You're Going to Die...

A man went to the doctor after weeks of symptoms. The doctor examined him carefully. After some time, he called the patient's wife into his office and asked the patient to step out.

"Your husband is suffering from a rare form of anemia. Without treatment, he'll be dead in a few weeks. The good news is, it can be treated with proper nutrition. You will need to get up early every morning and fix your husband a hot breakfast--pancakes, bacon, eggs--the works. He'll need a home-cooked lunch every day and then a old fashion meat-n-potato dinner every evening. It would be especially helpful if you could bake frequently. Cakes, pies, homemade bread are a few things that will allow your husband to live. One more thing. His immune system is weak, so it's important that your home be kept spotless at all times. Do you have any questions?"

The wife nodded that she had none.

"Do you want me to break the news to him, or shall I?" asked the doctor. "I will," replied the wife. 

She walked into the exam room where her husband was waiting for the news. The husband, sensing the seriousness of his illness, asked, "It's bad, isn't it?"

She nodded as tears welled up in her eyes. "What's going to happen to me?" he asked.

With a sob, the wife blurted out, "The doctor says you are going to die!"

Proverbs 18:22 Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.

Almost commemorating thirty five years of marriage, I am so content to know and realize that my wife and I are still together and have an invigorating relationship. For all of you who have married for more than twenty years, hold on. It gets better! Waaay better.

Gotta get back to studying for tonight... but not before I take Millie's medicinal concoctions:

Adrenal C Formula, Adrenal rebuilder, Biotin, Omega 3, B-complex 50, Folic acid, Joint 4-way, red yeast rice caplets and a shot of Monvie!

Proverbs 19:14 House and riches are the inheritance of fathers and a prudent wife is from the Lord. 

From the Road...

How wonderful and blessed I am right now.  

Right now I am sitting at Victor Mayoral's desk, the core and heartbeat of La Posada Ministries (Rosarito, Mexico). Right after our Wednesday evening service I asked pastors Joseph ("Tots") and Abel to join me in a run-to-the border and we've just arrived.

As I am writing this entry, sitting in a comfortable, peaceful and beautiful office, with all the modern, technical communication amenities at my fingertips,  I can just close my eyes and reel back fifteen years ago. Back in the day the public beach was our base camp on our weekend outreaches. Frigid showers (like our cold cereal for breakfast) was the order of the day. And restrooms... fuget-abut-it!

Teams, varying in size from 10 to 150 churck folks, welded together with a mutual dedicated and passionate commonality to share the Gospel with the Baja-Californianos... even if the accommodations were crude and rustic (I can still recall times when critters and cows encroached us, desiring to join us in the warmth and glow of the all night bonfires). Dude, how did we ever managed to survive through these inconveniences, spending our own time and money, AND to actually dig it? Furthermore, we were hoping to come back for more, and more, and more.

My aspiration, no, my dream (and pleading prayer) was that God would open a place for our teams to lodge safely, cook sanitarily, and have clean toilets (NOT out-houses/shacks). A place which we share with other Calvarys involved in Kingdom work.

Fastforward: April 24, 2008, 1:47am,  La Posada
There's a sleeping team from Florida in the rooms below this office. They are resting after another hard day of laboring, providing clothes or food, both, physical and spiritual. The Word defines this kind of activity as a labor of love motivated by the love of Christ.

The team will wake up tomorrow to the wafting air of Mexican coffee and  pan dulce (sweet, Mexican bread). And restrooms (a commodity taken for granted by people north of us, but cherished as a privilege over here) are within few feet away from the warm gender separated dormitories.

A bunch of "larks" (there's always one or two in each team) will gather in the darkness of dawn, in the kitchen and joyfully start breakfast while emboldened by the sounds of worship music. Cold cereal is now optional :)

After devotions and worship, the team will the resume their assigned commitment. Some team members will be doing house-construction, retrofitting out houses (replace rotten wood and/or materials), and the favorite assignment of every team, orphanage outreaches. And there's plenty of them here.  Thankfully, Victor and Sonia, CC Montebello missionaries, KNOW which ones are valid, and lamentably, which are just fronts. 

The Florida team members will be impacted for he rest of their Christian lives with three distinctive realities:
1. They'll appreciate missionaries.
2. They will KNOW if missions is their ministry passion.
3. They will rally and with a new found, tangible reality, start a missions endeavor in their own church, or will wholeheartily will support their own church missionaries.

