Christmas Newsletter 2005
It’s that time of year again! Everyone is getting into the spirit of the holidays. Shopping malls are crowded with shoppers buying gifts for friends and family. People are excited and looking forward to that time when gifts are exchanged and then opened to reveal that special something that someone gave them. Everyone smiles and says thanks for the gift, it’s just what they needed! In the short span of an hour or so, all the “just-what-I-needed”gifts are packed away and all thoughts return to food and fellowship. Within a week or so, the just-what-we-needed gifts become some of the many things that make up the vast array of things in our lives. We soon find out that the just-what-we-needed does not meet the need at all. Our greatest need is for something that cannot be met by anything external. Our greatest need is that gift which is not soon forgotten after the spirit of the holidays has passed and life is back to normal. “Just what we need” is that gift which reminds us of what Christmas is all about.
Most people (at least at this time of year) would tell you that the greatest gift is what God gave to humanity over 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem. Jesus was born in a stable to a young girl. Since that event, the world has never been the same. The evidence of that event touches every part of our culture. It may be ignored, but it’s there. Christianity has made the greatest impact on our world like nothing else.
God gave us His Son. But what does that mean? It means “the Word became flesh.” It means God came into our world to live in our towns and to walk on our streets. He became incarnate man in our world to fulfill God’s plan of salvation for humanity. But let’s not forget that it means so much more than God becoming flesh. The Word becoming flesh carried with it “just the gift humanity needed.”
John writes in his gospel that “…the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).” God became flesh. Jumped off His throne in heaven, came down to earth with the greatest gift of all! Grace and truth! And He was full of it! Grace and truth may be common, everyday words spilling forth from our vocabulary, but here it speaks of “just what humanity needs.” The word “full” speaks not only that Jesus was full of grace and truth, but so full that it overflowed and touched everyone around Him.
John the Apostle probably would have enjoyed the Christmas Season as much as we all do. But I’m sure he would be quick to remind us that we live in a modern world that has, in its thoroughly materialistic worldview, sought to ignore the greatest gift of all. He would remind us that perhaps the most important difference between Christians and non-Christians is that the greatest gift of all flows through us into our world. We are agents bringing the gift of grace and truth. God’s plan of salvation begins to unfold when we embrace the gift of grace and truth and then allow it to spill out into the lives of others.
So when the hustle and bustle has died down, the tree has been taken down, all the “just-what-I-needed” gifts are put away, the real “reason for the season” is alive and well flowing through us into the lives of others every moment of every day. We carry this gift with us each day of our lives. Life will probably return to normal for most of us after the holidays, but it doesn’t have to. Nothing is normal about a supernatural gift from God that will change the lives of everyone around us if we allow it. My prayer at this time of year is that we will not allow the busy-ness of the coming year to rush into our lives with a force that would hinder the constant work of God’s gift of grace and truth.
Joel
Would you like the opportunity to participate in the Mission work in the DR??
One of our concerns here is the need of repairs to a lot of our churches, pastor’s homes, elementary schools, etc. Most of the W&W teams come with enough money to do large projects that are needed; however, there are many needs that only require a few hundred dollars. For example, churches with roof problems, damaged windows/doors, or no security bars, something that is very necessary here. Others, such as the pastor’s homes, need painting and minor maintenance and repair to kitchens and bathrooms.
Because so many of these projects across the island require less money and aren’t necessarily big enough to require a team, we have begun a system of taking care of these repairs on a continuing basis.
We have established an account at the World Mission office in Kansas City called “Faulk’s Work Projects.” This is an account where anyone who would like to help us take care of these small projects can send any amount of money to this account and we will receive it here and use it to help churches and schools.
If you are interested in helping by contributing financially to these projects it would be greatly appreciated by the Dominican people and churches. Contributions can be made as a one-time gift or on a monthly basis, and can be done as an individual or as a church. No amount is too small! God will increase!
You can mail to:
Mission Corps
Attn: Nancy Firestone
6401 The Paseo
Kansas City, MO 64131-1213
*Be sure to mark your contribution: “Faulks work project-DR”
If you would like to know more about this, we’ll be happy to answer any of your questions. Email us at: faulks4him@yahoo.com
A note from nancy:
For well over a month now, the strains of Christmas music have been heard playing throughout our home. One of my favorite CDs is ‘Handel’s Messiah’, with my favorite song (second only to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’) being ‘He shall feed his flock’. It was composed from the passage in Isaiah: …“he tends his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young…” (Isa. 40:11)
I cannot remember a time in my life when the concept of being cared for, cherished and loved, guarded and guided by my heavenly Father was so valuable to me! He has carried me, prodded me, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d me and taught me so many things this year!
