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money colored shirt

HI Folks,

I have a shirt that is almost the exact color of American money. A nice, rich green color. Although this shirt makes me feel GREAT (for some reason) when I wear it, it hasn't brought me any riches. And the color doesn't seem to be "rubbing off", if you know what I mean? When I looked at my shirt this afternoon, I got to wondering why it makes me feel so good to wear it. I think it is really just the color, although the shirt is well-made, and quite nice. I guess it makes me feel "rich". Carolyn has told me at this point that to feel "rich" is a particularly non-Christian attitude, or feeling, and she may well be right. But I am sure we can all understand that not having to worry about the next tank of gas, or where our next meal is coming from is a good feeling, can't we? We learn to rely upon God for these things as we grow and mature in Christ, don't we? Instead of money. My human side still likes that feeling of having sufficient funds to cover the gap, unfortunately. (hey, I'm far from perfect).

Once I began to wonder about shirts, and colors, and things like that, I couldn't help but begin to wonder about a few other things, which SEEM to be tied together, but in fact have very little bearing on one another. Like praying for instance.

Almost everyone prays. Some of us do it more formally, and habitually than others, but almost all of us have offered up a prayer to God in a stressful moment or situation. How many of us have made false promises to God in a moment of clear conviction? You know, like..."if you just will help me in THIS situation Lord, I'll..._____(fill in the blank)". That sort of thing.

Prayer is a wonderful and powerful tool which we have been given by God to speak our hearts. It is NEVER wasted, but when prayer is used to make a false-promise, or a well-intentioned though null, declaration of faith...is it something like wearing a "money-colored shirt"? Is this sort of prayer just something that makes us feel good, for the moment? Or is it something more? Theologians disagree on the efficacy of a well-intentioned but faithless prayer. I for one, know that God heard it...no matter the outcome. It has been my experience that the outcome of this sort of prayer is usually an opportunity to "reach the lost", and to welcome a new Christian into the fold of believers. We must make it our DUTY to search out these opportunities, musn't we? Please don't let these "foxhole prayers" go unanswered due to some inaction on OUR part....brothers. Sometimes God acts directly in answer to our prayers, and sometimes He uses us Christians ... be sensitive to these leadings, please.

Another thing this green shirt got me to wondering about was how the filling of a pew on Sunday mornings expresses our faith and belief in God. I suspect that some of the people sitting in pews on Sunday mornings are there simply because it is customary...or because if they DON'T go to church their neighbors and friends will "talk". That's a bit like wearing a money-colored shirt too, isn't it? Do we go to church to pray to God and to worship Him, ...or to be seen by our sometimes judgemental friends and neighbors? Is our attendance an expression of Faith in our Lord and Saviour, or is it simply an expression of our fear of the perception of others?

When we DO go, let's make sure that we are there for Him,and not "them"...okay?
Every time....because He is there for YOU, every time!

That's it....my mind wanders when I wear a money-colored shirt, I guess.

Merriest of CHRISTmasses for you, and your loved ones my brothers!

Richard Becton
Missionary, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua
www.casadeservicio.org

an uprising in Puerto

HI Folks,

For the last three days there has been an uprising in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. It is ending now. Carolyn and I are not currently in Puerto Cabezas, and so are in no danger.

The Juista Tara (head judge, more or less) of the Miskito people, Brother Hector Williams a local preacher, in months past filed paperwork with the approval of the three indigenous tribes of Indians in Nicaragua to secede the nation of Miskitia from the nation of NIcaragua. The deadline for the government of Nicaragua's response to the points listed in the documents of secession was October the 19th of this year. Three days ago.

On the 19th, there were manifestations of political support for the Juista Tara's move, including burning of tires in the streets and marching througout the city. The secession crowd attempted to take over the government building in the city of Puerto Cabezas.

The Nicaraguan governments response to this expression of political will has been swift. There was tear gas deployed, and one 75 year old man died of asphixiation. This gentlemens death is the only one so far, and since the uprising has been quelled, he is expected to be the only one.

The underlying issues for this huelga (strike) are comlex, but boil down to the Miskito Indians feeling a sense of deprivation and living in poverty. We live in an ignored corner of Nicaragua, both by the government and the rest of the world. We are pleased to report the God is still there, and working miracles amongst our Miskito brothers.

As the political climate returns to normal, the underlying issues are still there and must be met, in some way, and by some party.

These kinds of "manifestations" seem to happen once or twice a year, due to the frustration of poverty, and the lack of opportunities to pull themselves out of this state of deprivation. Please hold our beloved Miskitio people fast...in your prayers.

God Bless!

Richard Becton

Our brothers in Nicaragua

HI Folks,

We are going to receive a visit from the Praise Cathedral Church of God in a couple of months in Puerto Cabezas. We are excited for this visit as always, for the opportunity to see good and what are fast becoming "old" friends. Our hearts have been touched by the servants of God at Praise Cathedral.