For example, while I was in Herborn, Germany last week, I was shocked and disbelieved. I meet this petite blond girl and introduced myself. A name like "Pancho" is an oddity on the this side of the world. But to to this specific girl, she recognized my name. She shrieked with a loud German accent, "Aaaayyyyyy!  I've ven to Law Posatta!!!"  I was shocked. "What?!  You have been to La Posada?" I asked in joyful bewilderment. It turns out that two summers ago, one of our ardent supporters and sister church, Calvary Chapel Pomona Valley, hosted several German girls from CC Herborn. The rest is Mexican history :)

CC Montebello is reaching out, committing ourselves to the Great Commission via La Posada. Over two thousand folks, mainly youths, pass through the portals of this Christian haven, refuge, sanctuary, every year.

You know what? Is 0200 hours. I better crash. The larks are already shifting their REM bodies, dreaming about fresh coffee and pan dulce... or chorizo 'n eggs. Not me. You know what I'll get out of my own volition? Cereal. Cold, frigid cereal. This way, I will I never forget how far we've come.  Buenas noches... uuumm, buenos dias!

Ahhhh. God is MUY BUENO!

Sanctified Affliction...

While driving through the congested freeways of Los Angeles, one of the most precious benefits of this indispensable obligation of Angeleno commuters, is listening to favorite music, meditating, musing or, for me personally, praying, crying and sharing my station-in-life issues with God. Another benefit is enjoying one of the best Christian teaching radio stations in all of California.   Learning from some of these godly men is one of the most personal, intimate times with God in my daily routine while behind the wheel.

But, like some of you, I don’t always agree with few of the teachers when it comes to some specifics; conjecturing and venturing on subjects that are not biblically stated. But for the most part I am edified, exhorted and greatly challenged to resume the Christian life with hope, joy and purpose, due to their expositing God’s Word.

However, as a pastor, I have the propensity to veer off and involuntarily engage my mind in an inquisitive-huh?-mode posture, perplexed by the hermeneutical and homiletic disciplines (or lack of) of some of my fellow colleagues.  {Side note: Homiletics has nothing to do with ‘home-boys.’ (Sorry! J). Homiletics (Gk. homiletikos, from homilos, to assemble together), in theology is the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific department of public preaching.  One who practices or studies homiletics is called a homilist. Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation understanding of texts.}

For example: one pastor on the radio stated that depression in a Christian is due to a lack of trust and/or disobedience to God and His teachings. “Huh?” Poor Hannah, Jeremiah, King David, Job, and the list goes on and on of many bible personalities that entered into this quagmire of life’s experiences. You get the picture.

Throughout my personal thirty-four years of Christian life, there’s has been pockets of mild depression. Because I was being disobedient to God? I don’t think so... and let me tell you why.

I am a father of five children (think food, education, clothing, dentists, orthodontists, doctors, teenagers). I am the sole bread-winner. I buried my wife’s dad, then her mother within a few short months. My one and only brother died of alcohol poisoning (thankfully he accepted Christ two months earlier). My wife was diagnosed with brain cancer (transfusion centers, steroids [and side effects], MRI’s, blood transfusions, cranial-surgery, shunts, IV pick lines, and more). My first daughter got married. I’m a pastor of a large congregation with physical maladies and aging degeneration issues. The family dog was run over by a truck and witnessed his death by some of my children.  These events, my friends, are just a microcosm of a much larger beast of everyday life, the onslaught of other tsunamis of personal crisis and grief that come against the Christian and non-Christian alike!!!

Please do not misinterpret what I am saying. Yes, in some cases, like in King David’s (Psalms 51, 32, and 38) there are evidences that secret, un-confessed sin can become harmful and destructive to the psyche. But to make a bold, blanket statement that ALL depression emanates from disobedience to God is like saying that the reason why the Christian is infirmed and riddled with sickness is due to a lack of faith and unbelief in God (Side note: stay away from Christian television!!!)

