An Unfair Miracle

So a very strange miracle took place here in the past few weeks.  It started before I got here, and we just heard the final results yesterday.  Be warned, this miracles breaks all the rules and is likely to stretch your spiritual understanding quite a bit, as it has mine!  I don't have the answers, except grace and mercy.  I had nothing to do with, except that it involved my wife and mother in law, which is how I came to hear about it.  

Are you ready for a spirit riddle?  Here we go!

There is a young woman we have known for several years go grew up in the church, knows the Bible basics, and is in a Christian family.  That being said, she lives with her boyfriend, in fornication, etc....  She knows she is in sin, we know she is in sin, and God knows she is in sin.  Why is it a sin to live with and have a sexual relationship with someone you are not married to?  The answer is simple:

1.  There is no covenant that has taken place.  God is a God of covenant and designed marriage to be a covenant between man and woman, even the end of the world ends in a covenant/marriage ceremony (thus the wedding feast and banquet parables and angels crying out in the Gospels and Revelation).  Therefore, if God is planning a wedding ceremony for us, it should be natural for a Christian to want to be like their Father.

2.  The Bible is clear we are to follow the laws of the land.  The law here in Panama, and in the U.S. is that if you have not been married before at least a judge, you aren't married.  God set the rulers in place, and honors the laws they place, so if the law says you have to go before a judge to be married, you are in sin if you haven't.  

Now that we have clarified my stance on this subject, on to the miraculous!

This young woman living in sin decided that she wanted a baby with her boyfriend.  So they started trying for one, but she wasn't getting pregnant.  After a while she went to the doctor, got examined, and the doctor gave her the judgment/smiting news any good pharisaical Christian such as myself would think God would bestow upon her.  The news?

All of her mysterious lady parts were full of cysts, the doctor said she would never get pregnant.  

What was her response to this?  She didn't respond the way most Christians do today, which is get angry at God and become an athiest.  Instead, she decided to plead her case with Him.

Enter my mother in law, and Karmy.  This girl went to my mother in law's house and asked her for prayer for healing of her uterus and other places so she could get pregnant.  No way God would do that for a sinner like her, right?  

Well, my mother in law and wife prayed for her anyway, and she went to the doctor a few days later for another check up.  The doctor told her:

"I don't know how this is possible, but all the cysts have shrunk to half their original size!"

She went back to my family and got prayed for again.  About three weeks later (this being two days ago), she went for another check up, and the doctor said,

"Woman, I don't know how it's possible, I can't explain it, but all the cysts are gone and you are two weeks pregnant."

What?!  What happened to wrath and judgement?   What happened to the earth opening up and swallowing people whole?  

Oh, right, there was this thing that happened; it's called the Cross of Calvary where the wrath of God was set on Jesus shoulders and nailed there with His blood and sweat.  A thing called grace ran down the grooves of the wood and pooled at the foot of the cross for sinners like us who deserve not one drop.  

The result?  Not cysts and barrenness, but life.  

Is that young woman in sin? Absolutely!  Did God break the rules?  He broke ours!  His mercy goes so far beyond understanding.  As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings, "Do not be so quick to deal out death and judgement."

So what do we do with this?  I don't know!  I guess get some kind of baby basket full of diapers and such.  If God decided she should have a baby who on earth am I to say otherwise?  All I do is obey.  And as Heidi Baker has said many times, "He is God and I am not."

Settling

A If it seems like I've dropped off the grid for the past couple of days, it's because I have no access to the grid!

Yesterday we finally moved into our house here in Potrerillos!  It has been a fairly tiring process, but I am happy to say that Little Beast hauled a LOT of stuff without any issues, even up the steep hills between Volcan and here.

We don't have internet yet, except a two day prepaid access thing I bought to communicate on my phone with until we can get it hooked up.

I will be happy when all the unpacking and organizing is done, plus the dreaded "where did I put THAT (insert any household object)?"

 "It's in one of these bags/boxes."

"Which one?"

"One of them."

Once this is all over with we can get rolling with different projects.  

It has been a lot of fun visiting people I haven't seen in a long time.  Yesterday after arriving and unloading the vehicles, I walked down to our local grocery store owned by a Chinese couple named Antonio and Jenny.  Those are their Panama names of course.  When they say me Antonio bellowed out, "Alan!  It's been long, where were you?"

I spent some time with them, and found out that even though they are both Chinese, they ironically met in Panama and have been married for 18 years now.

As odd as it sounds, the Chinese are the largest, most unreached people group in Latin America.  They are mostly overlooked by the church which tends to focus on the indigenenous people groups.

There is a lot happening, and a lot more to come.  When we have internet hooked up it will be much easier to keep updates coming, with pictures and videos, but for now all I have it my phone!  

Until next time, I hope everyone is doing very well, and as always feel free to write me at Alan.crookham@gmail.com.

