Silent Night

Jim Wallis wrote the following story in Sojourner Magazine several years ago. It's story is appropriate as much today as it was in WWI. May there truly be peace on earth good will to men through Christ the Savior the only hope of the world.

Silent Night, by Stanley Weintraub, is the story of Christmas Eve, 1914, on the World War I battlefield in Flanders. As the German, British, and French troops facing each other were settling in for the night, a young German soldier began to sing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” Others joined in. When they had finished, the British and French responded with other Christmas carols.
Eventually, the men from both sides left their trenches and met in the middle. They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their families. Informal soccer games began in what had been “no-man’s-land.” And a joint service was held to bury the dead of both sides.
The generals, of course, were not pleased with these events. Men who have come to know each other’s names and seen each other’s families are much less likely to want to kill each other. War seems to require a nameless, faceless enemy.
So, following that magical night the men on both sides spent a few days simply firing aimlessly into the sky. Then the war was back in earnest and continued for three more bloody years. Yet the story of that Christmas Eve lingered – a night when the angels really did sing of peace on earth.

Belize final update

We left San Pedro Belize and YWAM Paradise yesterday and are in transit to El Salvador. Our last couple of days of ministry in Belize included, giving balloons to children in the city park and sharing the gospel with them, ministering to the men at the Woodworks shop, prayer for an 8 year old girl with encephalities, and ministry in Living Word Church in San Pedro. The young girl who was ill made a huge impact on all of us. Her conditions is not good and she needs a miracle of healing. She was born normal but after 3 months began to have problems that were diagnosed as encephalities. She is gravely malnourished and has problems eating any food as she can not chew it. He diet is mainly liquid foods. When we visited her and prayed for her she was coughing up a lot of phlegm. Her mom said at night she begins to cough and can fill up 3 small towels with the phelgm from her lungs. The mom is working 6 days each week yet does not have enough money to get her daughter proper treatment. If she was in the USA she would immediately be placed in a hospital to be treated. She is literally skin and bones. Please pray for her.
We had a great time of ministry in Belize. It was such a beautiful place yet a very needy place. There are many people living in poverty both financial and spiritual. I talked with a man one day at the park who has been out of work for 3 months. He was in San Pedro looking for work but had not found any and was very discouraged. He knew the Lord but as he shared his story with me it was evident that he was not seeking God first in his life. He was living with another lady and was separated from his wife. His children were staying with his mom and he was missing them a lot. I shared with him how God will provide for our needs when we put Him first in our lives and walk in obedience to Him. I prayed with him and will continue to pray that the things I shared with him will bring a desire in his heart to get his life right with God.
Our team will be visiting the Mayan ruins in Tikal and then will be in El Salvador from December 16 until January 5. I will be rejoining the team after returning from a short trip to celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve with my family in Minnesota.

Belize Outreach Update

We had a great time of ministry at Holy Cross School Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We ministered to over 400 students and had access to almost every class. Over 50 students gave their lives to Christ. Many come from very poor homes and very few have both a mother and father. The school is doing a great job educating the students and most of the money to operate it come from donations. The school is located in San Mateo which was rating as the worst area to live in for all of Belize. Many of the students come from this area of homes that have been built above a swamp. We ministered in the classes for 30-40 minutes with songs, stories, games that the children truly enjoyed. We also did a presentation using the drama "King of Hearts" to the older students and gave them an invitation at the end to give their lives to Christ which many did.
Please pray for the school as it has many needs. It costs $500 per day to provide meals for the 400 plus students and staff and the electric bill is over $2000 per month. God has been faithful to keep the doors open through the generous donations of people and churches. The entire school has been built through volunteers!
We will be doing a lot of ministry on Saturday and Sunday, our final days of ministry before we return to Guatemala and then on to El Salvador.

Belize Outreach

Saturday our group met with a group of about 15 men who work in a local woodworking shop. The owner of the business is a believer and he and his wife host a Bible study each Saturday afternoon at their workshop. Many of the men have problems with alcohol and several take their paychecks and spend it on booze on the weekend. Yet there are a few men who have given their lives to Christ and have found freedom in Him! We were invited to minister to the men through music, testimonies,drama and a teaching from the Word. It was a blessing for the men to have someone speak to them in Spanish which is their first language. We prayed with them and encouraged them at the end of the service.
Afterward we went to the park along the beach to do evangelism as a large crowd had gathered to watch the boats that were decorated for a special Christmas parade drive by. We found many people open to the gospel message and shared Christ with them.
Our ministry today, Sunday, was at a local church where we conducted a program for the children. The kids loved the music, puppets, drama and craft project.

Outreach to Belize with DTS

DTS Outreach 2009
Our group of 7 left Antigua, Guatemala on Sunday night, November 29 with our destination being San Pedro, Belize. We rode the bus through the night and then took a small bus to get to Belize City the next day. We then boarded a boat that took us to San Pedro which is located on Amberguis Island. We were met by the YWAM Paradise staff who took us by boat to the base. It is a beautiful base, truly a paradise for our group. Our ministry here for the next 2 weeks will involve several things: cleaning around the base, children's ministry at a local school, evangelism in San Pedro, open air presentations and door to door ministry. The YWAM base is new to the area so we are helping them make contacts with local ministries.
Yesterday we visited an area called San Mateo. The homes are constructed over the water and are connected through a walkway made of boards of different sizes and shapes. Some of the homes are a single room while others are bigger but none of them are in very good condition. It is hard to imagine living there for any length of time. The government has promised to develop the area but in the last three years the only thing that has happened is some of the homes have electricity. We visited with several families and shared the gospel with them and prayed for them. We also visited the city and did personal evangelism in the afternoon. I talked with a young man named Ian who works everyday, 12 hours each day at a restaurant. His whole life is work. I shared the gospel with him and told him that Jesus came to give us abundant life which was something that he had not experienced in his life at this point. We talked for about a half hour about the need we all have to be forgiven because of our sins and how Christ is the only person who could pay for our sins. He listened carefully but was not ready to give his life to Christ.
San Pedro is a tourist town with lots of bars, restaurants and tourist activities. The needs of the people are evident and Christ is still the only answer to meet the deepest needs of the people. Pray that God will use our team to touch many lives with the gospel message.