   Clinical depression is a real and grave issue for many Americans. It transcends gender, religion, economics, race.  There are scores of empirical known factors that precipitate this malady. Organic depression ought to be treated professionally and qualifiedly, just as equivalent as a disciplined diabetic has to inject himself with insulin everyday, akin to a heroin fiend in a shooting gallery. Other poor souls with renal failure, kidney disease, and cardio deficiencies MUST be treated daily with a barrage of pills, tablets and a battery of medications. They would croak swiftly if they should default or forfeit their medicinal obligation.

Speaking on adversity, affliction and gloominess in a believer, Pastor Charles H.  Spurgeon stated:  “To carnal men, this is unfortunate, but for Christians this is like a rich banquet.  This lesson cannot be learned from books. This sweetness cannot be tasted by carnal men.  This rich spiritual life does not exist in a comfortable environment.  Where there is no cross, there is no crown.  If the spices are not crushed or refined to become oil, then the fragrance cannot flow forth.  If grapes are not crushed in the vat, they will not become wine.”

I am more than sure that the pastor blabbing the unfortunate comment did not mean what I am inferring in this blog (I pray he wasn’t).  It happens. It happened to me. I’ve said things from the pulpit without giving the subject proper thought and study and I just blabbed away, hurting and damaging people along the way. Lord, have mercy!  So, next time you hear from a bible teacher you admire and respect saying things that are really not bible centered, please don’t cast him away to kingdom come.

Here’s my advice: “Eat the meat…and spit the bones!” BAM!

This blog may be “all bones” to you. If so, spit it out! But if it is a wonderful T-bone steak, enjoy!

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor;  He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed…”  Luke 4:18  

The Anchor of our Soul...

The year is 50 A.D. in the most powerful, imperialistic city of its time: Rome.

Somewhere within the fissures and shadows of dilapidated, filthy buildings of this decadent, polytheistic city, an unusual group of people were meeting secretly to pray and fellowship, sing and worship in an illegal religion.

A Roman senatorial decree in the year 35 proclaimed the Christian religion as strana et illicita (strange and unlawful)  "Exitialis - deadly"(Tacitus); "prava et immodica - wicked and unbridled" (Plinius); "nova et malefica - new and harmful" (Svetonius); "tenebrosa et lucifuga - mysterious and opposed to light" (from "Octavius" by Minucius); "detestabilis- hateful" (Tacitus). It was outlawed because it was considered the most dangerous enemy of the power of Rome, which was based upon the ancient national religion and on the emperor's worship.

What made this faction different and a cultural phenomena was the admixture of its adherents: slaves, Roman citizens, servants, women and men, wealthy and poor, soldiers, youth, beggars, street urchins, rogues, thieves, slave traders, homosexuals, moral deviants and the sordid list of others went on and on… all professing of a change in their hearts and lifestyles. The Emperor, the Imperial Empire, Pax Romana and all of the threatening machinery of the most powerful army of the known world meant nothing to these people anymore. Caesar was a mere, mortal man, and not the god they were forced to worship. They had found Jesus Christ, the Living God!

In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, these people are known as a subculture. A group of people with a culture (whether distinct or hidden) which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.   If a particular subculture is characterized by a systematic opposition to the dominant culture, it may be described as a counterculture. But subcultures are always themselves in some way non-conforming or dissenting.

Though subcultures can be distinctive because of the age, race, ethnicity, class, location, and/or gender of the members, involving linguistic, aesthetic, political, geographical, or a combination of factors, it was religion that made this new group a threat to the Roman authorities, as their new found loyalty shifted suddenly to a Man from Nazareth, a Jew known for His message of love and forgiveness. But it was His resurrection that emboldened and galvanized His followers who were loyal even unto death.

The dangers faced by the Christians in Rome meant that they had to meet in secret. They usually used underground tombs, known as catacombs, as these were literally out of sight.

While on a church tour to Rome, we got the chance to visit the catacombs. Catacombs are not relegated to Rome; there are more than a few all over Europe. What makes the Roman Catacombs stand out historically are several factors: Ancient Roman catacombs exist in abundance in Roma—there are 60, although only 5 are open to the public. We visited the Benedictine Sisters of Priscilla (2nd-5th centuries). Initially Jews built them, and then early Christians, both of whom because of constant persecution liked the idea of having a secret and secure burial ground.

In Rome there existed cemeteries in the open, but for several reasons the Christians preferred underground cemeteries. First of all, the Christians rejected the pagan custom of cremation. They preferred burial (just as Christ was buried), because they felt they had to respect the bodies that one day would rise from the dead.

