Kairos cookies

 I just wanted to share about this past Kairos weekend at Hancock State Prison. We had 41 inmates participate in this weekend. This was my fourth Kairos and each time I am rewarded with such a blessing. Spending time with and getting to know some of these men really reminds me of how much God loves us no matter what we have done. It really reminds me that God is so powerful He can forgive us and remove our sins "as far as the east is from the west". I am reminded because sometimes it is hard for me to do that. It is hard for me to forgive what some of these guys have done but I see God loving on them and moving in them and breaking their hearts toward Him and it opens my eyes to how powerful He is and reminds me that He is in control and not me, each time my own heart is softened and I realize my sin is no different, and yet "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Glory, Glory, Glory to God!
I want to share what one of the participants told me. I was sitting at the table of St Peter this weekend with 5 participants. If you aren't familiar with  "four day weekend" I will say that we try to explain the importance of bible study and community while pouring out the love of Christ, basically we give them a lot of homemade cookies over the weekend. The guy next to me, I will call him TC, has really been opening up to me. He was really avoiding me at first but now it is Saturday and we have had a few days to joke around and he is getting comfortable. I have been talking and encouraging him to get involved with a small group and bible study within his dorm. So now it is Saturday morning and I ask him how his evening was and he says it was great. He had gone to bible study. It was actually a bible study that he had been involved with now for several months, just a few guys. But he said last night was great because he had taken some cookies back to his dorm, something he is not supposed to do..I did not ask how he got them there...but anyway, he said he had brought them back to the dorm to share with his bible study group, well two other inmates saw that he had cookies and they asked  to join the bible study group. So TC looked at me and said "man it is amazing what God can do with some cookies." I agreed with him. It is amazing what God can do. I know whoever baked those cookies had no idea that a inmate would sneak them back to his dorm and because those cookies where there two guys would sit in bible study and be introduced to the Lord....it is amazing what God can do with some cookies.
It is amazing what God does! God moved in these men's hearts this weekend. I saw repentance and forgiveness and brokenness and intense joy and peace and a lot of love. Here are some remarks I wrote down from the closing on Sunday. Enjoy,
"can't describe....my heart floods"
"I have passion"
"I thank God for providing light to shine in the darkness"
"I have received a new family"
"I cried last night" (my favorite one)
"I'm incarcerated but I am free, I'm filled with the sweet Holy Ghost"
"Thanks for bringing us God's way"
"God is real"
"People love us, God loves us"
"Joy, joy I have been searching for joy"
"I hope I can return the favor and be a true representative for Christ"

Most of these guys will spend the rest of their lives in prison but they will not be in bondage. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10











Blessings,
Joel and Tara

Cheerful Mercy....Intense Joy!

As I enter into the Thanksgiving holiday season I have been reflecting on all the things I am thankful for. The list is to numerous to share and just the thoughts of the Lords blessings in my life bring unspeakable joy to my spirit. But one thing that seems to keep repeating itself in my mind, in scripture and in conversation is God's unending mercy upon us. I know I have been a recipient of this mercy time and time again. It is because of His mercy that I am able to write this blog, that I am able to minister to men and women in addiction, that I am able to go to Honduras/Kenya, that I am free and alive!

Mercy is defined as "a broad term that refers to benevolence, forgiveness and kindness." So with that we are all showing mercy during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Showing mercy is part of the holiday experience. It is ingrained in our social culture to show mercy. We see it in our gifts to the needy, not only as a church but as a society. Our government and non-profits take care and provide for those in need. We show mercy.

But what is our attitude?  Paul directs us in Romans 12 "having then gifts...let us use them...he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness." As I have been reminded this season to have an "attitude of gratitude" I am also being reminded to have an attitude of cheerfulness when showing mercy. And the Lord has been showing me that my attitude of cheerfulness is a direct reflection of His attitude of cheerfulness when He showed mercy to me.

