I want to say Happy Anniversary to My wonderful wife, Deanna.  Today we celebrate 9 years of marriage.  The Lord has blessed me with such a godly, beautiful, wonderful wife.  She is truly a helpmeet to me.   She is my best friend and lifelong partner.  The first 9 years have been wonderful and I look forward to the next 30+ years.  We are not perfect and neither has been our marriage.  However, if we truly understand the meaning of love as portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13.  We will understand that love isn't just a sensation or a chill down our spine.  It's not the kind of love portrayed in Hollywood or on TV.  It is an everlasting love.  The love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13 is not a romantic love.  The Bible never speaks of a romantic love as we perceive the word Love.  The love that the Bible talks about in 1 Corinthians 13, Ephesians 5:25 and so many other places in the scriptures is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice.  Love is an action and specifically an action of self-sacrifice.  This is exactly what God means when he says,  "For God so loved the world that he gave..."  God almighty sacrificed His Son, Himself, because he loved you and I.  Our Lord showed us the ultimate action of self-sacrifice....true love.

If we as married couples can grasp this type of Love, not the sensational, romantic, sexual type Love that we perceive, that Hollywood portrays, but the type of Love that Christ displays and talks about in His word, we would be able to live our married lives (and our lives) to the fullest, how God designed it.  Does that mean we would live problem and argument free?  Of course not, we are sinners, individuals, and full of fault.  However, what it does mean is that when we do have that occasional argument, when we do have those aggravating problems that arise, when we do have that not so often day where we just don't feel like we love our spouse as much as the day before, we will remember and understand that love isn't a feeling but the ultimate action of self-sacrifice.  If we want a successful marriage that will last until "death do us part" then each person in the marriage union must portray this action of self-sacrifice: LOVE! 

Thank you Deanna for Loving me (the action of self-sacrifice) and being such a wonderful wife.  I love you and look forward to growing old together.  Happy Anniversary!

Dear Praying Friends, Family, and Churches,

It is such a joy to serve the Lord.  The more I am able to do so, the more I realize how much of a privilege it is to serve Him.  We are excited about what the Lord is doing and is going to do in our ministry.

THE MINISTRY

We have been working on fixing up the building that the Lord has given us.  We are in a great location.  There are so many people that walk by the building each day.  I mentioned over the past few prayer letters that I would provide pictures of the building.  You can see below the before and after pictures.  There are still a few little things left to do i.e. decorating, etc. but the majority of it is done.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

In Spain, most businesses have what is called an “escaparate” which is basically a window where they display products, sales, etc. so the people can see what they offer.  It is a pretty big thing here and many people take note of the “escaparate.”  The bottom right picture is our “escaparate.”  We have posters promoting a couple websites we have and displaying the time of our Bible Studies.  It also has several Christian books and literature displayed, as well as Bibles.  The “escaparate” has been on display for less then a week and it is amazing the amount of people who stop in front of the window to read and look at what is posted.

THE DVD PROJECT

The DVD project is in full swing.  We have been able to get the Gospel on DVD into 7,528 households.  This is very exciting because thousands of people now have the chance to watch and hear a very clear presentation of the Gospel.  At the end of the presentation, it directs them to a website.  We have had many people visit the site and several people have even requested a Bible.  The power of this project is not in the technology, the DVDs or the missionaries, it is in the Gospel of Christ.  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;...”

It is great to be back!!!  You may have noticed that our website was down for a few days.  We quickly put up a temp page and worked on getting the site back online.  Unfortunately, our site was compromised and flagged for sending out malicious spam mail.  We were able to figure out the problem and here we are again.  Sorry for the interruption and inconvenience.  We will be blogging over the next several weeks about our ministry, how things are going with the DVD project, our team members, etc.

Thanks for praying for our adoption process. I wanted to post the latest news on our adoption and I will do so by pasting in the post my wife wrote on her blog:

Grateful, So Grateful!!!

Our home study has been officially approved!! YAY!! Yipee!! Hooray!! Praise the Lord!

And...

as of yesterday,

our agency will now begin to show our family profile to potential birth mothers!!

We have completed one big hurdle and now begins the waiting game. We could get a call any day, like it could take a year to receive the call. Believe it or not, having to wait is not really bothering us at all. Just knowing that we are where we are in this adoption process is exciting enough. We have 'waited' for 5 years for the Lord to give us another baby and He has given us grace!! So I know He will provide us with the grace for this next phase of waiting. We are sooo excited and a little nervous, because it just seems more real now!!

Thanks to everyone who has been praying with us about this adoption. We get e-mails and calls from friends that say they are praying and that is so overwhelming to us. The Lord has given us so many wonderful friends around the world and such a supportive family. We are grateful, so grateful!!

http://www.thespiritofadoption.org/2010/05/grateful-so-grateful.html