Guest Post from Cynthia Alcantara

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 KJV).

As followers of Christ and believers of His promises we often fail to focus on JESUS and focus instead on our present circumstances. We want to walk in faith but this can become a long and narrow path that makes us feel blind, vulnerable and lost. However, all that is required of us to have FAITH!

I recently lost my home when the Bank took it over and sold it at an auction. I had three days to move out and dear friends of mine in Ramona offered me their home for a temporary stay. God gave me PEACE (which is the spirit of JESUS) and I have been living one day at a time. I have learned not to focus on my present circumstances and focus instead on JESUS. This has been a period of greater intimacy with Him! I don’t know all the details but after the Bank sold my home it took it back from the buyer, reduced the amount of my mortgage, modified my loan and is now telling me to move back. I remembered giving my appliances and most furniture away, instead of selling them, because even in the midst of my poverty I wanted to bless others but I never imagined how great was going to be my blessing. I earned $100.00 last month but I blessed a missionary from South Africa and another one from Australia with it and the LORD abundantly multiplied that seed.

We don’t need to know how the LORD is going to move in our lives, we simply need to follow Him, keep the FAITH and die to self! Life is never about us, it is always about Him. The important thing is not to find a purpose for our life; it is to find His purpose for our life as we serve in His Kingdom. May He be increased as we are decreased!

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3 KJV).

Guest post from Lisa Harris

One of the things I love about traveling and living in different countries is that it has widened my worldview and given me a greater understanding into the lives of other people. Because of this, I’m so thankful for the chance to share some of what I have discovered--the people, culture, and setting--through a fictional story.

In February, Zondervan will release book two in my Mission Hope series, Blood Covenant. While the first book dealt with the very real issue of human trafficking, the second is another fast-paced suspense novel set primarily in a refugee camp.

As I started doing the research for Blood Covenant, though, I began to wonder if my readers would find the plot unbelievable. Surely the story of a humanitarian crisis dealing with so many issues—from cholera to measles to rebels—could only be fabricated and would never happen in today’s world. Yet as I read story after story of individual refugees I found myself weeping with them over what they experienced. And I realized that, if anything, I had sanitized my story to make it more believable, because the facts tell another story.

According to the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders, there are forty-two million people in the world who have been displaced by war and violence. You read it right. Forty-two million.

So while the story behind Blood Covenant, including the setting, is fictional, the issue of those being forced to leave their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their back is very real. But in spite of this tragedy, I didn’t want to stop the story there. Drawing from my own experiences across Africa over the past twenty years I tell a story that goes beyond the adversities to give readers a message of hope.

Here’s more about the story from Zondervan’s website.

“From the explosive first pages, Lisa Harris weaves a tale of heart-stopping suspense and adventure with her second book in the Mission Hope Series.

When fighting erupts between government forces and renegade Ghost Soldiers deep within the Republic of Dhambizao, thousands are forced to leave their homes. Dr. Paige Ryan, who works with Volunteers of Hope International, is sent to lead a team to set up a refugee transit site—where the immediate needs for shelter, water, sanitation, and food are critical. Nick Gilbert, a bush pilot for Compassion Air, joins the team to help fly supplies in and out of the area.

With the refugee camp already experiencing overcrowding, raids, and uprisings, a group of American mountain climbers is attacked by the Ghost Soldiers. Paige’s medical team responds immediately, rescuing survivors and taking them into the camp. When it’s discovered that one of the trekkers is carrying an infectious disease, the harrowing conditions of the camp are forgotten.

In desperate need of vaccines and the Ghost Soldiers blocking the only road out until their demands for amnesty are met, it won’t be long before the disease is out of control … and there is nowhere to run.”

For more about life in Africa, stop by my blog, http://myblogintheheartofafrica.blogspot.comr or my website www.lisaharriswrites.com.

To watch the video go to: http://player.vimeo.com/video/18967279

She Had No Name--a Guest Post from Kay Marshall Strom

The Price of a Slave

Enormous eyes in a bony-thin face, and a baggy green dress that dragged the ground. Because of all the cast-off children at the village school in India, this raggedy girl stood closest to our translator, he gently asked her, “What is your name?”
The girl stared.
“Your name. What is it?” the translator asked again.
The girl whispered, “I have no name.”
A child with no name. A little girl abandoned so young she could not even remember what her parents had called her. She grew up begging at the train platform, snatching up the scraps harried passengers dropped, watching other children picked off by traffickers. Now that she was seven or eight—perhaps even a scrawny nine—the traffickers had come for her. But the girl screamed and kicked and clawed so ferociously that someone called the police. Someone with clout, evidently, because the police came and pulled her away from the traffickers. Somebody in the crowd shouted out a suggestion that instead of putting the child in jail, the police might take her to the village school, which is what they did. They dropped her at the door and hurried on their way.
Human trafficking, especially sex trafficking, is rampant around the world. We think of it as an eastern European problem, or Indian or Nepalese or Thai. It is that. But it’s also a Western problem. The U.S. State Department estimates between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the Untied States each year, although it concedes that the real number surely is far higher. According to the U.S. Justice Department’s head of the new human trafficking unit, there is now at least one case of trafficking in every state.
The little girl with no name was fortune that someone responded to her screaming pleas. What would you do if you heard a child shriek for help? Of course, if she were a trafficking victim in this country, she wouldn’t be likely to scream or kick. She would probably shrink away in terror, or act submissively. You might see wounds—cuts, bruises, burns. Perhaps what would catch your attention would be the constant work: babysitting, cooking, washing dishes, scrubbing floors—never just being a child. Or maybe you couldn’t say exactly what was wrong—only that something about the child’s situation made you profoundly uneasy.
Please, please, if you suspect a person is being trafficked, call 911 and report it. Yes, it is okay. Yes, even it you are mistaken. In fact, eighteen states require citizens to report possible child abuse or neglect of any kind.
In the 1700s, Quakers led the fight against the African slave trade. In 1885, the Salvation Army took up the abolition banner, and since then it has led the fight against a different kind of slavery. More and more, 21st century abolitionists are followers of Christ determined to see slavery of all kinds ended in our day.
Oh yes… Before I left the school in India, I asked if we might give the little girl a name.
She is now called Grace.


Kay Marshall Strom
The Voyage of Promise, book 2 of the Grace in Africa trilogy
www.kaystrom.com
www.graceinafrica.com
www.KayStrom.wordpress.com

Guest blog on ACFW

Please stop by the ACFW site if you get a chance and read my guest blog about my new fiction series that posted this morning. Thanks so much!

http://www.acfw.com/blog/?p=545

Guest Blogger for Voice of the Martyrs

I had the privilege of attending the Voice of the Martyrs conference on Saturday and was asked to write about the conference as a guest blogger on their site. Here’s the link:


http://www.persecutionblog.com/