Our mercy, or our ability to show mercy, is a gift from God and His attitude as He showed mercy was cheerful. Cheerfulness is defined as " a state of well being characterized by pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy." As I read that definition I imagined God's "intense joy" as He shows mercy. That is how much He loves us. I have spent a lot of my life making wrong decisions and have sought mercy in a lot of situations and I do not ever remember anyone showing me mercy with "intense joy"....but that is exactly what God does. It is part of His nature, His character. And that is what we must do in order to reflect God's love in our lives. We must show mercy with cheerfulness. If we show mercy with an attitude of cheerfulness that attitude will be reflected in the recipient. Not only will the recipient receive benevolence, forgiveness and kindness but the both of you will have an opportunity to  receive "intense joy!"

Tara and I are very thankful for the response we have gotten towards our fundraising. The Lord has been opening many doors for us to continue ministering to others and sharing about our mission to Kenya. Please continue to pray for us and our ministry.
Prayer request
-Kairos weekend at Hancock Sate Prison Dec 5-8
-Lumpkin County jail outreach every Tuesday night
-YWAM Athi River Base, Kenya (applications have been submitted)
-Continued support of fundraising (we are at 20%)
- Mission trip to Honduras Jan 25-Feb 1

Please continue to pray for the MACCO School in the Mathare Valley, Kenya...pray for the 200+ kids and the staff.

The School

The Kids

The Kids

The Staff

Grace and Peace,
Joel and Tara

Yesu Ni Safari (Jesus Is A Journey)

It is official! We met with the board of Outstretched Hands Ministries last week and they voted unanimously to assist Tara and I on our journey to Kenya!!! Praise the Lord!!!

What this means is that, beginning Oct 1st, we will be doing all of our fundraising through Outstretched Hands Ministries as they are a 501 (c) 3 organization. They will also undergird us spiritually and give us the covering we need as missionaries. What a blessing! 

Our next step is to apply for volunteer positions with YWAM Athi River Base in Nairobi. This will allow us to learn the culture and language of Kenya. We hope to be at the Athi River Base by Feb/March 2014 (depending on our fundraising)................So now the journey begins.

Dave Garton once said "Jesus is a journey and if your journey is boring...then you are boring". I find that true more and more. I rededicated my life to Jesus March 3, 2008 and my life has been as far from boring as I could have ever imagined. One of my greatest fears of giving up my addictions to drugs and alcohol and changing my life was the thought of my life being boring. If I am not getting high and "partying" what am I gonna do? Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life. And to think I wanted to choose death. How absurd is that...choose death over life...the death and bondage and slavery of addiction...a slave to the world. I had no idea the life the Lord had for me. I thank and praise Him for what He has done for me. Glory to God and praise His holy name!!!!

I will be preaching this Sunday both services at my home church, Commerce First United Methodist Church. I will be sharing our mission trip to Kenya we took back in June/July. I will also be announcing our plans for long term assignment in Kenya and I will be sharing my heart and what the Lord has done in my life. I prepared a slide show of our trip and posted it below. I hope you enjoy it. It is long, 8:21 to be exact, but it is worth watching and the music is good so make sure your speakers are not on mute.

Grace and peace,

Joel and Tara 

Running.......................

A few weeks ago Tara and I signed up for the Atlanta half marathon on Nov. 28. It was the only thing that would get me motivated enough to get "off the couch", lace up my running shoes and get out the door. I had to just sign up and do it! I am already feeling some great results of my effort. I have lost a few pounds and I feel a whole lot healthier. Although, it has been rather uncomfortable and has required some discipline, I am already feeling pretty comfortable running 4 miles and that is a great feeling...a great confidence booster. However, I will admit that Tara is doing a lot better than me. She can run farther and her pace is a lot faster than mine but that is ok...I am just enjoying the fact that I am not sitting on the couch and I really enjoy the wind blowing through my hair as I run...that's the good stuff in life. (mom..hope this answers your question on why I haven't gotten a haircut yet).
Anyways,.........

