Partners on Mission

Greetings from Waveland!

Sorry for the length ... the best part I saved for the end .....

It is nearly the end of July. In a little over 30 days, we will mark our third year on the Gulf Coast. It hardly seems possible.

Since Martie and I came to the Gulf Coast we have used the term 'volunteers' to describe those who have left their homes, families, and jobs for some time to help with the recovery here. As I was reflecting on what I needed to share with you in this update, I realized that by using the word 'volunteer' I have been grossly understating the truth. Each time your church sends you out to serve, you are involved in a mission. In your going, you are doing much more than volunteering. You are walking in obedience to the Lord's command to go ... to love ... to serve ... to die to yourself ....

BTW - You can see who is scheduled to come ... and when ...... by clicking on this link http://pathfindermission.org/Calendar/VolunteerCalendar.htm Notice that August and September are really sparse ... we think it is because those months are transition time for families and churches ... not to mention two of the hottest months of the year.

I was reading 'Our Daily Bread' the other morning. The focus was about a man named Dr. Wilfred Grenfell.

It seems, "Years ago, Dr. Wilfred Grenfell served as a medical missionary in Labrador. On a recruiting tour, he challenged nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital to join him for a summer in his difficult ministry. He promised them hardship and discomfort. He warned that instead of earning a salary, they would have to pay their own expenses. But he also promised them they would experience joy because “it’s having the time of anyone’s life to be in the service of Christ.”

[As I read that I thought "That sounds like asking you to come to the Gulf Coast!"]

"A nurse who accepted that challenge wrote this after her return from Labrador: 'I never knew before that life was good for anything but what one could get out of it. Now I know that the real fun lies in seeing how much one can put into life for others.' If we change that word fun to blessing, we have the key to Christian self-fulfillment."

[And that sounds like so many of you after you have returned from serving the people here.]

This morning I was reviewing my notes from a book I read a couple of years ago entitled "The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life ", by Os Guinness. (I recommend it if you are considering, or struggling with, His call on your life.)

"Kierkegaard (lived in the 19th century) wrote in his Journal: “The thing is to understand myself: to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”

[That sounds a little like finding your purpose in life doesn't it. Answering the question ... "Am I fulfilling God's intent for my life?" ]

"As C. S. Lewis pointed out, 'The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.' The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. Only when we respond to Christ and follow his call do we become our real selves and come to have personalities of our own."

[Sounds like somebody I see when I shave in the morning.]

OK .... So what does this have to do with Mississippi?

Actually my point here is beyond Mississippi. I want to encourage you to reflect on what God has done and is doing in and through you for the advancement of the kingdom and His glory. It is not about being prideful but about being amazed. We have good friends (Jim and Bea Fishback) who live in England serving Campus Crusade for Christ, Military Ministry. Jim and I served together in the 4th Battalion 40th Armor of the 4th Infantry Division in 1976-1978. Martie and I were "Divinely" re-connected to Jim and Bea in 2004 at a Military Ministry retreat in Georgia. Anyway, I commented to them in an e-mail that the four of us have come a long way from 4/40 Armor. In 1976 we never would have believed that God would bring us to the places where we serve today. Is that true for your life as well? I pray that it is or that it will be. You may not move to Mississippi or to England, or even out of your present home .... but you will hear yourself saying "I never knew before that life was good for anything but what (I) could get out of it. Now I know that the real "blessing" lies in seeing how much (I) can put into life for others.” "This is something I can live and die for." "Since I have moved myself out of the way (to respond to God's leading) I see who God intended me to be ... I have found my true self."

Finding your "true self" is a very comfortable place to be. It kind of feels like you have slipped on your favorite pair of shoes or are relaxing in your favorite chair after a long day. It is a very comfortable feeling to be resting in the arms of the Almighty.

OK .... Now for what is happening in Mississippi....

New Rebuilding Grants

The federal government has released another block of funds $350 million for rebuilding middle to lower priced homes in the 3 southern counties - Jackson, Harrison and Hancock (from East to West). They expect to build about 1200 homes with the money. We don't know how it will be distributed or who will build the homes - volunteers or local construction. The bottom line -- the rebuilding is far from over.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

As you know, PTSD is a real problem with the military returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, it is a problem here as well. It has been simmering under the surface for some time and is showing more evidences every day. There are not many ministries on the Gulf Coast staffed to deal with the disorder much less the symptoms associated with PTSD. I spoke with a man in Pass Christian the other day. He told me that since January there have been more suicides than homicides on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There is a song that goes ... "If we ever needed the Lord before ... we sure do need Him now ... and we need every day and every hour..." That is the heart cry of the people here.