2008 A.D. Christians are still a subculture! 

While assisting a Christian author in  Tuxla-Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico I was able to witness the mistreatment and ugly side of a subculture in action. For the Christian, indigenous Mayan indians living in this region, there are ruthless advarsaries and lamentable consequences for professing Jesus Christ as savior. 

For the most part, Indians in these areas of Mexico (e.g.Oaxaca) are loathed and vilified as lazy, ignorant and aloof by most of the Mexican people and political areas of influence and ideology.  However, when an indigenous man receives Christ, his persecution now becomes a double-edge sword. His own people ( sometimes even his own family) disowns, shuns, and turns on him. If married, his entire, immediate family suffers the wrath. Down he slips to an even lower subculture. Yet, in spite of the social and economic isolation and physical persecutions the Christian man suffers, I have witnessed resiliency, dedication and faithfulness to their new found Master, the Man from Nazareth.

Being an immigrant and a Mexican-American automatically positions me socially in a subculture. Becoming a born-again Christian I go down one more notch in the subculture scheme. Being a Christian and living, teaching, and preaching the Gospel in a predominantly Roman Catholic  area (East Los Angeles) I go one more sub-level (Ouch. Lord, have mercy!). As a pastor and without credentials and formal education, I am marginalized by different denominations and Christian groups. ONE MORE LEVEL DOWN!!! J

I ain’t down, man.  As I tell myself (and to you), “Yes, I am brown and I am down to the  ground. I will yet still serve the Man from Nazareth without a frown. 'Cause I am sure, when I see Him face to face, because of His everlasting grace, He will give me His promised crown.”  BAM!

Of the plethora of writings and symbols of hope, eternity, eternal peace and rest, on the crypts, the most prominent symbol of all, and also my favorite is that of an anchor with the Greek letters “A” on its left side, and an “Z” on its right (the picture below is a piece I bought while in Rome outside the catacombs).

   “…it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, Hebrews 6: 18-19

Full Assurance of Hope Until the End...

“You still look like a cholo, Edmund Coronel. We’re in Europe! Ay, ay, ay!”  Martha, Edmund’s wife, expressed lamentably with a look of loving acceptability, while walking on a  rainy day in the historical and beautiful city of Cologne. 

In spite of Martha’s style assessment, it’s an undeniable fact God is using Edmund and the church in Herborn, Germany.  God is using this former gang-banger from East L.A. (the faded, tattooed right arm is unmistakably East Los) to reach the Germans in a huge, powerful, yet quieted way.  To hear him converse in Deutch with his fellow denizens is a mind-blower!  I stand in awe and pride… “Not even, aey”!  Oh, it was a good decision after all for me to divert my flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt.

When we were younger, Edmund, me and other young Christian men, ministered in youth detention camps, juvenile halls (youth prisons), and homes for wayward boys.  Edmund, especially, knew intimately what most of these misguided young men were going through.  Like his father, Edmund was following in his footsteps: street life and gangbanging. Lamentably, his dad was shot to death when Ed was just six years old. A widowed mother wanted a better life for her children and Whittier, California, was far from all the madness. At least it seemed that way. Soon Edmund became "sophisticated" in street madness (an East L.A. idiom for crazy life, ‘vida-loca,’ a vagrant existence, meandering in nothingness and ending in nothingness).

I can recount the many things that God has done through this man, my friend, colleague and yoke-fellow. But it would take many a pages to do so. I will encapsulate by letting you know that Edmund received Christ, while his sixteen year old girlfriend was expecting their first child, and he was a permanent resident at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, L.A. County, Downey, California. Once released, his Christian journey began.

In another part of the city, another broken life was also miraculously was being put together by Divine means. Soon these two lives would meet, mesh and do what our young hearts led us to do: do something for these kids. Let’s spare them the social/psycho trauma and introduce them to the Savior at a younger age! So we did.

In those youthful years I was a band member of a Christian rock group, Golgotha. Whenever Edmund wanted music, I was there and he would do the preaching.

