mountaintop

Friday i spent around 5 hours with Sister Thrash, with her showing me the almost-completed Lifestyle Center, then lunch, then around 3 hours of shoveling wood chips (supposed to be chips, but is more like “sticks”) into the pickup, then around the azalea bushes.

During lunch at the cafeteria Friday, a lady came up to me and asked if i had some Ellen White book on audio. Taken aback, i replied “yes” with a wondering smile. She said she had downloaded my 1858gc audio off the internet, and listened to it while doing stuff around the house. (She did make me feel puffed a little when she turned to her husband and said “he sounds better in person than on the audio” – ha!) Seeing their enthusiasm for the book, i asked if they would be interested in translating it into Spanish as she is from Mexico and he is from Panama. They looked at each other, then she said “we had just been talking a while back about whether the Lord wants us to translate something else or not. (They just finished “Creeping Compromise” by Joe Crews). So praise God, they said “Yes”, and didn’t even take my offer to pay a little for translation. She is a dentist, and he is a doctor, but without an American license yet, and have just been at Uchee Pines since the start of the year. What kind of timing is that?! Wow! God is so good.

Then in the evening i was given the time, and we covered chapter 32 of the 1858 Great Controversy Between Christ and His Angels, and Satan and His Angels with about 40 people present.

Now the people who have assembled around this campus are quite well-read, and desiring a deeper experience with the Lord, they have moved to this area. So many of them have already read this book, and it would not be unusual if some/all of them raised their voice to object to something or present differing opinions – — but none of that happened. There was a sweet spirit of harmony and oneness in wanting to dig deeper into the words of the prophet, and following what is written there.

On Sabbath afternoon, at 4:30, is was given the time again, this time to cover chapter 30 – “Spiritualism”. This chapter always causes more discussions/contentions/strife than any other, but i went in with a light heart, seeing how God had preserved the spirit of unity the evening before. And i was not to be disappointed. Even tho about half the members were not at the previous study, and there were more adults and highly-educated people among them, there was still a nice spirit of peace and harmony which made my heart sing.

Even the part about what the apostles wrote was “dictated by the Holy Ghost” did not cause any stir at all. That is a first! But after the meeting, two people approached me and asked why that point should cause any division, and i realized that i had not explained it properly to them. Perhaps a little i was trying to avoid divisions? Yes, but i really thot i had explained it…. Probably something that i have experienced so much i projected onto others, while it was there first time to experience such a thing, so they could not easily grasp the significance of the passage. One of these people said that they had thot too that there were small mistakes in the Bible, unimportant to salvation, but in reading this, could see how that was a very shaky foundation, and they thanked me and thanked me for coming to help strengthen their faith.

Amazing things God has done for us.

The evening closed with a good talk with some of the students in the men’s home about the various editions of The Great Controversy, and then discussed one man’s thinking on the 2nd commandment, about not having pictures of Jesus in books.

Sunday i spent the day mowing grass, roto-tilling the small garden, and watching others pull a huge log a couple of miles by heavy-equipment, wondering if the rope would break (it did, twice), and log rolling into traffic and killing everybody….