We are particularly eager for this upcoming visit because their plan and intention is to help to build a church in Puerto Cabezas. The Nuevo Jerusalem church of God, pastored by Pastora Olivia. Let me remind some of you about who Pastora Olivia is, and acquaint those of you that haven't had the opportunity to meet her. Pastora Olivia lives down in the Muelle Barrio in Puerto Cabezas (the docks). Pastora Olivia has a large and rambunctious family, and her family is rich with passion for life! They can sometimes be excitable too!

I once saw Pastora Olivia's daughter getting mad at her mother and throwing all of her own personal belongings out the window of their house. I was a bit surprised when the mattress and bed flew out also! Pastora Olivia has a largish family, and I'm sure that isn't the only time when passions ran amok! hahaha, these things happen, don't they, even in the best of families?

Pastora Olivia has a BURNING desire to serve God! Pastora Olivia walks to church, every evening. All the way from the dock area to the bus station. It is a somewhat long walk, to the other side of town. We have church every night in Puerto Cabezas, not just on Sundays and Wednesdays. She often gets wet on the way to and from her church, and the danger of walking home after services is something she has just learned to live with. It is somewhat rare for a woman to pastor a church in the male-dominated culture of Central America, but Pastora Olivia is one of the finest. Pastora Olivia's passion and zeal for God is unequalled by her peers.

Pastora Olivia, along with her congregation have been patiently and steadfastly putting a church together in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. Step by step, block by cement block, they have formed the walls of their church. Piece by piece over the last few years they have struggled to bring in each Cordoba (local currency) to purchase each block. Their faith has been blessed by God, it IS working.

Whenever we have visitors to Puerto Cabezas from outside Nicaragua we always take them by to visit the Nuevo Jerusalem Church of God...it is an inspiration!

The Praise Cathedral Church of God, from Pennsylvania in the USA is visiting in Febuary...please pray that they will be AS BLESSED to serve Pastora Olivia and the Nuevo Jerusalem Church of God (Iglesia de Dios) as they will in turn be blessing the Nuevo Jerusalem Church.

We are excited for this visit!

God bless you each, folks!

Richard Becton
www.casadeservicio.org
Church of God Project #065-0497

the decline and fall of the world's empires

Hi Folks,

I have often thought that mankind has not progressed as far as his ego thinks he has. There have been steps of progress, of course. Fire, and tools, and electricity and the internal combustion engine. Scientific reasoning (a step forward?), and advancement of medicines. Technological marvels brought about by the genius of advanced engineering.

But really, fire and tools, those are the things which are fundamental turning points in mankinds history. The rest are merely outgrowths, or a progression from initial discoveries. We can communicate, over vast distances, via electronic marvels...but this ability is a progression from the ability to create fire, and smoke signals.

Mankinds engineering feats are considered today to be quite extraordinary. The towers in Dubai, reaching for the heavens! The skyscrapers of New York! The Nakheel companies many reclamation projects...living space, reclaimed from the sea!

But these engineering marvels, are they more impressive than the pyramids, or the great ships of the 14th century, or those ships built in the 3rd century even? Engineering is another discipline which builds on the creations and accomplishments of past discoveries...really just an outgrowth of the ability to make simple tools.

I think that mankind has become too "full of himself", much like the makers of the tower of babel. Mankind, even then, found the ability to elevate his ego over our natural belief in God. We can become very impressed with ourselves, pretty easily.

As I see and interact with cultures which are literally thousands of years old, in some cases MANY thousands of years old. I wonder to myself...Is THIS then progress? Is THIS what human culture devolves itself into? What I see in the Middle East today, after seven or eight CENTURIES of existance...is this then the culmination of culture for humankind?

I see that the people in this part of the world live in a much more "nuanced" society than we do in the western world. What I mean by that is that the societal interactions of the people here in the Middle East are RICH with meaning. A gesture means more here, than it does anywhere else in the world. The people here seem to interact with one another on a level which is hard to imagine to a typical westerner.

The evolution here seems to be in the realm of interpersonal interaction. How folks get along with one another. This is a society where rudeness, is very rude, and politeness is an art form.

I wonder what the United States will look like in 7 THOUSAND years? When OUR COUNTRY has existed for 29 times as long as it has currently existed...what will it look like, and how will we be...as a people? That's 10 times longer than now....and then ten more times longer than now...and then almost ten MORE times longer than now. We are a young country, by global standards.

WE have so much. We have a society that is absolutely brimming with potential. The potential to do so much good, and to be a strong force for the betterment of humanity...through Christ! I pray that we do not lose our way, and devolve into mediocrity as our history continues to pave the path to or future.

God bless.

Richard
www.casadeservicio.org

walking hand in hand, like brothers

Hi Folks,

We have lost our way, in a very important area of our Christians lives my brothers.

It has been raining here all day long, the kind of rain you only get in tropical parts of the world. It is a drenching, cold, penetrating rain, which becomes integral to your very being, it seems.

