Which do you prefer?

Ok so I am in the process of seeing which blog I like better. Plus of this one on wordpress is the great templates…but I can’t add pictures easily like on blogspot. So check out a new possible look for my blog and let me know what you think!! http://thevannsfive.blogspot.com.

Encouragement to Trust in a Sovereign God

I was reading at work today in this book by Charles Swindoll and needing some encouragement due to some thing I was struggling with. I came across these two readings and they (and the Scripture) was very encouraging me to trust a God who knows better than I do. So I thought I would put them here to encourage others who might need it.

Take Life as it Comes:

The only way we can come to terms with reality–is by trusting God, regardless. No ifs, ands or buts. If I am a farmer and God allows a flood to come and wash away my crops or God chooses to give me the beautiful season rains and a bumper crop, I trust Him and I give Him praise. If I am in industry or some profession and someone throws me a curve and God allows my whole world to be reversed, I turst Him and I give Him praise. I take life as it occurs. I don’t waste time in the pit of doubt. Nor do I worry over crop failures and strikeouts. We can’t wait for conditions to be perfect. Nor can we wait for things to be free of all risks–absolutely free, absolutely safe. Instead of hoarding, we are to give and invest. Instead of drifting, we are to pursue life. Instead of doubting, we are to courageously trust.

God’s Way is Right:

“Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting Rock.” Isaiah 26:4

God’s way is always right. It doesn’t always make sense–in fact…it is often mysterious. It can seldom be explained. It isn’t always pleasurable and fun. But I have lived long enough to realize His way is always right…

I believe that not until we embrace God’s sovereignity will we have the ability to reason our way through life. Until then we will be too important in the plan. Man’s opinion will be too significant to us. And we will churn and wrestle and struggle our way through this Christian life, trying too hard to please people rather than living it relieved and relaxed in His plan.

Love,

Heather

Baby Boom

So I finished by thesis finally yesterday and returned to the land of people rather than that of ideas and concepts. I have been living in that world for the past couple of weeks. It was a labor of love and I gave birth to what I hope was a work that will allow me to walk that stage and get my diploma this December! And speaking of babies…

Does anyone else find that everyone they know just had a baby, is pregnant, or is trying to get pregnant? I am amazed that almost every week I find a facebook notification of a new friend or acquaintance who is announcing they too have a bun in the oven! I’m not saying that I am not so excited for all of those people and that I’m glad people are for family and babies rather than themselves, but it seems like we are in a baby boom once again!

As Austin and I talked about this, we could attribute it to several things that have happened in the last few years such as 9-11 and the war in Iraq. People are seeing the things that are really  important…family be one of them! Plus, look at Hollywood…it’s almost trendy and popular to be pregnant and be a mom. That wasn’t the case a few years back. Pregnancy is not seen as settling down and being a boring mom…you are cool now! There was even a contest recently that a magazine did about hot moms. Now you can be a mom and still be considered attractive and even hot. So here’s to the moms out there–those who already are and those who are about to be!

A special congratulations to my sister in law Kim, who gave birth to a baby girl yesterday!

Writing till your fingertips ache!

Ok so I am writing my Master’s thesis for my seminary degree and I am desperately trying to get some sympathy for my writing pains. It is so difficult and I write all day long… The thing is that this is the third semester I have had to write my 80 to 100 page thesis. When I remember that, I think what a lazy bum…you better get this done or you are just seriously ridiculously undisciplined! Of course, my first semester of writing began just as I was getting engaged and planning a wedding at the end. I was working full time and well, it just got put off. So I thought for sure the next semester would bring great motivation as a newly wed. I always heard that married people became better students. Well Austin and I moved three times before the semester was even up and my books gathered dust and I seriously wondered if I would ever graduate. So this was the semester. I even got a discount on the continuance fee because of my wonderful father-in-law who is a seminary professor. This summer passed quickly as I jotted a few pages, but nothing substantial.

So here I am at the week and a half mark and I feel as if I’m on a writing marathon that I have not trained for. I have a plan, but I’m unsure if my hands will just give up in rebellion of typing one more word on the page…so maybe I have convinced you to give me some sympathy or maybe I have just caused you to never want to attend any school where you are required to write that much! Whatever the case…if you could pray because seriously these finger tips are going numb even as we speak!

The Vision

The vision is Jesus – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus. The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism. They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crust on Tuesday. They wouldn’t even notice. They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and the dirty and the dying.

What is the Vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

This is an army that will lay its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “Well Done, faithful sons and daughters.” Such heroes are as radical on Monday mornings as Sunday night. They don’t need frames from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again, “Come on!”

And the army is disciplines. Young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed?Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation PRAYS like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulfurous tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Whatever it takes, they will give.

Breaking the rules. Shaking the mediocrity from its cozy little hide.Laying down their rights and their precious little wrings, laughing at labels, fasting essentials.The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them.Peer pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries. They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside. On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like a costume to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or popularity? They would lay down their very lives – swap seats with the man on death row – guilty as hell. An electric chair for a throne.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days. They pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them. Their DNA chooses Jesus. He breathes out, they breathe in.

Their subconscious sings. They’ve had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centers. Don’t you hear them coming?Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here comes the frightened and forgotten with the fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden. And this vision will be.

It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking “Amen!” from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed.

(Poem written by Pete Greig on www.campuschurch.net)

I thought this was a great thought as we try to encapsulate the vision of reaching all students, on all campuses, in all nations.

Heather

Things you thought you missed…

Austin and I just returned this past week from Atlanta, GA where we were commissioned as North American Mission Board missionaries. We were so excited to get to see family and friends and get away from our busy schedules for a weekend. I do have to admit, that besides those wonderful things, I was most excited about eating!

There is something about the food in familiar places and missing it so much when you don’t have it. Since being in NY I have not had a Chic-fil-a sandwich, an awesome diet vanilla coke from Sonic and some amazing fajitas from a true southern Mexican place. As much as I couldn’t wait to see my family…and all my nieces and nephews, I was secretly planning all my meals and how I could fit eating all those things into our weekend away!

 The week before I got online to see all the Chic-fil-a’s surrounding the Atlanta airport and my brother’s and sis-in-laws homes. I found out that on the website you can actually track from one place to another on your journey how many Chic-fil-a’s and which exits to get off at! Awesome! We were getting in on Friday and Audrea, my awesome sis-in-law, told me we could go to Sonic that night for Sonic drinks! This was looking like an amazing fool-proof plan.

Well, since everyone knows how lovely our air travel system is these days, we didn’t actually make it to Atlanta until about 9pm. I made Austin take me to the close by original Chic-fil-a restaurant…what a disappointment! I got ready to bite into that wonderful toasty bread and into the best chicken sandwich in this hemisphere and instead all I felt was disappointment. I thought it was just that Chic-fil-a. My bro-in-law Alex told me so and he, being a Chic-fil-a operator, I believed him. I had Chic-fil-a three more times that weekend, every time hoping to fill that Chic-fil-a void and NOTHING!! I was not satisfied and now the thought of Chic-fil-a is just not that appealing.

 Oh but of course, I must have a Sonic drink…that will cheer me up from my Chic-fil-a let down. So I order one…(made everyone in my packed out car wait for me to get it) “Diet Vanilla Coke please…make it a large!! I sipped and waited for that cool sweet sensation that I had been longing for. All it tasted like was coke…plain and nothing special. What is happening here?!?! I even had Mexican food on Sunday afternoon with my family and left unimpressed.

I thought I missed all these things and when I had them, I would feel a sense of comfort. Sitting there in Atlanta, all I wanted to do was get back to our little Oswego town. I didn’t care about the plan to get a cooler bag and take tons of Chic-fil-a with me or my secret wish that they sold the vanilla Sonic syrup somewhere. That’s when it hit me…I’m where I am supposed to be. God has called Austin and I right here for this time. I don’t want to be anywhere else. It was so good and refreshing to see friends and family, but our home is right here. Thanks God for the lesson in being content and knowing I am in Your Will alone!

What I’ve learned so far from marriage…

Granted I have only been married just over 8 months, but already I have learned a ton. First, I have learned that I am married to one amazing man–amazing and patient! He has shown me grace and love when I really didn’t deserve it. He loves me more than I could have ever imagined. He takes care of me when I’m sick and puts up with my spoiled bratiness at times…ok a lot! I’ve learned a lot about myself…somethings I like and some I really dislike. I’ve learned a lot about God too, about grace and mercy. God doesn’t treat us as our actions deserve. Not saying that Austin is perfect, but many times he has been a physical representation for me of a spiritual reality. He has taken on my debt and mistakes, he protects me and gives me undeserved gifts. He encourages me, but also corrects me in a gentle way. I’m proud of Austin as I see him stepping into challenging roles of starting a church, dealing with criticism, and telling people about Jesus. I’m so blessed that I have someone who compliments me in my weaknesses and allows me to compliment him in his weaknesses. He respects my gifts and strengths and pushes me to be even better! I don’t say all this enough, but being married makes me a better person and shows me even more who God is!

I’m done with it!