True Rags to Riches

Ezekiel chapter 16 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.  It isn't a chapter most people talk about, or have even ever read, and I would venture only a handful of people have ever preached a sermon on it in the past fifty years or more.  Aside from Gungor's song, "Ezekiel", I've never heard any minister speak on it.  However this is one of the most visually evoking and powerful passages in the Bible, with a message so clear and touching I can't help but read in awe.  I certainly recommend reading the whole chapter; the whole book of Ezekiel would be better of course, but for the time being read the following selection of verses:

"4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt or swaddled with bands at all.5 No eye pitied you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for your person was abhorrent and loathsome on the day that you were born.6 And when I passed by you and saw you rolling about in your blood, I said to you in your blood, Live! Yes, I said to you still in your natal blood, Live!7 I caused you [Israel] to multiply as the bud which grows in the field, and you increased and became tall and you came to full maidenhood and beauty; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.8 Now I passed by you again and looked upon you; behold, you were maturing and at the time for love, and I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I plighted My troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became Mine.9 Then I washed you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your [clinging] blood from you and I anointed you with oil.10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with [fine seal] leather; and I girded you about with fine linen and covered you with silk.11 I decked you also with ornaments and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck.12 And I put a ring on your nostril and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown upon your head!13 Thus you were decked with gold and silver, and your raiment was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth; you ate fine flour and honey and oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful and you prospered into royal estate.14 And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through My majesty and splendor which I had put upon you, says the Lord God."

How many times have you read or seen on the news the story of a baby abandoned by its mother found in a dumpster somewhere?  All our heartstrings are tugged for the baby, along with the bewilderment, possibly anger, at wondering how a mother could do such a horrible thing.  Yet every one of us was in that same place before Jesus came.  Surrounded by filth, abandoned, forgotten, until Jesus reached in and pulled us out.

God by Ezekiel describes it in such a graphic way it almost makes us cringe to even think about it.  A baby so freshly born the umbilical cord isn't even cut and the baby is wallowing in its natal blood.  We don't know if the mother died in birth (as suggested by the uncut cord), or if the baby was abandoned. 

What we know is that the baby was alone, only minutes old, can't even hold up its head, and along came Jesus strolling through the desert just like he strolled through the garden of Eden, and "stumbles" (though we know He does nothing by chance) upon this baby.  I absolutely love His response.

He doesn't walk by the baby, he doesn't call 911, he doesn't look for someone to take the baby, he takes full responsibility.  Look at this verse:

6" And when I passed by you and saw you rolling about in your blood, I said to you in your blood, Live! Yes, I said to you still in your natal blood, Live!"

Jesus declares life upon the baby, bestowing it upon her.  After bellowing out life and filling her lungs with it, He picks her up and raises her as His own.  He doesn't give her cheapo stuff he found in a dumpster, or anything second rate, he gives her the absolute best.  Gold and silver, fine oil, honey, and so much more.  

(By the way, for those of you confused by the idea of God having "skirts" to wrap around this baby, this is not a reference to skirts as we know them today, but skirts refers to the outer part of His robe or cloak.)

To top it all off, this baby is not only given the best of the best, but He is so proud of her that He decides to show her off to the world, and she becomes famous.  Unfortunately that fame goes to her head and leads to her downfall, but that is all in the second part of the chapter, which I'm not going to elaborate on today.

We are the bride of Christ.  But just as a prince cannot marry a commoner, God can't either.  But Jesus, as prince's tend to do, fell in love with one anyway, even though it was against all the rules.  His solution?  Take that commoner and transform her into a princess little by little, until she became the queen His kingdom needed.

That is you and I!  What an awesome image!

There are of course surely thousands of sermons and truths that could come out of this passage, but today I wanted to simply elaborate on the outer, more visible truths contained within.  

Until next time!  Many blessings!

The Truck

I call him Little Beast

I know several people are curious about the details of the truck we were able to buy, so I thought I would write a little bit about it.  The truck is a 2000 Nissan Frontier.  It is an awesome truck here in Panama, often used by farmers, Taxi drivers, and even government officials.  It is considered to be the second best truck out here next to the Toyota Hilux.

This truck can be worth $10,000 or more.  I was able to get it for $7000.  The main reason was because the owner was in a tight spot and needed money right away.  Several others had made offers on it, but nobody had the cash up front, so I was the one who got it because of the generous offerings people gave.

The engine is Diesel, which is pretty standard for these kinds of trucks here.  They are more fuel efficient and last longer.  It was maintained very well by the original owners, however they didn't pay much attention to the outer shell of the car, which allowed me to get another $500 off the original price.  You can't see it much in the pictures, but there are multiple little nicks in the paint, particularly on the back.  Not big dents though!  I can get that fixed pretty easily.  The tires were also really worn down, which are all getting replaced with new tires as I speak.  Those minor issues are the reason I got it for the price I did, and it was a gem of a find!

