Melodie Joy Wiebe

This is an excerpt from the back of our Church bulletin two Sundays ago. It made me brake out in "goose bumps"

A certain minister was once called to the bedside of a dying infidel whom he had befriended, and for whom he had helped to provide for his physical needs, When the minister arrived at the bedside, the man said, "I have not called you here to talk about religion, for you know I do not believe in it, but I have called you that I might thank you for all your kindness to me." "May I ask you one question?" said the minister. "Yes," he replied, "just as long as you do not talk to me about religion." Lifting his heart in prayer the minister said "You know I have to preach tonight, and many of those that will be there are poor people, and sick, who will soon have to face death just as you are now doing. Tell me, what shall I preach about?" There was a long silence, and then with tear-dimmed eye he responded, "Preach Christ to them, preach Christ." Then utterly broken he was ready to let the minister preach Jesus to him, and to lead him to receive Christ as his Savior.

This is what the world needs today, and the need of every individual. Let us be faithful to make Him known, for He is the only way of Salvation.

Wow. The Lord has really been convicting me in one area. And He seems to get me from all sides. From the Book I'm reading to the message we watched this past week at Bible Study. God has really been showing me how cold my prayer life really is.

I don't know about you but it seems as though every time you think you are "OK" in your walk with the Lord He seems to turn the light on a little brighter so I can see how much I still need to clean up in my life.

Oft times we are told "Prayer is so important" "You Need to Pray" and we look over our hectic schedule and say "I don't have time to pray". I've been reading the Book "Set-Apart Femininity" by Leslie Ludy.

She told of a time when the Lord prompted her and her husband (Eric) to spend more time in prayer. They heeded this call and as a result they seem to have more time. They started spending concentrated time in prayer every morning and evening two years ago and in that time they have written 4 full length books, done over 200 hours worth of public speaking, launched two major websites, conducted countless media interviews and conference calls, gone on several trips, pastored a church community, personally mentored several young people a week, helped their two-year-old memorized 180 country flags and capitals, the solar system, and 140 dog breeds, and adopted a five-month-old baby girl from Korea. A side from this they have had huge amounts of leisure time sprinkled throughout these years. So God can bless you above and beyond if you give Him "God-room" a Place for him to step in and work, we can make this kind of room through prayer.

I could go on and on about making "God-room" but I would get so muddled up. I would HIGHLY recommend you to watch or listen to the message by Doug Small entitled "Entertaining God" See if you can get your hands on it somewhere. He emphasizes on the NEED to entertain God as Abraham did in Genesis 18. God can only move when we invite Him in.

So often when we are going through times of Struggle we cry out "God where are you?" But one thing that Doug Small said was that God won't barge in, we Need to invite Him in.

So the Lord has just showed me again and again that Prayer is to be the center of my relationship with Him. If we want to get to know someone we spend time talking to them a two way conversation.

Any way. I hope that made sense. I'll expound on smaller points as I have time.

Blessings to each of you as you Seek the face of God.

--
Seeking Him,
Melodie

We had a bit of excitement at our house last night. At about 10pm we were getting ready for bed we had had Dad's Birthday celebration that evening and the last guests had left when all of the sudden we hear sirens. Well that in itself is exciting the sound of sirens always makes my blood rush. Usually when we hear sirens they are on Hwy. 19 (a road that intersects our road half a kilometer from our place) and then they fade off into the distance, well that wasn't the case last night a police car came speeding past our place lights flashing sirens blaring and then he was gone. "That's weird" I thought but what made it weirder was not two minutes later it came past again headed the opposite direction in hot pursuit of a car then one weirder was a few houses down the car that was being pursued pulled a "uie" (aka. U turn) and headed back towards our place sped on the other side of our neighbor's house (on their lawn) down a hill through their hedge and was going to head up the street beside our house but found that the police was there already so... he pulled up on to our back yard bumped our trampoline and jumped out and ran. So by this time we were all by the windows watching to see what would happen. My sister Heidi pointed out which way he went (she is very proud of that fact) and off they headed. By the time it was all said and done (they caught him within half an hour) we had about 10 police vehicles around our place (some from as far away as London which is about 45 min away) so I have no Idea how long this chase had been going on or what trouble he had caused else where. I know he took down a stop sign some where on the way. Things finally cleared up a little after 11pm.
So that was our excitement last night.

