2011. March 2011.

Flowers and Lollipops

A week or two ago, my favorite basketball player went down with an ankle injury. When asked what he was thinking about the injury to his player, his coach said this: "It's not flowers and lollipops." I like that (not the injury, mind you, just the assessment). I bring this up not because I have an ankle injury, but because things are not always flowers and lollipops here.

A Tough Month

There are always challenges and difficulties that come up in life, and life here at the Bible college is no exception. March saw us give some time off to a couple of our students that lost loved ones and needed to travel for funerals. One lost a grandfather, and the other, her father. Literally, as I write this, I just found out that another student lost her grandmother this weekend and needs to decide if she should take some time off for the funeral, etc. We've seen one of our students need to go home for personal reasons, another make the decision that she won't finish the semester, and another also decide for different reasons to go home and finish out the semester via correspondence. Not sure exactly what to make of all of it, but throw in another student having an extra tough time as well, and you can be sure the pastors here have dedicated some extra time to praying for our students.

Pride and Discouragement

I often explain to my students that, while Satan has many different ways to attack, he mainly only needs one of two means to slow us down. Pride and discouragement. If he can get us prideful - get us to think we've got it all figured out and that "we're really something special" - he's caused us to isolate ourselves a bit. Isolate ourselves - mainly - from God. "After all," we so often think, "I know what I'm doing; I don't need help." This is obviously never a great place to be. Discouragement, on the other hand, works just as effectively. If the enemy of our souls can get us down, he'll try to keep us down. "After all," we so often think, "I don't know what I'm doing; no one seems to be able to help." And what happens? We isolate ourselves - mainly (once again) - from God. And, this is never a great place to be.

In 2 Corinthians 2, the apostle Paul says that we are not "ignorant of" the enemy's devices. Unfortunately, I don't know if this is always still the case with many believers. Pride and discouragement, which seem so at odds with one another are actually a lot more similar than most realize. Someone once said that the rich and poor have something in common: they're both always thinking about money. Pride and discouragement have this in common: they're both always thinking about self.

I bring this all up to ask you to pray for the staff here at CCBCE as we seek to minister to our students, and obviously also to ask you to pray for our students. Particularly I ask for your prayers on their behalf as they prepare to go on their "10-Day Outreaches" in just a couple of weeks. The enemy of our souls is never happy with us (to put it mildly), and he's especially unhappy with Christians when we decide to venture further out with the gospel. The devil will use any means necessary to try to hinder our work of sharing the love of Jesus and His finished work on the cross of Calvary.

Etc, etc: Mobiles, Mobility, and the Minds of Children

In other news, thankfully, Christi and I were able to get a pair of mobile phones to better keep us in connection with everyone over here. Next on the list: a car. More specifically, a van of some variety. I would love to have an eight or nine-seater, but those tend to be a bit "drága" (that's Hungarian for "expensive"). We'll see what our great Provider brings us - feel free to join us in prayer there! Also feel free to join us in prayer for wisdom for our beautiful children as well. The topic for this set of prayers: school. They have amazing minds and we want to see them used to the fullest. We're not entirely sure what their education will look like come September, but we need to start making some decisions. Feel free to join us in prayer in this arena as we just plain need God's wisdom for Ian, Leah, Kara, and Mikayla.

Speaking of Which...

Mikayla will be six (6... SIX!!!) on the 8th of April. What a wild ride these past six years have been. Six. How does that happen? Kara's birthday is next (June), and she'll be 8. Two months after that: a second double-digit-aged kid. Leah will be 10 come August. I just don't feel old enough to have kids this old.

And there you have it. April is well underway and we're excited about what it will bring. Thanks as always for praying for us!

Lots and lots of love,

Jeremy & Christi