Card Shower

Will you participate in a card shower for Missionary Sheila Campbell during her fight against cancer?

I went to Bible college with Sheila. She, her husband Steve, and three sons, have been missionaries to the Philippines since 2000 serving with BIMI. She is now home in Maryland for treatment.

With the bone marrow transplant that she's going to need (which is 60 days straight, including holidays and weekends), she will have lots of expenses 

such as gas, food, room and board, extra medical bills, etc.

We are encouraging people to send a card and include a gas card, gift card, or cash if possible. If not, at least a card of encouragement.

If you would like to send her a card or help with a monetary gift, you can send it to:

Sheila Campbell

C/O BIMI

P.O. Bo 9215

Chattanooga, TN, 37412

Please also help me spread this news to other churches or friends that you know would participate.

Thank you to Rhonda White for coordinating this.

Fullness of Joy

Joy Forney is a blogging friend I have never met face-to-face. Yet she encourages me so much!




















Joy is a missionary wife and mother in Indonesia. Her husband is a missionary pilot who is frequently gone for days at a time in places where there is no way to reach him. Joy is left at her home on foreign soil with her five young children--homemaking in the truest sense of the word, homeschooling, and on top of it all, inspiring hundreds via her blog.



Her recent post In His Presence especially encouraged me:

I am a mother, wife, missionary, friend, neighbor, daughter, sister, and many other things. And as such, there are so many times in my life that I feel that I am just surviving. Surviving from one mess, one meal, one exhausted morning, one tantrum, one homeschool day to the next.

However, as I am (slowly) learning, there is so much more to my life than merely surviving. I can choose to have deep, rich communion with my Heavenly Father in the midst of these seemingly mundane things that fill up my life.

I can choose to live my life in His presence, minute by minute. In Psalm 16:11 it says, "in His presence is fullness of joy." I can have the fullness of joy each and every day, no matter how difficult it may seem to do anything more than simply survive!!

I pray that this will be a reality in your life and mine as we serve the Lord in whatever He has called us to do!

In His strength and for His glory!
Joy

Will you pray for Joy and other missionary wives around the world today?

...And will you live in HIS presence today? There you will find "fullness of joy"!

Loss of a Patriarch of the Faith

Dr. Stuart Cook (husband of my dad's cousin) was called Home due to a car accident on May 5. He has been a missionary in South Africa since 1966.

I have always admired Stu and Marilyn's faithfulness and consistency in ministry. They went to South Africa to stay. Their names are synonymous with the word "committed." Stu and Marilyn left for the mission field before I was born, and I only had occasion to see them a few times during their furloughs. An ocean separated us here on earth, but I look forward to knowing Cousin Stu better one day Up There!

Here is a summary of the accident by Jerusha Kobriger, a friend who was present at the scene of the accident:

Yesterday [May 5] Dr. Stu Cook left this earth to be with our Lord. He passed in the arms of his wife. His best friend of 55 years. The love of his life. The Cooks were with us at our house and we all left to go to Bible Study. We were following behind them in our truck on a country road, just past sunset. An oncoming truck didn’t have headlights on and was in our lane. Stu and Marilyn crashed head on with the truck. The truck contained 3 black African men. Two died, and one is in critical condition with severe head and body injuries. Marilyn was eventually taken to two hospitals, in which Paul, Micky, Simon, Aaron and I accompanied until her family arrived from Johannesburg. Marilyn was then transferred to a third hospital to get proper care. She is in stable condition but is in much pain with 11 broken ribs, a pierced lung, and many bruises and lacerations.

Stu and Marilyn’s children asked Aaron and I to stay at their farm for a few days to oversee the property and workers. I struggle to write this letter to you on our computer at Stu’s desk, in which I’m honored.

The very first time Aaron and I met Stu Cook, we loved and admired him. That day we laughed and told him, “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be our mentor.” And he became so much more. Aaron and I had some unexpected turns and rough times since our time here in South Africa. Stu and Marilyn immediately scooped us up and took us under their wing. They provided an abundance of prayer, fellowship, teaching, ministering, hospitality, and laughs. The blessing they have been to us is indescribable.

Several weeks ago, Stu went to Aaron and told him, “May 2, you’re preaching.” And that was that. Though Stu didn’t know this, but it is one of Aaron’s life goals to be a good preacher. And this past Sunday, he preached his very first sermon. It was on wisdom. Something we hope to attain even a fraction of what Stu had. It was the last sermon Stu heard in church, which is fitting because it was out of admiration of Stu’s wisdom, that Aaron decided to preach on that topic. Aaron is forever grateful.