What a picture in Isaiah, of our Savior and Shepherd, tending us as lambs! I don’t know about you, but I need a Shepherd. I don’t know my way, and in a world that is changing so rapidly around us, decaying in its morals and standards, denying Jesus Christ and His power, I don’t want to stumble around trying to find my own direction. I would much prefer to be nestled up close to the Father’s heart, in His arms, trusting Him to shield and guard me and direct me in the paths that I should go!
2005…. Is it really coming to a close? But it just began….
Our family is reflecting on His goodness in our lives this year. We are completing our first 12 months in the Dominican Republic as Work and Witness Coordinators for the Nazarene church in this country. Our lives have been enriched and embellished with so many new experiences, relationships, cultural lessons, challenges, and blessings! We have enjoyed the work of hosting teams, building buildings, leading ministries, and have seen lives impacted and changed, formed many cherished friendships, worked hard and leaned on the Lord.
What a powerful God we serve! We are children of the King of Kings, and Christmas is a time to celebrate that! John 10:10 says: “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” We can live in abundance every day of our lives, confident that the Christ of Christmas, our Shepherd, holds us in His hands! Our hope and prayer for each of you this Christmas season is that you will experience a little more of the abundant life that Christ brought to earth in the form of his own humanity, a life totally yielded to the will of the Father, modeling for us how we can live victoriously!
Our family is doing well.. Lauren, Kristen and Jillian are home-schooling this year through Highland Heights Academy based in Okmulgee, OK. They are really enjoying their time together, as this is Lauren’s final year of high school. They have always been close, but I have seen their friendship and respect for each other grow and deepen this year.
It is a joy to see them growing in their walk with the Lord and maturing into independent and strong young ladies.
They also stay busy outside of their academics, with involvement in puppet and music ministry in various churches and neighborhoods. Lauren has had the opportunity to teach English one day a week at a Nazarene school, as well. She comes home physically exhausted on Monday evenings, but is thoroughly enjoying this experience, as her hope is to major in elementary education, with an emphasis in Spanish. Joel and I have really enjoyed getting to know the job of Work and Witness Coordinators. Albeit some of it has been learned by ‘trial-and-error’, we are confident that God is working here, to build His church, and we are happy to be on the ‘front-lines’! Thank you to all of our teams who ‘came, saw and conquered’ this year! The kingdom work continues to progress here, thanks to your sacrifice and support! Our prayer is that God will use us for His glory, not only to build physical structures, but to help strengthen the church here spiritually, as the body of Christ. We are enjoying being part of the local congregation at San Geronimo church of the Nazarene here in the capital.. The church in the Dominican Republic has its share of onslaughts by Satan, just as in other cultures. One force that we have encountered, that is battling for the hearts and minds of the people is the state of marriage. Being married involves two separate ceremonies; a civil and a church wedding,, with legalities and festivities that cost the couple money that most of them do not have. For this reason, it is widely accepted that many couples do not marry.
One of the Christian ladies said ‘there are three kinds of marriages. One with a civil marriage and a church wedding and a fiesta (a complete marriage, recognized by the state, church, and couple as marriage) Second,. a civil marriage (not complete). And third,. living together without civil or church wedding.’ Sadly, number three, in many cases, has become the norm.
Consequently, when marriages are inevitably faced with trials and troubles, the equally accepted practice is that the man leaves to go out and (usually) start another family somewhere. As you can imagine, this wreaks havoc in society.
Thousands of children are born into abject poverty with no hope of knowing who their father is or ever forming a solid relationship with a father figure. Children of the poor are often abused physically, sexually and even abandoned at early ages, during the day, by young hopeless mothers. We see it every day. Many of the children rarely smile. They don’t seem to form comforting relationships with each other. Life is about survival. They desperately need a Shepherd!
Will you help us pray for these people, that the Christ in us will speak to the despair and need in their lives, offering hope and life through salvation? The only way we know to reach them, is to be available to them. And so, here in Pueblo Chico, (our barrio) we greet them with smiles and small talk, pass out candy to the kids, nurse ‘bo-bos’ at the gate, or offer medicine and advice for caring for a sick baby. We visit with them on their front porches, offer homemade goodies, play catch in the street, hand the water hose through the fence when they ask for a bucket of water, and basically share Jesus every chance we get. Last night, our family went caroling, making certain that as we handed them the Christmas goodies, we reminded them of the ‘razon verdadera’ (the ‘real reason’) for the Christmas season!
Thank you for making it possible for us to serve the Lord here in the Dominican Republic. Through your sacrificial giving, your prayers and always your love and encouragement, we call you our partners in the work here. We simply could not do what we do without you!
