“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.” Deut. 30:19
Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Well I hope your spring was great and you are looking forward to summer when life is sweet. Unless you live in Moab, UT where life is heat. We just came back from there, having run out the door after school ended to beat the heat and take advantage of some flyer miles tickets given to us by some close friends and neighbors. It gets to about 113 degrees in Arches National Park by July, but was still in the 70’s when we went. We then drove to Colorado to visit a former College of DuPage student and her husband and see some other peeps we love.
Some of what we viewed looked like the pictures that I saw at C.O.D. this year when I attended a lecture on Pluto. About a year ago, the probe “New Horizons” flew by Pluto and the pictures were very diverse and supported creationism by one account in this Institute of Creation Research article http://www.icr.org/article/9317
“New Horizons images revealed interesting geological features on Pluto. Mountains as large as the Rockies stretch across its surface, but they’re made of water-ice instead of rock. The spacecraft also captured cliffs and enormous canyons, what appear to be frozen lakes of nitrogen, and even evidence of past volcanic activity. This geology indicates that the surface was once active with motion driven by internal heat. Apparently, Pluto was warmer when the Lord first created it. Such geology cannot be billions of years old. Otherwise, countless impacts over billions of years would have obliterated such terrain.”
The most interesting thing I heard at the lecture was that every single scientific article on the surface of Pluto written before New Horizons flew over proved to be wrong. Every single one. I thought about that, reading the implausible naturalistic explanations for the arches we looked at and the vast canyons of Canyonlands National Park we also viewed. It seems that the explanations for the typography we see are pretty much “had to be there” stuff. Noah and his peeps had the only shot to see some things form. Other things may have been shaped only later as ice melted on the poles. Who knows?
There are just so many things that are hard to understand, though we understand a bit better than Biblical Writers. I thought of these verses while watching a long snake slither down along the trail we hiked on Grand Wash Trail through a canyon:
“There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden.” Proverbs 30:18&19
To this I would add, “the way of the Holy Spirit to redeem the human heart”.
After going through the Gospel with just over 475 students this past school year, it is still a miracle each time one turns and humbles themselves to ask forgiveness in a silent prayer, having believed the words of a stranger quoting the Word of God. Most of these claimed to be Christians once the Gospel was explained to them, and many of those wrongly had just moments before gotten through telling me they’d go to Heaven because, in some sense, they were good. But 112 prayed to receive Christ. Three prayed after I left them, (Gio, Adam and Jimmy) who told me when I saw them later. The rest prayed while I sat beside them. I hope you were able to read some of their stories this past school year by email or on our website, www.thethirdwatch.org. We are so very grateful for your prayers and financial help this year. We hope that in Heaven, some of them will thank you for helping to initiate their life in Christ through Third Watch.
Here is a list of those who came in. (An * means they committed to Christ but did not pray.)
Jessie, Sam, Jamanti*, Sam*, Reno, Kellie, Anton, Omar, Alyssa, Megan, Kirk, Irvin, Jake*, Louie, Hezekiah, Joey, Vasyl, Justis, Jazmin, Brooke, Rod, Ben, Keith, Brian, Joi, Joy, Jake, Rene, Matt, Chris*, Brandon*, Walter, Chani, Hany*, Alassandro, Cindy, Julian, Thandi, Megan, Kendall, Abraham, Mike, John, Gio, Ramy, Veronica, Jimmy, Dawn*, Daniel, Violet, Eric*, Jalen, Haley, Adrianna, Josh, Sam, Stephanie, London, Saul, Adrin, Sean, Kiana, Emelina, Brandi, Alexandra*, Kristy, DiAngelo, Bri, Liz, Will, Erika, Tristan, Dan, Heyley, Brionna, Lexi, Tate*, Sean, Nick*, Megan, Aaron, Vanessa, Chris, Sabrina, Nick, Tony, Alexander, John, William, Darian, Alex, Leo, Tim, Robin, Myles, Hannah, Neel, Bri, Kris, Jarius, Leah, Mardilyn*, Kiana*, Tim, Kyle, Demetrous, Blessing, Shelby, Jose, Tiara, Abby, Jake, Chloe, Los, Patrick, Evelyn, Jeremy, Greg, Phallen, Nikki*, John, Jake, Jonathon, Dom*, Fernando, Mark and Adam
May your summer be blessed with peace & rest in Him.