Helping people…the great adventure

I love adventure.  I love trying knew things, taking a challenge, doing something thats fun or gives you a rush! I love the risk of it the commitment of it, the courage it takes to be adventerous.  If someone around me is not asking, “you’re really going to do that?”  or,  “are you sure you want to do that?”  I know I’m not really living.

I love adventure.  The greatest adventure in life is taking the challenge and the risk.  Making the commitment, and sacrifice.  Accepting and embracing inconvenience for the sake of helping others.  There is no rush, no excitement, no fun, like helping other people.  Getting involved in their lives, dealing with their issues and helping them find solutions, this is adventure.

There are so many christians in the world right now who are living this great faith adventure, and I love it!  I love it that the church is figuring out, that the answers are not in setting behind our four walls enjoying each others company, but it is in reaching out and bringing people in that is changing lives, and causes great adventure.

Christians who aren’t passionate about Jesus, are struggling being bored with their Christianity because they’ve lost the adventure that is supposed to be at the forefront of a Christians life.

One of the reasons I love our church, and many like it is because we are living the adventure, we have lots of people who have embraced this exciting life and are doing it together.  This week we will be serving women at our “Girlfriends Conference”  Women from all four of our campuses and over 50 other churches will come together and experience a highly creative, spiritually impacting, relational and fun conference.

We have volunteers that will take their time and serve these ladies so they can have this life changing experience.  We also run youth camps all summer long, june through august at our OKC facility.  Rental camps and Our National youth ministry, Youth America. Next Monday we will be taking a team to Africa, where we are leading a pastors and leadership conference as well as a medical clinic for two weeks.  At the end of  July we will be taking another team to Camobdia, To work with Orphans and impoverished children, helping them  not be victimized by human trafficking.  We have a Kids camp as well as a Royal family Kids Camp which is our ministry to Foster Kids.  A free camp for 85 foster kids ages 7-11.

That may sound like a lot, and is why we call summers at harvest one big adventure!  We are committed to Change the world through the adventure of helping others.  All the teens, all the kids, all the adults, locally, regionally, nationally and globally we will help this summer, are all part of this great adventure called Christianity.  Its about taking the chance to love people, to extend grace to them, and to live life full tilt for the greatest adventurer of all time.  Jesus!

So jump off the bench, get off the sidelines, get in the game and enjoy the adventure and who knows, you might open up a life of adventure for someone else.

David

Mother…

What could I say, that hasn’t been said a million times about mothers. I have a terrific mother. She’s not perfect but she loves her kids dearly and wants the best for them. She has always been good to us, and cared for us, and served us. All of our lives. I have a terrific mother in law who is the same with her kids, and thank God has accepted me as one of her own. I have friends who are moms, and it is a unique role to be a mom.

Lets face it moms do more than we can really say. It would be impossible to document a job description for a mother. It would be thousands of books long.

I have seen so many great examples of good mothers, oh I know there are some out there that aren’t so good, but for the most part moms are just a special breed.

The best mom I know however, and I say this without reservation, is my wife. Janae Is a great mom. There is really not much that she’s not good at, but being a mom is definitely at the top of her list of talents. Why? Here are some reasons I think Janae is the best mom ever.

1. She cares. No, really, sincerely cares about our girls and every step of their lives are important to her. We have frequent conversations about how they are doing, and how she can help them. She cares about their feelings, their physical health, their academics, their esteem, and what they care about.

2. She wants to understand. Many times I want them to understand me, but Janae has this ability to get to the middle of it, to hear what’s really being said. She has an empathy that goes far beyond compassion. She understands.

3. She laughs. She laughs at the girls, with the girls and makes the girls laugh. We laugh a lot at the Gadberry house. At life, at funny people, at ourselves, and at each other, and with each other. She loves to laugh.

4. She prays. Janae prays for our family and for our girls. She prays for their present, and their future. She prays for the best for them, for the favor of God on their lives, for them to make good decisions, and for God to direct their lives.

5. She talks. Janae has a tremendous wealth of wisdom. she has a practical common sense approach to life, that is grounded in the truth, and she shares those principles with her girls.

6. She models. She’s a teacher, a very gifted and talented teacher, who takes these motherly qualities and puts them to work in her second grade class and she gets tremendous results. My girls can look at her and see godliness, kindness, strength, courage, faith, hard work, smart decisions, and a normal person who loves life.

So, you can probably read this and say this was a self indulgent attempt to brag on my wife, well ok, your probably right but every bit of it is true, and If i was going to tell any young woman how to learn to be a mother, I would simply say, watch Janae, do what she does and you will raise children, who will rise up and call you blessed!

Happy Mothers day all you great mothers out there. We love you and thank you for all that you do, and have done, and will do!

God Connections

God connections are imperative to our spiritual growth and human significance. People are a very important part of our lives. I have so many great relationships. My wife, daughters, friends and leaders are wonderful God connections for me. We all have a great need for these connections. They produce encouragement, love, friendship, fellowship and accountability.
When God created the world, he said all is good, accept for when He created man. He said and I quote, “it is not good for man to be alone.” I realize He is referring to the mate that he would give Adam, but I think there is a larger issue here. He is saying man has a real need for relationship with others like himself. We as humans have a need, not only for a relationship with God, but a relationship with people. This is one of the great reasons that God established the church. It was His idea. Jesus said, “Upon this rock, I’ll build my church.” The writer of Hebrews says that we should not forsake getting together, because its good for our edification. Join us at harvest, and just see what God connections there might be waiting here for you.
Harvest is definitely a God connection.

