Many years ago, my wife Anna and I made a commitment to train up our children for the Lord with a strong biblical Christian worldview. Because Christian schools weren’t readily available in the Las Vegas area, we opted to educate our children at home.

I believe the Great Commission is worthy of—and even calls for—purposed times and strategic plans for spreading the gospel. Thus, we have several times and locations each week available to members of our church to meet up with a partner for the purpose of saturating our community with the gospel.

North Valley Baptist Church was started by Pastor Calvin Blanton in the downtown area of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1956. For twenty-eight years Pastor Blanton faithfully led his congregation until he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in 1984.

One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 6:16—“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls….”

Just as there are loadbearing walls in a house, there are load-bearing pillars in effective student ministry. If you remove any one of these five pillars, it’s detrimental to your entire student ministry.

A furlough is defined as “a leave of absence.” To missionaries, the term “furlough” is known as the time to go “home.” There are many different views on what a furlough is, depending on what a missionary wants to accomplish while he is back in his homeland.

In my previous post, I shared five of the lessons the Lord has been teaching me through my three-year-old grandson Chandler’s illness and hospitalization with severe pneumonia. These are in no real order—just the raw truths the Lord has been teaching me during one of the most difficult times in our family’s life.

To some degree, women deal with issues related to trust on a daily basis—can I trust the waiter who says I ordered the best thing on the restaurant menu? Can I trust the teacher who said my child is progressing socially? Can I trust my friend to keep my secret? Or can I trust my kids to have good manners when I’m not with them?

When we set a goal in our lives, we normally have some termination point. For example, if I needed to save five hundred dollars for some new tires I might decide to save fifty dollars a month for ten months. If I decided I wanted to lose twenty pounds, I might set a goal of losing two pounds a week for ten weeks. We put our mind to the task at hand because we know that it is only for a few weeks or months that we have to sacrifice the fifty dollars or the fifty calories.

A few weeks ago, our lives were turned upside down when our three-year-old grandson, Chandler was taken to the hospital by ambulance with severe necrotizing pneumonia. We’re so thankful for the many who have prayed for Chandler in these past days, and we’re thankful for how the Lord has answered prayer in bringing healing.