Paul says in Hebrews 12 let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

And so it is in my spiritual life. I am running. I am running the race that is set before us. It was not easy. I had to have a motivator...that is a motivating factor to get me "off the couch".....I had to just sign up and do it. I had to step out in faith and sign up for our mission journey to Kenya. I had received the call from God to go to Kenya. I had received my confirmation. I consulted with my spiritual authority. Everything was lining up, except for ME.
My own fears and frustrations had me immobile...what will I do for a job?, where will we live as we transition?, what about my certifications?......the unanswered questions kept piling up in my mind but I had to do it. So I did. We did. We stepped out into the uncomfortableness of faith and "signed up", we are "all in" for the mission field in Kenya. And the Lord has provided!!!!!!
We have already had a great response from friends and family in support of our journey. We haven't even started our fundraising campaign and already people have shown interest in what we are doing. We see the body of Christ in it's glory. I have an overwhelming since of peace regarding our finances. We have moved into a house in Commerce. I have started teaching The Genesis Process at a women's ministry in Martin, GA called New Beginnings. I will be finishing my state certification in addiction counseling in December. I will be preaching at both services on Sept 15 at CFUMC (thank you David Bowen for sharing the pulpit). Tara and I both are helping with a jail ministry. All of this God has placed in our lives in just a few short weeks with the goal of reaching Kenya.

Spiritually, we feel healthier, we have lost a few pounds. We are laying aside the sin that ensnares us. The sin of doubt. The sin of control. The sin of self-reliance. The sin and weight of not fully relying on God. Yes, we are running...we are running into the arms of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and by increasing our faith He is giving us the endurance to continue.

Blessings,
Joel and Tara

Be Prepared!...God, country, self....and a little bit of prayer

I just wanted to give an update on how things are going with Tara and I. Last week was a transition from Waypoint to our home in Commerce. Waypoint was very generous in letting us use the box truck to move our things. It was really nice having Mark, Marcus, Tyler and Matt help us move. We had the truck packed in 2 hours and had it unloaded in 1 hour. Nothing was broken and they seemed to have each box placed in the right room. Tara was nice enough to have labeled each box and what room it goes in before we loaded the truck. Praise God for a wife who loves to organize! Can I get an AMEN!

Even though we have spent most of the week packing and unpacking, we did enjoy some break time by attending an Eagle Scout Award Ceremony for our friend Kyle Mostellar. Kyle was on our mission team to Kenya this past summer. The service was amazing and the Boy Scouts motto is "Be Prepared"...not only for emergency situations but for life in general. The best way to be prepared is to focus on what really matters...God, country and self. These are the basic principles to live by and it was a blessing to see a young man who has a heart for the Lord accomplishing a task to make him a better Christian, a better citizen and a better person.

So I am sticking with that and focusing on being prepared. As Tara and I prepare for Kenya we must put our priorities in order. And to do that we must rely on the Lord. So I am asking you to pray for and with us on this journey. Our main focus is making sure that we, as Americans, are not going over there with the great American solution and trying to fix everything. We don't want to show up as mighty whitey and try to fix all the problems. We are going as missionaries. We are going because the Lord has called us and asked us to go and witness and tell of the great things that He has done in our lives and proclaim the gospel as a life source for everyone. We have spoken with several other other missionaries and some organizations that have missions in Kenya. We have decided that the best thing for us to do in preparation for long term missions in Kenya is to volunteer with an organization already established there. We are in the process of applying with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). YWAM has a base camp in the Athi River Valley just south of Nairobi. They also have several programs that we would benefit from by being exposed to. They have an orphanage, a school, a medical clinic, an agricultural program and they also do community outreach. All of this would give a lot of insight as to how we might be of better service in Kenya. We would like to volunteer at the Athi River Base for 6 months. This would give us time to learn the culture and the language a little better. Our goal is to be in Kenya volunteering by March/April of next year. Please pray for us.

