Fear and Comfort

Fear and comfort...how do these two words relate? Can you have comfort with fear? Can you have fear with comfort?

Here is Webster's definition of these words:
Fear
1. A painful emotion or passion excited by an expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger.
2. In scripture, fear is used to express a filial or a slavish passion. In good men, the fear of God is a holy awe or reverence of God and his laws, which springs from a just view and real love of the divine character, leading the subjects of it to hate and shun every thing that can offend such a holy being, and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience. This is filial fear (pertaining to a son or daughter).

Comfort
1. Relief from pain.
2. Relief from distress of mind.
3. Support.
4. That which gives strength or support in distress, difficulty, danger, or infirmity.
5. That which gives security from want and furnishes moderate enjoyment; as the comforts of life.

SO...how do these words work together? Acts 9:31 says, "Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied." This was after Saul was converted to a follower of the Way.
 

They had a holy reverence for God and His Word and the result was to be comforted by the Comforter. Let us live our lives in fear of YHWH the Holy God. The author of Hebrews says in verse 10:31, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." In context he is talking about being in willful sin as a believer, not living a life of reverence but one after the flesh. We must guard ourselves from excusing our sin. We must not use our liberty as a license or excuse to sin (Gal. 5:13).

So if we want comfort in the holy Spirit, let's first walk in truth. Let's live our lives in line with God's Word. Let's trust Him at His Word. Let's call sin what it is...SIN!

November at a Glance

Bless the LORD, all His works, in all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul! Psalms 103:22

As usual…God showed up and showed off this month! Thank you all for your faithful giving, persistent prayers and gracious encouragement!

Centro América Pastor’s Conference

Wayne was blessed to attend his first Capilla Calvario (Calvary Chapel) Pastor’s Conference in San Salvador, El Salvador. Churches and ministries were represented from every country in Central America (CA). Many pastors who attended were not Calvary Chapel pastors, but are pastors who are tiring of the false teachings and emphasis on prosperity doctrine in their denominations. They are seeking the Lord for direction and are excited about verse by verse teaching of the Word of God.

Wayne set up a table to talk to pastors about IBS seminars. With the help of a few good brothers we were able to communicate how we conduct the seminars. By the end of the seminar, we received multiple invitations from six of the seven CA countries.

Next year should prove to be quite exciting! We will be travelling to every CA country to introduce many to IBS.

Capilla del Calvario de Villareal, Tamarindo

               Many of you know the Chuck-ism of “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken.” We originally planned a short two night seminar, but due to something else being planned in a nearby community, we limited it to Sunday evening. Phil McKay is the pastor and hales from CC Vista, CA in San Diego. He and his wife Rebecca have been here for 3 years. Neither of them spoke much if any Spanish when they first arrived but today this is a 100% Spanish church.

               God has given Phil favor in the eyes of many Costa Ricans in the area. He currently has five ex-pastors attending church on Sunday evening as well as the local Methodist pastor. They are all so excited about verse by verse teaching. Phil’s desire in inviting us was to help his people see that they too can feed themselves the Word of God.

               We are praying about returning in February to give them an even larger meal of the Word.

Iglesia Cristiana Visión y Amor de Desamparados

            We returned to finish the study on Jude and to introduce them to formulating IBS questions. As a reminder…this church is located in a very poor part of San Jose. Most of the people in the church have come out of drug and alcohol back grounds. It is very encouraging to go to this little church to see it shine as a city on a hill.

               We were welcomed back with zeal and excitement! At first we were not sure if they were getting the idea of how to formulate the questions, but Miguel did an awesome job of going around from group to group to make sure they were on track. When it came to the large group discussion, it was obvious they understood. They had some very keen insight to the text and were able to work through it verse by verse.

               Pastor Jorge admits that he has a difficult time understanding the Word. The Lord has used him for years as an evangelist and he has never had any training. He has such a big heart! It is apparent that he truly loves his sheep and they love him. We are planning to work with him one on one for a few months to help him understand how to teach verse by verse. He is really looking forward to our time together. Verse by verse is a new concept here in CA.

What’s Ahead?

               This month Wayne will go back to Nicoya to teach at a few churches and help Diego and Salla Silva finish their home. The Silva’s are directors of the Nicoya YWAM (JUCUM) base. They work with the local churches, sponsor many short term missions, reach out to the youth and desire to start a home for pregnant teenage girls. They have been in the process of building their home for three years and now need help to finish the last 5-10%...the “rouge and lipstick.”