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As to what the Lord has been teaching me... I was reading through Song of Solomon these past few days and the Lord gave me some practical tips for single hood. I'll see if I can pull it together in a way that you will understand. You may get something totally different out of these verses but this is just what the Lord showed me from them.

In Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4 He says "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please."

We are not to wake up love before it is time. We are not given the time when we are to be awaken so we need to give it to the Lord and let him wake us up when it is time. I have seen so many girls struggle with this (and yes I struggle with it too) that they wake up before it is time but the longing that they have cannot be filled because it is not the time appointed by the Lord.

So 2:10
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

He is the one to be calling us not us finding and calling him. The Man is to be the leader in the Church, Home, and in Relationships. So he is the one to initiate it. I am so blessed to have the Dad I do to protect me and if and when the right young man comes along to call me he will have to ask permission to let his voice to be heard. Wait till you hear the call.

So 8:6
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

When you are married you are (for lack of better words) stuck with this guy for life. when it doesn't go your way you can't back out and leave and find someone else. Although many do this it isn't the way that God designed it to be. So be so careful as to who you give your heart to.

So 5:6b-7
I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

Again He is to be the one calling us not us him. Often what will turn a guy off is a girl who looks for attention someone who makes it known that she wants a boyfriend. Let God bring him to you he can do it. There is a large chance that if you go out and "look and call" for a young man that you will be hurt (not just physically but emotionally) just as this young woman was who went out and looked for her love. She didn't find her love and she lost her purity. I have two happily married sisters who waited to be called instead of doing the calling and they wouldn't change it for the world.

So what I encourage every girl to do is to hide in Jesus. I know not every one is blessed with a godly father but I heard a quote once that really encouraged me it said.

"A girl should be so lost in Jesus,
That a young man has to search Jesus to find her"

Lets purpose to do that. I am not perfect in this area I still struggle with this. But with God's help I want to wait in sleep to be awakened by the Lord and called by the Young Man that he has for me.

May each of you get lost in Jesus!!

Your Sister in the Lord,
Melodie

PS. Sorry if theres any bloopers in here my mind gets ahead of my fingers sometimes just let me know if you see anything!

I'm sure you all are familiar with the children's song

"O Be Careful Little Eyes what you see.
O Be Careful Little Eyes what you see.
For the Father up above is looking down with Love
So Be Careful Little Eyes what you see." and on it goes with the Mouth, hands, feet, ears.

I found this true this afternoon while I was watching my cousin's little two year old girl. I would say something and she would repeat it. and when you are used to using some slang its hard to speak properly. Not only are people around us watching but our Lord is watching as well.

This little song as well as a quote came to me that I heard awhile ago... I forget where I heard it... I think it was at Bible Study JP was saying that "We are always teaching someone, something, somewhere" and I had to stop and ask myself what am I teaching not only the children I teach but other younger Christians? Do I stand by my standards no matter what? or do I relent when the fear of man enters in? I had to confess that the latter is true. The worse thing for a new Christian to see is compromise in the people around them. You know that is one of the #1 reasons unbelievers give when they are confronted with their need for God "There are to many hypocrites in the Church today"

"The only Bible some people may ever read is YOUR LIFE" That is an incredibly sobering thought. What are they reading? Will it draw them to or away from the Lord?
In 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 Paul tells us as believers that "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." WOW. I can see that I am really going to have to shape up so that when others around read me all they will see is Jesus. That sounds like a tall order but in another place Paul says "I can do all things (notice the ALL) through Christ which strengtheneth me."(Philippians 4:13)

"You have two different "walks". Your walk "walk" and your talk "walk" but your walk "walk" is louder than your talk "walk"."

I guess the quote thats on my header kinda goes along with this too...

"You write your own autobiography by
the choices you make and the things you do."
- Francis & Edith Schaeffer -

Thanks for listening to me ramble on!

