About one Sunday per month, our family, along with another family or two, goes down to Grace Christian Home for an afternoon of edification and exhortation for the residents of the home.  It is always encouraging to serve people whom you know will appreciate what you bring them.  We are also grateful to the senior Godfreys, who organize everything, and for their encouragement to keep working for the Lord by ministering to these people.

Last Sunday, we decided to do something slightly different.  Rather than a normal type of message, we did a sort of play, which we hoped would help people remember the message a little better.  It was based on the IBLP Children’s Institute watermelon story, with a slightly different twist to it.

In our story, we wanted to eat watermelon because it was so hot.  But every time I was about to cut it open, someone would stop me and suggest that we test it in some way or other.  It was incredible how many people wanted to test the watermelon before opening it.  It was tested for smell, for how it felt, for stem strength, and stripiness; it was inspected for bad spots, shaken, and knocked on.

When we had finally done all these tests (surely we didn’t need to do that many) and deemed that it should be a good watermelon, I sliced it open.  Unfortunately it was not edible on the inside.

But, although the watermelon was not good to eat, we did get some good spiritual lessons out of this watermelon.  Just like the dirt in the watermelon totally ruined it, so sin in our lives totally ruins us.  It doesn’t take much sin – even one sin makes us a sinner and every one of us has sinned.  God’s Word says that the wages of sin is death, so we all deserve to die.

Also, we can’t make this watermelon better.  We need a new watermelon.  In the same way, we can’t “make our sin better.”  We need a totally new life; we need to be a new creation.   “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23)  The Bible says in II Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  Jesus is God’s own Son and never committed any sin.  But He died on the cross in our place, the Righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.  We can have new, eternal life through Him.

There is one more thing we need to notice, too.  Sometimes sin is obvious, just as a watermelon can be obviously bad.  But this watermelon seemed good on the outside.  It can be the same way with people: on the outside they may be doing all kinds of “good” things, but the inside has not been made new.  In I Samuel 16:7, the Bible says, “The LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”  In order to be righteous before God, we need to be clean on the inside, not just look good on the outside.  If you have not asked God to make you a new creation by what Jesus did on the cross for you, I urge you to ask Christ to forgive your sins and give you a new life.

Advent Christian Camp is a very small camp in Beebe Plain, Quebec.  It is the kind of place no one would hear about except by word of mouth.  When we first got an invitation to play music there as a part of the conclusion of the camp last year, we had never heard of it.  We did know several of the people there, however.  And, that is how we were invited to play.  That is how almost all our concerts are booked.

The people at the camp really seemed to appreciate the music we played.  It sometimes seems strange to think how some simple music, played by simple musicians, can be such a blessing to the hearers.  Any yet, this is the feedback we always receive.  Comments such as, “That was uplifting!” or, “It is a blessing to see you play together.” or, “It makes me think of Heaven.” are not uncommon.  Is this due to our ability or skill?  No.  Skilled musicians could be found in the concert halls of Montreal, but you aren’t likely to find us there.  I don’t fully know what causes people to make such comments, nor how we can be such an encouragement to so many people, but I know it is the Lord’s doing.  It may also have to do with the fact that in this world, families simply don’t go around together. 

Mrs. Vogrin once said, “[Basically] all you need to have a family ministry is to stand together as a family and smile.”  This is, from what we have seen, true.  But, why don’t you try it?  Actually, try just a little more than that.  Try just walking into a nursing home once a week, or even once a month, and talking with the residents.  You may be surprised to find that many people that can’t seem to remember anything suddenly have the ability to remember something. 

Like many buildings in the far south of Quebec, several of the cabins in Advent Christian Camp are quite old, but in good shape.  Several are over 100 years old, and are made with planks of wood of dimensions that would be extravagantly expensive or even simply not available.

Another interesting thing about this trip was the town itself.  It seems that when they built the town, they forgot that there was more than one country in North America.  The town is literally right on the border, with some houses seemingly in both countries.  The road we took home is partly in Canada and partly in the States.  The houses on the south side of the road are American houses, while those on the north are Canadian.  That makes one think… Does the U.S. Postal Service have to cross the border into Canada to deliver their mail to the American houses in the States?  It must be interesting to live in a place like that.