  Many of the guys who ran with us in ministry during that magical era are disappointingly no longer walking with the Lord or sadly, went AWOL from serving the King. It’s a trip, that after almost thirty years, Edmund an I are still walking. No, wait a minute!  I just thought about something: That after nearly thirty years our wives, Millie and Martha and OUR children have allowed us  both to remain running and serving the Master Christ Jesus, albeit a bit slower, at a much lower pace, but nevertheless, trying to emulate those OG’s, Joshua and Caleb with much fervor and excitement.

When our church moved to another city, Edmund and I, like many others, had to make quality decisions. Should we follow? Or should we commit ourselves to different ministries that would enhance our desire to reach the locked 'n lost population?  Many years later, our decisions became fruitful and productive.

We are now senior pastors, founders of our respective fellowships. Although unusual for both us, (Lord is using two former messed up, tore up and jacked up people,  to serve Him) it’s Ed’s calling in Germany that has me thanking God for His amazing work. 

While in Herborn, we went to bed about three in the morning, almost every night (morning!). There was so much to catch up on; children and grandchildren, labor of love, vision, Deutch-lessons, construction, community outreaches…the sacrifices, oh, the sacrifices that are forever linked to ministry.

Instead of crying or commiserating each of our mutual sacrifices (aging, children and grandchildren, past mistakes, wrong choices prompted more by human excitement than from our Master, what is going to happen  to the Movement when Papa Chuck graduates and goes home?), we opted to encourage one another:

For God doesn’t rank out by forgetting our labor and love, which we have shown towards His Name to the German people and the sheep at Calvary Chapel Montebello; in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.”  Hebrews 6:10   ELAV (E.L.A. Version)

And…

    “…my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Cor. 15:58

Unmovable—Sound doctrine kindles Christian love.

Steadfast—not turning aside from the faith of the resurrection of yourselves.

Unmovable—not turned aside by others (1 Cor. 15:12; Col. 1:23).

The work of the Lord—the promotion of Christ's kingdom (Phil. 2:30).

Not in vain—as the deniers of the resurrection would make it (1 Cor. 15:14, 17).

IN the Lord—applying to the whole sentence and its several clauses; (that is, labor according to His will) is not to be without its reward in the Lord (through His merits and according to His gracious appointment).

Should the Lord move you to assists this wonderful family while on their German ride, please call my personal administrator, and she will direct you promptly. Pray for the Coronels and their children and childrens’ children. 

Ich liebe dich  ( I love you!)

pancho

 

13,000...

    I have said this before and I'll say this again. This blog is simply a way for me to connect with people via the web. Schedules are crazy, the church is growing, and try as I may, I don't get to meet the new people from church. I have been blessed to chat with people through the blog that I wouldn't have otherwise had to opportunity to. 

    Sometimes the blogs are biblically based and sometimes they are rants about our medical system, but it's my blog and I'll write what I feel led to. Which leads me to the topic at hand...

    The blog has been up for less than four months, but in those four months I have had the opportunity to connect with people from our church, people from our community, people from out of state and even people out of the country. 

     I was informed by the blog moderator that yesterday we have had over 13,000 hits to the blog. I was a little taken back. First of all, thank you. Secondly, thank you again. Thanks for taking your time to stop by the blog and check out what's swimming in my head at any given moment. My hope is to blog more often, more qualitatively, and more effectively.

Thanks to our visitors from:

Cote, South Africa

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Koblenz, Germany

Helinski, Finland

Conception, Chile

Barcelona, Spain

Stuttgart, Germany

Seoul, Korea

Budapest, Hungary

Berlin, Germany

AI, United Kingdom

Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa

Santa Ana, El Salvador

Tijuana, Mexico

Rome, Italy

Lima, Peru 

Queensland, Australia

     I'd love to hear from you, so don't hesitate to leave a comment and let me know where you are from! Thanks for your prayers and support while I was gone. It's good be back home, eating a burrito and resting with Millie.

See you tonight,

pj

Guttentag...

It's my last day in Deutsche land and I'm getting ready to head back home. My time here with Edmund has been wonderful. On Sunday (German time) I shared at Calvary Chapel Herborn, where Edmund is the pastor.

A few months ago, Edmund shared at CCM and now I have the honor and priviledge of repaying the favor. Martha and Edmund have been great hosts and I've relished my time fellowshipping with them.

Edmund, dunke schon for your hospitality. 

Gute nache from Germany,

pancho

Moeshe...

