Dan and Pris Gollan

The Night the Rappers Came to Town

Sunday afternoon, I went down and collected the three rappers who we invited to “read” for us.  We brought them back to our home, ate lunch with them and then waited around until 6:00.  After watching them interact, I began to wonder if we’d made a mistake inviting them.  They were like teenagers on red cordial.

We left to set up at about 5:00 for a 7:00 start.  During this time, we visited the dorms and discovered that one of the technical colleges was having a long-weekend and only 5 students were in the dorms.  Most others had gone home and would be arriving Monday.  Whoops.  The other set of dorms was full though, and there ended up being over 120 students who came out.  I think I had about 14 guys crammed into the van on one of the trips down!

Igor, Zhenya  and Yarik were amazing.  They obviously love the Lord and that came out in the lyrics of many of their songs.  They were professional and fun.  The students loved it.  And the guys loved it that the students loved it.  I was astounded at how much the students accepted these guys and their music.  I guess the message is the most important thing and I wonder how many of them accepted the message.

Friday night was also a special one as the ladies put on a night of fun and food for about 20 women.  By all accounts, it was a wonderful night where the ladies were shown love in various ways.

Kolya is off to the army offices again tomorrow.  (Did I mention  that he is living with us?)  He has found a good trust in the Lord that will carry him through no matter if the outcome is not as he would prefer.  He is in the picture on the left about to give out a T-shirt.  He was MC for the rap concert and enjoyed himself  immensely.

Here are two pics of Saturday morning.  Mist was coming off the water when we first went out.  Angie is too small for the wet-suits.  She tried one on – David with Saul’s armor.  Too big.  But she went out anyway.  Here she is on the return to the beach on beautiful early water.

Today, I took Jono’s motor from his boat to the mechanic.  It is great that it is so easy now to get a tune up and tweak.  It used to be so difficult to get someone qualified to look at car motors, let alone boat motors.  Tuning up our lives…  who does it?  When?  Why?  I reckon very, very few people over the age of 25 really examine themselves and get with God for character-tune-ups.  We don’t need to.  Life is fine without the trouble and pain.  “Fine”.  I’ve heard of retreats that cater to this… getting rid of “fine” and replacing it with “great”.  I even met a couple that ran a B&B for people who wanted to do this.  But really, I would like to believe that we have enough of a relationship with God now that it happens naturally through our everyday relationship with Him and if this is reality, then special conferences and special retreat B&B’s would be for most people a pleasant extra rather than a necessity.

I remember reading a book about the Welsh Revivals of early last century.  It was an ancient novel, falling apart, with an tattered red cover, about a man whose wife was one of the 150,000-odd who got caught up the revival fervour.  This man quietly believed in God and seemed to have a solid relationship with Him but disapproved of what he thought of as his wife’s excesses of emotion and excitement about the “meetings” and different men who were preachers in the meetings.  He decided that the revival meetings were having a negative influence.  (The book wasn’t denying that the revival was a great blessing.)  I’ve read a lot of books in my life, but this one about the Welsh Revival has stuck in my memory very clearly… as has this verse:  “… act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God.”  God loves enthusiasm and passion.  He also loves it when a man leads a quiet life, acting justly and being merciful and having a real and proper relationship with Him.  Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t complex or full of rules and regulations that if not lived up to, leaves you in the category of “struggling Christian”.  Tune-ups are good and important.  But my often repeated advice is to...  Enjoy God.  Live with Him and simply enjoy the relationship.  It may take YOU to places of much sacrifice.  But it might just as easily take you through pleasant and peaceful gardens for your whole life.  The secret is to enjoy God whatever the case may be and to walk with Him in peace.