Well now that I've been back for a while......

I just sent out a letter last week to all of the people who are on my mailing list. My mailing list is just the people who get my missions support letters and stuff, if you don't get that stuff and you want to, you can email me at jculp123180@juno.com and I'll add ya, I only send stuff out like twice a year. Here is a copy of the leter I sent out. I couldn't put the pics at the bottom of the letter like I did when I mailed it out, so the three posts below this one are the pics that I had printed at the bottom of the letter.

Dear

Thank you for your prayer and support for my trip to Argentina in July. The trip was a great learning experience for me and a lot was accomplished for God’s kingdom as well.
Miles and Carla Gleaton, the missionaries with whom I stayed, live in the Federal Capitol of Argentina in the province of Buenos Aires. They have five kids: Aaron, Matthew, Kira, Leah and Annika. The ages of the kids range from Annika who is four to Aaron who is fourteen. Miles pastors a church in the city called ‘Rio de Vida’ or ‘River of Life” which has about twenty members. All of the kids go to private schools in the city with Argentine teachers and classmates. Carla stays home with the kids (school lets out around noon) and helps Miles with the church work. The Gleatons will return to the States in January for their first furlough and David, who is Argentine and graduated from a seminary in Argentina, will take over the role of pastor at Rio de Vida.
Because of various circumstances, the Gleatons have gone through five moves during their four years in Argentina; one of those moves was as recent as May/June of this year. I’m sure you can imagine how stressful it is for a family of seven to have to uproot and move to a new neighborhood while also being involved in a church start, and they have done it five times in four years. The house that the family had just moved into used to be an office of some sort and it needed some major work done, but they weren’t able to get it done before they had to move in. Mothers picture this: Five kids, you just moved from a house with closets in every room to a house that doesn’t have a single closet, there’s piles of stuff all over the place that can’t be stored because the only storage available, a small shed on the roof (the roof is like the back yard because they’re in the middle of the city), can’t be utilized because it needs to be painted and shelves need to be built. All of the buildings there are made of concrete which has to be sealed and painted right or else the humidity will ruin the whole wall, and every single wall in the house had to be painted.
Miles had been working on getting the rooms painted, and by the time I arrived the bedrooms and living room were painted, but the patio, hallways and entryway needed to be done. This was becoming a stressful thing for him because the work at the church was starting to take more of his time, but the house needed to be finished also. A major part of their ministry has to do with inviting people over. Because there’s seven Gleatons, it’s hard for people to invite them, so they do most of the inviting, but didn’t feel comfortable inviting people over with the condition of the house.
On my second day in Argentina, Miles started taking me around and showing me all of the stuff that needed to be done, and I had him make me a list. He told me that I shouldn’t feel bad if I didn’t get it all done before I left, because there was a lot of work to do and he didn’t want me to run out. The coolest part about the whole trip for me was when I finished that same list a week before I was set to leave.
People have asked me if I feel like the trip was wasted because it was all work, no evangelism or any real contact with the people besides church on Sunday. My answer to that question would have to be not in the least. Every successful church has the group of people who are always working behind the scenes. These people don’t always get immediate attention for cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming the rugs. I think of people from Cornerstone like Loretta who was there every week cleaning the church, and Stan who spent his free time on the flowers outside. The fact is that these ministries of service are just as essential in furthering God’s kingdom as someone who stands behind the pulpit, and in the end, God gets all the glory. Miles told me before I left just how much he was freed up to focus on his children and wife and on his work at the church, because he wasn’t bothered by all of this other stuff anymore, and to that I say Praise the Lord.
The only reason that I was able to go and do this work is because of all of you out there who prayed for me and gave to help with the cost of the trip, and you all had an equal part in making it happen, because I wouldn’t have been able to go without you. Thank you all for your faithfulness in prayer and your support for God’s work.


Because Christ is Alive!



Justin Culp

PS: The pictures that were in the letter are all here as separate posts, that's the only way that Blogger would let me do it.

Argentina Letter: Picture #1

This is me with the youth from the church after an activity at the mall. We did a scavenger hunt, and passed out tracts. That’s David sitting in front, and Enrique in the back, he’s a seminary student who helps with the church youth.

Argentina Letter: Picture #2

This is me and Matthew. There were a couple of times when I had to have some help. Here Matthew is helping me get some high spots that I couldn't reach (we couldn't put the ladder on the stairs). That's miles behind us painting on the ladder.

Argentina Letter: Picture #3

This is the storage room after I painted it, but before we put in the shelves. I had to cut and fit that pallet to fit in the room to keep some things from getting wet.

PBS Discussion - Evolutionary Fact?

