“You are the same today as you will be in 5 years except for two things, the people you meet and the book you read” Charles “T” Jones.  I had just completed my last book (Radical by David Platt) for the year 2013. Below is the complete list for the year. To all of you wise women and men who recommended the books for me, my heart is filled with gratitude and my mind is filled with possibilities. Several friends have deeply encouraged me with their integrity. I sense the reality of God when I am with them. The challenge of reading 1 book a month that began in 2009 became habit and a moment that look forward to doing daily. As Richard De Bury succinctly put “These (books) are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep, if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you.” The title that I was drawn to takes me to places of hope through pain and loss. The year has been one of deep and profound loss with the passing of my mom as the family were still grieving the loss of my brother, but I am discovering that this is a journey, and along the way I am finding deep joy in depending on Christ for the guidance and comfort only He can provides as he produces the fruit of the gospel in my life.  As I continue to walk this path, I am keeping these things in mind:

1. Don’t allow the confusing part of life(life can be wonderfully confusing if you are a disciple of Christ) rob you of the confidence in the truth of Christianity. Cling to what you know is true. There is a Loving God, He loves us, He sent His Son to die for our sins, He’s promised to never leave you, and one day He’ll return to make everything right.
2. Don’t allow your drive toward personal wealth, peace and success stop you from demonstrating LOVE for people. Ralph Waldo Emerson says “most of the shadows of this life are caused by too many of us standing in our own sunshine.” We need to challenge ourselves to follow that abiding sense of responsibility to others, particularly in the acknowledgement of what we have received in life here in America. There are more than a billion people live in desperate poverty, lacking food, water, clothing, and shelter. Spend our resource on something that is gospel centered.
3. Don’t let disappointment part of life rob you of your laughter.  God has placed this capacity in us to allow us to distance ourselves from events only he has control over. Laughter gave us perspective and allow us to move on.
4. Don’t let disappointment prevent you from enjoying what is enjoyable about life. Daily, take inventory of your and count your blessing-freedom, choices, family, electricity, jobs etc. Be grateful for the good things your family and friend do for you. Let their imperfection and flaws fill you with hope what is to come.
5. Any good deed can be closely examined and shown to be less than perfect, but do good anyway. If we wait for perfect motivation before we do anything, we’ll end up doing nothing. Saying yes late is better than saying no at all.
6. “Our life is a journey, and in the end, each of us will be judged by our standard of life, not by our standard of living, by our measure of giving, not by our measure of wealth, by our simple goodness, not by our seeming greatness”. As Jim Elliot said “He is no fool to give what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

2013 Reading List.

January                “The five people you meet in heaven” by Mitch Albom.

February              “The Oprhaned Adult” by Alexander Levy

March                   “The Body” by Chuck Colson

April                       “In The Name Of Jesus” by Henri Nouwen

May                       “Anything” by Jennie Allen

June                      “Applause of Heaven”  by Max Lucado

July                        “Who Speaks for God?” by Chuck Colson

August                  “Fearless” by Max Lucado

September         “In The Eye of the Storm” by Max Lucado

                                “Weird” by Craig Groeschel

October               “Who is this man” by John Ortberg

                                “Effective Staffing for Vital Churches” by Bill Easum and Bill Tenny-Brittian

November          “Love Does” by Jeff Geoff

December           “Radicals” by David Platt

Mom is back in the ICU.

Mom was moved back to ICU on Sunday due to dangerously low blood pressure. She was able to recover fairly quickly. Her spirit and countenance is very encouraging. Her care here at Goshen continues to be outstanding. As she continues to fight through these many set backs, we continue to be very hopeful for these precious remaining days. As of today, she has been here over a month. Sometimes I learned more about who she fully is by observing her interactions with her friends and grandchildren. She knows how to love very well. Her posture and eye contacts just communicate so much life, love and compassion. There are questions which I don't have courage to ask her yet but I look forward with anticipation to have a glimpse of her graciousness and joy being with others.

