that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,¹⁰ in heaven and on earth and under the earth,¹¹ 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

Notice it says Every knee will bow and EVERY tongue confess — not most, not a lot of knees and tongues, but EVERY knee and EVERY tongue. And when will this happen? At the very name of Jesus, not of the results of a great miracle, or the name of anyone else, but at the name of  Jesus EVERY knee will bow, and EVERYtongue will confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the Glory of God the Father!

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.

 Every time I heard this scripture read, I would also hear 2 Timothy 4:1-2:

“ In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. “

Every time someone (no matter who it was, a speaker or someone in a breakout session) would read Luke 4, I would hear 2 Timothy 4. During the convention I had a chance to talk with Robyn Priest, and I mentioned to her what I was hearing/feeling when Luke 4 was read and I asked her what she thought it meant.

Robyn looked me straight in the eyes and said I knew exactly what it meant and then asked me what I was going to do about it. the back burner for awhile.

Then last November, again at a NMC, this time in Lexington, I saw a booth for Hope University. I went over and talked to a representative and had them send me some information.

Through several prayers I felt God calling me to go back to school. When Dan Asche asked me 5 years ago to be the Ministry Leader for WOM , I never thought I would go back to school or that I would want to go back to school. I never thought I would be the WOM Ministry leader for five years, or that I would want to do this the rest of my life.

But that just shows how God can work and how He has a plan set out for each of us. So, on  June 6, I started my first on-line class at Hope University. My Masters Degree will be in Intercultural Studies with an emphasis on Missions.

I have no idea where God is leading me, is it a position at a sending agency like CMF – to help make people aware of missions and to equip them to go? Or perhaps it is a Outreach Ministry position at OCC or somewhere else. Or perhaps it is just to be a better Ministry Leader at OCC, or an equipper at OCC. Or perhaps it a combination of all of the above or perhaps God has something else in store for me.

To be honest, I am not real sure at this time where God is leading me. But this I do know, ANYWHERE He leads me I will follow, ANYWHERE He leads me I will go.

Unfortunately, many people think we can only celebrate Good Friday and Easter once a year. This is something we can and should celebrate every day. God loved and loves us so much, He sent His son to die so we do not have to. Each day we should celebrate and praise God for what He has done for us.

Could you imagine the excitement the women must have experienced when they saw the angels at the empty tomb. That same excitement we can experience when we realize, the grave is empty. He who was once dead, is alive never to die again.

When we get up Easter morning, or any morning, we should celebrate the empty grave. We should be excited the grave could not hold Him.

Matthew 28:5-6

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Elese – she is married and has three children. Elese received a loan of $106 from the MoHI Microfinance program to support her charcoal selling business. She was able to repay that loan and get another loan for $333 to start a tailoring business that now employees two other women. She has also been able to start saving money.

Elizabeth – a single mother of two daughters. She received a $8 loan from the microfinance program to start a baking business. She now makes enough money to support herself and her daughters. Both of her daughters are now in high school. While we were in Kenya, we had a chance to meet her.

Ann – she has three children. She was referred to the Mission of Hope school where she was able to enroll her children and received a $15 loan from the microfinance program to start a soap business. She has expanded her business to include selling tea leaves and salt for area restaurants. She and her children now live in a stone room in upper Mathare.

These are just some of the success stories of the Microfinance Program create by Mission of Hope International and CMF. In the fight against global poverty, microfinance is a unique weapon in the form of loans given to already created or newly-forming tiny businesses run by the poor themselves. In developing countries, microfinance

• employs up to 70% of the labor force.
• creates work for women, minority groups, and the uneducated, untrained, unskilled.
• provides needed products and services.

To learn more about microfinance and the work CMF and MoHI is doing and how you can help please visit http://cmfi.org/whatwedo/microenterprise.

Now I love reading the whole bible and I know it is the inspired word of God. And there are several verses that really enjoy reading. But if I had to select one or two verses that really speak to me is scripture from the 28^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 5-6.

Matthew 28:5-6 (New International Version)

⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

We don’t serve a god who is dead, who lays in the grave. We serve a risen King. Many times at different sporting events you may see a sign with the scripture reference to John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I think that both John 3:16 and Matthew 28:5-6 need to be read together.

If we tell people that Jesus died for them (and us) we must tell them that he rose from the grave. Jesus is alive. Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him.