Be sure and visit our family blogspot periodically throughout the year, to receive updates on our family and work.
www.faulks4him.blogspot.com
May our Shepherd, the One who came, lived and walked among us, laid down His life for us, His sheep, then was resurrected and reigns victorious today, fill your life with His peace, His passion, His purpose!
Serving your brothers and sisters in the DR,
Joel and Nancy, Lauren, Kristen and Jillian
Most people (at least at this time of year) would tell you that the greatest gift is what God gave to humanity over 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem. Jesus was born in a stable to a young girl. Since that event, the world has never been the same. The evidence of that event touches every part of our culture. It may be ignored, but it’s there. Christianity has made the greatest impact on our world like nothing else.
God gave us His Son. But what does that mean? It means “the Word became flesh.” It means God came into our world to live in our towns and to walk on our streets. He became incarnate man in our world to fulfill God’s plan of salvation for humanity. But let’s not forget that it means so much more than God becoming flesh. The Word becoming flesh carried with it “just the gift humanity needed.”
John writes in his gospel that “…the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).” God became flesh. Jumped off His throne in heaven, came down to earth with the greatest gift of all! Grace and truth! And He was full of it! Grace and truth may be common, everyday words spilling forth from our vocabulary, but here it speaks of “just what humanity needs.” The word “full” speaks not only that Jesus was full of grace and truth, but so full that it overflowed and touched everyone around Him.
John the Apostle probably would have enjoyed the Christmas Season as much as we all do. But I’m sure he would be quick to remind us that we live in a modern world that has, in its thoroughly materialistic worldview, sought to ignore the greatest gift of all. He would remind us that perhaps the most important difference between Christians and non-Christians is that the greatest gift of all flows through us into our world. We are agents bringing the gift of grace and truth. God’s plan of salvation begins to unfold when we embrace the gift of grace and truth and then allow it to spill out into the lives of others.
So when the hustle and bustle has died down, the tree has been taken down, all the “just-what-I-needed” gifts are put away, the real “reason for the season” is alive and well flowing through us into the lives of others every moment of every day. We carry this gift with us each day of our lives. Life will probably return to normal for most of us after the holidays, but it doesn’t have to. Nothing is normal about a supernatural gift from God that will change the lives of everyone around us if we allow it. My prayer at this time of year is that we will not allow the busy-ness of the coming year to rush into our lives with a force that would hinder the constant work of God’s gift of grace and truth.
Joel
Would you like the opportunity to participate in the Mission work in the DR??
One of our concerns here is the need of repairs to a lot of our churches, pastor’s homes, elementary schools, etc. Most of the W&W teams come with enough money to do large projects that are needed; however, there are many needs that only require a few hundred dollars. For example, churches with roof problems, damaged windows/doors, or no security bars, something that is very necessary here. Others, such as the pastor’s homes, need painting and minor maintenance and repair to kitchens and bathrooms.
Because so many of these projects across the island require less money and aren’t necessarily big enough to require a team, we have begun a system of taking care of these repairs on a continuing basis.
We have established an account at the World Mission office in Kansas City called “Faulk’s Work Projects.” This is an account where anyone who would like to help us take care of these small projects can send any amount of money to this account and we will receive it here and use it to help churches and schools.
If you are interested in helping by contributing financially to these projects it would be greatly appreciated by the Dominican people and churches. Contributions can be made as a one-time gift or on a monthly basis, and can be done as an individual or as a church. No amount is too small! God will increase!
You can mail to:
Mission Corps
Attn: Nancy Firestone
6401 The Paseo
Kansas City, MO 64131-1213
*Be sure to mark your contribution: “Faulks work project-DR”
If you would like to know more about this, we’ll be happy to answer any of your questions. Email us at: faulks4him@yahoo.com
A note from nancy:
For well over a month now, the strains of Christmas music have been heard playing throughout our home. One of my favorite CDs is ‘Handel’s Messiah’, with my favorite song (second only to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’) being ‘He shall feed his flock’. It was composed from the passage in Isaiah: …“he tends his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young…” (Isa. 40:11)
I cannot remember a time in my life when the concept of being cared for, cherished and loved, guarded and guided by my heavenly Father was so valuable to me! He has carried me, prodded me, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d me and taught me so many things this year!
What a picture in Isaiah, of our Savior and Shepherd, tending us as lambs! I don’t know about you, but I need a Shepherd. I don’t know my way, and in a world that is changing so rapidly around us, decaying in its morals and standards, denying Jesus Christ and His power, I don’t want to stumble around trying to find my own direction. I would much prefer to be nestled up close to the Father’s heart, in His arms, trusting Him to shield and guard me and direct me in the paths that I should go!
