Dear Friends, Towards the end of the gospel reading from Luke 24 for Sunday we hear our travelers reflect, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" v.32 What will set our hearts on fire again for our Lord Jesus or as someone put it, how to share "a common enthusiasm for the raw relevance of Jesus...God's priceless Son!"*

Dear Friends at New Covenant,

Here are a number of incredible servants of grace I met island hopping the past couple weeks. Their faithfulness and the light of our Lord shone brightly.

I stared out of my hotel window, some random raindrops hitting the glass. I was looking down on the seriously overcrowded streets of Port-au-Prince I had just left. From one perspective I could see some stately mountains and the Caribbean Sea, but my eyes kept returning to the flood of people walking. I was pretty sure they weren't wearing fitbits or counting their steps, this is the way they live their days, walking.

To all who are doing the Prayer Book Lenten discipline, you might want to expect the unexpected. Drawing closer can be like walking in the dark, and then when the light comes on, there you are face to face, or at least nearer than you expected, to your Savior.

December 23, 2016 Christmas blessings to you all! Sometimes we manage to catch a glimpse of the presence of our Lord. We just know it because what we are seeing is going directly to our hearts. I sometimes think this is His grace letting us see what He sees. That sounds presumptuous but perhaps not when we think of how our God loves to share. When this happens to me, the ambiance of the moment is one of hope, and hope is the air I breathe for sometime after.

Originally sent to the parish via email 11-11-16 Holding hands is huge, isn't it? From the reach atop the Sistine Chapel to two lovers walking down their lane, to symbols of unity, caring, victory: holding hands means a lot, conveys a lot, says a lot. The other Sunday morning our grandson Emmett reached out for hands on the first note of the Lord's Prayer. Barbara saw it and later shared it with me. We both thought it was huge because we saw it as an outward and visible sign that the Sunday morning liturgy was shaping, training, forming, and "recreating"* his soul. And that is huge!

Originally sent to the parish via email September 23, 2016 This is Birsingh (beer sing) In a newsletter a year plus ago, Ivan shared the testimony of a young man named Birsingh. He attended the Mission India Conference last year in Delhi and I recorded his testimony. It is amazing. Here's the brief version.

Originally Sent to parish via email September 4, 2016 Tommy, Barb's youngest of four brothers, and I put our feet up on our wickerish coffee table, and turned on the weather to watch all the swirling chaos. The weather folks really come alive when the tropics perk up. So much more to say than, "Hot and humid with a 30% chance ..." It was day's end for us and was topped off with a root beer and iced tea.