The first worship service was 2 ½ hours long – that’s right, 2 ½ hours long. It was comprised of the children who make up the school and was an awesome experience. These children didn’t worry about what time it was or how long the service was, they just worshipped our God unashamedly. The second service was made up of mostly adults and was only 1 ½ hours long.

We are structured in our worship and that is a good thing, but it can be a bad thing as well. Because of having three services each Sunday, we have to make sure each service is only so long. At Joska, they didn’t care how long the service was, or what time the next service started, they just worshipped.

From the heart, we worshipped God. We didn’t care if we had a great voice, or if the person next to us had a great voice – we just sang praises to the King of Kings. We raised our hands in praise; we jumped for joy in the presence of God. Got to believe that is what Heaven will be like, no clocks to say when worship starts or ends, because it will never end. Just unashamed praising and worshipping Jehovah

There we met Wallace and Mary Kamau and were introduced to Mission of Hope International in which Mary is the Executive Director. We saw hope, were others may only see hopelessness. Combining the ministries, it has been simply called Hope Partnership and serves the community by:

• Providing education, clothing, and nutritious meals for the poorest children in the village through the Child Sponsorship program.
• Offering a strong CHE program, including the ongoing training of the CHE evangelists.
• Teaching HIV/AIDS awareness and education, as well as instruction on caring for those living with this disease.
• Sponsoring a microfinance loan program for launching small businesses.
• Offering basic health and wellness education.
• Planting churches, offering family counseling and religious education.

Where the team from Outlook worked was the Pangani Center, one of ten different centers serving over 4,000 children. We did three two-day VBS sessions for approximately 1000 children ranging from 4 years old to fifth grade. We walked through the slum these children live in and how important the work that CMF and t he Kamau’s are doing.

One of the most vital ministries is child sponsorship. Sponsor a child in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, and they will receive an excellent education, as well as food, clothing, medical care, books, and counseling. Many people from OCC sponsor children either in Kenya or in Haiti and that is great. However, we need to increase the number of children Outlookers sponsor.

We have a unique opportunity to help children break out of the poverty they live in. Another slum outside of Nairobi is a slum called Korogocho. This is a slum where CMF is not established anything as of yet, but in talking with the Kamau’s and Keith and Kathy Ham (other CMF Missionaries) it’s just a matter of time.

There goal is to have 120 children sponsored by May of this year, and a center started by September. Outlook needs to be a part of this. Please pray how God can enlarge our territory in Nairobi, and how we can be a part of Gods work in Kenya.

In Laos, Christians have been persecuted since communists seized control in 1975. This is just some of the things Christians around the world endure. Last week we had the National Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  All over the world, Christians are threatened, beaten and arrested for just being a Christian.

One of the best things we can do for our brothers and sisters is to pray for them. Isaiah 56:7 says that God’s house will be a house of prayer for all nations; some translations say for all peoples. We need to prayer constantly for the Persecuted Church.

We take our freedom of worship to lightly. There are many Christians around the world that would love the privilege of going to a church on Sunday morning and openly worshiping Jesus Christ. We sometimes just leave our Bibles on a table until the next time we go to church when some Christians may not even own a Bible.

Let’s not take our religious freedom for granted, and let us remember to pray daily for our brothers and sisters around the world who do not have the same religious freedom we have.

Some of the places we are looking at going are Guinea, Ethiopia, Japan and back to Haiti. We are helping to fulfill the Great Commission by going. Not only do we send money to the mission field, we also send people. We are reaching out to the world to share and show the love of Jesus Christ.

The World Outreach Team recently rewrote our mission statement. Our new mission statement is: We believe in actively fulfilling the Great Commission – making disciples of ALL NATIONS, baptizing, discipling, and teaching everything God has commanded us. We do this by going, sending, supporting and encouraging the Church as a whole to be actively involved in World Evangelism. Missions is not just the responsibility of the WOM team, it is the Church’s responsibility.

We each must be involved in evangelism, both local and world wide. As we send more teams, God asks us to go more places. As we grow, so do our responsibilities. Just because we can seat 800-900 people on a Sunday morning does not make us a great church. I agree with Mike Stachura when he says “The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity. “

I want Outlook Christian Church to be a great church for God. Not because we can seat 800, 900 or even 1000 people. But because we send 800, 900, 1000 people. We need to share Jesus with all peoples. Dave Davidson says “If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn’t it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death.” We have the cure for the most deadly disease ever known to man. The disease – Sin, the cure – Jesus Christ.