Interesting story...
This week is the conference on Missions here at school. We have missionaries from all over the world here to talk to us and stuff. Well last night my growth group met with a man who works for a middle east missionary organization. He shared many stories with us about how God was working in the middle east. One however seemed especially amazing. It was about the Passion of Christ... Now before I lose everyone who is sick of hearing about the movie please read on to see how God has used this controversial film for his purposes... I don't know if you remember but when the movie was about to be released a rumor got started (a lie) that the film was anti - semantic. Well here in the US some people didn't want to see it because of that. However, in the middle east everyone was like "an anti semantic movie, I want to see that". All of a sudden movie theateres all through the middle east were showing it. These theateres were packed for weeks on end. Many of these theateres were in contries that are completely closed to the gospel. They are countries that Christians get killed in. They are countries that missionaries are not allowed in. They have the strictest islamic code. But they showed The Passion of Christ! Christians working in some of those countries had the opportunity to go to the theateres as the movie let out. People were crying. People were asking questions like "did he really say that? Did he really ask God to forgive those people who had beat him so brutally? Is this a true story? Where can I learn more". These are countries that Mission organizations have wanted to reach for years but were having great difficulty reaching because of laws in the country. But because someone said the movie was anit semantic the government allowed the movie to be shown and introduced countless muslims to the story of the cross for the first time.
That story is amazing to me. It was nothing that anyone did! People had tried to act and had prayed for these countries for decades! However, God used a movie to introduce these muslims to the story of grace.
God used a movie that many Christians are unsure about to bring the gospel message into the lives of muslims and encourage them to ask questions about Christ. Their only knowledge of Christ is that he is a good prophet. Now many know that he died and that in his death he forgave others and that he claimed to be God. That type of grace is unheard of in the Muslim world!
life
Well I did something today for the first time... I was looking for some books and they are really expensive so I decided to check Ebay for them. Well they weren't there but while I was looking I found 20 dr. Seuss books for sell... Well I LOVE Dr. Seuss so I decided to bid on them. Yep! I bid on Ebay. Well I ended up winning and so I have 20 Dr. Seuss books coming in the mail! I am excited because I like Dr. Seuss but also this is a wonderful start to my library for when I am a teacher! I payed less than $2 for each of them and they are all hard back in good condition! Yeah that was fun! I have entered the world of buying things through ebay... I must say I think it could be addicting... It is a little like a sport... you have to figure out how to bid so you can outbid someone else.
Well not much else is going on... I came back to school after a wonderful fall break and I had a major test on Thursday. I must have done really well on it because my mid term grade in the class is a little higher than i expected... so that was happy!
Well just thought I would share a little bit of joy with all 2 of you who read my blog :-) but it made Mary happy for me to get one!
quotes of the debate last night
Well I just wanted to share with those of you who missed the debate some wonderful enlightenment that you missed. The whole loby laughed out loud when Kerry said this and I looked at the transcript to make sure we heard it correctly. Well here it goes
"It is against the law in the United States to hire people illegally"
Senator Kerry
Presidential Debate
October 13, 2004
Wow thanks! I never would have guessed. He really cleared that up for me!
WMD's in Iraq
Well with the new update on WMD's in Iraq I decided to share two thoughts I have about the report and on the subject.
First: The report did state that Iraq could have developed WMD's within a few months! It also stated that there is still the possibilities that the WMD's were smuggled to another country such as Syria in the days leading up to the war.
Conclusion: Perhaps Iraq had actual WMD's at the start of the war, but perhaps they didn't.
This leads me to my second point
Second: Everyone believed that Iraq had WMD's before the war began. No one (that I can remember) in the UN was debating this point. What was being debated was whether we should pass another UN measure or invade Iraq. President Bush looked at the facts according to what everyone believed at the time
- Saddam has WMD's
- Saddam has not abided by terms of the treaty set out at the end of the gulf war that he would allow weapons inspectors to inspect freely.
- Saddam had used WMD's against his people and others
In addition he looked at this type of evidence
- A key AlQuaida agent by the name of Zarqawi was believed to be in Bagdhad ever since the Taliban fell.
Note: if the name Zarqawi sounds familiar it should that is the same man that has been seen on video beheading US civilians such as Nicholas Beard.
- The human rights crisis where anyone who spoke against Saddam was murdered or family was raped etc.
Note: When we invaded our troops found mass graves. They released a prison full of starving children whose crime was not publically embracing Saddam as a benevolant dictator.
No one is discussing these type of things today. But the things Bush looked at when he decided to go to war have either been proven (Zarqawi's involvment in Iraq and a human rights crisis) or were commonly thought.
Therefore this was the decision Bush had to make.
Do we continue to use diplomatic means that we have tried for the last ten years or do we follow through with our threats and act? Bush chose to act on the information because he (and by the way John Kerry and John Edwards looked at the same information and also decided this) believed Saddam to be a threat to our nation. Diplomatic means had not worked in the previous ten years and Bush said enough is enough lets act!
