Guest Post: We Will Finish It

Hey, I'm TW Wright (or Abrielle Lindsay, whichever you use is fine) I blog over at Indonesia Around Me. Yes I usually live in Indonesia. But right now my family is taking a nine month break in America.

So a couple weekends ago I met an online friend that goes by the name Mary.

Our families met up at JAARS for JAARS Day. We traveled around and saw a lot of great things that mainly concerned around planes, helicopters, and Bible Translation.

This wasn't the very first JAARS Day I had been to, but one where I could understand it a lot more.

While we were around in the hangar, we saw a huge, 1900+ languages around the world that still did not have a Bible project started.

We looked at all the countries that were still in need of those languages. Lots of countries only had ONE LANGUAGE left! And others, like Indonesia and Nigeria, had almost a complete row of languages still waiting for a language project to be started.

While we were staring at it, someone came up and said something to us. And it struck me hard. I had never thought of that before.

BUT IT MADE PERFECT SENSE.

Here's what he said (and I quote): "The olds guys like me aren't the ones that are going to be finishing the Bible Translation, no, it's going to be you kids."

Wow that kind of struck me.

But come on think about it a little.

Older people can't be the ones to finish everything.

Remember, we die off slowly.

This is probably not the post you were expecting, but God has made you UNIQUE (just like Ellie's title :) ). He may be calling you to go to the very least of these.

I hope this post encourages you! :)

Thank you Ellie for letting (and asking me!) to post! :)

TW Wright

Julia's Guest Post!

Hey everyone! While Sarah and Bernie are away in Savannah, I (Julia Nashif, blogger of Running Through the Stars) am guest posting!

I love reading Christian novels. They remind me how badly I need Christ in my life. Sometimes, however, the books get too preachy. What elements make a Christian book a good one?

In To Darkness Fled, Achan has conversations with Arman, the representative of God, himself. Some people thought the spiritual aspects of this book were too much, but I thought it was a success. Achan clearly needed help, and he got help. I could feel his peace when Arman spoke to him.



In Sixteen, Nikki is a pregnant, depressed teen. Her friend Christy is the one who tells her about Jesus. She says, “In the end, after all of the evidence from Christians and all the doubts from others, you just have to decide if you believe in God or not”, which I think is a good point. There are always going to be people with a stronger faith than you and there are always going to be people with a weaker faith than you. All you can do is keep going regardless.

Nikki then converts without another thought. Is that how it usually goes though? When you’re despairing over your past, wouldn’t you be more cautious about leaping into a future? (That’s just my two cents though. I really enjoyed reading Sixteen.)

Purple Moon is about another troubled teen. Selena, on the verge of addiction, spends the summer at her cousin’s house and goes to a three day camp with the next door neighbor (a total hearthrob, by the way). After her conversion, however, the doubts come back. Could Jesus really love someone as unlovable as her?

 

Because of her reluctances, her ultimate conversion in the end feels more real. Life isn’t perfect, even for Christians. There is, however, an eternal silver lining to life's cloud: the reassurance of God’s love.

What makes a Christian book believable? In my opinion, realistic difficulties and powerful convincing does the trick for me. That’s just my bookish opinion though. Comment and tell me what’s yours!

Leaving

So I'll be leaving soon for vacation! Bye everybody!