Rebuilding Homes - You can check on the progress on each house and what's is to be done next by clicking on this link -

http://pathfindermission.org/Rebuild.html

It seems that every week someone will call and ask if we can help rebuild or build their home. It causes us to continue looking unto the hills from whence our help will come ... (Psalm 121:1-2)

Nelson Home. The Nelsons moved into their home two weeks ago. John Turnbull from Mendocino, CA made small crosses from redwood to be given to home owners when the home is completed. When we gave the Nelsons their cross, I recalled the day they came to us. They had over $45,000 stolen by a local contractor and no idea how they would get their home built. The Lord provided the way. A case worker agreed to pursue the grant money for the materials and the Lord sent the right volunteers and the right time to do the work.

This is a list of groups that helped make this house a reality. West End BC, AL; First Christian Reformed, IN; High Desert Church, CA; USAF Senior NCO Academy, AL; Farmersville BC, TX; Sylvarena BC, MS; Lighthouse Church, AL; C&W Plumbing (donated labor), AL; Penn Friends Church, MI; Beth Salem BC, AL; and Silver City BC, GA.

Phillips Home. High Desert finished the siding and built the porches and ramp. We are waiting for the rough-in inspections so we can have missions teams and/or volunteers install insulation and sheetrock.

LaFontaine Home. High Desert installed the siding. We are waiting on the HVAC, Electric, and plumbing rough-ins which will be accomplished by local contractors so we can have missions teams and/or volunteers close it up (insulation and sheetrock).

Jackson Home. We should be pouring the concrete Tuesday for the footings. Next will be the block columns and floor system. After that we will need a missions team and/or volunteer to frame the house.

Davis Home. We just agreed to help with this house. The owner is a single mom who is undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. We agreed to help her with the siding and electric rough in. Then we learned about the existing framing problems, so we (actually the HDC mission team) shifted to working on those problems first.

Ministry

We had our first Baptism service Friday night. Little Zion let us use their church .... the Gulf was at low tide which meant we would have to wade out about a mile to Baptize anyone. I baptized Marie Foye and our grand daughter Jessica. Our good friend Chuck Adams, currently serving with the International Bible Society in Colorado Springs, encouraged us to work hard at staying connected to our grand children. This is the first summer that we felt it was safe enough for them to be with us. The first to come for a visit was Nate, our grandson. He approached me one Sunday and said "Poppa, when you prayed last night I prayed with you.", as you know we hold our service on Saturday night. After some discussion I discovered he was talking about my closing prayer the previous night encouraging those who did not know Christ to pray with me and ask them into their lives. Wow! Well if that was not enough of a blessing, the next grand children to visit were Jessica and Brittany. Brittany had to go back home, but Jessica spent about 6 weeks with us. We were talking about getting along with people and needing a new hear to live the way the Lord wants us to. She said she wanted a new heart so her Nana and I prayed with her. We were able to watch her grow immediately as she would read her Bible every morning and remind me every night that it was time to read a devotional story and pray. We are blessed. Unprompted, Jessica told me that she wanted to be baptized. I hadn't even discussed it with her.

We have been doing the Saddleback Foundations studies on Thursday nights. The first was on salvation and the current on sanctification. When I told Marie about the Baptism and asked if she would like to be baptized, she said "Yes, I have been wanting to do that." It was wonderful. A volunteer group from Tennessee stopped by and joined us in the celebration.

We have had some residents visiting our Bible studies and services. We pray that the Lord is softening hearts to the Gospel. Folks from the High Desert were working on the Timothy Phillips home. The folks that live behind them usually start their morning by yelling profanities at each other, slamming doors, and screeching tires as they leave. The men said it sounded like a Jerry Springer show. I told them it was people who were struggling with life and needed Jesus Christ. And there are hundreds of others just like them. The Lord gave me this verse a few months ago .... When his brothers and others associated with his family heard where he was, they came down and joined him. 2 Not only that, but all who were down on their luck came around—losers and vagrants and misfits of all sorts. 1 Sam 22:1-2 (MSG)

The context of the verse is that God sent men to David to fight with him, but they were not men that most "men of arms" would select to go to war with. I believe that the Lord was saying to me ... “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Mark 2:17 (NLT)

