Plodding Along

William Carey is called the Father of Modern Day Missions. He was one of the founders of the Baptist Mission Society. They were a group of pastors and theology students who committed to work together. They committed to collect funds together to send missionaries. John Thomas and William Carey were elected to go to India.

While there, William Carey suffered extreme hardships. There were fires that destroyed his translation, his wife lost her mind, he buried children, and he was kicked out of English controlled area forcing him into the Dutch controlled Serampore. To make things more plain concerning his hardships, it was over seven years before he baptized his first convert!

Can you imagine, working for seven years without anything to show? Let’s be clear, getting conversions is not the goal of missions – the glory of God is the goal. God is glorified if people are converted or not. But let’s also be clear – God is glorified when men who are dead are made alive, when spiritually blind men are given sight.

Carey received much fame for his work in Serampore. Even today his story inspires others to follow his famous saying, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” Don’t be fooled, Carey did amazing things. He was an absolute trailblazer. When he was reflecting on his life, he knew someone would one day write a biography about him. He told his nephew, “Eustace, if after my removal any one should think it worth his while to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.” What was the mark of Carey’s life? He persevered. Regardless of what difficulty came his way, he plodded through.

How could Carey plod through such difficulty? How could Carey keep his faith through trial after trial? Did he have amazing gifts? Maybe, but most linguists say he was not that gifted as a linguist. Was he a super duper Christian? Maybe, but the Holy Spirit living in him is the same in me and you. What was it?

In order for us to know the power behind Carey, we need to go look at the beginning of his mission work. Right after the forming of the Baptist Missionary Society, Carey went to each man involved and got them to commit to the work. Andrew Fuller remembers the moment this way,

“Our undertaking to India really appeared to me, on its commencement, to be somewhat like a few men, who were deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine, which had never before been explored. We had no one to guide us; and, while we were thus deliberating, Carey, as it were, said, ‘Well, I will go down if you will hold the rope.’ But, before he went down, he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us at the mouth of the pit to this effect, that while we lived we should never let go the rope. You understand me. There was great responsibility attached to us who began the business.”

The strength to plodding hard ground is not in the exceptional qualities of the individual but on those petitioning God on behalf of the individual. Missions is never dependent on us. Missions is God’s work.

So seek Him. Hold the rope. If you are one of our “rope holders” thank you. If you want to become a rope holder, email us at kerrfamily@reachingandteaching.org

Greetings!

I hope everyone is doing well. We had a very busy January and we have been very busy so far this February.

We began the New Year by traveling to Panama City Beach, FL where I preached at a youth camp. The camp was a great time to preach to teenagers from the book of Philippians. After the camp, we spent several days with Katie’s family. We were blessed to celebrate Hannah’s first birthday with her family.

The next week I went to Louisville, KY for class and Katie remained in Mobile, AL with her family. I was challenged and encouraged by my classes on the history and theology of missions. The big take away from class is the term missio Dei, the mission of God. Missions is not man’s idea. In fact, before we ever thought of missions, God was already on mission (missio Dei) to redeem mankind for Himself. Being involved in missions is joining in the grand plan of God! What an encouragement!

As soon as class let out, I was on the road to Mobile, AL. I slept several hours before driving Katie and Hannah to Grand Isle, LA. I preached twice Sunday morning, once at First Baptist Grand Isle and then forty five minutes north at a Crosspoint Church. We really enjoyed our time on the Bayou. The people there may be difficult to understand as they mix English and Cajun but what is clear is the love they have for one another. Their love was evident to us as we were able to eat meals with them (genuine Cajun gumbo, it was absolutely delicious) and the support for those we were privileged to see several baptized at Crosspoint Church.

As a quick aside, let me say thank you for the encouragement we received in Louisiana. It is always encouraging to see people joining with God in the missio Dei. The great folks of FBC Grande Isle have a missional mindset and have helped to support the new church Crosspoint Church. God is working through the people of Crosspoint as they begin to share their faith with others on the Bayou!

After worshiping with both churches on Sunday, we got much needed sleep before heading back to Alabama. On the way, I was able to speak to several pastors at the Bayou Baptist Association. We shared about Reaching and Teaching and Ecuador. We are thankful for the opportunity to speak to them and look forward to working with several of the churches in the association. The pastors really have a heart to reach the Bayou for Jesus.

So our January ended with traveling over 3,000 miles, 6 sermons, 2 doctoral seminars, Hannah’s first birthday, and some really good gumbo! Speaking of Hannah, while we were gone, she began nodding her head “yes” and “no,” as well as signing “please” and “thank you.” She is a joy to watch grow up. I have hesitated sending this update letter out because she is just so close to walking! As I type this, she is using a walker and coming to me. And now… she is doing laps around the house!

February has been a great month meeting with several churches and people. We are well on our way to being fully funded. We are at this moment, a little over 60% funded for our monthly support! We are so thankful for everyone’s support.

If you would like to partner with us financially, all gifts are tax deductible. You can visit www.reachingandteaching.org/give and follow the prompts, just make sure you put “James and Erica Kerr” in the drop down menu (Erica is Katie’s legal name).

Here is a picture of Hannah is watching the monkey exhibit at the zoo. I would try to share a picture of her and the walker but she is going too fast!

I am a lifelong Patriots fan but we do have a sense of humor, Hannah is pictured with her very own air pump to make sure the footballs are just right :)

God gave us beauty for ashes, joy for our sorrow!

January 5^th. It was a Sunday morning.  In the matter of just a phone call, our lives changed drastically.  We excitedly got ready and rushed to the hospital.  The birthmother we had been working with had given birth to a baby girl.  She was here.  Our daughter had come!  We drove as fast as we could to get to her.  We finally got to see her, and hold her.  The hope swelled in our hearts.  Our Elizabeth Hope, which means our God has made a covenant of hope, had come! 

January 5th will always be a special day for us.  A day that reminds us of so much hope, our Lord’s healing and provision, much suffering, and even greater joy.  We had the privilege of being Elizabeth’s parents for six long wonderful, beautiful, painful, hurtful, days.  The Lord had ordained for us to love her with all of our hopeful broken hearts for the six days he granted her to us and we will be forever grateful!

At the end of those six days, our time as her parents had ended.  Our birth mom decided to place Elizabeth with another family.  We were heartbroken…utterly gut-wrenching heartbroken.  It was the worst trial we have experienced in our marriage.  I didn't understand.  My heart was so broken it felt as if it was ripped out, tied to a heavy anchor and dropped in the bottom of the ocean.  I asked James, “What good can come from this?” Isn't our God a God who loves his children and loves the orphan? We were trying to do the right thing.  Why were we suffering?  Why did we have to lose our daughter?  Our hopes and dreams for our daughter had vanished.  We didn't know where she was going.  We just knew she was no longer ours. 

But our life isn't ours either.  We belong to God.  He is our heavenly Father.  He understood our grief and pain.  Our God knows that pain and grief of losing a child.  He knows the pain of separation, in a much deeper way that what we were experiencing.  Our God could grieve with us.  We have a great High Priest who understands our suffering.   We knew God loved us.  We knew God had a plan, but we didn't understand.  We didn't want to suffer.  But praise be to God that he allowed our loss of Elizabeth, because through our deep pain and loss, we grew to know our loving Heavenly Father even deeper.  We understood more of his love, of his grace, and of his mercy. 

I can only imagine what God was thinking that night as we drove home without Elizabeth.  We couldn't see the future.  We didn't know what would happen.  But our gracious and loving father had a plan.   In our suffering, he brought great joy and provision.  And as January 5th approaches, I can be grateful for the outpouring of love, provision, grace, and mercy that our loving God so freely gave to us as we grieved during our loss of Elizabeth. 

That dreadful Saturday night as we returned our Elizabeth, God already had a plan to work in a huge and mighty way.   He portrayed himself through all parties involved in our failed adoption.  We experienced so much grace and compassion from the agencies and our attorney. God sent a friend to come and sit with me as I rocked our sweet Elizabeth for the last time. My sister and mother sat with me and helped me care for her as we knew we had to give her back.  They wept and cried and grieved with us.  They served us.  They loved us.   My friend, mom, and sister cried with me and prayed with me as I bathed her and got her ready for her journey to her new family. My family was there. My friend was there. But most importantly, God was there.   

That night, after we returned our Elizabeth, some of our friends showed up to love us and grieve with us. Each couple had experienced great loss and grief in their lives.  They knew what we needed to hear.  They knew when to sit and be quiet with us.  As I looked around that night at my beautiful friends who carried scars, God gave me hope.  God healed them.  He could heal me too.   They gave us such a gift as they grieved with is in our darkest hour.  These friends showed us a picture of the deep love of God.  They grieved with us! We are bonded with that beautiful, glorious bond for life. 

But God wasn't done.  Only God could work and move in such a mighty way.  Our sweet Hannah had come into this world! She needed us and we needed her!  Her birth-mother wanted her to go to a Christian family.  The director from the agency was praying that God would bring our child to us.  Within minutes she received the call about our sweet Hannah.  She said that God spoke to her heart. She knew that Hannah was our child.

The next day as we cried and prayed and worshiped at church, we got the call…the most important, glorious, most wonderful call we have ever received! Our sweet Hannah was waiting for us.  She would be our daughter if we would be her parents. We were scared.  All the “what ifs” were running through our heads.  We prayed that if she was to be our daughter that God would work and move to allow us to be her parents.  Little did we know, he was already at work. Our God is sovereign!  The next few hours God generously provided and made a way for us to go and bring our daughter home.  Our weeping lasted for the night but our God had already been at work to bring joy in the morning. 

It was a Sunday night. We were on our way to bring our daughter home. We were scared about the possibility of facing loss again.  We prayed that this time we would meet our forever child.  We prayed and knew that we would pursue and fight for our daughter with all of strength, will, and hearts.

As we were driving, James wanted to discuss names.  I was so scared and afraid. I was still grieving our failed adoption.  My heart broke that I wasn't there to love and comfort Elizabeth.  My heart broke that I wasn't there to love and bond with Hannah in the hospital right at that moment.  My heart was so troubled.  My heart was so heavy. But then my husband and our sweet Pastor (who went with us so we wouldn't be alone…I know he and his wife are amazing!) reminded me that God loves Elizabeth and Hannah and He was there with them.  God loved and loves them both more than I can imagine.  He was and is big enough to care for them.  God’s grace was and is enough for them.  God’s grace was enough for my torn but hopeful, and broken but joyful heart. 

In spite of all of this, God did place a name on my heart. That afternoon in the busyness of preparing to leave the name resonated within my heart.  I knew that this would be our daughter’s name.   I was scared to even say it out loud…Was this real? Was this really happening? Were we really going to meet our sweet daughter and bring her home? 

Then James shared the name that God had placed on his heart…Hannah Joy, the same name that God had given me all afternoon!   We would be meeting our sweet and precious gift from God very soon!  Her name means God’s favor or grace and to rejoice.  We certainly were humbled and in awe of our God working and moving in our life and Hannah’s life to be her parents.  She is our beautiful, wonderful, precious gift!  We love her with a deep, fierce, forever, grateful love!

The next day we met our beautiful gift from God!  The moment we met her, God placed so much joy and gratitude in our hearts!  We were incredibly blessed to share our first moments with her with my dad, and our pastor.  We were able to share our joy with them, which was an amazing gift! From the beginning, she has brought so much happiness.  God began to heal our scars and our hurts through his love and mercy.  We are incredibly blessed to call her our daughter.  When we look at her, we are reminded of God’s deep love for us.  He is our great healer.  He is our hope and our salvation!

Part of me wishes that I could say I am completely healed from all the pain that we experienced from Elizabeth, but part of me is relieved that God is still working on me and healing my heart.  I have realized this year that my God is a loving and gracious Father who can be trusted.  The Lord continues to show me that Hannah belongs to Him.  He is her creator and sustainer of life.  I must trust that God loves her more than myself and more than I can fathom or imagine.  I’m grateful for the scars that God has healed with his loving mercy.   Those scars remind me that He loves me and He is in control.  He is good and I can trust him, even when my circumstances want to scream something different to me.  He alone has to be my true source of hope and joy.  It is then that I can breathe, trust God, delight in Him, and enjoy my husband and my daughter, two of the most precious gifts that God could have ever given me!

