Some pics for your enjoyment!

We got home at dinner yesterday and are headed out to a village church and bible college in the bush right now. So, I will update tomorrow when I get back.

I just thought people might want to see some of our pics to this point.

We rode 7 hours (3 ½ on dirt roads) to a little “resort” in the desert. We stayed in mat huts and rode camels, saw an archeological dig from the 10^th Century, climbed on a sand dune, ate lots of weird food, and drank my new favorite “Arabic tea”. I will write more soon.

Thanks for your prayers. Everyone is doing well and so far no one is sick.

Jonas

Arrived Safely

I am enclosing a picture of us in Casablanca on our journey, in case you want to show it this morning. We made it with all of our bags (luggage and goods for the missionaries). Thanks to everyone who helped!

The Nehlsens say hello and we all wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to everyone there!

We love you guys,
Jonas (for the Wharton clan)

Africa Trip - Part 1 - The Journey To...

Hey Everybody! We have actually arrived in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, but I wanted to drop a note and fill you in on the trip here. We started out for the airport on Friday, Dec. 21 at 3:30 am (Thanks Adam!) and found that we actually got to the airport before the Delta employees even opened. Therefore, the lines were amazing, but once they opened, it went quickly. We were able to check our bags all the way to Ouaga. As we walked away, we prayed that they would actually get there. Then, we headed for the gate to catch our first plane to Atlanta. In Atlanta, we began the first part of what I have decided was one long meal with flights in between. We ate at On the Border and it was delicious. Then, we headed for New York (JFK) and I was fortuante enough to experience a flight at 37,000 feet next to an infant with an ear infection. (you can probably fill in the details) When, we got to JFK, we met up with Beth's sister Shonna and checked in with Royal Air Maroc. (that was an experience) Nonetheless, we made it to the gate and loaded onto the plane. Ashley and I were seated away from everyone else, but we ended up sitting with a friend sent from God: Mamadou. He has lived in NYC for the last 15 years and was moving back home to Ouaga. He was such a big help as we made our way through customs and such at Casablanca. He waited for us at each juncture and it seemed that every time we were confused where to go, he was there waving us over. We praise God for him and hope to get to know him and his family better before we leave. He and his wife own the pharmacy around the corner from where Beth's sister Amy works. Anyway, we finally made it to Ouaga at 4:00a.m. on Sunday. We are seven hours ahead of our normal tim on Colorado so the trip was a little confusing to our schedules, especially because of our meal schedule. On the planes, they fed us dinner every time we got on and then breakfast before we got off. (believe it or not, the food was awesome) Then, in Casablanca the airline put us up in a hotel on the beach for our layover. We ate lunch and dinner there for free as well. In between, we walked on the beach and took a nap. By the time we got here, our bodies didn't know if it was morning or evening, time to sleep or wake, or whether we should eat breakfast or dinner. So, we ended up talking and then sleeping a few hours and when we woke up we french totast and a bowl of brocolli cheese soup. (a true brunch) Well, that's about it for the first part of the adventure. We traveled, we ate, we arrived, we slept. We made it and all of our bags did too! Thanks for praying and I will write more soon!

vacation, my girls, two shells...

