“Libraries change lives!”

“Writing Competition”

“Write a short story about how libraries changed your life to be in to win a fabulous prize pack of electronic vouchers and books.”

A library is “a room or building where books and other literary materials are kept.”

KAITAIA PUBLIC LIBRARY

According to that definition of the Collins English Dictionary “my room” is small library and our living room is also a small library. Although we don’t have all that many books in our house, we have one book that really changed my whole life. And that book is the BIBLE!

I still remember when the Bible was like any other book on the book shelf. But the time came, when the Holy Spirit, the author of the Scriptures, made the Bible alive for me.

From that time on I went to a Bible school, applied to a Missionary Society, went to Thailand and worked there as a missionary. In 1980 I did more studies at the Bible College of New Zealand, as it was called at that time.

At the beginning of 1981 I joined the United Maori Mission (UMM) and worked in Kaikohe as a missionary for almost 25 years until my retirement.

\Whenever I enter a public library I am wondering if I find THE BOOK OF BOOKS, the Bible, among the many books.

Child abuse in New Zealand is in the news at the present time.

“‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?'” is the question in Isaiah 49:15.

Yes, a mother can forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne!

In the developed world this country has one of the highest levels of child abuse, it says in our local paper today. (The Northland Age, Tuesday, June 28, 2016)

It says there also that children are abused. They are neglected. They are maltreated. Because of that more than 200 children died in the last 25 years. And last year was really bad!

But here is the second part of Isaiah 49:15, “‘Though she may forget,'” says the LORD, “‘I will not forget you'”!

And here is the beginning of Isaiah 49:16, “‘See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.'”

THE CROSS

“I am sending you

Acts 26:17,18

Intr.:

to them

1. to open their eyes and
2. turn them from darkness to light, and
3. from the power of Satan to God,

End:

so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

This is how I described the first we had in New Zealand:

WE HAVE AN OLD CAR,

BUT WE DON’T GO VERY FAR.

WHENEVER WE GO OUT OF TOWN,

WE DO IT WITH A FROWN.

THIS TIME IT’S THE GEARS,

THAT GIVE US LOTS OF FEARS.

I don’t think we had that old car very long, but it was still too long!

“LOVING TO LEARN,

LEARNING TO LIVE,

LIVING TO LOVE”

That is written above the entrance door of the  Bourofaye Christian School (BCS), in Senegal.

“I find more bitter than death

Ecclesiastes 7:26

Intr.:

CHAINS

the woman

1.  who is a snare,
2. whose heart is a trap and
3. whose hands are chains.

The man who pleases God will escape her, …”