We are so blessed by the outpouring of love God showed us through this time.  Our church family, our family, and our friends were so caring, so loving, so supportive.  They prayed with us, cried with us, rejoiced with us, brought gifts to us, and provided meals for almost a month!  They showed us the love of God within the body of Christ! 

So as January 5th approaches, we choose to praise God.  We praise God for the life of Elizabeth. We pray that as she grows, she will know of Jesus and his great love for her.  We pray that she follows him with her life.  We praise God for the family that he chose for her.  We praise God for the six days that we had with her.  We praise God for his grace and mercy in our grieving.  We praise God for Himself!  In our grief, He is our comfort and strength.  In our joy, we delight and rejoice in him!  We praise God for our brothers and sisters in Christ who prayed for us, loved us, grieved with us, and rejoiced with us!

We praise God because through our loss of Elizabeth, God worked mightily in a glorious way to give us our sweet and precious gift, our Hannah Joy! We praise God for the life of Hannah!  We pray that she will know Jesus and love him with her whole heart!  We pray that she knows God as her Abba Father, her provider, her protector, her comforter, but more than anything we pray that she knows God as her Savior. We pray that she knows how much she is loved and treasured by her creator and by us.  We pray that Hannah knows that our hearts are full of so much joy and gratitude! Out of all the parents in the world, God chose us to be her mommy and daddy!

We praise God that in several days we will have the honor of celebrating Hannah’s first birthday.  We praise God for her sweet and spunky personality.  We praise God for those sweet little fingers that wrap around ours.  We praise God for her sweet giggles that flood our home with so much joy.  We praise God that we are able to experience the world through Hannah…the first time we held her and she looked up at us, the first time we introduced her to our family and friends, her first bath, her first table food, her first toys, her first giggles, her first smiles, the first time she rested in our arms, the first time she patted our backs to show her love for us, her first trip to the beach, park, and zoo, her first Thanksgiving meal, her first Christmas and opening gifts, her first time playing in the sand, the first time she sang and clapped with all her heart in worship time….For all of these firsts, we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude!   We are so thankful that we are her mommy and daddy we have the privilege of sharing life with her.  We are so excited about sharing all of her firsts of life with her! We feel incredibly blessed to call her our daughter.  Our God has made a covenant of hope! He has given us His grace and rejoice!

"Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you."

Psalm 33: 20-22

You can checkout James' sermon about our journey to Hannah and the faithfulness of our God here

The Red Tent

I was asked by a church member to watch The Red Tent. I did not take notes while I watched it, so these thoughts are not exhaustive or comprehensive. Instead, I hope they serve as a good overview of the movie and will guide you as you engage with other biblical movies.

First off, I am traumatized by the number of births and birthing shots in the movie. I physically cringed in one part. Katie and I have adopted and I am sure, if I am ever around for a real birth I will pass out, at least that is my prayer!

The naming of the movie was a definite marketing scheme. I did not read the book and I suspect, the book had more workings of the tent than the movie. With multiple wives and segregation I saw nothing that did not agree with what I have read about such a thing during the given time period. I must note though, that such details are not included in the Bible so it based off of secondary sources.

My main point of disagreement with the story is the inaccuracy to the biblical text. There were two glaring areas. The first is in Dinah falling in love with the Shechem and the slaughter of the town. In the biblical account (Gen 34) she did not fall in love but was “seized” and “humiliated” by Shechem. He did fall in love with Dinah but this was after he raped her. The movie did not show this and the glaring omission left it hollow. The movie did not include Simeon and Levi plundering the city and taking wives which is significant.

The second area which was significantly off from the biblical text is the meeting between Jacob and Esau (Gen 33). Esau came with 400 men in the biblical account not 100 like what the movie said. Also, there was distance between the two groups Jacob made when Esau came. Jacob’s approach to Esau was much different than the movie. While these changes in the story are minor, they are changes nonetheless and serve no purpose.

When watching biblical movies, I am perfectly fine with creative license if it is not in the Bible. To change the story when a detail is clearly listed is pointless to me. However, this is the reason, I liked the grouping together of Dinah and Joseph in Egypt. After Genesis 34, there is no mention of Dinah so I do not believe the truthfulness of her and Joseph meeting in Egypt. But, to think about it and see it in a movie was a rather creative idea.

