How beautiful upon the mountains...

Isaiah 52: 7 "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"

We were so blessed to have Stuart McCallister at our church this past weekend for an apologetic seminar (defending the faith). I was so proud of John, to hear him preach with passion, there is no greater joy a wife can have than to hear her husband speak of Christ!

It was so nice to sit down with Stuart last night and enjoy some Thai food and just talk. He is so down to earth and easy to talk to. He's been all over the world and has an awesome Scottish accent! I could listen to him speak all day! He knows German too. He is so intelligent that when he was preaching I really had to focus and pay attention to understand what he was saying (plus I could ask John about terms that apologists use that I am not familiar with.)

What an honor to be able to say, Stuart was at our church, and even more so to be able to say, and he came over our house! God was so good to us because we put Julia to bed at 7:30 like normal and Mark also went to bed and stayed alseep til way after Stuart left. So the entire time I could focus on being a host and entertaining our guest, although I peppered him with tons of questions about his travels, his family, and his speaking. In the past 6 weeks he has spoken 40 times!! He flew home to Georgia today only to be leaving for Malaysia to speak in 3 days.

I asked him, "Stuart, how does your wife do it?" I would have such a hard time being apart from John so much. He said this is his calling, and that his wife Mary is wonderful because she totally supports him, she also sometimes is able to travel with him since their children are much older, 23 and 25 years old. His wife is also on his committee that decides his schedule of speaking engagements, which also helps, so that he can be home for holidays and birthdays and such.

I could only hope that if God calls John to do what Stuart does, that I would also be as supportive. I can't imagine not seeing him every day.

Well, this was the end of John's project list. Planning and organizing this conference and his own sermon has taken so much of John's time...I am glad it has come to an end and we can enjoy more quality time at home with him. He can now say he spoke on the same panel from someone on Ravi's RZIM team! How awesome is that!!! Ravi is one of the main reasons why John started seminary, after hearing him preach and have such great answers for our faith, John knew God was calling him to study at Nyack. It has really helped him to grow in his own faith and fall more deeply in love with Christ.

Lord, what a blessing you have been to us. Please give Stuart safe travels home and may he and his wife be blessed as they continue to reach out and share the good news of Christ.