Time And Eternity

It’s Sunday afternoon, December 28th. We have been here at the Waskish Baptist Church since the beginning of July.

We had a great service this morning. There were 16 present, including Ginger, a visitor from Colorado. Each Sunday the services seem to get better. We had coffee and fellowship after the service today for about two hours. Then some of us went to West Winds Bar and Grill for a meal.

I look forward to Sunday. It is the high point of the week. It is a true celebration. The theme of my sermon today was “how careless people are about eternity.”

If you were to take one grain of sand and put it in the middle of a sheet of paper, that represents this life. Then, a semi pulls up full of sand . . . and that is eternity, but it doesn’t represent eternity accurately, because eternity has no end. A thousand semi’s full of sand wouldn’t represent eternity properly.

But one grain of sand on the sheet of paper . . . most Christians put 95 percent of their energy into that one grain of sand. And eternity? The other five percent of life’s energy goes into preparation for eternity.

Is that wise?

And yet, that is how the majority of Christians live.

I have challenged Christians in some of my messages to make a list of all the things they spend time at. Then look at the list and determine which items have an impact on eternity.

All items that have no impact on eternity, eliminate them.

If we would do that, we would change the world.

Extreme? Maybe, but we must learn to see our lives as Jesus sees them. Any change that impacts our lives for eternal values is a good change.

. . . And we must want to change. Change means growth. Staying the same means stagnation. Stagnant water, in time, begins to stink. We don’t want to even touch stagnant water. I think you get the picture . . .

By making changes for the good, we affect the lives of people around us. They too, may want to change.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we Christians would all change together!

Wonderful Developments

At the writing of the December newsletter, nine stations around the U.S. had subscribed to our radio program, Those Who Have Gone Before.

We have since picked up six more stations, four in Florida, one in Iowa, and one in Alaska, making 15 stations in all. The launch date is January 5th. Please pray for this broadcast as we continue. I have 36 more “Great Christians” to research and record spots for, to complete one entire year in the series. That is a total of 180 two-minute spots. It takes me an average of 20 hours a week to produce on-going content for this program.

Some Highlights of Things

We Have Been Doing

Below is Lorraine reading a story she wrote about a bunny to 6 children at the Christmas Eve service held at the Lutheran Church

Below Lorraine is reading the bunny story she wrote to 7 children at a joint Advent service between the Baptist and the Lutheran Churches.

Below are Christmas decorations Lorraine created for outside the Waskish Baptist Church

Below are photos of presents; We were happy to be able to help one single parent supply gifts for his five children. They wouldn’t have had gifts to open Christmas morning without these.

Some were purchased new while others were purchased at a thrift store. Some still had tags on them or they were like new.

In His Service

George and Lorraine Halama

Article photograph of sand with scoop designed and taken by Lorraine