I liked the movie with the exception of the traumatic birthing scenes. I wish they would have stuck closer to the biblical text. If they would have done so, they could have retained the main storyline. Even though the movie has me scarred for life, I found it entertaining and moderately enjoyable. In fact, Katie and I paused the movie several times to read the biblical accounts and talk about the movie as it went along.

We also talked about the take away from the movie and biblical storyline. The movie had a main takeaway to follow your heart and marry for love. This however, is not the point of the passage in the Bible. The story in the Bible is quite tragic. The story is part of the larger unfolding of God’s plan to redeem mankind through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The actions of Jacob’s sons is horrid. However, God works through such sultry people to bring about his plans and glory. He humbled them by sending them to Egypt and had them face Joseph. Through these wicked brothers line comes Jesus. The plans of God cannot be stopped by the wickedness of man because God is greater than the wickedness.

The story also shows us how much better Jesus is by way of contrast. Simeon and Levi killed all the men in an entire city because their sister was raped. I do not want to downplay the rape but murdering, plundering, and then taking the remaining women as wives is not a just recompense. Personally, I was challenged to let God enact justice because I am prone to overdo it! However, Jesus who was sinless, hung on a cross and pleaded for the forgiveness of the men who were killing him. So while the movie The Red Tent was not completely biblical, let it encourage us to love Jesus more. 

As we finish the holiday season, there are some things I am looking forward to in the coming weeks and months. Normally, I finish off the holiday season with a New Year’s cookout/oyster eating fellowship with my small group. I am looking forward to getting together, eating oysters, and maybe a s’more or two. There is one thing that many people will join with me in looking forward to – the College Football Playoff!

While I am excited to see the playoff and the rest of the bowl games, I am not making my life revolve around them. I saw this video of a David Platt sermon that demonstrates rightly how I view college and professional football. The realization of the worship atmosphere of secular activities started for me when I viewed a concert at the House of Blues.

When I went to the show, I was in a box overseeing the stage at the House of Blues. I am related to the drummer of the headlining band. When the show started, the fans were getting loud with cheering, and as the show got going they did to. They swarmed the front, arms lifted, and swayed back and forth. For me, I saw them and I felt distraught. I felt this way because for them it was worship.

Worship is not just what we call a god and to what we sacrifice but it is to what we dedicate our lives. The crowd had t-shirts, hats, and CDs of the band. They knew their names, all the words to the songs, and even some of their daily activities (stalkers).

Worship to God, the true God is much the same way. We don’t need t-shirts to show our worship but we must dedicate our lives. We need to know the Word and have our daily activities dictated by God.

Let’s all do better this holiday season and bowl season talking about Jesus than a game.  

I walked around a Christian bookstore today. The shelves were filled with Bibles, cards, and many books. As I walked past the aisles of books, I was amazed at the number of books on a heavenly experience by someone. Just as many books were there to instruct the reader about the timing of the end of the world. They were only to be outdone by the end capped displays of books full of messages from God to you, and I’m not talking about the Bible!

I have went to this particular bookstore for fifteen years. I began going to this bookstore whenever I would come home from college and seminary. This store used to have several aisles full of pastoral books and commentaries. Sadly, now there is just one small shelf in the corner of the store for pastors.

Bookstores have one job, sell books, even Christian stores need to sell books. So, why is it that solid books geared around studying the Bible are not selling? I believe it is because we like experiences and always look for short cuts in the Christian life.

Experience sells like nothing else. Disney is Disney because they sell an experience. From a quick survey of Christian books in the store, if we want to sell Christian books, we need to sell our experience. People want to read about someone’s time in heaven, hell, or their own quiet times. I have another suggestion to living through someone else’s experience – make your own!

Get out your Bible. Ask God to help you understand it. Experience Him. 

This will be a short post. I am going to give you a statistic. It is unsettling. There is 1 trained pastor for every 235 people in the United States. Outside the United States, there is 1 trained pastor for every 450,000 people. It was this statistic that opened my eyes to the need of global theological education. I heard the statistic and now I was accountable for it. What can I do? For me, the answer is to go and invest in the lives of indigenous pastors. What can you do? Maybe you need to go too. Maybe you need to partner with us by praying for us on a regular basis. I don’t know but now you are accountable.