I plan on using it for a long time to come, but if I wanted to, after fixing it up, I could flip it for much more than I bought it for.  As I have said several times now, another truck like it, same brand and model, one year newer, sold for $11,000 just a couple of days before and another was up for $12,000 when I bought this.  It is likely sold by now.

If this was a face we would all be intimidated by those eyes.

So there you have it!  I have tested it a bit and it has performed very well.  The true test of course is going to be when I take it up to Tugri.  I will be sure to write again and let everyone know how well it performs up there.

In the meantime I have several other things to focus my attention on, like moving into our new house and getting reestablished.  

Stay tuned for more to come!

Funny Tales of Grossness and Unfortunate Chickens

Travel, Chickens, and the Furby tree.

Me, "Karmy!  I'm home!"
Karmy, "You were gone?"

It was an incredibly long trip, nearly 24 hours, but I made it the good old Panama and my family again! After five weeks of not seeing them it has been so nice to just sit and talk and show them all their presents!  Lucas hasn't stopped following me around since I got here.  He is so excited!

Me, "Lucas!  I'm home."
Lucas, "Gasp! Glarb glarble glarbins."
Me, "Totally."

The trip itself was very tiring.  I my first flight left at noon, and because I had to take my Stick of Justice and Elias' lightning McQueen blanket, plus two carry-ons, I was constantly loaded down with a lot of weight.  The Stick and blanket may not weight much, but they sure were tough to juggle and not randomly whack people in the head with.

After that came the dreaded seven hour bus ride.  I slept awkwardly through most of that, and way too aware of how bad I probably smelled with nine hours of flight time under my belt already, but I made it. Ironically, after everything went so smoothly during that whole ordeal, on the very last leg of the trip, nobody was there to pick me up when I got to David.  I had made it all the way for it to break down there! It wasn't too bad though, I just grabbed a taxi and went home!

Me, "Elias!  I'm home!"
Elias, "Did you bring Minecraft?"

Since then it has been a flurry of movement.  I have this one day to get settled, and then immediately at 7 am tomorrow morning I am heading to David to look at a truck, and from there I am going to sign the contract on our house.  Karmy also just informed me that there is a very impoverished family that just had a baby and needs help, so we plan to put together a baby basket of sorts full of diapers and food, etc..., to help them get started.

If all goes well we will start moving our stuff on Thursday to the new house, and begin the whole process of getting settled into YWAM again.  I am excited, and know God has great things planned!

In the meantime, I have a full day crash course of acclimating to the culture again.  The visitors, the food, being stalked by employees in the stores who seem convinced you are there to steal everything you can find, and so much more!  Not to mention the fact that it's only five and the sun is starting to go down....

"Yes, I'll have some, uh, chicken?"

"Is that where baby Furbys come from?"

Here begins the new adventure!  God is so good!

Starting Over (Kind of.)

Well, the time is almost upon me and this blog will finally start to be active.  It has been fairly dormant since I opened it because I was waiting for the move back to Panama, which is taking place on Monday!

It has been a very bittersweet month.   

Similar to this feeling.

There have been a whole lot of sad goodbyes, WAY too many goodbye dinners and lunches that I will spend the next months working off, and a incredible amount of packing, throwing things away, throwing away things I packed and then digging them out of the trash determined to make them fit, and repeating that process over and over.

I can't believe my last night with teenagers ended on Wednesday, that feeling was not bittersweet at all, it was more like this:

Can a sadder face exist?!

It has been quite the gut-wrenching ordeal, but alas it is about to be over after the next taco lunch on Sunday. 

Ah, the memories.

From here things don't slow down at all.  I have an incredibly long journey ahead of me, hauling my three, just barely allowable bags around from ten am on Monday until about five am Tuesday when I am expected to arrive.  I won't be sleeping I assure you.  I'll be playing with my kids, and listening to all of my overly honest friends and family tell me how fat I have gotten since they last saw me.  The joke's on them though, they didn't get to eat that unreal honey bacon from Two Rows I had a few days ago.  I can go on a diet, but they will never experience delicious honey bacon!

That's right, long for it, Mr. Slim, because you'll never see it again. 

On Wednesday things will really heat up though.  I'm going into to town to look at trucks and see if we can find the right one.  After that we should either be going to sign, or setting up our contract to rent our house, and will immediately start moving in.  It will take a few days to complete all of those things, but once we have our foundation set we are ready to rock and start the journey back into readjusting to missionary life again.  I am going to do my best to write blog posts at least weekly while I am there, and I'll put links on Facebook and such. 

Thanks again to everyone who has supported us, and will be supporting us as we go, and to all of you who are helping or have helped give toward the truck.  God willing we will raise enough money to buy one that will last us a good, long time and be a tool to reach many people with the Gospel!