I just finished watching the second part of a two-day special on PBS called "The Question of God." On this show there was a panel of brains who sat around a table and talked about video segments that dealt with CS Lewis vs. Sigmund Freud. There was one part of this discussion that bothered me, and I posted about it on the forums that were set up on www.pbs.org to discuss these discussions. Here it is:

I thought this would be a good place to ask this question since it was in the "Love Thy Neighbor" discussion that the comment was made. Here it is:

"And the answer is that in our long evolutionary history of living with a small community of other people, it's not enough to just fake being a cooperator and a good person..."

Okay, here's my question. I listen to the skeptics who are trying to reason away the existence of God, and there is always one underlying theme. In the discussion about miracles, Shermer constantly talked about how truth needs to be observable, and provable, but then he can make a comment like this that just assumes the truth of the evolutionary theory. There is no proof that this process of macroevolution exists or has ever existed, but it is so widely accepted that everyone just assumes that it is true. Where is the proof? What happened to the scientific method? I hope that someone can give me an adequate reply, because it just seems to me that these 'intellectuals' who accuse Theists of using induction in their reasoning are doing the same thing on a larger scale.

Maybe someone reading this can help me out with a reply.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands

I heard a sermon in chapel today that I thought was totally awesome. The verse that pastor Scott used was this one:

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, (Ephesians 4:1)

The very first thing that a good expositor asks when he reads a verse like this is "What is the 'therefore' there for?" The context for this passage goes all the way back to the beginning of Ephesians:

He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, (Ephesians 1:5)

This word, adoption, creates an interesting picture. The illustration that the pastor gave was that if his parents got to go through a catalog and pick the child that they were going to have, it would have been nothing like the person that he turned out to be. God, on the other hand, adopted us (if you are saved that is) to be His sons (and daughters) even though he knew exactly who we were. He knew all the stuff that I would do even after I was saved, He knows just how black of a heart I have, and He adopted me as His son. On to verse seven:

In Him we have redemption through His blood,

The word "redemption" literally means 'to be bought back.' Pastor Scot gave another illustration for this word. A small boy took a trip to a harbour one day and was fascinated by all of the huge ships. He loved these ships so much that he took pictures of all of them and hung them on the wall of his room. For the rest of that summer, the boy spent every minute that he had making a model ship that looked just like the ones in the harbour. He had every minor detail down to the pins on the railings just exactly like the bigger ones. When he finally finished the ship, he took it to the harbour so he could sail it. He tied a piece of string to his small ship and let the wind blow in the sails while he held the string. Eventually, as he was having fun doing this, the wind picked up dramatically and the string broke. The ship was gone. He spent days and days looking on the shoreline and in other harbours, desperately trying to find the ship that he loved so much. One day the boy was walking in front of a shop, when he looked in the window, there it was! His ship was sitting right there for sale in this store. He ran into the store and told the owner "That's my ship, I've been looking for it all over the place!" The store owner simply shrugged and said "It's mine, I found it." The price for the ship was eighty dollars. The boy worked and worked all year long and by the end of the next summer, he had saved eighty dollars, and went back to the store and bought his ship. As he was leaving, he said to the ship "Now you are twice mine, once because I made you and twice because I bought you."

The rest of verse 7 and verse 8 read:

the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.

God has lavished His grace upon us. The meaning of the word lavished can be seen by the comparison between a mother who measures how much syrup a child can put on his pancakes, and a grandmother who gives the child way more syrup than he needs. God has given us way more grace than we need or deserve.

Let's go back to the original verse:

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, (Ephesians 4:1)

The reason that Paul implores us to walk in a manner worthy or our calling is because God has adopted us, redeemed us, forgiven us, and lavished us with His grace. God's grace should plant in us the desire to serve him better. There was a lot more to this sermon, talking about the different types of vessels we can be (2 Timothy 2:20), and how people who have longed for other things have ended up in lives where they are wasting their gifts, but the point that grabbed me was this passage from Proverbs:

I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense, and behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles; its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, then your proverty will come as a robber and your want like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:30-34)

The sluggard referenced here was obviously someone who had a vineyard. He was supposed to be taking care of his vineyard, and reaping the fruits of his work, but since he was lazy, it was overgrown and worthless. Solomon (the author of Proverbs) uses this vineyard illustration for many things. In the Song of Solomon, the vineyard is an illustration of the woman's body, but here it can be interpreted (even if it is only to draw out the underlying principle) as one's life and relationship with the Lord.

Any believer will tell you that we are not at all perfect, and better never claim to be. Our sanctification (conforming to God's word and character) is a process that will take us our entire lives, and we will still never perfect it until God does it for us. Sanctification for a believer is essential if one is to be useful for God's purpose. This sanctification comes by the prayerful study of God's word, and application of that word to our lives. This is as vital to our Christian life as water is to the life of a flower. The principle of this Proverb teaches that if we grow slack in our walk with the Lord, even just a little bit, spiritual poverty will overcome us like an armed man. The enemy is always waiting for his opportunity, let's not give it to him!