So, it's been a really long time since I wrote, but it's not because I haven't had a lot of thoughts. However, I am on vacation and it is wonderful. We took vacation for a week and enjoyed my wife's parents 50th anniversary celebration. we had a huge party and then the family (all 31 of us) went to a camp and spent 3 days together. It was awesome to spend time with all of my relatives on my wife's side. The godly heritage is incredible. It is truly amazing what a missional life (or 2 that is) can produce. I am a byproduct of that heritage and very proud of it. They are my in-loves not simply in-laws.
My girls are the next thing to address. I love vacation with my wife. It's mazing how relaxed she gets when we have spent time catching up with her family. (emot, phys, spir....) Now, we can be one with eachother without feeling like sponges. We are filled up and giving to one another. It's great! I truly love my wife allways and always! As for my daughters (my other girls) the are incredible as well. No man could be as blessed as I am. They love to have fun and yet get serious about the "right" things. They may fuss and fight, but they love each other and us and it is very apparent. I have had a blast with them each in their own way. Thank you God for all of my girls!
Now, for the shells. I have been looking for shells to fill a jar with when we get home. I usually collect rocks for significant moments in my life, but at the beach it seems appropriate to gather shells. So, I began looking for small ones. My fam has kept the lookout for cool ones and bring them to me when found. My youngest Ash brings me anything cool. She quickly understood that I am selective about only unbroken shells and when she finds cool broken she just shows me the shell and pitches it saying "if only we could find the whole thing". However, today I realized that she loves things even when they are broken. What a cool trait in someone, that they could actually love someone/something even when it is broken. I began taking them from her no matter the shape today. A dad can learn alot about acceptance from a little girl. Thanks Ash!
The last but not least thought about shells is one that I had with my oldest Amee. As we walked the beach, I came across a piece of a shell that had been polished to smooth on very side. It had apparently been a part of a much larger shell at lone time and the sand and surf had polidhed (refined if you will) it until it became even more beautiful than at first. When I began to reflect on the learning (or moment) that I was having, Amee said "yeah, uh, huh". I then mocked her and and said "yeah, uh-huh" and reflected that I was just too old and dumb. She then said "Dad, I get it." and I know she did. 14 maybe a new age, but it's cool when she tells me she's listening and I still matter even when it doesn;t seem like it. I sure love her and and very proud of the young lady she's becoming.

Thanks Jesus for vacation with my family!

The Moulting Process

I was recently given a video to watch by a good friend. However, it was a video of a preacher, not to mention that he told me it was over an hour. So, I wasn't super excited to watch but Sunday morning, I decided to take a look. Wow! Was I pleasantly surprised. The guy sharing was Todd Bentley of Fresh Fire Ministries. I am not too familiar with his ministry, but apparently he has been used by God for some incredible stuff. (ie. blind made to see, lame can walk, etc...) I have to admit that while I am always blown away by that big Holy Spirit type ministry, I am usually skeptical, if not cynical of the guys that are the upfronters. However, as I listened to this guy, Todd, I was amazed. He talked about the last 6 months of his life in which God shut down the whole miracle, signs, and wonders thing in his life and brought him a period of suffering. He shared very transparently about his struggle with God always using him to heal people immediately, dramatically, and miraculously, but when it came to his own situation God told him it would be a process that would include suffering. In his words, this suffering process just wasn't "in his grid" of thinking. I personally thought it was beautiful. Not that he had to suffer, but to hear his journey of such a paradigm shift in his theological thinking. Such honesty, transparency, and authenticity from someone like this is so refreshing and recharging. I gained some incredible insight from him, like when he shared that God was allowing him to suffer to learn brokenness which would lead to having compassion for people. It helped him learn to focus on the "one," not just the masses. I don't deal with thousands of people, but I too am learning to have an "ear" for the one. I know that one of my "defects" is often to be caught up in surfing the crowd while remaining aloof to the "one." It was cool to be able to apply this principle to the suffering that God had allowed in my life as well. This morning, I asked God to help me discover how to use my life experiences to become more compassionate.

Anyway, I really wanted to share one thought in particular that he shared about eagles and the moulting process they go through. He shared some incredible insights about the moutling process that apply so well to the process that God brings us through when he wants to refine our lives. I will just list them:
~ some eagles go through the moulting process approx. every 7 years
~ some go through it only once in their life
~ when going through the process, the majestic eagle heads down into the valley and finds a cave
in which to live for a while.
~ during the process, their feathers fall out and they get to the point that they actually look like
they're sick and dying
~ at this point, they can only remember what it was like to soar the skies
~ their beaks develop calcium deposits and they have to beat their beaks against the rocks to
break it off
~ they will often go through this process with other eagles, but they can't fly well so they become
scavengers and often fight among themselves.
~ often senior eagles, who have gone through this process before, will have to protect them from
each other
~ they even lose their sight during this process
~ When they get through the moulting process, their wings and feathers are stronger than they
ever were before and the oil sacks in their wings produce in such a way that their feathers
become far more brilliant than ever before.

There are so many correlations to what we go through when God allows suffering in our lives, but I will leave it to your own mental connection.

