+ SquanLife

Church and Work

It’s been a rather peculiar feeling not preaching weekly on Sunday mornings, but it’s been great to sit back and listen to someone else share from the Bible.  We look forward to getting more involved in church community life in the year ahead.  For now, all my time and energy has been focused on helping raise the resources to support education for God’s beloved poor in Africa and Latin America.  I will be heading to Africa in January to work with several of our 100 schools in the nation of Ghana. 

Empowering the Poor through Loans

Iqbal Quadir provides a good description of the difference between giving aid that empowers authorities and more empowering development through loans.

http://www.ted.com/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty.html

End of the Year Giving

I hope you had a joy-filled Christmas.  As a pastor, I always had people calling me on the last few days of the year, wanting to discuss an end of the year donation.  You can always feel free to call and discuss our latest work at Edify.  Also, if you have family and friends who are thinking about an end of the year donation that will have a world impact, please encourage them to consider joining us at Edify.

Joy to the World

 

It’s Christmas

What can we Hope for here?
 
More light than we can learn,
More strength than we can treasure,
More love than we can earn,
More peace than we can measure.
Because one child is born.
(poet, Christopher Fry)

A Quality Christ-Centered Education
Is the Gift We Give
Throughout the Year

Merry Christmas

Thank you for your donations.

Challenges to Giving

After a big move from coast to coast, and student tuition payments for three boys in college, the bank account is depleted and the reserves are growing thin.  The Biblical concepts of the tithe that has been a part of our life for years is challenged by a lack of cash.  The temptation to abandon giving disciplines could very easily steer us away from God’s will for us.  We are finding that as we remain faithful in our giving, God (who owns it all) is showing faithful to us.  I do, however, recommend to young couples spreading out their children to avoid three in college at the same time.

Working and Eating

^“Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” (Proverbs 10:4 NIV)

The Bible says that people have the responsibility to work if they are to eat.  There are a good number of proverbs that suggest if you play and seek constant pleasure with no regard for work, then you cannot expect to have the resources necessary to take care of yourself.  These are wonderful verses to teach our children.  These verses are a great basic guide to show us the natural cause and effect of labor and resources.  Yet in a broken and sinful world, the natural cause and effect process of working, and then eating, is often broken down.  Work can’t be found.  When work is found, a living wage is not paid. 

There are plenty of people living high on the hog in the developed world who don’t work very much at all.  On the other hand, there are some in impoverished communities who work very hard and still starve.  There are some who read verses in the Bible like Proverbs 10:4, and they say that poverty is the fault of the poor.  “If the poor were only willing to work, they would have the resources to live,” they say.  “The reason for poverty is laziness.”

I think it behooves us who have the resources, to at least invest in the poor enough so that they have the resources available to work.  If people are willing to work, but do not have the education or the capital to advance beyond grinding generational poverty, then we who love Jesus and who want to participate in the Kingdom of God should help the poor have the resources to WORK.

Joy to the World

Joy is often hard to find.
Especially for the poor,
For those simply looking for a place to lay their weary head.

Thank God for Christmas!
Thank God for the Holy Family
And the miracle of Bethlehem.

Thank God for all those who follow the way of Christ
And the life of love.
Thank God for you! 

Merry Christmas,
Steve and Cindy Davis
and Family

A Disturbing Statistic

A statistic that disturbs me is the massive consumption in the developed world.  We consume 76.5% of the world’s resources, even though we are only 20% of the population.  This disturbs me because I don’t think there is anything inherent in me that should allow me such an unbalanced benefit.  It’s not because I work any harder.  I am just a part of the system that has dominated economically. 

Who is in Charge?

You usually know who is boss by those who are being served.  Countries have their kings and they have their servants.  So too do businesses; even churches.  For years I was the Sr. Pastor in a church with staff members and volunteers responding to my directions and doing what I asked of them.  “I can’t say no to the pastor,” people would tell me as they responded to my requests for service in the church.  One man said, “A ‘no’ to my pastor might place me in spiritual peril.”  All those that work for us know they can’t say no to us.  It could get them fired.

Everyone knows who is boss by who is being served.  Yet Jesus turned this way of thinking on its ear.  He was a servant king.  He showed his kingship through service.  He said “yes” to our great need for salvation, by giving of himself.  I am most like Jesus when I am giving and serving; when service flows pure from my personality; when I am doing this naturally and without conscious thought.  I am most spiritually poor, on the other hand, when I feel in some way entitled to be king; top dog at work or king of my castle.

It is during the times I feel most like a big shot, that I know I’m in dangerous spiritual territory; I know I am poor in spirit, I could become spiritually bankrupt.  I am always blessed when I reorient my life to King Jesus and live more like him, a servant- always a servant with Jesus as my forever King.

Thank You

To those who have partnered with Edify:  Thank You!  You have helped expand educational opportunities to impoverished children, not only giving them book smarts to break the cycle of generational poverty, but heart knowledge of God’s truth and love.  The Christ-Centered education you provide is changing the world for good