Youth Bible School 2009… what a blessing, what an opportunity!  661 young people gathered together listening to sound Biblical teaching for an entire week.

What did we learn?

From David Janzen’s messages on Studies in the doctrine of Faith we looked back through the annals of time and reviewed the lives of several men and women of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11. We explored the reason for their faith and how the same power that upheld them during times of extreme persecution and hardship can be ours, thousands of years later. Out of these sessions, David’s graphic description of Noah’s faithfulness in building the ark over a 120 year period, will remain etched in my memory for a long time.

Dean Taylor spoke on the familiar theme, What Would Jesus Do? Standing in front of the crowded auditorium, he grabbed a can of spray paint and wrote on a white cloth-covered stand, “What if Jesus really meant Every word that He Said?” This remained the theme for his messages during the rest of the week as he explored areas of Jesus’ teachings that are often overlooked by the broader evangelical church community.

John D. Martin’s sessions on Seeking God’s Kingdom, was for me a culmination of many of John D.’s previous messages on Kindom living. He told several familiar stories as well as some that I hadn’t heard to illustrate the vision that Jesus left us on how we are to live our lives as Kingdom citizens.

The evening revival services, conducted by Leonard Guenther, John Ray Nolt, and Mark Brubaker, were times of soul searching and repentance. Several young people turned over their lives to Jesus and found glorious victory over sin after these evening messages.

I am amazed each year at how Earl Fox, the chorus director, is able to get 600+ young people to sing together in four part harmony for Sunday evening’s Youth Choral Program. Added to that the controversial removal of one of the song selections midway through the week, and one can only attribute the strength, patience and wisdom of this man to God.

Prayer and Sharing was a highlight to me this year as nine of us young men shared our thoughts and poured out our hearts to our Savior and Lord. Youth Testimonies were similar as several young people shared about God’s work in their lives to a broader audience. Both of these times are so necessary in Bible School as they deal with areas in life “where the ruber meets the road” as it were.

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I took several photos this year which you can view at the password protected link below. Also included in this album are the group photos that were taken by Roger Weaver.

Link to Album
Username: guest
Password: (first word lower-case of first song in chorus book)

The annual Community Tent Meetings will be starting on Friday. If you live in the Lancaster County area in Pennsylvania, please feel welcome to come. If you are not local, you can still see and listen to the messages. Browse on over to www.tentmeetings.com where you will find the phone numbers for listening live and the streaming live video for each of the sessions. The times are in EST and are posted on the site.

Here are some photos from setup last night:

Trouble in Amish Paradise is an amazing true story about Ephraim and Jesse Stoltzfus and and their respective families who go through the process of leaving the Amish community after reading and studying the Bible for themselves (something which is forbidden in many Amish circles).  The clarity of the gospel message and the theme of the powerful effect of these families’ faith in Jesus throughout this documentary is truly astonishing.  It is produced with the usual quality of any good BBC production, yet the message of salvation and hope in Jesus is as strong as if it had been produced by a Christian media group.

I have had the privilege of meeting several of the people featured in this work, people whose lives are being poured out for Christ’s Kingdom; and my prayer is that the usual “buzz” generated around a media production of this nature would bring glory to God and bring more people to know, understand and embrace the life and teachings of Jesus for themselves as a result of watching this story.

Broadcast exclusively in the UK on February 18th, it averaged 2.2 million viewers.  From what I hear, it is set to broadcast in the US sometime next month. Over 100 hours of footage was condensed into this one hour video chronicling the events of shunning, tent revival meetings, life-threatening illness in the family, and so much more.

For now, you can watch the first ten minutes of it from Youtube, below.

FURTHER READING:

From the BBC’s website:

An extraordinary insight into the secretive world of the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

When two radical Amish men, Ephraim and Jesse Stoltzfus, start to question some of the most fundamental aspects of their Amish culture, they face excommunication from their church and total rejection by their friends and family.

Broadcast on:  BBC Two, 9:00pm Wednesday 18th February 2009

Duration:   60 minutes

Update 3/14/2009: I was just made aware through a comment by Arlen Beiler about the new website www.troubleinamishparadise.com.  They have some slideshows featuring scenes similar to what is found in the documentary, Ephraim and Jesse Stoltzfus’ personal testimonies and links to Christian and Anabaptist resources as well as a preview of the new book being written by Ephraim.

Missions conference was amazing to say the least!  I can’t think of a time in my life where I have been more challenged and convicted of the great needs in our world starting at our very doorsteps and extending to distant tribes who are completely unaware of the joy and peace of knowing Christ.  I don’t have much time to write, but I would highly recommend listening to the messages that were preached.  The last message was truly a highlight for me.  It was preached by Daniel Kenaston and entitled, The Cry of Heaven.  Another very important aspect of Missions Conference were the workshops that brought the various missions efforts into a set of high impact visual and physical displays.  The amount of work that must have gone into these is quite impressive.  I’ve taken a few photos of the various displays which you can see in the slideshow below.

See full screen slideshow and photo set.

Same photo set on Facebook (Part 1 | Part 2)

Missions Conference '09

You can read all the details here, but I was just amazed yesterday afternoon while watching this story unfold.  Survivors? 155 out of 155. Can’t get better than that. This is my favorite photo from the event.

Just an aside, I wonder if those were Canadian Geese that got blendered?

This guy decided to go wakeboarding during the recent flooding in Venice. Looks like fun to me!

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Handout/Euro-Newsroom.com/Joerg Mitter

IMHO, this is a good trend.  It sure helps one’s budget work better.

It looks like mankind has not given up on building a tower that reaches to “heaven”.  CNN has an interesting story.

‘Space elevator’ would take humans into orbit

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/02/space.elevator/index.html

A friend recently opened an online store specializing in modest clothes.  I was amazed how fast she was able to get it all listed.  From conservative dresses, jumpers, skirts and swim suits to Carhartt workpants and black leather shoes she’s jumped right into the marketplace with both feet.  The website is marketed towards anyone with conservative values: Mennonite, Catholic, LDS, Jewish people, maybe even Muslims, who knows? Anyway, if you find yourself in the market for such items, feel free to browse the site!  Just go to www.modestatheartclothing.com

Here’s an excerpt from the front page:

We are a family, home based business that sells new and gently used modest clothing. Though we are committed to God’s idea of modesty we keep in mind that it may be different for each of us. We come from different backgrounds, different communities and maybe even different countries. Whether you are very conservative or just looking into modesty we have clothes for you. Browse around and see what you like.

Looks like the browser wars are far from over with Google jumping into the market with their release of Google Chrome today.  I downloaded it about an hour after they released it.  It’s pretty quick and I love the simple intuitive interface, but I’ll stick with Firefox for now.  Firefox extensions make it the killer app for the internet.