Zechariah 4:6-10 “This is the word of the LORD … Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. … For who hath despised the day of small things? … The eyes of the LORD … run to and fro through the whole earth.”

Has it really been almost two months since we have posted anything?  I’m incredulous.  I am extremely grateful that God has poured out His blessings upon us with a faithfulness far exceeding ours.  I suppose I should begin by sharing our experience at the retirement home last Saturday. 

This is a home run by Dominican nuns as part of their missionary work here in Quebec.  (They are originally from Europe.)  The programme was about an hour long, beginning with ¾ of an hour of music.  Both the residents and the nuns seemed to greatly enjoy listening to the music, especially when the younger ones played. 

The music was followed by a Gospel chalk talk, “The Captain of my Ship”, or rather, « Le Capitaine de mon Bateau », as this was a French home.  In this chalk talk, two stories are told from the lives of the 12 disciples in which they had to make Christ the Captain of their “ship”.  At the conclusion, I give an invitation to ask Christ into their life and to make Him the Captain of their “ship”. 

We also handed out New Testaments to anyone who wanted to learn more about Christ.  Of the 30 or so people present, approximately two dozen people took them, including several of the nuns. 

I do not know whether anyone was saved as a direct result of our music and chalk talk, but I do know that the Word of God is powerful, and the Lord will use it to bring forth His purpose and accomplish His intent.  We can plant the seed of truth, but only God can make it grow and bear fruit.

Isaiah 55:11 “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

We have now been blessed with three scheduled chalk talks.  The first, March 28, is at the Beachburg Hall.  The second, March 29, is also in Beachburg, at the Country Haven Retirement Home.  The third, more locally situated, is at Mont Saint Dominique, a Catholic nursing home in Sherbrooke on May 22.  We would appreciate your prayers for every one of them.

Every chalk talk takes a certain amount of preparation.  First (and not necessarily easiest), we must find a day that fits with the already made schedule.  This time, we started by setting up on Friday.  On Monday, we did a practice run using a background that we had previously made, but not used.

Tuesday, the real work started.  We started by preparing our paper for the new backgrounds.  We have found that sanding the bogus paper helps it absorb more chalk.

Clouds are something we have a hard time with, so we were pleasantly surprised when, after much time spent in discussion as to how we could improve, our backgrounds turned out as well as they did.  There is certainly still much room for improvement.

Tuesday evening, we started work on the three blacklight drawings.  We work from a slide Matthew Bowman made from Captain of my Ship.  (Our version of Captain of my Ship is an adaptation and expansion of that chalk talk.)

It is exciting to see the way the Lord works through every situation of life when we let Him.  While I was working the lights during the last background of the blacklight session, something broke inside our control box.  The dimmer that is supposed to control the main white lights ceased to function.  That is not good.  We decided to put white bulbs in the red sockets and finish the blacklight preparation that way.

Wednesday was the day we had planned for cleanup.  But, before we did the cleanup, we had to check into the problem with the dimmer.  I soon had the faulty dimmer out, and since we are home-schooled, and since the dimmer wasn’t working anyway, we decided to take it apart.  We soon found the problem – the small plastic piece that switches the dimmer on or off had broken right off and had left the dimmer stuck in the “off” position.  So, we switched it on manually, and voilà, the dimmer was once again working as it ought to – well, almost.  The only “problem” was that it no longer clicks off – it only dims off.  (While we had the box open, we also replaced all the solid-core wiring with fibred wiring.)

The Lord’s blessing is present in our lives at all times at all times, but there are times that we have more difficulty in seeing it than others.  In this case, God’s blessing was evidenced in the timing of this event.  This could have happened in a very different way.  It could have happened right before one of the presentations.  But God was gracious to us, and not only gave us the ability to fix it, but also arranged the timing such that we could do something about it.

This also reminds me of how we are sometimes – broken.  Very often, we do something that we shouldn’t have done, and there are consequences.  But God can fix anything.  Our lives may not be as they would have been had we not fallen, but He can nevertheless work all things together for our good, and that is exactly what He wants for us.

We finally did get the cleanup done, and we are now ready (I believe) to pack everything into the trailer.  

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:”

Romans 8:27-28 “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”