I am dark. I am bald. I look Middle Eastern. I walk into a quickie mart near the Tel Aviv airport and I immediately startle the clerk, who visibly looks shaken. At first I thought maybe my entrance was loud... then it hit me. 

Every day Israelis live in fear. Fear of bombings, fear of attacks, fearing of terrorists, fear of fear itself. I had a backpack with me and I was near the airport. I pieced things together and realized that I must have looked frightening. 

In spite of my appearance and jarring entry, Moeshe (the kind clerk), warmed up to me as I began to explain to him my vocation, my calling, and my purpose for visiting his home land. We exchanged words and I told him that I pray God blesses him. It is likely that I will never see Moeshe again, but his face marred with fear has left an indelible mark in my conscience.

I realized the fear and anxiety that we as Americans felt on 9/11 is felt here everyday. Everyday Israelis and Palestinians fear what man can do. I was awakened to the fact that I love America all over again. I pray for peace, not only for America, but for those living in fear. Please pray for the protection of Israel and God's blessing upon this small, but mighty nation.

pj

Guttentag...

    For those that left comments or have prayed for me, I owe my gratitude! The conference was a huge blessing (if to no one else, then myself). The group of pastors was small and intimate, but the encouragement and fellowship was huge. What I came to discover was that it was a Middle East pastors/missionaries conference; people from Egypt, Morocco, Israel and many surrounding regions were represented. 

     I shared the platform with amazing speakers (one of them being Joel Rosenberg), so I really wanted to be prepared to share. However, I diverted from Philippians 3:3-14 to share what I believe the Lord was prompting me to share. 

     By the grace of God, we connected as a body through shared experiences. Life is good, but trials are hard. In ministry it is so easy to become disillusioned and depressed, but God is sufficient to carry us through! Being with other yoke-fellows was refreshing a much needed!

     God is a trip! Its been almost 40 years since I graduated Roosevelt High School. I was a knuckle head, pot-smoking, partier who needed a savior. I was lost, confused, and desperately seeking direction. I know people get tired of hearing my swan song, but I share this over and over because I regret not being able to share salvation with my friends from RHS. But God, in His sovereignty and goodness, allowed me to connect with Sonia Samiengo (now Mir) who graduated with me many moons ago. She is now a missionary in Israel and she attended the conference. It was so nice to see her and hear how the Lord is working in her life!

       I'm off to Frankfurt, Germany to connect with Edmund Coronel at CC Frankfurt. It will only be for a short stay because I want to get back home soon. I will post some pics of Frankfurt... and me eating a real wienershiztnel!

     

Epicenter Prophesy Conferene 2008

        Today has been crazy. Thank you for bearing with me and my random posts. It's a big encouragement to read the comments and know people are praying for me... unfortunately I don't have time reply to all of them. When I get some down time, my hope is the post in length about the time here. 

         This morning (Israeli time) was the Epicenter Conference held in Jerusalem. This event is HUGE. Some of the top thinkers of America and Israel are here. Here is a picture of Pastor Chuck sharing.

        It's kind of surreal that I am here. I don't know how an ELA kid with no direction could grow up and end up here... with amazing people. I'm at a loss for words so pictures will have to suffice. Here is a picture of Joel Rosenberg (amazing!) and Pastor Chuck in the green room before the conference. 

       Please keep me in your prayers. I will be sharing at a pastors conference tomorrow with a number of pastors and Joel Rosenberg. Pray that I connect across cultures, languages, and familiarity to bring a fresh perspective from God's word.

Love you all,

panch

Sea of Galilee...

Good morning...

In the stillness of the morning, in the quietness of the Sea of Galilee, I was able to read my morning devotions uninterupted. God is good, all the time, and all the time God is good...

I love it here, but I can't wait to return home and be with both my families.

Technology...

So obviously you have found out that I'm not tech savvy. I am trying to understand the capabilities of my phone, but I had to rely on the knowledge of CCM's techie (Roland Lew) to teach me. Thanks, Rolo!

We are heading to dinner soon, so I can post many pics. Here's a few...

This picture was taken at breakfast a few days ago. It's been amazing to fellowship with such amazing people!

This is a view from my hotel room. The sun was rising and it was the most beautiful color of blue I have ever seen. 