I just watched an eight year-old boy, walking down the street with his younger sister, under an unbrella. The boy was carefully holding his little sisters hand, and guiding her around the puddles strewn about the rain soaked ground. He was carrying the umbrella to shield her, and gently steering her towards better paths. You see, she was too young to be able to adequately identify the deeper puddles from the shallow. She needed his help.

This is what I think Jesus meant when he said we have brotherly love for each other. That the "older" of us Christians must take the younger by the hand and gently guide them to safe ground, to the more shallow areas. There WILL be rain in our lives, that is unavoidable, but we must learn to rely on the wisdom of our elders, and help to guide those younger Christians to safer pathways. It is a part of our Christian lives which we often forget about. The nescesity of falling under supervision, and the responsibility of discipleship.

We are younger than some in Christ, and older than others. Let us mentor one another. There is no competition amongst brothers in times of crisis, but motivation to help. If you think we are not in a time of crisis, then you must turn to the bible for elucidation. We can turn on the television and see there are still lost souls, listen to the radio to know the word still needs to be spread, get on the internet to know that satan must STILL be fought.

We ARE in times of crisis, we MUST pull together to keep each other safe from harm, and we WILL overcome in the name of Jesus Christ!

Take your Spiritual brother by the hand, and guide him. Allow YOUR hand to be held by your Spiritual brother and learn the wisdom of being guided.

God Bless

Richard

How can America do this?

Hi Folks,

Please take a few moments to read what the Wall Street Journal wrote about the current CRISIS situation in Honduras. Bear in mind that this is the Wall Street Journal, one of the most respected publications in the history of the world. This isn't being reported in some third world country by "El diario", or "La Prensa". This is unpoliticized truth!

"The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings."

—Congressional Research Service, August 2009

Ever since Manuel Zelaya was removed from the Honduran presidency by that country's Supreme Court and Congress on June 28 for violations of the constitution, the Obama administration has insisted, without any legal basis, that the incident amounts to a "coup d'état" and must be reversed. President Obama has dealt harshly with Honduras, and Americans have been asked to trust their president's proclamations.

Now a report filed at the Library of Congress by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides what the administration has not offered, a serious legal review of the facts. "Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system," writes CRS senior foreign law specialist Norma C. Gutierrez in her report.

Do the facts matter? Fat chance. The administration is standing by its "coup" charge and 10 days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to sanction the country's independent judiciary. The U.S. won't say why, but its clear the court's sin is rejecting a U.S.-backed proposal to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

Martin Kozlowski

The upshot is that the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution and is also using its international political heft to try to interfere with the country's independent judiciary.

Hondurans are worried about what this pressure is doing to their country. Mr. Zelaya's violent supporters are emboldened by the U.S. position. They deface some homes and shops with graffiti and throw stones and home-made bombs into others, and whenever the police try to stop them, they howl about their "human rights."

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?

The Americas in the News

Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.

Since June 28, the U.S. has been pressuring Honduras to put Mr. Zelaya back in the presidency. But neither Mrs. Clinton's spurious "rule of law" claims or the tire iron handed her by Mr. Obama to use against this little country have been effective in convincing the Honduran judiciary that it ought to abandon its constitution.

It seems that Mrs. Clinton is peeved with the court because it ruled that restoring Mr. Zelaya to power under a proposal drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is unconstitutional. Thus, the State Department decided that in defense of the rule of law it would penalize the members of the Supreme Court for their interpretation of their constitution. Fourteen justices had their U.S. visas pulled.

Since the U.S. already had yanked the visa of the 15th member of the court, the one who signed the arrest warrant for Mr. Zelaya, this action completed Mrs. Clinton's assault on the independence of a foreign democracy's highest court. The lesson, presumably, is that judges in small foreign nations are required to accept America's interpretation of their own laws.

Thousands of readers have written to me asking how all this can happen in the U.S., where democratic principles have been recognized since the nation's founding. Many readers have written that they are "ashamed" of the U.S. and have asked, in effect, "How can I help Honduras?" A more pertinent question may turn out to be, how can they help their own country?

In its actions toward Honduras, the Obama administration is demonstrating contempt for the fundamentals of democracy. Legal scholars are clear on this. "Judicial independence is a central component of any democracy and is crucial to separation of powers, the rule of law and human rights," writes Ahron Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel and a prominent legal scholar, in his compelling 2006 book, "The Judge in a Democracy."

"The purpose of the separation of powers is to strengthen freedom and prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one government actor in a manner likely to harm the freedom of the individual," Mr. Barak explains—almost as if he is writing about Honduras.

He also warns prophetically about the Chávez style of democracy that has destroyed Venezuela and that Hondurans say they were trying to avoid in their own country. "Democracy is entitled to defend itself from those who seek to use it in order to destroy its very existence," he writes. Americans ought to ask themselves why the Obama administration doesn't seem to agree.