By His Grace and for His Glory

Charley Elgin

Pathfinder Mission

228.493.1081

Isaiah 58 Rebuilding Houses - Restoring Lives

	Greetings from Waveland! Sorry for the length ... the best part I saved for the end ..... It is nearly the end of July. In a little over 30 days, we will mark our third year on the Gulf Coast. It hardly seems possible. Since Martie and I came to the Gulf Coast we have used the term 'volunteers' to describe those who have left their homes, families, and jobs for some time to help with the recovery here. As I was reflecting on what I needed to share with you in this update, I realized that by using the word 'volunteer' I have been grossly understating the truth. Each time your church sends you out to serve, you are involved in a mission. In your going, you are doing much more than volunteering. You are walking in obedience to the Lord's command to go ... to love ... to serve ... to die to yourself .... BTW - You can see who is scheduled to come ... and when ...... by clicking on this link http://pathfindermission.org/Calendar/VolunteerCalendar.htm Notice that August and September are really sparse ... we think it is because those months are transition time for families and churches ... not to mention two of the hottest months of the year. I was reading 'Our Daily Bread' the other morning. The focus was about a man named Dr. Wilfred Grenfell. It seems, "Years ago, Dr. Wilfred Grenfell served as a medical missionary in Labrador. On a recruiting tour, he challenged nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital to join him for a summer in his difficult ministry. He promised them hardship and discomfort. He warned that instead of earning a salary, they would have to pay their own expenses. But he also promised them they would experience joy because “it’s having the time of anyone’s life to be in the service of Christ.” [As I read that I thought "That sounds like asking you to come to the Gulf Coast!"] "A nurse who accepted that challenge wrote this after her return from Labrador: 'I never knew before that life was good for anything but what one could get out of it. Now I know that the real fun lies in seeing how much one can put into life for others.' If we change that word fun to blessing, we have the key to Christian self-fulfillment." [And that sounds like so many of you after you have returned from serving the people here.] This morning I was reviewing my notes from a book I read a couple of years ago entitled "The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life ", by Os Guinness. (I recommend it if you are considering, or struggling with, His call on your life.) "Kierkegaard (lived in the 19th century) wrote in his Journal: “The thing is to understand myself: to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.” [That sounds a little like finding your purpose in life doesn't it. Answering the question ... "Am I fulfilling God's intent for my life?" ] "As C. S. Lewis pointed out, 'The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.' The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. Only when we respond to Christ and follow his call do we become our real selves and come to have personalities of our own." [Sounds like somebody I see when I shave in the morning.] OK .... So what does this have to do with Mississippi? Actually my point here is beyond Mississippi. I want to encourage you to reflect on what God has done and is doing in and through you for the advancement of the kingdom and His glory. It is not about being prideful but about being amazed. We have good friends (Jim and Bea Fishback) who live in England serving Campus Crusade for Christ, Military Ministry. Jim and I served together in the 4th Battalion 40th Armor of the 4th Infantry Division in 1976-1978. Martie and I were "Divinely" re-connected to Jim and Bea in 2004 at a Military Ministry retreat in Georgia. Anyway, I commented to them in an e-mail that the four of us have come a long way from 4/40 Armor. In 1976 we never would have believed that God would bring us to the places where we serve today. Is that true for your life as well? I pray that it is or that it will be. You may not move to Mississippi or to England, or even out of your present home .... but you will hear yourself saying "I never knew before that life was good for anything but what (I) could get out of it. Now I know that the real "blessing" lies in seeing how much (I) can put into life for others.” "This is something I can live and die for." "Since I have moved myself out of the way (to respond to God's leading) I see who God intended me to be ... I have found my true self." Finding your "true self" is a very comfortable place to be. It kind of feels like you have slipped on your favorite pair of shoes or are relaxing in your favorite chair after a long day. It is a very comfortable feeling to be resting in the arms of the Almighty. OK .... Now for what is happening in Mississippi.... New Rebuilding Grants The federal government has released another block of funds $350 million for rebuilding middle to lower priced homes in the 3 southern counties - Jackson, Harrison and Hancock (from East to West). They expect to build about 1200 homes with the money. We don't know how it will be distributed or who will build the homes - volunteers or local construction. The bottom line -- the rebuilding is far from over. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) As you know, PTSD is a real problem with the military returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, it is a problem here as well. It has been simmering under the surface for some time and is showing more evidences every day. There are not many ministries on the Gulf Coast staffed to deal with the disorder much less the symptoms associated with PTSD. I spoke with a man in Pass Christian the other day. He told me that since January there have been more suicides than homicides on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There is a song that goes ... "If we ever needed the Lord before ... we sure do need Him now ... and we need every day and every hour..." That is the heart cry of the people here. Rebuilding Homes - You can check on the progress on each house and what's is to be done next by clicking on this link - http://pathfindermission.org/Rebuild.html It seems that every week someone will call and ask if we can help rebuild or build their home. It causes us to continue looking unto the hills from whence our help will come ... (Psalm 121:1-2) Nelson Home. The Nelsons moved into their home two weeks ago. John Turnbull from Mendocino, CA made small crosses from redwood to be given to home owners when the home is completed. When we gave the Nelsons their cross, I recalled the day they came to us. They had over $45,000 stolen by a local contractor and no idea how they would get their home built. The Lord provided the way. A case worker agreed to pursue the grant money for the materials and the Lord sent the right volunteers and the right time to do the work. This is a list of groups that helped make this house a reality. West End BC, AL; First Christian Reformed, IN; High Desert Church, CA; USAF Senior NCO Academy, AL; Farmersville BC, TX; Sylvarena BC, MS; Lighthouse Church, AL; C&W Plumbing (donated labor), AL; Penn Friends Church, MI; Beth Salem BC, AL; and Silver City BC, GA. Phillips Home. High Desert finished the siding and built the porches and ramp. We are waiting for the rough-in inspections so we can have missions teams and/or volunteers install insulation and sheetrock. LaFontaine Home. High Desert installed the siding. We are waiting on the HVAC, Electric, and plumbing rough-ins which will be accomplished by local contractors so we can have missions teams and/or volunteers close it up (insulation and sheetrock). Jackson Home. We should be pouring the concrete Tuesday for the footings. Next will be the block columns and floor system. After that we will need a missions team and/or volunteer to frame the house. Davis Home. We just agreed to help with this house. The owner is a single mom who is undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. We agreed to help her with the siding and electric rough in. Then we learned about the existing framing problems, so we (actually the HDC mission team) shifted to working on those problems first. Ministry We had our first Baptism service Friday night. Little Zion let us use their church .... the Gulf was at low tide which meant we would have to wade out about a mile to Baptize anyone. I baptized Marie Foye and our grand daughter Jessica. Our good friend Chuck Adams, currently serving with the International Bible Society in Colorado Springs, encouraged us to work hard at staying connected to our grand children. This is the first summer that we felt it was safe enough for them to be with us. The first to come for a visit was Nate, our grandson. He approached me one Sunday and said "Poppa, when you prayed last night I prayed with you.", as you know we hold our service on Saturday night. After some discussion I discovered he was talking about my closing prayer the previous night encouraging those who did not know Christ to pray with me and ask them into their lives. Wow! Well if that was not enough of a blessing, the next grand children to visit were Jessica and Brittany. Brittany had to go back home, but Jessica spent about 6 weeks with us. We were talking about getting along with people and needing a new hear to live the way the Lord wants us to. She said she wanted a new heart so her Nana and I prayed with her. We were able to watch her grow immediately as she would read her Bible every morning and remind me every night that it was time to read a devotional story and pray. We are blessed. Unprompted, Jessica told me that she wanted to be baptized. I hadn't even discussed it with her. We have been doing the Saddleback Foundations studies on Thursday nights. The first was on salvation and the current on sanctification. When I told Marie about the Baptism and asked if she would like to be baptized, she said "Yes, I have been wanting to do that." It was wonderful. A volunteer group from Tennessee stopped by and joined us in the celebration. We have had some residents visiting our Bible studies and services. We pray that the Lord is softening hearts to the Gospel. Folks from the High Desert were working on the Timothy Phillips home. The folks that live behind them usually start their morning by yelling profanities at each other, slamming doors, and screeching tires as they leave. The men said it sounded like a Jerry Springer show. I told them it was people who were struggling with life and needed Jesus Christ. And there are hundreds of others just like them. The Lord gave me this verse a few months ago .... When his brothers and others associated with his family heard where he was, they came down and joined him. 2 Not only that, but all who were down on their luck came around—losers and vagrants and misfits of all sorts. 1 Sam 22:1-2 (MSG) The context of the verse is that God sent men to David to fight with him, but they were not men that most "men of arms" would select to go to war with. I believe that the Lord was saying to me ... “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Mark 2:17 (NLT) By His Grace and for His Glory Charley Elgin Pathfinder Mission 228.493.1081 Isaiah 58 Rebuilding Houses - Restoring Lives

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