Once again the time
comes for us to be in touch with you, our supporters and our prayer
partners. Our schedule, probably as busy as any of yours, shows us
the speed at which the end times are coming upon us and we have the
urgency to continue to preach this gospel.
At
this time we are rushing to get ready for our yearly youth camp.
Through our middle school we have contact with a lot of non-Christian
students and we are expecting to take all of our school students as
well as the church youth to camp. It is a week when we break with all
the luxuries of life. There are no cell phones, internet, electricity
or corner stores so we get alone with the presence of God in a real
and powerful way.
In
the churches we are working with new people who have been coming out
to the services. In the town of El Ahualamo we have gone from 10 to
25 adults in service on Sunday mornings. Our Friday night service is
the main service with over 50 people attending service. In the church
of Xalisco we are in the process of purchasing more chairs as we have
had only standing room the last couple of Sundays. With 20 more
people coming out constantly we will be dividing the church to have
two weekend services.
We
are also thankful for God’s safety in our travels as we are on the
roads every day traveling between churches. Last week Simri had an
accident on his motorbike and the bike was totaled but Simri came out
with only scrapes and bruises. We have now the expense of repairing
the other vehicle that he hit since our bikes here do not have
insurance. We are also replacing the engine in our 1998 Dodge van as
I write this letter. The van’s motor reached 402,000 km before
stopping.
Events
are important but even more so are the teachings we receive from the
Lord that enrich our lives. About 8 years ago I started a learning
process (unknown to myself) that has helped me understand better how
the resurrection will be. Here is a small portion of it.
I
have a hobby of collecting different types of fruit trees (on our
property we have over 50 different types) and traveling years ago I
saw a beautiful orange that I wanted to have on my property. It was
an orangey-red sweet delicious orange. I picked some oranges off the
tree and kept the seeds to grow my own trees. A couple of weeks later
the seeds were planted and lo and behold my little orange trees
sprouted. In do time the trees were planted in the ground and they
continued to grow. As the years went on I noticed that the tree had
large thorns that I hadn’t seen on the original tree. Finally one
of the trees flowered (six years later) and I was excited since I was
going to have my oranges. As the first two or three small oranges
began to develop, they were odd shaped and lumpy, nothing compared
the original oranges that I had cut. The tree produced the most
bitter and the ugliest citrus fruit that one could imagine.
How was it that such a delicious orange could produce such a terrible fruit?
Then
I found the answer. I had picked my orange from a tree that had been
grafted. The seeds from a grafted tree will never reproduce the fruit
of the tree. It only reproduces the root. Even though the fruit
carries the seed, the seed has the genetics of the root.
The
Bible says that we have been grafted into Christ, bad fruit into a
good root. My fruit might not be the best but it is only temporal.
The seed that is in me is the most important because the seed
reproduces the root that is Christ. When I die and am ‘planted’
in the ground, and the resurrection comes, I will be raised to life
PERFECT since the seed in me is Christ. The only way I can become
perfect is being grafted into Christ Jesus for then my seed is not my
own but Christ. There are people that never become part of Christ and
in the resurrection they will not change. The reason is that the seed
in them is not perfect and will thus be condemned. What is the seed
in you?
Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman
