A service learning initiative offering teacher education students at Avondale professional experience in another culture chalks up its 21st trip this month. And for the first time, a Pacific island country is the destination. Source: https://wp.avondale.edu.au/news/2020/02/14/moto-milestone/
Inside Story: Inter-European Division ~ Praying Spanish Mother
Praying Spanish Mother
By Rebeca Ruiz Laguardia
As a 10-year-old girl, Pilar Laguardia stared at the starry heavens over Spain and asked herself, “Who created the stars? Do we have a Creator, or are we just the result of chance?”
Image © Pacific Press
This question filled her thoughts for years. She asked relatives for their opinions, but no one could provide a satisfying answer. She attended church services on Sundays, but the sermons about burning hellfire and a tyrannical and vengeful God caused her to drift away from her family’s faith.
An illness nearly killed her at the age of 22. Pilar was terrified about dying without any answer to her question about God.
One day, in anguish, she opened the window and screamed at the sky, “God, if You exist, I want to know you! Help me! Answer me!”
God answered three days later when a Seventh-day Adventist church member, Simón Montón, knocked on the door of her home. Simón invited Pilar’s father, an agnostic sheep herder, to evangelistic meetings, and he accepted out of curiosity. Pilar asked to go along, but he insisted on going alone. Pilar persisted and finally won the argument.
Pilar, sick and weak, entered a Seventh-day Adventist church for the first time in the late 1960s. She heard beautiful hymns and the end-time prophecy of Daniel 2. Although her father never returned after the first night, she attended until the end of the meetings. On the last night, she received a book as a gift, and a church member wrote down her address.
Several days later, a woman visited her at home and offered Bible studies. Through the weekly studies, Pilar received answers to her questions about God. She found calm and peace for the first time.
Pastor Luis Bueno baptized Pilar 10 months after the Bible studies began.
She married at 32, but it was difficult for her to conceive a child because of her health problems. Again, she went to God in prayer — and became pregnant with me.
My mother, pictured, born in the humble home of a Spanish shepherd 73 years ago, is joyfully leading souls in the flock of the Great Shepherd today. I’m thankful to God for giving me such a mother.
Rebeca Ruiz Laguardia lives in Spain. Read about her missionary work in this quarter’s youth and adult Mission quarterly.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org
All Rights Reserved. No part of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide may be edited, altered, modified, adapted, translated, reproduced, or published by any person or entity without prior written authorization from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Amen!
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(1)Friday: Further Thought ~ From Lions’ Den to Angel’s Den
Further Thought: From Lions’ Den to Angel’s Den
Daniel’s deliverance has been recorded in Hebrews 11. What can be called “The Hall of Fame of Faith” says that prophets, among other accomplishments, “stopped the mouths of lions” (Heb. 11:33). This is wonderful, but we should keep in mind that the heroes of faith are not only those who escaped death as Daniel does, but also those who suffer and die courageously, as Hebrews chapter 11 also notes.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
God calls some to witness by living and others by dying. Thus, the narrative of Daniel’s deliverance does not imply that deliverance is granted to everyone, as we learn from the multitude of men and women who have been martyrs because of their faith in Jesus. However, the miraculous deliverance of Daniel does show that God rules, and He will eventually deliver all His children from the power of sin and death. This will become clear in the next chapters of Daniel.
Discussion Questions:
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- Frenchman Jean Paul Sartre once wrote that “the best way to conceive of the fundamental project of human reality is to say that man is the being whose project is to be God”. (Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, Washington Square Press, 1956, p. 724). How does this help us understand, at least at one level, why the king falls for the trap? Why must we all, in whatever our station in life, be careful of this same dangerous inclination, no matter how subtly it might come? What are other ways we might want to be “like God”?
- What kind of witness do we present to others in regard to our faithfulness to God and to His law? Would people who know you think that you would stand for your faith, even if it cost you your job, or even your life?
- What do you see in Daniel that makes him a person that God can use effectively for His purposes? With the Lord’s help, how can you develop more of the same characteristics?
- In what ways could Daniel have been justified in deciding, in light of the decree, to have changed the way he prayed? Or would that have been a dangerous compromise? If so, why?
Amen!(0)
(0)The Christian’s Legacy
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction. Proverbs 3:11.
Do not permit yourself to be discouraged. Do not permit yourself to be provoked, but let intelligent reason control your actions. Inquire what good it would do to be impatient. It would only gratify the enemy and confirm the opinion of those who would think evil of you. You may, by an even course of conduct, prove the words of evil-minded persons untrue. Do not enter into self-defense, but pass along doing your duty with perseverance.
God help you, my son [Edson], to make sure work for eternity. This is your work. No one can do this work for you. Trust wholly in God. Our heavenly Father is mindful of your infirmities. I am thankful that He is acquainted with all our weaknesses and with all our temptations. He knows how to pity us and how to strengthen us if we will flee to Him, the Stronghold, for help. Do not, when your faith is tested, become reckless. Just wait and calmly submit your judgment and your will and your way and be willing to be led.