Other Prayer request:

Pastor Julius as he
continues his prison
ministry in Kenya

All the Kids (200) at the MACCO
school in Nairobi

The kids (80) at
Glory Shiners Junior Academy
in Nakuru

I want to close with scripture that was in the back of the program for the Boy Scouts Eagle Award Ceremony:

"for the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised."--2 Cor 5:14-15

wow! I love the beginning of that verse......."for the love of Christ controls us....."

Blessings,

Joel and Tara

new season is beginning

Well, it has been a very very long time since this blog was updated (approximately 408 days but who is counting, right?) So with all sincerity I do apologize.

The last year has been really truly amazing. Tara and I have seen the Lord work in so many lives here at Waypoint. Not just in the men and their families but also with staff and the community. 

It is with sweet sadness that we will be leaving Waypoint in a few days. I say sweet because we know God has called us into the foreign mission field. We are working our way to Kenya. But it is sad because we are leaving friends and a community that is strong in the Lord. We felt called here to Waypoint to "give back" and intern under Dave Garton. That season is ending and a new season is beginning. We are on a "safari", a journey.

This all started when I first met Tara. The night we met our conversation was about mission work and the mission field. We both had an interest in Honduras. During our marriage we have traveled to Honduras on short term mission trips several times. We do a lot of construction projects and have established relationships with some of the locals so it is a joy to go there every year. However, this year when we got back I mentioned to Tara that I wanted to add another mission trip to our schedule. I wanted to do something more challenging. I wanted to go on a trip that focused on evangelizing and praying rather than construction and building. I told Tara I wanted to go deeper in the Lord. Evangelizing and publicly praying for others is really out of my comfort zone so I asked the Lord to send another trip our way, to show us where He wanted us to go and how He wanted to use us. Within a few days I got a call from Michael Vincent, founder of Outstretched Hands Ministries, he was putting together a team to go to Kenya, Africa to help with a school feeding program, evangelize, pray and visit some prisons. I'm sure Michael was a little stunned when I started laughing on the phone but he did not know what I had just asked the Lord for. Talk about timing....hallelujah!!!!
With a lot of prayer and faith Tara and I traveled to Kenya. What a joy to see so many smiling faces in Kenya. Yes there is a lot of poverty, there is a lot of addiction, a lot of disease, a lot of darkness but there is joy and peace and love. We were moved and touched in a special way and know God wants us to "go" and "do" and to step out in faith.
As I was praying about our decision to go "all in" and commit to being a long term missionary in Kenya, the Lord showed me a verse. The prophet Joel writes in chapter 3 verse 9 and 10 -Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, "I am strong!"- These verses spoke to me (rhema). It is time to beat the plowshares into swords and time for the weak to say "I am strong!" The Lord was showing me that I was comfortable at Waypoint. Waypoint had become my "plowshare" and it was time to take what I know and use it as a "sword". I needed to step out of my comfort zone and step into battle, I needed to step out in faith. I was once weak in my addiction but now I am strong in the Lord!! Let me repeat that...I was once weak in my addiction, I was defeated, I was lost, I was confused, I was deceived ...but God...but God had other plans and now I am strong! Through Christ I can say "I am strong!". Verse 14 says Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. We had spent most of our time traveling through the rift valley north of Nairobi and I heard the Lord telling me he wanted our presence in Kenya, in the "valley of decision". 
We aren't sure how this is all going to play out, there are a lot of needs in Kenya.....orphanages, feeding programs, schools, medical clinics, addiction counseling, prison ministry, church building, etc......and we aren't sure how we are going to fit in but we do know the Lord has called us there. He wants our Christian presence in Kenya and we are obedient and going. We have already spoken to several ministries to partner with and are excited to see what develops. 
God is good and as a friend of mine once said "Jesus...is a journey."   

Blessings,
Joel and Tara