So after much affirmation from friends and family and my mom who some-what jokingly said, “throw those pills away, I want grandchildren!” I have decided to stop taking birth control pill for good. I threw them away and tore up my prescription. I am at peace with that! I was blown away by so many of you who said either you had never heard that before or had never heard it when you were on the pill before! My job now is to educate others. I’m at least committed to let those who are on the pill or thinking about it to check this research out and make the decision. As I sat at the computer screen the other night doing my research, I had this huge wave of emotion come over me. I was sad and felt a bit of loss. I cried…I know I’m not guilty of what I didn’t know, but I should have researched better. Austin lovingly hugged me and said he was sorry he didn’t do a better job of taking charge of this and helping to research as well. It was sweet and he was very very supportive of this decision. I’m so blessed to have such a wonderful husband!! Keep your responses to this issue coming because I think it is something that we have been sort of lied to about as Christian women and our culture has gotten a hold of many of us in this area. I’m also even more thankful for a God who gives us this beautiful intuition to know when something is not right and who is gentle in teaching us!

Can Birth Control Pills Cause Abortions…

I am now working part-time at the Pregnancy Care Center in Oswego that is a Christian ministry based organization working to care for those with unplanned pregnancy and give them the skills to make the choice to carry their baby to term. I was watching a training video and came upon the statement that Birth Control Pills could be considered abortifacient which means it can cause the unknown abortion of a baby. Being that as Christians our definition of life is that which begins at conception, could I be unknowingly aborting a life?  Conception takes place in the fallopian tubes and then descends down into the uterus to be implanted in the endometrium. What I was not told or aware of was that birth control pills don’t just keep you from ovulating, but they also have two other functions. If you do ovulate, which can happen in a “breakthrough ovulation” while on the pill, it also keeps the cervical mucus from being very conducive to sperm (jock block). But what I did not know, and really concerns me is that if those two functions of the pill do not work, there is a third function which make the lining of the uterus thinner and less likely for a embryo to lock onto…thereby aborting the embryo. What have you all heard about this? I’m linking this article I just read by Randy Alcorn who is a known evangelical pastor and has done many research on this because he and his wife had used it early in their marriage and he has counseled engaged couples to consider it rather than other contraceptives like the IUD which have already had this same claim put on it. So here it is…let’s dialog! http://www.epm.org/articles/bcp5400.html.

Heather

Being a Barbarian

I have never felt that I fit into the normal Christian culture. I felt as though I was a misfit–like many of the thoughts I had were too outside the box. I had been scared to voice my opinion except to those I found who were misfits like me. I have always wondered why I chose to do the “different” thing. Even as a child, I wasn’t into cliches. My friends weren’t always the same race or from the same type of background…I was attracted to different. In college I felt called to missions, but none of the standard places people wanted to send me would do…I ended up in Colombia despite the tears of my mother and the warnings of ministry leaders. People told my mom she was basically a bad parent for letting me go…what could she do, her child was a barbarian at heart! I left my senior year of college to head off to New York and people again wondered why…even I wondered why. By that time, I was under the influence of a more civilized Christianity. I was taught to be safe and be responsible. I fell in love with Africa when I went last summer. I loved their raw ways of doing things and living life. I’m not trying toot my own horn here. I believe there are many others like me out there. They want something more…raw and passionate. They are tired of sanitized Christianity and being taught to live out some Christian version of the American Dream. You can have it all…the house, 2.5 kids, a great stable job and good, nice clean friends. I don’t want that! Something must be wrong with me.

Fortunately for me, I married a true barbarian at heart! And here we are…being misfits again. Our hearts are aching for something different. We found our home among the misfits and barbarians here in Oswego, NY. The students we have met are excited to do something new…to reach out to the hurting, the dirty, the homosexuals, the drug addicts and artists and musicians. They have piercings and drive motorcycles but no one has messed them up yet by telling them to be more civilized. These students love Jesus and they want to see people changed. They want to love people and not judge them. To tell them the truth, but to imitate Christ more than imitating a religion or a denomination.

We’ve recently been reading this book by Erwin McManus called The Barbarian Way. It is incredible. I read it in a few hours. I was captivated because finally someone was saying what my heart said and my mouth always wanted to. You can be who God called you to be…free! Free to worship God and free to love others and free to not fit into the typical church mold. He talks about how Jesus never fit into the religion of His day and how we are not called to a safe life, but one of adventure and risk. The barbarians were the ones that eventually ran out the Roman empire. They weren’t considered “proper” soldiers, but they had a heart to give it all to live out freedom and give freedom to others. I want that kind of faith…the kind that risks it all for the sake of Christ and others!