II Corinthians 4:16 "16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

"Your are the same today as you'll be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read".

Chritmast 2008, my sibling and I had a wager on how many books we can read by the following Christmast as a mean to a healthy distraction from watching TV and such. While the wager has ended I continue to venture on since. I finished my of 13th book for the 2012 year with "Weird" by Craig Groeschel as recommended by Pastor Jay Shetler.  As  Charles E. Cowman succinctly says "The more we read the more we believe, the more we believe the more we hope, the more we hope, the more we pray, the more we pray, the more we love, the more we love, the more we labor." Below is the list of completed reading for the 2012. Thank you to all you wise men and women for the recommended reading.

1.  The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias .
2.   The Papa Prayer by Larry Crabb .
3.  Church in translation by Dan Collison .
4.  The Sacred Acre by Mark Tabb

5.  Living the Sabath by Norman Wirzba

6. The Tozer Pulpit by Gerald Smith

7. The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter & Matt Smay

8. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

9. Sacrilege by Hugh Halter .
10. Season of Life by jeffrey mark

11. Meat for Men by Leonard Ravenhill

12. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini .

13. Weird by Craig Groeschel

At The Zeleke's Home.

We experienced a wonderful gathering last night at the Zeleke's home for our continuing look at The Incarnational Community. Wonderful meal of "Ethiopian Spaghetti", praise and worship. All passages strongly command the essential building of the fellowship of the believers, specifically the critical role of breaking of bread and prayer and meeting the needs of its members. We were challenged to closely evaluate our own biases and perception in regard to our church community. More often than not many of us get paralyzed when we feel we don't have as much or as good as someone else and we failed to contribute and became negligible to the community. In his teaching of the Parables of talents, God equips each person with X amount of talents. The questions isn't how many talents we have been given. That is the sovereignty of God. The real question is what we do with the ones we have, recognizing that the talents are not ours to begin with.

The Love and Power of God Through Books.

"Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book-a message to us from the dead, from human souls whom we never saw, who lived perhaps, thousands of miles away, and yet these, in those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.....I say we ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth" Kingsley.

I had just finished my 13th book for the 2011 year. Here are my list of books that I have read from this year and the past 2 years.

2011 List:
January-Captured by Grace by David Jeremiah
February-The Quest for Character by John MaCarthur
March-God's Dream Team by Tommy Tenney
April-Shift by Brian Haynes
May-House Call and Hitching Post by Dorcas Hoover
June-Failing Forward by John Maxwell
July-How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley
August-Don't Waste your Life by John Piper
September-Outliers by
October-The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch
November-Safely Home-by Randy Alcorn
December-The Heavenly Man by Paul Hattaway and Brother Yun
Fasting by Jentezen Franklin.

2009 List:
1. Faith by Scott Webb
2. Deliver Us From Evil by Ravi Zacharias
3. The Real Face of Evil by Ravi Zacharias
4. Sit, Walk and Stand by Watchman Nee
5. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
6. Fred Factor by Mark Sandborn
7. The Greastest Generation by Tom Brokaw
8. The Riches Man in Babylon by Goerge Classen
9. Waking the Dead by John Eldredge
10. Profile of Success
11. Positive Holiness by Ken Abraham
12. Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders
13. The Blessing by Gary Smalley and John Trent
14. Beyond jabez by Bruce Wilkinson
15. Life is So Good by Goerge Dawson and R. Glaubman
16. 4 Pillars of A Man's Heart by Stu Webber
17. No Retreat, No Reserve, No Regret
18. Revolution in World Mission by K.P. Yahannan
19. Life Sentence by Chuck Colson
20. John Adams by David McCollough
21. Crazy Love by Francis Chan
22. The Power of Enough by Lynn Miller
23. Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey
24. Fatherhood by Bill Cosby
25. Thinking for Change by John Maxwell
26. The 7 Laws of The Teacher by Howard Hendricks.