Stu was follower of Christ. He was a husband and a father. A preacher. A missionary. A friend. A scholar. A teacher. A cowboy. In just about any conversation or time spent with Stu, you knew with certainty he was all of these. He loved the Lord and all of the stories and mysteries the Bible teaches. With Stu, everything came back to God. Everything.

I have a list I keep in my Bible, that I continually would add to, of Biblical subjects I wanted Stu to teach us about. He taught us with such knowledge and wisdom in great humility. Stu gave us a yearning to know everything we could about the Bible. The history. The people. The culture. The scriptures. He naturally educated people and made people think. He truly was someone that you became smarter and wiser simply by being in his company. Whether he spoke about why the resurrection is a real event, or his early ministry in Johannesburg, or his adoring wife, or growing up in Wyoming, there was always something to learn from Stu. And it all circled back to God.

Please pray for Stu’s wife Marilyn. She is a wonderfully strong woman who LOVES the Lord. Please pray for their family as well as the community. Stu’s impact on people’s lives is immeasurable, and the grieving is far reaching. Also pray for the families of the others that passed and for the recovery of the man in critical condition.

We had once said to Stu and Marilyn that we are a long way from our parents, and told them that they’re our “African Parents.” God left us in good hands in Africa.

We continue to weep. Stu, we love you very, very much. We wish our parents could have finally met you. You are our mentor, our friend, our African father. ~ Jerusha Kobriger

There are many more such tributes to the life of Dr. Stuart Cook and his ministry http://www.mission2sa.org/stu-tribute.html">here.

For Stuart's ministry website and links to updates on his wife Marilyn (my dad's cousin), click http://www.mission2sa.org/">here.

(Email address where you can send tributes for the website: caub@aworldaware.org.)

For Stuart's education and accomplishments click http://www.safariinsightmission.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54&Itemid=7">here.

My dad's comments:
Stu was one of the first preachers I ever actually listened to. When I was perhaps three or four, I remember my dad chiding me for not listening in church, and I protested, "I did listen to the stories." Stu was a great story-teller, an effervescent personality, an irresistible leader, and a man's man. He probably instilled in me an abiding respect for men of God. Marilyn, like her mother and mine (sisters) is a perennial servant, and one of those unusual persons who makes everyone they meet feel as if they are the most important individuals alive. ~ C.T. Spear

No doubt there are people all over the world who will miss Dr. Stuart Cook and the shining light he was for the Lord.

We Rest on Thee

Photo: Pete Fleming on Palm Beach, Auca territory.

The hymn "We Rest on Thee" has a sad story associated with it. The story is familiar to many, but no less inspiring. On January 8, 1956, five missionaries sang this hymn together before entering the Ecuadorian jungle to bring the Gospel to the Auca Indians--now known as the Waodani. Their names were Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot, Roger Yoderian, and Peter Fleming (pictured).

After the men reached the Aucas, the Indians speared them to death on the Curaray River. Five intense days later, search parties told the widows that all five men had been savagely murdered. As the women gathered their children together and told them that their daddies were now in heaven, Marilou McCully went to the piano and began to play the same hymn their men had sung five days previously. Elisabeth Elliot joined in, singing, “We Rest on Thee.” One of the military men, who assisted in rescue attempts, watched the peace and calm of these Christian wives throughout the previous five days of uncertainty. He stood off to one side as the women sang. Then his broken voice was overhead which said, “I've never seen anything like this before!”

A few years later, contact with the Waodani tribe was re-established through Nate Saint's sister Rachel, and Jim Elliot's wife Elisabeth. Many of the tribe came to Christ, including the killers, which is how first-hand details of the missionaries’ deaths came to light. A Waodani church has since been established through the ministry of Nate Saint's son Stephen and family, showing again that God's grace is sufficient and His power knows no limits!

One of the best known of the five martyrs was Jim Elliot. His most famous saying still quoted is “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” His wife Elisabeth's book Through the Gates of Splendor describes the encounter with the Aucas; its title comes from a line in the last verse of this hymn:
“When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.”

"We Rest On Thee" (tune: "Be Still My Soul")
by Edith G. Cherry and Jean Sibilius
Listen here.

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.

Yes, in Thy Name, O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear Name, all other names above;
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.

We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise;
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.

Sources: Jungle Pilot by Russell Hitt and NetHymnal.org