thankful

This past week I heard from my good friend Michael Mozley.  I've known Michael since my college days and we have become good friends over the years.  I was talking to Michael on Tokbox this past week to figure out his his plans for the summer (he will be at NVC the last weekend in June) and he told me what happened to him last week.  Here is his account from Facebook.  I am so grateful God protected him and his family.  God is good.   Check out his account of the events and keep praying for them.

On Wednesday night five armed robbers pushed through our gate and our night watchman to demand all the money we had on us and in our house, as well as every electronic thing they could put their hands on. Claire and Maggie had just returned from an evening program at Maggie's school and it was 8:30 p.m. When they pulled into the gate, armed robbers folllowed close behind and made their way into our compound. They took Claire and Maggie's phones and dumped their purses on the driveway looking for money then made their way inside to look for me and all of our money. I was in Luke's room about to have prayers with Luke and his spend the night friend Seth. Claire walked in looking frantic and saying, "I need help." Just behind her was a young man not more than 20-25 with a shot gun and another young man holding a machete (cutlass). They ordered us to sit down and then asked where all the money was. We told them to leave our son's room so it wouldn't frighten them. Claire and I showed the two robbers our room and gave them all the money we could find....thankfully it was no more than a couple hundred U.S. dollars and about $600.00 in Ghanaian cedis...then they started picking through all of our belongings taking cameras, every laptop available, four of them and lots of incedentals...watches, earphones, ipods, i-touch that Maggie got for Christmas...the most devastating loss was my laptop and all my PhD work gone...most of which has been backed up but some of it was backed up on another computer, which they also took. After 20 minutes they were gone. At one point I said to one of them, you know I'm a pastor and I love Jesus and He loves you. He said, "Oh I know, I'm a Christian too, He's my savior." I said, My friend you are not a Christian or you wouldn't be doing this to our family.

Maggie was probably the most traumatized because she was left in the front lot of our home while Claire was taken inside being held at gun point.

I'll write more later, but in the mean time, just pray for our family, our memories, and our healing...

Wins

Celebrating the Wins:

• 50 welcome packets given to newcomers
  
• the band rocked
  
• new families met our youth leaders @ studentlink
  
• incredible volunteers setting up WFC every weekend
  
• God providing the finances to create environments for the unchurched
  
• Life change is happening in all of us
  
• Man in a wheel chair (only third time in church) grateful that God was setting him free.
  

ticket

Last week I was held hostage.  No, not like being held hostage in a Turkish prison but in a Sonoma County sort of way.  My wife Kelli and I were trying to hurry home to pick up the kids and I forgot to completely stop at a four way stop near my house.  Just as I was stopping and yet moving forward past the white line to keep momentum, I looked to my right and saw a parked police car.  Too late.  I kept moving forward (slowly I might add) past the stop sign, the red lights turned on and the police officer pulled me over.  Before he could come up to the window to get my driver's license, my beautiful lovely wife did not remain composed and she let me have it.  As the police officer approached the car he noticed that justice was already being served.  No need to punish me twice.  He let me go without giving me a ticket.  Grace!  A free gift.

In difficult times like these, we may be feeling like we are being held hostage by something.  The problem is that we are not sure how we are going to get out of the mess we are in.  We try things on our own but nothing seems to work.  The good news is that God wants to set us free.  During these difficult times, we need to give ourselves some grace.  These are the times that God is trying to teach us something.  My prayer is that we would be teachable.  These are also the times we need to give grace to the people around us the may have wronged us.  Forgive.  And these are the times that we need to receive grace.  God wants us to put our faith in Him and when we do, we experience His faithfulness.  

As I experienced grace from the police officer this past week, it made me grateful and it created a desire to pass on the gift.  Let's build a culture of grace at NVC.  Imagine a church, a family, a city, a state, a country, a world filled with people giving the gift of grace.  It can happen.