We are in the Advent season now, officially looking forward to Christmas. However I still find myself looking backward at my recent trip to visit our church’s families in Spain and the Middle East. I am very grateful to John Brunton and our Global Partners team along with a great team of...
ASTONISHEDGRATITUDE “When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God,doing for us what we could not do for ourselves –that insight produces, again and again,a sense of astonished gratitude”–N. T. Wright The Thanksgiving feast has...
What a blessing it was to hear from our Global Partner this past Sunday.(For security reasons we cannot include his name here). He has a way of communicating the heart of God that challenges and inspires. Their family has been enjoying a furlough from their assignment in Central Asia after...
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! About two months ago it was announced at the end of the morning worship gathering that I was retiring from being Women’s Ministry Director after 33 years. There were many wonderful words of affirmation shared that morning and I was thankful and...
We are going to have to pull our Global Partners off of the field! Those are words I pray we will never have to send out and thanks to the generous and sacrificial support of our sending community, we are currently in a good position to keep them all on the field. As a matter of fact, the...
As I mentioned in our worship time last Sunday, six of us from Greater Portland Bible Church will be leaving over the next week to visit and serve with Dan and Eva Anderson in Madrid Spain. This traveling team includes Ken and Judy Pinkerton, Sheila Michaelson, Tom Luther, Phil Muir, and myself...
Last week I had the pleasure of spending Sunday morning with our Elementary kids. As we dived in and discussed how God is enough, we played a game, “Bigger and Better!” Rachel Nordlund started us off, she had a pen and asked if anyone had something with them that was...
When was the last time you needed to share a burden that you were carrying and you found someone who really listened to you? I’m talking about the undistracted, full-attention, empathetic kind of listening. Chances are, you felt loved, understood, and valued. You were likely able to...
Fall is one of my favorite times of the year (besides winter) with the changing of the leaves and the cooler temperatures and crisper air. The smell of pumpkin is in the air because everywhere has a pumpkin flavored something and it always gives me this sense of hominess. You know what I’m...
What is prayer? When should we pray? Where should we pray? How should we pray? How you answer those questions depends of course, on what you believe about God and what you believe about his attitude toward us. Those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus and who know even a little bit of the...