Emmus (Luke 24)

Pastor Chuck sharing from Caesarea

I have more pictures that I will post in a few hours. My hope was that I would be able to journal/chronicle this trip on the blog, but we are moving at warp speed. I will try to post more often from this point on. When I get back to California, I will post professional pics, but bear with me and my camera phone.

I am not one to push events or trips, but I KNOW that I am being changed, being filled, being renewed because I am here. CCM is hosting a trip next year and I highly encourage anyone remotely interested to attend the trip. Israel is truly the HOLY LAND. 

panch

7:28pm Israel time

Blog Moderator

Hello.

I am the blog moderator for Pancho's blog I just wanted to keep everyone up to speed with what is going on. Pancho is trying desperately to send me pictures of the amazing things going on (a long walk with Pastor Chuck on a road Jesus walked, a baptism of over 150 people, great food, etc.), but his fancy phone isn't cooperating. Here is the text converation:

Moderator: Panch, can you send me the pics? I'm getting people asking about when you are going to post!!!

Pancho: Wazz up......Shalom. U knw what? I can't send the pics. Dude, its crazy here! 

Moderator: Can you email a blog so I can post it for you?

Pancho: Yesterday Pastor Chuck and a couple of pastors went out last night to walk on a small road that Jesus walked on. It was moving, man! We r going to eat some FALAFELS now!!!

Moderator: Do you want to post something yourself?

Pancho: I miss burritos. I called millie to tell her i missed her and the kids. hey, can u send me an update about the services yesterday?

Moderator: Sure. Enjoy the Holy Land.

As you can tell, Pancho is having a great time, but can't figure out how to use his phone to send the pictures and blog documents. Please bear with us. Pictures will be coming soon...

Shalom...

       After years and years of guest speaking, traveling, and constantly being mobile, I decided that 2008 was going to be a slow year for me. I opted to not guest speak or travel to conferences like I have in the past. 

       The only thing I really committed to doing was being with my family (at home, church, or on respite), keeping my committments to the church, and resting in God. A recent opportunity came for me to travel to Israel with Pastor Chuck Smith for his very last tour of the Holy Land. Although I said I was going to travel, I had to make this exception! To hold true to my promise of not traveling, I am making this exception because it is going to be a respite for me. I am not leading anyone from our church, I am not giving any bible studies, I am not a tour leader; I am going to soak in Israel and her glory. I want to be touched by the Lord, moved by His spirit, and have shalom for my soul.

       While there, I will be blogging (with pictures from my phone) and updating you on some sites and occurrances. There will be a "End Times" conference with Joel Rosenberg, the previous Prime Minister of Israel, and Chuck Smith. I feel like a kid in a candy shop! Hopefully you can join me on the journey...

Shalom,

pj

A slice of humble pie...

No matter of how much of a blessing Easter was, no matter how many people came to know the Lord, no matter how many people sat in the blazing sun for two hours... it's humbling to know you are still human. 

Apparently I had my pant rolled up in my dress sock... for all of 2nd service! No one gave me a sign, or code word, or a "Hey stupid! Pull down you pant." Nothing. Thankfully it was only for one service. It was a bitter-sweet piece of humble pie! 

Thank you, Lulu for capturing me at my finest moment of glory.

My Pride...

        I know we are not to exhibit pride. I know that pride is one of the deadly sins. I know that pride comes before a fall.

        However, yesterday I was beaming with pride. Not a pride in myself, but in pride in someone else. That someone was my daughter, Bianca. She has really grown into a lovely woman who has a heart after the Lord. Through the last few years, she has had to opportunity to teach and share God's word around the country. Every time she shares, it's an honor and privilege to know that she is blessing others... but yesterday was very different. 

        Bianca was invited to share at Azusa Pacific University as a chapel speaker for their entire student body! This is an honor in and of itself, however, APU holds a special place in our hearts. It wasn't that long ago that I was a grille cook in the college's cafeteria and I would bring my daughters to help. It was a humbling few years, but I know that the experiences at APU have made us stronger as a family and in the Lord. 

        In God's sovereignty and goodness, He allowed Bianca (the daughter of an immigrant, the daughter of a grille cook and employee of APU, the daughter of a proud father) to preach God's word mightily and with passion. 

        I was the one laughing the loudest, agreeing the most fervently, and proud to call this young lady my pride and my daughter.

    To listen to the message, you can click here.