Sunday, May 17, 2009

May 09 Update

John At Lake Forest Ranch

John Cordova began his summer at Lake Forest Ranch this month and is catching up to my number of summers on staff at LFR, good luck! John will be gone through July and will be back in early August. You can keep up with him and LFR at www.lakeforestranch.com. I look forward to going and seeing some old familiar faces with some new no so familiar faces and get a peek on who will walk away with a taste of grace that will change them forever. I will ask John as he has time to sit down and write periodically on how his summer is going.

In Memory of A Friend

There have been people in my life who have influenced me well over the years and I want to reflect on one who was instrumental in modeling what I believe to be one of the key aspects to living, which is loving others for free. Late one night my buddy Bobby Baker and I were making a run to Wal-Mart and ran into a group of young people who were making a journey on faith and didn't have a place to sleep for the evening. The group of course asked Bobby and I about our faith and we responded with the usual answers that we loved Jesus and believe in Jesus and that He saved us...the same typical answers that any teenagers would give to a group of known believers (we really tried to impress them with our knowledge and wisom, I look back on it and laugh). They also asked if we had a place for them to sleep, saying no because Bobby's mother could not hold everyone at her home and I was not going to answer for my parents especially on a school night, we thought of a couple who just might be in love with Jesus enough to let about 6 strangers sleep on their floor....it was Kevin and Joni Best!

Kevin and Joni had not been in Mineola long at this point, but we had been introduced to them through our good friends Don and Jennifer Crenshaw and we immediately loved hanging out with them. Kevin and Joni of course said yes and drove to wal-mart and picked up these students. Just by the fact that Kevin and Joni were willing to do this spoke volumes to me a 17 year old. It showed me a different kind of love that I've never seen before, and I realized later in life that they loved us the same way as they did these students by providing shelter and food for an evening.

I know now that Kevin and Joni were allowing God's love to beam through them by accepting freely these students without cost, loving for free.

This past week Joni Best went to her true home as Kevin wrote to walk in the presence of God and the saints before her and is experiencing the reality of 1 John 3:2 ...we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

Pray for Kevin, Casey, Sam, and Kylie that the peace of God would ease their sorrow and that His grace would be suffiecient in their time of need.

I thank God for my friend Joni and her unyeilding love and passion for people.


Teleo Ridge Ministries:

As we prepare for the summer months we ask that you would join us in prayer as we seek to obtain our non profit status. We are operating on faith through this journey of watching God work in the lives of the people around us daily. We have never missed a rent payment or a bill in the past two and half years and we are deeply thankful to God for providing for us even through these hard days in the economy.

It has been fun to see new faces show up to our Monday Night Fellowship (our big family reunion night), and to watch the kids play and respond. The other night Zoe was standing in the kitchen and she was getting ready for bed, and I asked her, "Zoe, do you know that God loves you?" She turned and gave me the well duh look and said, "of course Dad, He's my Father and I'm His daughter!" and trotted off to the room. She is 4 years old!

In the midst of the choas of monday nights I'm beginning to see as the kids play, dance, color, and sing that they are hearing the words of truth and believing. It also is a blessing to have a wife who models the love of God in raising our kids, it's fun to watch the kids interact and enjoy just being around one another.

we love you and I thank God for all of you who read and pray along with us, we ask that you will remember us as God lays us on your hearts.

loved for free,

Jason

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