We give and serve out of obligation rather than love. We don't give and don't serve out of self love rather than godly care for others.

We either carry out a robotic system of religion hoping the actions will cover the lack of "heart" or we coin phrases like "I let Jesus into my heart" and create a whole culture of sayings and living that is really no different than any other religion on earth. We dress a certain way, talk a certain lingo, go here, don't go there. If you love Jesus you will do this. If you do this, you don't love Jesus. We are so busy measuring the faith of others that we slowly let them become our measure. You are now an "ordinary Christian".

We were called to be disciples of Christ! When people see you do they see a DISCIPLE of Christ? I'll admit it. NO they don't. I am "worldly" and act like I am living for myself and this world MUCH more than I appear to be living for Christ.

I have become the "ordinary Christian" Which is not even Christian.

That does NOT mean that I am NOT a Christian. It means I am a sinner and a hypocrite.

What is a Chrsitian?

Remember, it ONLY means you have put all your trust in Christ's work NOT yours.

It means you acknowledge your sin and realize you NEED His righteousness because you and I have none.

Our struggle in life is our sin. Our hearts, once we realize our need for Christ, will desire to turn from sin. We will desire to follow Him and make Him the Lord of our life.

Our sin on the other hand is SO powerful and strong. Our sin wants us to run FROM God. So a war breaks out between the desires of our body and the desires of our heart. (spirit vs flesh)

My only advice is this. Read God's word daily. Pray daily. Admit your faults to God. Admit your sins to God. Share your desires with Him and pray pray pray to be made more like Christ who lives a life or worship and gratitude as a living sacrifice to the One who paid your sin debt. The One who stood and took the full brunt of Gods wrath that was to be poured out on you.

Let your faith be vertical (between you and God) rather than horizontal (you looking to others in the Church).

Love and encourage one another to do the same. LOVE each other. Seek to know God.

No matter the "flavor" of Christianity