May each of you be visited in a new way by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

--
Melodie

Greetings to all my faithful Readers,

It looks like this site needs another post. But the only problem is that I have no Idea what to post about. I have tried to cure this problem in the past with asking readers to provide a subject but that has failed another cure I have tried is what I call my "Random posts" where I tell you little bits of random information about my present life; but I find this does not always suffice. So this round I shall bore you all with comments and sounds that bring back memories from last week.

"So what are we doing? I don't understand" I heard this so many times last week from one of the little boys on my team; I explained the craft at least three times and he would turn to me and pop the question yet again. It nearly drove me crazy the last day; But the Lord lavished patience on me.

"I see the moon, the moon sees me..." That is the song my car load of girls sang every night... *sigh those drives were good times. We usually left the gym where we held the children's program at about 11pm sometimes later. Our car had no AC so our windows were rolled down and we would sing that song flying down the 427. *sigh those were good times.

"BLITZ" was the call you would hear if you would have stepped into our air conditioned basement apartment at about 12:00pm. We had some wonderful games and giggling fits as only a bunch of girls can have.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP" that is a little bit of an embarrassing sound when you are frying eggs or baking Pizza and the smoke alarm goes off. Even more so when the lady who owns the house is home. One of the guys had a quick fix for is problem. You simply take the batteries out. (don't worry we replaced them before turning in).

Another sound that brings back memories is Trina "yelling""Who put dirty dishes in the clean sink?" we had no dish towel until the last day and we didn't discover the dish rack until the last day as well so we brilliant people came up with the Idea that we would wash the dishes in one sink and stack them in the other. Well this worked out fine until someone came along who didn't know of our brilliant plan and mixed our clean dishes with dirty ones. So, Yeah those dishes got washed about three times before the made it back into the cupboard. fun times.

"My soul will rejoice in the Lord..." is what I would wake up to every morning whether it be at 9am or 6am. I would much rather wake up to a CD playing then that confounded "BEEP BEEP BEEPing" that is an option on most alarm clocks. (btw Hallal Music is Great to wake up to!)

There. Those are a few of my recollections from last week. I really enjoyed it. The Lord really blessed me. It was nice just to get away from the same old, same old every day routine.

The Lord is Good. Bless His Name.

--
Learning to lean on Him Only,
Melodie

Hey Everybody!

This last week was so GREAT. I really enjoyed working with the children even though patients did run low at points but God was faithful!

I was able to lead a team of 14 children along with my good friend (who helped me keep my sanity) Nancy! She was so awesome all week.

The theme this year was the "Names of God" it was really neat. by the end of the week we had gone through 7 names of God; which included:

Elohim (Creator),

Adonai (Lord and Master),

El Roi (The God who Sees),

Jehovah Raah (The Lord is my Shepherd),

El Shaddai (All Sufficient One),

Jehovah Tsidkenu (God is My Righteousness),

Jehovah Nissi (God is my Banner)

The Lord reaffirmed these things to me all last week through teaching these children that God is enough, we can't hide anything from Him, He will provide for us, and he created us and loves us. those were just a few points that we covered through out the week.

The week was also filled with fun moments. I shared a house with 6 other girls and we had a blast. Friday we went to the Toronto Science Centre and had loads of fun. and then even during the evenings when we had the children we had skits, songs, stories, verses we memorized. all around it was a week I won't forget. I'll probably post some more when I've had proper time to reflect and gather my thoughts.

I didn't have a camera but a couple of my friends did so I'll see what I can do as to posting some pictures yet.

Well I close in Half an Hour so I'm gonna head out and do what needs to be done here before closing.

Blessings to all as you seek to make El Shaddai your all in all.

--
In Christ Alone,
Melodie

Hey People,

Tomorrow I'm headed off to Toronto for a week with 3 other people from this area to teach a CI (excuse me) a Children's Program. Please pray for us. there will be 11 other young people besides the ones from my area there. Just pray that the Lord would empower us with His Spirit to reach out to these children. This week could change thier life. Please also pray for Patience and Lots of it. Thank you all very much!! I don't know it I will have access to the internet over there if I do I'll try to get a post or two out some time; If not then I shall attempt to fill you in next week when I return.

Blessings to each of you as you serve our Lord right where you are!!!

--

Serving God,

Melodie