2010 List:
1. Who Speaks For God by Chuck Colson
2. 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller
3. Millionair Next Door by Stanley and Danko
4. Second Hand Jesus by Glenn Packiam
5. Christian in The Crossfire by Mark McMinn and James Foster
6. Ordeal in Cambodia by Vek Huang Taing
7. Raising Kids for True Greatness by Dr. Tim Kimmel
8. Forgotten God by Francis Chan
9. Radical By David Platt
10. The Element by Ken Robinson
11. Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes.

"You are the same today as you'll be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read."

Uncle Khankham (continue)

A few months into our stay in refugee camp, Uncle Phoukham and Aunt Khankheo also escaped out of Laos and joined us in camp. Soon after uncle Khankham also reunited with us. Due to overcrowding in the camp, Uncle Khankham and Aunt Khankheo were relocated to one of the island in the Phillipines near the U.S. Clark Airbase. We weren't sure if we would ever see them again. I remember sobbing violently as I watched my aunt and uncle rode off in of the 5 buses that left camp that morning. It was quite a walk from the loading zone to our shelter. I elected to walk back by myself. I would have been 11 years of age or so. Soon after that, we left for the U.S. with only Uncle Khankham being left behind.

He is a survivor. We the kids have a very special relationship with our two uncles and aunt. Our aunts and uncle have never been far away even when we are apart. When we were back in Laos, our home was in a gated compound along with my grandmother's house and aunt's house. Uncle Khankham, Phoukham and aunt Khankheo and Samph were all still living at home with my grandmother and grandfather. Before I go any further, it is necessary to give insight into the importance of age and title in the Lao culture. Aunt and Uncle who are older than one's mom and dad have a different title than the younger uncle and aunt. Their title must be recognized along with their names when address them. One never call aunt and uncle by their first name. My older aunt and her husband lived in a house on the other side of my grandparent's house along with their 7 children when we left. And we lived on the other side. Sharing of time, resources, support, joy and sorrow come automatically without hesitation. We daily had interaction with our immediate and extended family.

Uncle Khankham Luangrath.

Uncle Khankham (Aih Moiht-Laos name)arrived in the U.S. soon after us at the age of 25. He is the brother to mom.

He braved the blizzard of 2/2011 to come and change the brakes in my car. Aih Moiht had always, always been there for me and my family. Like most activity, he likes to talk while he works.This afternoon I asked him to share with me his relationship with my dad. With a hint of sadness mixed with joy, we both struggled to talk about my father because we both weren't quite prepared to face the depth of this conversation. So, with his broken English and my broken Lao we talked. Aih Moiht shared that dad was a very kind, compassionate and generous man throughout his life up to the last days of his passing. His heart of generosity and mercy extended not just with family but community as well. He shared that soon after his graduation from high school, dad encouraged him to go to a mechanical school. With dad's blessing and full financial backing, he completed the training in 6 months. Soon after, dad was able to get him employment at the Lao International Airport. He also purchased him with a motorcycle for his commute to work. He worked at the airport until his escape out of Laos in 1979. He missed my dad very, very much. He voiced that dad was a very wonderful brother in law and mentor. He had confided in dad on various occasions and issues.

We talked about how dad had my Aunt's (mom's sister) house completely rebuilt. My aunt's house was completely burned down in a fire. She and my uncle had 7 children. Dad completedly paid for the entire house to be rebuilt. Dad hired Unlce Phoukham to manage one of our ranges and purchased a motorcyle for him as well after he graduated from high school.

Both Mom and dad had never been closed fisted with their money and resources. They hired a single mom with two children in our town to attend to the daily needs of our house. I still remember visiting the make shift house on stilt where they were living. And Of course there were two gentlemen dad had asked to be a live in help at our ranch.

Mom and dad carried out their philanthropy work faithfully and purposefully. Yearly, their donations to the town's temple were very sizable. They very often hosted a big ceremony and a parade as part of the ritual in giving to the temple. Often these gathering last for 2 - 3 days with foods and important guests who contributed to the giving. When the town needed a soccer team and a coach, dad not only funded the team but coached the team as well.