Create Stone Memories

At Sonlight's recent employee refresher, I spoke on our need as a company to "collect stones"--to reflect on the past and the way we've seen God at work in our lives. I referenced Joshua 4:4-7, when the Lord blocked the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross over on dry land. Joshua told twelve leaders to each take a stone from the Jordan river bed and to stack them as a memorial to what the Lord had done.

I believe God wants us to remember His good works toward us. I recounted for the Sonlight team provisions in past years that I wanted us to remember and be thankful for. Sonlight's provisions range from inexpensive rent on a garage at our start-up in 1990 when we were with the U.S. Center for World Mission in southern California, to Fed Ex stepping in to ship our packages during the devastating UPS strike of August 1997, to various ways God helped us acquire our home office. I challenged the team to recognize God's acts on our behalf, to record them, and thus remember His care for us.

I believe we need to do something similar with our families. God wants us to recognize His works in our behalf, and to rehearse them to our children. In the book of Joshua, God had the stones piled up so that when children saw them, they would ask their parents what the stones meant and the parents could speak of God's faithfulness.

A stone from our family's past: when John and I moved with our mission agency to Denver, we hoped to purchase our first home. But, as a couple on missionary support, we did not qualify for a loan on our own. God led us to our current home which included one of the last assumable loans in Denver. With the assumable loan, we did not have to qualify for a loan on our own. We took over the loan and moved in. About a year later, the interest rates dropped. With a year of payments on our record, we refinanced at a very low rate. We take our home as part of God's provision for us. We have watched our children grow up here and we are still in that same house today, 18 years later.

Another example of God’s provision? This year He protected my daughter Jonelle and her baby Natalia during heart-wrenching pregnancy complications. He spared both their lives and gave us yet another testimony of His hand at work. In the same vein, we praise Him for the birth and protection of each precious grandchild of ours.

I would like to encourage you to 1) think through some of God’s unique provisions for your family, and 2) write them down and share them with your children. They may be able to come up with some of their own "stones" as well. I think you will find it time well spent!

Please feel free to share some of your stones here on my blog so we can all celebrate together.

Treasure Indeed

Recently, the Sonlight management team met in a retreat to plan and prepare for the coming year. One of the questions Wayne, our general manager, asked was, "What was the best, most strategic thing that we accomplished this past year?" One team member responded, "The Rice Bag Project."

The Rice Bag Project sought to inspire children of Sonlighters to collect loose change to educate illiterate women in India. None of the money collected impacts Sonlight's business in the least (unless, for some reason, someone takes offense and decides not to buy from us in the future). So, the comment intrigued me.

As I mused on it, however, I came to the conclusion that I think he is right.

One of our goals at Sonlight is to raise up kids with a heart for the world. And this project does so as it inspires kids to think about their world in a new way. Most of us have never met a person enslaved by illiteracy. And to change a life with handfuls of change collected as families builds unity. And, as our kids sacrifice to give, I can't but believe that their hearts are changed. For Jesus said, "Where your treasure is there your heart will be as well."

I pray that, if and as you participate in the Rice Bag Project, your children's hearts will be impacted for eternity.

As I've prayed for this project, I've been struck by the comparison between our children and the boy (notice the age) who sacrificed his lunch of five loaves of bread and two fish (John 6:9ff). Jesus took the boy's willing sacrifice and multiplied it to feed 5000 people.

I pray that our children's willing offerings also be greatly multiplied to change the lives of many women (and, ultimately, their families), all for the Lord's great name.