I had to put the year in the title above.  This has been and continues to be by far the best experience on a mission trip that I have ever had.  I have had far too much fun and been far too blessed to call this a mission trip.  God has touched my life in ways that I will sort for some time and still not make sense of them.  I stood in the lobby of this seminary in 1997 and prayed that God would give me the opportunity to come here some day and teach.  He did. It took a few years, but here I am and have been for the last two weeks.  I was concerned coming into this experience that what I was seeking would be far beyond what I would find, but what I have found has been far beyond what I was seeking.  Teaching here and being able to drink in the Word of God and those who help me to understand His word has been an inestimable blessing.  I miss Anne immensely and I miss my church family, but I will get on the plane on Friday morning with some grief in my soul that would be heart to carry if I thought I would not come back here.  There is something very special about this place and the people who study here.

Pray for the Ukraine.  What Russia has done and continues to do in Georgia could easily happen here.  Ukraine is a huge country that is almost equally divided between those who are pro-west and those who are pro-Russia.  Putin said recently that the break up of the Soviet Union was a great tragedy.  He wants to see it back in place as the the Union of Soviet Social Republics.  Now that would be the great tragedy.  Pray for the church in the Ukraine.  God is moving and stirring in significant ways here.  The older, more mainline churches in this country are struggling much as they are in our country and most of that with good reason.  The churches that are alive are those new churches that are being planted all over this country.  Pray for them and the young pastors that serve them.  Pray for Joel and Mary Ellen Ragains and their work here.  They are gifts of God.  At an age when most people are looking toward retirement they are busily serving the Lord and doing it with great, great joy.  Joel was the worship pastor at the Graceland Baptist Church for thirty-five years; Mary Ellen was called to missions as a young girl in a Bap;tist church at seven years of age.  She has known this her whole life and just waited on God to convict and to call Joel.  He did.  And here they are in their sixties serving with such great joy.  Pray that God would raise up many like them from our churches.  I do not belittle those for whom retirement is seen as the reward that lets us do what we want to do after years of labor. I just ask about myself, “when did my life as a follower of Jesus ever become about what I want to do at any age?”  As one man put it, “my retirement plan as a believer is out of this world, and that is when I will receive it.”  Amen.

Being here has been such a joy.  I have learned so much.  Let me close with a note from the class today.  One of the students was giving a report on how God used the sufferings of Paul as an avenue for advancing the Gospel.  This is what he said, “Paul’s sufferings for the Gospel and our sufferings for the Gospel are like the rainbow in he Old Testament.  They are a beautiful and joyful reminder of the goodness and the grace of God, that our God loves us enough that He would consider us worthy of suffering for Him.”  Believe me, as much as I know how true that is and how powerful (I wept when he shared it); I am not at that place.  Oh, how I want to be because it is there that we most experience the great glory of God.  God willling, I will see you on Sunday.

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