2005…. Is it really coming to a close? But it just began….
Our family is reflecting on His goodness in our lives this year. We are completing our first 12 months in the Dominican Republic as Work and Witness Coordinators for the Nazarene church in this country. Our lives have been enriched and embellished with so many new experiences, relationships, cultural lessons, challenges, and blessings! We have enjoyed the work of hosting teams, building buildings, leading ministries, and have seen lives impacted and changed, formed many cherished friendships, worked hard and leaned on the Lord.
What a powerful God we serve! We are children of the King of Kings, and Christmas is a time to celebrate that! John 10:10 says: “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” We can live in abundance every day of our lives, confident that the Christ of Christmas, our Shepherd, holds us in His hands! Our hope and prayer for each of you this Christmas season is that you will experience a little more of the abundant life that Christ brought to earth in the form of his own humanity, a life totally yielded to the will of the Father, modeling for us how we can live victoriously!
Our family is doing well.. Lauren, Kristen and Jillian are home-schooling this year through Highland Heights Academy based in Okmulgee, OK. They are really enjoying their time together, as this is Lauren’s final year of high school. They have always been close, but I have seen their friendship and respect for each other grow and deepen this year.
It is a joy to see them growing in their walk with the Lord and maturing into independent and strong young ladies.
They also stay busy outside of their academics, with involvement in puppet and music ministry in various churches and neighborhoods. Lauren has had the opportunity to teach English one day a week at a Nazarene school, as well. She comes home physically exhausted on Monday evenings, but is thoroughly enjoying this experience, as her hope is to major in elementary education, with an emphasis in Spanish. Joel and I have really enjoyed getting to know the job of Work and Witness Coordinators. Albeit some of it has been learned by ‘trial-and-error’, we are confident that God is working here, to build His church, and we are happy to be on the ‘front-lines’! Thank you to all of our teams who ‘came, saw and conquered’ this year! The kingdom work continues to progress here, thanks to your sacrifice and support! Our prayer is that God will use us for His glory, not only to build physical structures, but to help strengthen the church here spiritually, as the body of Christ. We are enjoying being part of the local congregation at San Geronimo church of the Nazarene here in the capital.. The church in the Dominican Republic has its share of onslaughts by Satan, just as in other cultures. One force that we have encountered, that is battling for the hearts and minds of the people is the state of marriage. Being married involves two separate ceremonies; a civil and a church wedding,, with legalities and festivities that cost the couple money that most of them do not have. For this reason, it is widely accepted that many couples do not marry.
One of the Christian ladies said ‘there are three kinds of marriages. One with a civil marriage and a church wedding and a fiesta (a complete marriage, recognized by the state, church, and couple as marriage) Second,. a civil marriage (not complete). And third,. living together without civil or church wedding.’ Sadly, number three, in many cases, has become the norm.
Consequently, when marriages are inevitably faced with trials and troubles, the equally accepted practice is that the man leaves to go out and (usually) start another family somewhere. As you can imagine, this wreaks havoc in society.
Thousands of children are born into abject poverty with no hope of knowing who their father is or ever forming a solid relationship with a father figure. Children of the poor are often abused physically, sexually and even abandoned at early ages, during the day, by young hopeless mothers. We see it every day. Many of the children rarely smile. They don’t seem to form comforting relationships with each other. Life is about survival. They desperately need a Shepherd!
Will you help us pray for these people, that the Christ in us will speak to the despair and need in their lives, offering hope and life through salvation? The only way we know to reach them, is to be available to them. And so, here in Pueblo Chico, (our barrio) we greet them with smiles and small talk, pass out candy to the kids, nurse ‘bo-bos’ at the gate, or offer medicine and advice for caring for a sick baby. We visit with them on their front porches, offer homemade goodies, play catch in the street, hand the water hose through the fence when they ask for a bucket of water, and basically share Jesus every chance we get. Last night, our family went caroling, making certain that as we handed them the Christmas goodies, we reminded them of the ‘razon verdadera’ (the ‘real reason’) for the Christmas season!
Thank you for making it possible for us to serve the Lord here in the Dominican Republic. Through your sacrificial giving, your prayers and always your love and encouragement, we call you our partners in the work here. We simply could not do what we do without you!
Be sure and visit our family blogspot periodically throughout the year, to receive updates on our family and work.
www.faulks4him.blogspot.com
May our Shepherd, the One who came, lived and walked among us, laid down His life for us, His sheep, then was resurrected and reigns victorious today, fill your life with His peace, His passion, His purpose!
Serving your brothers and sisters in the DR,
Joel and Nancy, Lauren, Kristen and Jillian
posted by Kristen | 1:59 PM
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