God Is My Provider

God continually blows me away by how He can provide beyond what we ask or even imagine. As a small school, we don't have a gymnasium of our own, so we have always had to rent one for our sports teams to practice in. And it has always been a struggle to find available, affordable space for practices. For years, the boys and girls teams have practiced in the same gym at the same time for only a few days each week, sharing all the equipment. Obviously this is not even close to an ideal situation, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Until this year...

As the athletic director, one of my biggest priorities was to find alternatives to this one gym. I tried several different options, but each was met with rejection. But after quite a bit of prayer, God opened a door for ICS in a big way. Our first breakthrough came in the form of a Korean elementary school. Normally schools don't rent their gyms out, especially to foreigners, but this particular school had a principal who really wanted to build relationships with foreigners in order to share with them a part of Korean culture that he was very passionate about (Korean Turtle-boat making). And because of this, he was eager to rent his gym to us, and the cost of the gym was.......$10/hr!

You can't begin to imagine my elation when he told me this. $10/hr for a gym is absolutely unheard of in Korea! And the only stipulation he put on this was that he be allowed to come to our school and teach us how to make Korean turtle-boats (which look totally awesome and I'd want to learn how to make anyway). You can bet I left that meeting praising God.

A few days later, I went and visited a place called the Paengsong. This was a brand new facility and had a really nice gym, but we hadn't been able to use it for volleyball because there were badminton nets set up for the entire length of the gym. Now the natural solution of "take the nets down for our practice and set them up when we're finished" may have come to your mind, as it did mine, but we had been told that they weren't willing to do that because the nets took a lot of effort to set up. So as I walked into the office of the Paengsong to speak with the man in charge of the gym, I wasn't feeling too hopeful.

When I asked him if they would take down the nets for our practice, he answered, "No." However, a few minutes later, that "no" changed to a "let me see." A few days later, we got a phone call, and the "let me see" had turned into a "yes." So today I went there again to fill out the paper work, and not only are we getting the gym for practices, we also can use it for our home games in November, but it's FREE. No rental fee, no electricity fee, absolutely FREE!

So to summarize: Two gyms, with exactly the availability that we wanted, and an absolutely unbeatable price. GOD IS GOOD!

Days of Elijah

As I help the chapel team pick out songs and practice them each week, one thing I try to do on a regular basis is talk with them about the songs we're singing. If I can help them to really understand the meaning behind the words, then I think the songs will resonate more with them and make it more meaningful. This particular song, Days of Elijah, is one I learned in high school. I've always enjoyed singing it because it's upbeat, and there are lots of recognizable scripture references in there, but I had never really thought about what the song was actually saying until just recently.

These are the days of Elijah

Declaring the Word of the Lord

And these are the days of your servant, Moses

Righteousness being restored

And though these are days of great trial

Of famine and darkness and sword

Still we are the voice in the desert crying

Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

Behold He comes riding on the clouds

Shining like the sun at the trumpet call

So lift your voice, it’s the year of Jubilee

Out of Zion’s hill salvation comes

And these are the days of Ezekiel

Dry bones becoming as flesh

And these are the days of your servant, David

Rebuilding a temple of praise

And these are the days of the harvest

The fields are as white in your world

And we are the laborers in your vineyard

Declaring the Word of the Lord

If you had asked me a month ago what this song means, I would have said something about Jesus returning and people being set free. And that's part of it, but there's so much more to this song than what the chorus is saying.

In the days of the prophet Elijah, the land was suffering a famine, King Ahab had turned the entire country away from the Lord, and Elijah, the last remaining prophet of the Lord, had a death sentence on his head. Yet even in the face of famine, darkness, and sword, Elijah stood against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, calling on the power of God to remind the Israelites who was LORD. And when they saw God consume Elijah's altar with fire, they fell down to the ground, crying, "The Lord is God! The Lord is God!" (I Kings 18:20-40)

In the days of Ezekiel, God brought Ezekiel to a valley filled with dry bones. He commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that the Lord would cause muscle and flesh to cover them and breath to enter them so that they would come to life. (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

This song is about more than just Jesus returning, it is a call to evangelism. We may be faced with situations like Elijah's, where we face hostility and persecution for sharing God's word; or we may have opportunities like Ezekiel to share the gift of eternal life with people who have never heard the Gospel. Whatever the circumstance, we are commanded to preach the word.

People need to hear the Gospel, but how can they hear it unless we tell them?

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." (Matthew 9:37)