Our New Baby!

Yesterday - Thursday July 29 - at 1:04am Adilee Sue Galdamez was born.  What a blessing!  It's amazing how impatient one can become as they await the arrival of these little bundles.  Shelly and Adilee are doing are doing great.  She came in at 6 lbs, 10.4 ozs, and 20 1/4 inches long. 

It's amazing how choked up I get when I see my children for the first time.  You'd think after six it would be old hat but it's not.  Each of my kiddos is such an individual person and a blessing.  They are great reminders of God's abounding grace to me in Christ.  Now may He draw each of their hearts to see and savor His glory!

~Ryan

Adopting an Unreached People Group

As a follow up to yesterday's post I thought I'd include some steps that our church, or any church, can take as they move toward adopting an unreached people group.  This list is taken from the International Mission Board's website - http://www.imb.org/ - and a link to a more extensive PDF version of this list can be found on their site (click here to be taken to the PDF version).

1. Pray for God’s guidance

2. Discover your church’s natural affinity (DNA)

3. Determine the church’s expectations for adoption

4. Work with church leaders and identify a mission “champion”

5. Investigate opportunities

6. When God directs you to a specific unreached people group, pray and celebrate God’s direction.

7. Communicate, follow through and keep your commitments.
 
Please pray with me as we seek to honor our Lord and win the lost.
 
~Ryan

The Brushes of God's Painting

I have begun dreaming, hoping and praying that our church, Grace Baptist, would move to "adopt" an unreached people group (UPG) in the 10/40 Window (Revelation 5:9) - specifically joining our missionary brothers and sisters in the Pacific Rim.  I would love to see us labor and give by God's grace and not give up until we see a reproducing church planted in each UPG.  Although I have some ideas as to how to go about this, I readily admit that I don't have all that many answers.  Sankie and I met with Jim and Chris last week and talked about this vision and we are all praying that it will come to bear fruit.

The glory of God is the supreme value in all the universe (Isaiah 40:12-31) and we have been created for His glory (Isaiah 43:6-7; 1 Corinthians 10:31).  What a joy and privilege we have to join this amazing God as He saves a people "to the praise of His glorious grace" (Ephesians 1:6).  Take a moment to consider this quote from pastor John Piper which he stated in a message entitled "The Unfathomable Riches of Christ, for All Peoples, Above All Powers, Through the Church."

Picture in your mind a great, wise painter, painting on a huge canvas with many brushes, most of them very ordinary and messy. The painter is God, so you can't picture him. He's invisible. But he intends for his painting to be the visible display of his wisdom. He knows people can't see him, but he wants his wisdom to be seen and admired. His canvas is huge. It's the size of the created universe. I know you can't really imagine looking at that canvas because you are in it. But do your best.

And God is painting with thousands and thousands of colors and shades and textures—a picture as big as the universe and as old as creation and as lasting as eternity—a picture we call history, with the central drama being the preparation, salvation, and formation of the church of Jesus Christ. And he is using thousands of different brushes, most of them very ordinary and very small because every minute detail is crucial in this painting, to display the wisdom of the Painter. These brushes are God's missionaries.

I would add that these brushes also include God's faithful children who stand behind those missionaries through their prayers, financial support, and encouragement.  Please pray with me and Sankie as we seek to move, by God's grace, in this direction.

For His fame,

~Ryan

Hudson Taylor and Resting in Christ

I want to commend to you the book, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret.  We assigned it again this summer for our interns.  As we began to our discussion last week I was again struck by the truth of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ alone and my need not to strive but simply to restfully trust.  Here are a few quotes I sent to my brother in the Lord, Jonathan, as he serves in Ethiopia:

I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation - but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.


But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. As I read, I saw it all! "If we believe not, he abideth faithful." I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, "I will never leave thee." "Ah, there is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?" And, dearie, He never will.


And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you about it, instead of writing. I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ - aye and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and "the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Oh, to live in that conscious reality. The supremacy and sufficiency of Christ alone. I hope and pray that we expereince this type of rest and joy in the reality of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Looking to Him,

~Ryan