There is no other way to be saved but that devised by our Redeemer, and of which He has given us a practical illustration in His own life of self-denial and self-sacrifice. You know He submitted to insult, to scorn and mockery without retaliation. When He was reviled, He reviled not again. “I came … not,” says Christ, “to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). We must have the mind of Christ. We must walk in His footsteps.
Those who have lived for others’ good and have had an eye single to the glory of God will win eternal life. Those who will not make exertion, but drift with the current, live for self. They will never hear the “Well done” spoken to them…. Precious souls are to be saved, and we have a work to do to win them to Christ.
Remember that hardships and trials are a part of the Christian legacy. Christ, the Majesty of heaven, came to our world to show us how to bear the world’s rebuffs without fainting or without retaliation. Every trial borne wisely will be a blessing to those who have them. They will lift up, but not cast down. Those who are continually seeking to shirk the hard and stony places but are seeking an easier path, a pleasanter way, will ever meet with disappointment and adversity. But if they brace the soul for trial and for duty, march forward bravely in God, they will find the path of self-denial and self-sacrifice will lead to honor and heavenly riches in the future, immortal life…. Pray much and exercise living faith, and you will surely sing the song of victory.—Letter 24, May 5, 1874, to Edson White.
The Upward Look p. 139
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Prayer Requests
—-Update on my friend’s daughter—Jasmine’s okay. Thank GOD! They had to make a bigger incision than they expected. They had to remove her ovary and Fallopian tube from the left because the tumor had completely engulfed it. They tested the tumor and said it wasn’t cancer but they don’t know what it is. They haven’t seen anything like it. The Pathologist is gonna dissect and test it over the next two weeks and we should have answers then. She’s gonna be in the hospital for a few days for recovery.please continue to pray for Jasmine And Thank you all for your prayers. Becly
—-Please keep a family member of mine in prayers. She’s having some tests done and pray everything is negative and her issues are remedied in a natural way. Her name is Misty. Connie
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Dear Friends,
When Eileen was a little girl, the story of Queen Esther was her favorite story. Every day, she played that she was Queen Esther. When she knew that I was going to have a baby, she asked if she could name her Esther if the baby were a girl. Even as an adult, she still enjoys the story. Indeed, the story of Queen Esther holds many lessons for us today. It shows how God’s plans do not always fit into our plans, it helps us understand the plottings of the evil one and illustrates God’s swift working against our enemies.
When little Hadassah was born, her parents had know idea what her future held. When her parents died, Mordecai, her cousin, raised her as his own daughter. (Est 2:7) Being a godly man, he carefully taught Hadassah according to the admonition in Deuteronomy 6:6, 7. “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” The years rolled on. Hadassah grew to be a beautiful girl spiritually and physically. When Hadassah was taken to the king’s house because of her beauty, their future plans were shattered. No doubt, it was hard for them to understand why God allowed her to be taken to be one of a heathen king’s wives.
Although they could not see the future, God had a plan for Hadassah to become Esther, the Queen of the most powerful kingdom of the then-known world. She became the interceder, the deliverer of her people in a time of crisis. When Haman received permission from the king to destroy the Jews, it was then in that very time of crisis, that all the careful training that Mordecai had given her, helped her to be faithful. How fervently they prayed. How completely they relied upon God’s deliverance. Then, Queen Esther put her prayers into action and went before the king to ask for her life and the life of her people.
Our Great Redeemer gave Esther the wisdom to know just how to approach the king. He worked out events so that the king was so troubled by Esther’s odd behaviour that he could not sleep. He even caused the kings servant to read the very part of the king’s chronicles having to do with Mordecai. Moreover, the Great King of the Universe put it in the king of the Medes and Persians to have the very one who planned Mordecai’s demise the humiliating task of proclaiming Mordicai’s goodness throughout the entire city. “Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and brought him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour. And Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. But Haman hasted to his house mourning, and having his head covered.” Est 6:11,12 Any beyond this, “they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.” 7:10
Even though we may never become a king or queen on this earth, our Great Creator has a plan for our life. Sometimes His plan is the exact opposite from what we had thought the future would hold. He assures us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Isa 55:8, 9; Jer 29:11; 31:3
May we store God’s Word in our heart for we never know what the future holds. May we trust in our Saviour’s leading even though we don’t understand. May we allow ourselves to be used by God for the saving of others is my prayer.
Rose
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rosesdevotional/~3/lNQkbHaBwyM/the-christians-legacy.html
Death of Pastor Roy Edward Hulbert
We were saddened to learn of the death of Pastor Roy Hulbert on 15 January 2020. Roy was born on 24 June 1928 in Watford, Hertfordshire. On 12 May 1954 Roy married Mary (May) Thompson. Their union brought about Gordon who was born in Stirling in 1963.
After finishing school and following his trial as a conscientious objector at the age of 18, Roy joined the staff at Stanborough Hydro in 1946 to do his national service. Among 17 different positions he held there in just over 2 years, he ended up…Source: https://adventist.uk/news/article/go/2020-02-13/491/