David

eyes wide open…

It is hard to imagine that there is a world out there, a coordinated, systematic, organized network of pedaphiles who prey on the innocents of little girls.  It’s hard to imagine that there are people in this world who would sale their own children into this ring of perversion for a little money and the relief of the responsability of another mouth to feed.  I know, we want to keep our eyes shut, if I just don’t see it, then I don’t have to deal with it.  If I act as if it does not exist then to me, it doesn’t and i have no responsability. 

Do not be decieved, this world does exist and it is based on two things, perversion and unadulterated greed.  Men, getting out of convictions because the grease the right palm.  Men not being prosicuted, becuase there is money to be made and no one cares about the lives it is destroying. 

My problem is I have seen the lives face to face.  The beautiful little innocent, precious lives.  Little girls who love to play, and to be appreciated and to be treated like a princess, have been taken into the depths of perverse abuse, not just molestation, or even rape, but sado masicistic abuse.  There are those who have been rescued or made it back home out of the nightmare only to be sold again.  I can’t stand it, I can’t tolerate it.  I won’t.  I have made up my mind to have my eyes wide open.  I am so excited, there are many great organizations who are doing something about his problem.  Attacking it head on to stop it.  They are directly rescuing girls, sheltering girls and give them after care. 

We are proud to be part of helping to stop human trafficking.  We were able to spend time and resource to give the girls in a rescue “a week for a princess”  Our way of showing them how special they are, and how God has a purpose for them and what has happened to them can not stop what God can do.  It was our first one and it was phenominal.  I couldn’t believe how great it was.  I could go into all kinds of detail, but lets just say, it was life changing for them and for us. 

We are getting involved, in rescue, in after care, and in foster care.  Not only around the world but right in our own back yard.  Someone has to speak for those who can not speak for themselves, someone has to stand in the face of greed and perversion and say thats it, no more. 

I dare you to look into the face of these little ones, from 4 to 14 years of age, who are so resiliant and realize what has happened to them, and then try to keep your eyes shut.  If you can, somethings wrong with you.

We all need to be aware, we all need to resource and help those who are on the frontlines like ICA, like Hager, Like the IJM.  Jesus said suffer the little ones to come to me, he said it would be better to tie a heavy rock around your neck and through yourself into the river then to hurt one of these little ones.  If he was so passionate about kids, His heart must be for his church, and people everywhere, to love beyond their denial and open wide their eyes, and see the reality, realize its not a nightmare, its happening right now, and then act to stop it.

Stay tuned, and I’ll give you some ways you can help.

thanks

David

Headed home.

Guest blogger….Amy Raunborg…”There are no Words”

There are no words to describe what we have done in only 3 days.  We’vetaught english classes, prepared sacks for street children with water and small meals, we washed their hands and feet, we gave them first aid, tried lots of Cambodian food, have had great fellowship with Students in the new life dorms, and some of us visited the slums of Cambodia.

We all have so many stories to share with you when we get home!  Cambodia is truly amazing.

Thank you for all your prayers and support.  We will see you soon.

Amy

Life is great….

I love my life!  It seems to me there are people in life who just want to be miserable.  The glass is half empty, they see the negative in everything.  I just refuse to live my life that way.  Sure I have trials, and issues that come up in life, but I trust God, and He sees me through every situation.  I don’t know how its going to turn out at times, and sometimes I feel like I am stretched to my limits, but God is always there to lean on.  As a result, I have a beautiful wife, who loves me and is the most excellent mother I have ever seen.  I have two wonderful daughters who love me and their mother lavishly and are the best of friends.  My wife and I both have careers that we are passionate about and that contribute to positively effecting others.  I love my life!  Hard times come and go, good times come and go, people come and go, but great friends and great family are forever.  I know, in our society everything I just said sounds cheesy, but I don’t care, because I love my life!  What about you?

We can learn from anyone especially our kids…

Great day yesterday….very productive. I had the privilege to attend open house at my daughter Sydney’s school. She is in first great and very smart by the way. She really is a brilliant child. Sweet, Kind, sharp, funny, and very expressive. It was good to observe her element. We see our kids in our element all the time, but do you ever stop to just watch them around their peers, and at their school.

We looked through all her papers, and we did a math center together, then she read me a wonderful story about the friendship between a boy and his pet. She also reads well. Am I bragging to much? You’ll get your turn. I was truly blessed by her for an entirely different reason.

As we walked through the halls, different kids would say, “hey Sydney”, “how ya doing Sydney?” and they were all very enthusiastic about saying hello to her. At one point i was talking to the school counselor a friend of mine, and as we stood there talking a young Hispanic girl came up and hugged Sydney around the neck and the whole family said hello to Sydney. The counselor said to me, “did you see what just happened there?” I said yeah, they said hi to Sydney, He said, you have to understand this is who Sydney is. She befriends everyone, especially the kids who have obstacles to deal with. This particular girl speaks very broken English and her family as well.

He said Sydney really connects and cares about people, and doesn’t let any barrier keep her from connecting.

This gives me pride. I love people, I love to be around people, I love to deal with people issues, its what I do. However i have to admit, sometimes when there are barriers, I find it easier to move on then take the time to cross them.

One more thing she showed me, was her “I have a dream” paper.  They did a section on Martin Luther King Jr.  She was very artistic and her coloring exquisite of cours…”here i go again,” but what she wrote was the most important.  She wrote…”My dream for the world, is to love God, and everybody everyday,” and “My dream for our country, is no war, and no more arguing.”

I think if will listen, we might learn something.

Lets all take it from Sydney and develop relationship beyond any barriers. I think it would make for a better world….

What do you think?……..