One thing: Often, when we are going tjrough a time of suffering, we can't understand why God would allow it, but when if we will just trust that God has us and everything in control, we can rest and have hope even in the worst situations and when we get through it, we can know for certain that we will be stronger and more like He designed us to be.

All of this made passages like Psalm 103 an Isaiah 40:31 mean so much more.

Accountability vs. Editability

Well, here I go again. I am going to try to write more. Recently, I have had several friends (new and old) encourage me to put thoughts down for people to read, wrangle, and/or rip up. With that in mind, I will start with a simple regurgitation of something that I heard at one of the most stellar conferences that I have ever been to. About a week ago, I attended the Off-the-map.org conference entitled "Revolution." Now, I know that many have taken shots at the conference from several different angles- "too rad" or "to kind" but I loved it. I met great people and was thrilled to see so many practioners in the "missional" movement from such a wide variety of ages and backgrounds. It was awesome and I believe that God was smiling if not dancing about the conversations it provoked. Enough said about that, I will get to what I wanted to write about now.

I attended a workshop with Joe Myers, author of Search to Belong. He is pretty random if not a.d.d. but gave some great info. One of the best things I took away was an insight about healthy accountability or in his language "edit-ability".

He explained that accountability often has the right heart behind it but quickly becomes "accounting" or simply keeping track of what has been done or what is going wrong. He then cited 1 Corinthians 13:5 "Love keeps no record of wrongs" and asked how we felt taht addressed the most common form of accountability.

He went on to suggest that we approach accountability more as an editor than an accountant.
An editor's job is to help you fix spelling errors and eliminate poor grammar and sentence structure in order to best present your ideas. The editor looks at the picture you are trying to paint and helps you get rid of everything that might hinder or distract the reader from your intended thought or idea.

I guess what he was saying is that by asking people for edit-ability in our lives, we are asking them to help us see the picture of what God desires for our lives nad then to help us "edit" out the stuff that gets in the way. Personally, I find this alot more motivating than being asked if I blew it every week. I think God would want us to look forward to the future of what He wants to do in and through us rather than looking back and living in the guilt of our failures. Not that sin doesn't need to be addressed, but it isn't the focus. Rather God's dream for our lives is and the sin is slached through with the editor's pen as it tries to hinder the overall plan.

Maybe it's semantics, but it makes good sense to me!

The best sermon...

Once again, I learned an easy lesson the hard way. All week long, I have been trying to figure out what I was supposed to preach. I read, I prayed, I pondered, but nothing would come together. I was supposed to kickoff our new series Community 4-1-1 and I had nothing! On Saturday night, I almost decided to preach the text that I had planned for the conclusion/summary week, but I just wasn't settled about it. So, I went to bed and set the alarm for 5am so I could get up and hoepfully have some great revelation to put down on paper. As I climbed out of bed at 6:16am, I realized that I was doomed. I don't work this way. I plan my sermons weeks in advance and write my outlines by the Monday or Tuesday before. I do this so God has all week to "preach" the sermon to me. I seldom have the application of the topic masstered in my own life, but I at least want to give God a chance to begin the molding/shaping process. It also gives me a chance to see it happening around me before preaching about it. (whatever the "it" is that week) Anyway, I climbed into the shower and cried out to God and there it was. It was as if He had been trying to tell me all week long and I hadn't been listening. You see, all week, I had been asking for a sermon that would excite and encourage our church family about joing or leading a LIFE Group, and He had been trying to tell me that I wasn't supposed to preach. Well, sometimes (alot of times) I can be pretty thick headed, but I got it and we had a great time together yesterday. Some of you already know the outcome, but for those who don't, I will explain. Instead of me urging, encouraging, and begging people to try something a little scary or uncomfortable, we asked people who have truly experienced "community" through being in a LIFE Group to share. And they did... I think it was the best sermon on "living in community" that I have ever heard. From all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds they came. It was awesome to hear the difference that sharing life with others can make. One of our core values is "community" and another is "people" and now we see why. It's not that we didn't know already, but it was incredible to hear how much of a difference it makes when people let down their guards, sacrifice of the lives and time, and enter into "community" together. It is almost as if God wanted us to be his "body" or something. My prayer for today is that all people could/will know Jesus personally, but not indiviually. We are better together.
IT'S ABOUT WE, NOT JUST ME!