February is Black History Month from what I understand and I found all these interesting articles that may or may not be interesting.
"Malcolm Kelly" "top NFL draftee went teary-eyed Tuesday" "the first professional athlete to endorse Mercy Ships." "Being good at football, people think the only words that come out of my mouth is 'touchdown, touchdown!'" Kelly noted. But he hopes that when people hear him instead speak about Africa they will be curious, start researching, and then help."
African American Lives. Vena and I were watching a most interesting documentary on PBS. I normally don't like PBS cause of alot of its other documentaries that are more opposing to most of my views but this one was great. Got to give credit where its due. Highlights that may draw interest: Don Cheadle - Actor who starred as leading role in "Hotel Rwanda" (Great movie by the way) lineage is traced back to slaves of a sovereign native american nation within the US the Chickasaw Nation. Tina Turner - Most all know who she is I am sure. Great, great grandfather becomes a minister of the gospel after the abolition of slavery marrying over 50 African American couples. Chris Rock - brought to tears after finding out about his genealogical roots. Morgan Freeman - finds out that somebody in his line was possibly in love with a white man and finds tombstones with the one in his line and the white man next to each other and a very interesting story there. I also found it interesting that these individuals have also a great black christian history in there genealogies which is sad that christian white men were treating there brothers in christ this way. Now I understand not all were for there were many whites that were against this and that it is a completely different context of time but I am glad that the one side has prevailed by God's providence and I hope we can continually reconcile our racial divides thru Christ not only amongst blacks and whites but all cultures. "thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation"-Revelation 5:9 compare to "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen"-Jesus and speaking of the church those who agree with these teachings of Christ above, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."-Galatians 3:28,29. And for how long??????!!!!!!!!!!! "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."-Ephesians 3:21. So those who agree with Christs' teachings should be of many different types of people for a very long time!!!! Though not perfect as in the days of the New Testament you had issues between Jews and Gentiles and thruout history there have been other issues and in the American church Blacks and Whites so I guess we will be having to continually work at what we should be just as in our own personal lives. But one thing seems to be for sure. God is at work thru His church (though not perfect) in all areas of life as Christ was in the New Testament days and predicted He would be from then on out thus giving great evidence to Christ as being who He claims to be though there is a lot of work to do, none the less there is evidence of work that has been done to build upon starting from the Rock (Peter, Matthew 16:18) in which He said He would build his church till now 2 thousand years later. "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." and "And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it."-Jesus. One thing I noticed Christ never said is that men will not be perfect neither His church. Perfection seems to be only promised to us that otherside of heaven if we trust Jesus so we can't expect perfection here on earth of ourselves or others but we are to be encouraged to follow the good examples and learn from the bad and move on in His truth, love and forgiveness and spread it around to others by standing for His truth and lovingly doing so and in forgiveness toward one another. So God's work in history past, present and future should be encouraging/evidential in that what He said would become of His church has become and is continually and also we can learn from the schisms in history past as recorded in the New Testament and thruout the churchs history of our mistakes as a church to humble us and to not repeat (even though we stupidly do) and of our strengths to be encouraged realizing that any goodness we have is of Him and anything bad is of our sinful hearts. Sorry to soap boax for so long. I will shut up now. :)
Black History Month - I have yet to check this out fully but should be good.
Very interesting story line. First Article titled "Pastor from Nigeria Who Built Megachurch in Ukraine Expanding Reach into U.S.". "megachurch founded 13 years ago by an African immigrant in the predominantly Orthodox Christian country where racism is pervasive"....now a "30,000 member church" in the UKRAINE!!! " "Its pastor, believes God's Embassy can be a model worldwide." and then says "His next stop in his bid for global reach is the United States. He says "America is fast becoming a mission ground again."!!!! Watch how this church began founded by a Nigerian in the UKRAINE of all places and how this church played a key role in the political revolution in the Ukraine.
You may find Rufus Morris Jr.s' (an ex rapper under the name of "Skratch" during the Run DMC and Fat Boys era turn christian and now raps under the name "Godchild") testimony to be encouraging. And check out his upcoming projects from Kingdom Entertainment and The School of heARTS he has founded for middle and high schoolers performing arts and multimedia scool in Syracuse.
I listened to a story on Ken Hutcherson and found this man to be a man I really like not only because he was the first black Dallas Cowboy linebacker but much more. Here is a quick testimony. And here are some very recent articles of his activity elsewhere entitled "Washington state pastor calls upon Christians to take on Microsoft" and "Teachers boo pro-family pastor at MLK Day school assembly"
Oh my goodness this was the longest email I have sent yet. I hope to never send this much you alls way again. So sorry about the last 2 lengthy emails and for the bad grammar!!!
