Comfort food from Puerto Rico: Spanish Soup

People have been asking my wife Tina for her "Spanish Soup" recipe. I checked the copywrite laws and found that recipes can be shared, it's just the description of the product that is copy-writable.

So here is a copy of the recipe without the description.
Enjoy!

We are trying to eat a more Mediterranean diet than before and I think it is improving our health.

How Bad Do You Want that Fish?

If you want fish bad enough, you will find a way to get them. These Sri Lanka fishermen did. Shouldn't those of us who are called to be "Fishers of Men" find a way to make it happen as well?

In Puerto Rico where we serve as missionaries, we often have to wait for what seems a very long time for someone to finally accept Christ as their Savior, be baptized, join the church, become disciples and then take their place in helping our church grow. But we have learned that patience all by itself doesn't make that happen.

We find that, like the fishermen of Sri Lanka, we have to go where the "fish" are, and do everything we can do first, before we can expect our patient waiting to be productive.

What is to be done first? Go. Extend yourself. Have something to offer of value. Offer it. Patiently bring the fish in. Have a plan on what to do with it and a place prepared for it when you get one. How can all this be done? Fortunately, your Bible will tell you just how to do these very things.

We have seen a book called "The Fisherman's Bible." Fortunately for Christian fishermen, our "Fisherman's Bible" is the Bible itself! The Real Bible. I say that gives us a real advantage. Also, our fish don't stink! The longer we keep them the sweeter they get!

Jackie Evancho's Missionary Encouraging Song "I Believe"

The Uncle of Jackie Evancho, child singer, just wrote a great song that touched my heart. When Jackie sang this song for her uncle in church, I felt that she did more than just sing. I felt that she unveiled the heart and compassion of God.

The song is about having a sharing, caring heart and reaching out to troubled people with God's hope and help.

The songs lyrics are simple, profound and sweet, containing child like wishes and prayers to God for peace. But the faith of a child is held as precious in the Kingdom of God and we are to have just that kind of faith.

I praise the Lord that an older missionary like me can be encouraged to do his missionary work by this simple song, sung by a child.

I'm Getting Tired of "I Love Jesus, but Hate Religion" Talk.

I am getting tired of all that "I hate religion, but I love Jesus" talk. It sounds like people who date but never marry. They want the benefits of a relationship, but without the responsibility.

Religion is just an orderly organized way to carry out the responsibilities of a relationship with God. If you don't care to do that, do you really have a relationship?

Something to think about.

God has the World in His Hands. What is in Yours?

You know that children's church song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands?"

Well, He put some of it into our hands.

It's time we did our part to reach this world for Christ.

Audio Update: The Prelgovisk's in Puerto Rico

A deacon I served with a few years ago provided me with a nice portable recorder so I could begin posting missionary activity, lessons and even Bible College classes on line.  I thought I would give it a preliminary trial here and give an audio update.

The Prelgovisk's in Puerto Rico- 21 Oct 2012

Buy Something for Yourself and Help a Missionary

Do you sometimes want to get yourself a nice present but also wish you could help a missionary or your church? Well, there is a way you can do just that and still get yourself that special something.

We have been granted permission to receive 4% of any product purchased from Amazon.com, as long as the person gets to Amazon from a link in our blog articles or from the search bar you can see on the right hand side margin of this web page.

As this Christmas season approaches, we hope that you may enjoy the fruits of your labors and find contentment in the blessings the Lord has sent your way. But while seeking to please yourself and your loved ones, please take a second to consider the missionaries far from home. If you plan on getting anything through Amazon, please do it from our web page here so we might share in a small portion of your Christmas cheer.

Proper Pride

This is Roger, a student I taught and watched grow through his years at our Bible College here in Puerto Rico. Now he is teaching others!

 The fruits of missionary work may seem small to some, but there are great blessings if you keep at it for enough time.

That is one thing I see a lot: blessing for longevity, perseverance and faithfulness.

Missionary Home Repair Help Needed

I recently found a bulge in the living room ceiling. A short time later, it burst and

soaked the arm of our sofa. Up the ladder we went to inspect our typical Puerto Rican roof. The roofs here are flat, made of cement and used as an extension of the house. We have our air-conditioning units, solar water heater and a 400 gallon water cistern sitting up there. What we don't have is good roof protection that will resist our hot sun and hurricane season climate.

We had put a lot of work and spent some money last year painting it, but the product we used just wasn't up to the job.

We had three different people come out and show us their products and give us an estimate. The last and best offer we got was for over $6,000, but after some haggling, we got it down to $5,500.

The product we settled on is the same kind of roof protection a lot of concrete stores use on their flat roofs in the USA. It is a very reflective white and looks like it will help reduce air-conditioning costs as well as seal our leaky roof. It is called "EPOX-Z." It is a mixture of two chemicals that harden into a kind of flexible plastic that adheres well to the cement. It has a 10 year guarantee, which I REALLY hope means that we won't have to spend every summer pressure washing and repainting our roof for quite a while.

We are keeping an eye on the men applying it, but desire your prayers for this project, so that the workers would deliver and apply their product as advertised.

A dry house, free of wet furniture and mildew is important to us. The expense is difficult , but it is a necessary one. If you could help us defray the cost of this missionary home repair project , we would appreciate it.

Fiery Motivation for Missions

What Fire?

Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?
Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?
Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED? 

The poem and the fiery message below are from: "Why Revival Tarries" by Leonard Ravenhill

America cannot fall - because she is already fallen! This goes for Britain, too. She cannot go into slavery - because her people are fettered at the moment in the chains of self-forged, self-chosen moral anarchy. Here are millions, diseased morally, with no longing for healing. Here are men paying for shadows at the price of their immortal souls. 

An unprecedented tidal wave of commandment-breaking, God-defying, soul-destroying iniquity sweeps the ocean of human affairs. Never before have men in the masses sold their souls to the devil at such bargain prices. "There is none. . . that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee" (Isa. 64:7). What hell-born mesmerism holds them? How does the spell bind? Who brainwashed them? Why don't they wake and stir themselves? If the Church had something vital and victorious to offer, these men who choose golf clubs by day and night clubs by night, they might be drawn from these fleshpots. 

This is an hour in need of burning hearts, bursting lips and brimming eyes! If we were a tenth as spiritual as we think we are, our streets would be filled each Sunday with throngs of believers marching to Zion - with sacks on their bodies and ashes on their shaking heads, shaking at the calamity that has brought the Church to be the unlovely, unnerved, unproductive thing that she is! 

If we wept as much in the prayer closet as devout Jews have done at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, we would now be enjoying a prevailing, purging revival! If we would return to apostolic practice - waiting upon the Lord for apostolic power - we could then go forth to apostolic possibilities! This is the hour when we are asked over and over again, "Is everybody happy?" God's purpose for us is not happiness, but HOLINESS!