Devotional, Ministry Tidbits & Khoswe (a Rat)

"Blessed are the people of whom this is true, blessed are the people whose God is the Lord." ~Psalm 144:15

We were reading over Psalm 144 this morning before staff meeting. The psalm is 15 verses long, but it was the last verse that stuck out to me. Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. It just got me thinking about the richness that I have in my relationship with the Lord, the spiritual blessings that were bestowed on me by the sacrifice of Christ on my behalf.

I, then, started thinking about some of the trials that I have faced here and how, in my flesh, I have been more prone to complain instead of rejoice in the fact that through it all my God is the Lord--that no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the trial, I'm being led through it by the Lord. The same Lord that the Scriptures show as faithful and trustworthy, slow to anger and abounding in love.

It was as if God was trying to re-center my thoughts and affections on Him by reminding me that I am blessed, not materially, but spiritually. Not for anything that I have done, but for what Christ did for me at calvary. Anyways, I just thought I would share this verse and what God taught me today. So that hopefully it would be an encouragement to you.

Ministry Tidbits

• The cell group ministry with Great Commission is going well. There seems to be a regular group of attenders and we've been getting to know each other a lot more in recent weeks. Two leaders have emerged in the group and Great Commission hopes to launch a new cell group with one or both of these leaders in the near future.

• I will be leading a presentation on Cell Groups with a group of pastors and church leaders for various churches in the Chilenje area. Please pray for the leadership in attendance, that they would see the value in using cell groups as a means to disciple members of their church.

• Our guard Charles and I did an inventory count on his store and figured out his first month's profit.  In a month's time, his family had a profit of close to 265,000 kwacha (about twice what they were making with his wife breaking bricks). 

• This past Saturday, I went with Alex, one of the deacons from Great Commission, to his property in a village east of Lusaka in the town of Chongwe.  He is trying to start a piggery in order to provide enough income for him to go into ministry full time.  We'll meet later this week to do some cost estimates for starting the piggery.

Khoswe!

Finally, the Rat, or Khoswe in Nyanja.  This morning, our guard Charles found this little critter in the bottom of one of our outside trash cans.  We see them all the time, but can never seem to catch them.  Unfortunately for this one, he fell into a can he couldn't get out of.  Gracyn didn't take it too well when I gave Charles instructions to destroy the varmint.  I think she thought it would make a great pet!