               Jon and Marillyn, our daughter and son-in-law, are leaving for Ojojona, Honduras the second week of December. They have been asked to pray about coming along side Jason and Patricia Mulla of CC Tegucigalpa to head up the children’s’ ministry in this remote mountain village. If the Lord gives them a green light, we will all be moving some time the first part of the year. Honduras is actually more centrally located in CA. We can live and travel from most any place the Lord plants us.

               At the end of December we are off to the States to attend the CC Missions Conference in Murrieta, CA the first week of January. While in the States, we will teach several IBS seminars as well as speak at churches in California, Arizona, Mexico and West Virginia.

               Thanks in advance for your prayers! We are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for this ministry this coming year.

One is Sufficient

Our last seminar in Nicoya through us for a little surprise. Once again we invited almost 100 churches and had verbal responses from many. On the first morning we were to start at 8:30 AM. Of course no one was there but Brooke, Miguel, Sala, Diego and Anabelli. (Sala and Diego are missionaries with JUCUM (YWAM) and Anabelli is the President of the local pastors fraternity of churches. These three were working in conjunction with each other to sponsor this seminar as they did the last two here.) We never expect anyone to arrive on time any more. We are over the US mind set of "being on time". On time here is within 15 to 30 minutes of the scheduled time. Within a few minutes, however, our first student arrived, Pastor Benjamin from the Assemblies of God.

About 9 AM Anabelli came to me with a worried look on her face. She speaks broken English and I speak broken Spanish, so Miguel helped with the translation. Anabelli asked, "What is the most number of pastors you have taught at a seminar?" I told her, "Dan has taught to over 1000 and me about 200." She then asked, "What is the average number of pastors and Christian workers that attend here in Costa Rica?" "20 or so", I responded. Then with tears in her eyes she asked, "What is the least number of pastors that you would teach?" And with a lump in my throat I said, "One! Let's get started."

Two more participants arrived shortly after we started. That evening we conducted another seminar and had a dozen or so people and the next morning several more people came.

This kind of reminds me a story I heard many years ago. People in our church in Iowa commented often how they could always rely on church not being canceled because of inclement weather. (In 13 years we canceled one Sunday morning service because we had a very early fall snow of several inches of very wet snow. On the way to church a large branch broke off a tree and almost hit my vehicle. Trees and electric lines were down every where.) There was this old farmer, Mr. Jones, sitting in church one Sunday morning. He braved a Midwestern blizzard to come worship that morning. The pastor came to the pulpit at 10 AM as usual to welcome the congregation to worship. This Sunday, however, the farmer was the only person sitting in the pews. The pastor said, "Well Mr. Jones, I think we will just cancel church today because the weather is so bad and no one else has come." Mr. Jones replied, " Well Pastor, I do not know much about how to do church because I have just been a cow farmer my whole life. But at feeding time if just one shows up I feed it."

So we are going back again in December (maybe the third time is the charm), not to do another seminar but to speak at several churches in hopes that pastors and people will hear expository teaching and like what they hear. Then maybe we can go from church to church and teach.


Six churches have invited us back to speak at their churches and conduct an IBS seminar. Brooke and I have been asked to teach at the YWAM discipleship base in Heredia. We also have over 18 churches all over Centro America that have invited us to come in 2010. So please pray for us as we schedule speaking engagements and seminars this next year. Our goal is to travel to each country this next year to conduct both Level 1 and 2 seminars.

We are trusting the Faithful One to provide the necessary finances for all of this travel. Pray for His provision!

Rancho Biblia de Jaco

Rebecca "Bleu" Oelson is a friend of ours from Jaco. She is originally from California but has lived here for the past 3 1/2 years as a missionary. She loves kids, animals and helping God's people. Recently she became the director for Rancho Biblia which is a part of Iglesia Radical.

This is a ministry that is located amongst the poorest of Jaco...the "River People". Most of these people are Nicaraguans who have come to Costa Rica for a "better" life. They have great needs. Many of the children do not go to school because the parents do not see the benefit of their children having an education. Bleu is taching them many basic skills like how to play together without fighting, how to share and say please and thank you.

Here are some of the children with Beu in action. One little girl about 10 years old was so proud of her ability to count in English and she came up to Brooke and me and counted to 24 with a great big smile on her face. We spent time playing with the kids who are very hungry for attention.

 Pray for laborers to come along side Bleu. There is a great need for laborers in the harvest!