It's Wednesday afternoon here in Thailand and we are thankful to God for His grace this week. Our team who are watching the children have been working very hard and spending hours ministering to kids from ages birth to teen age.  They have been joined by other believers from Northern Asia who have come along side to help. All the folksattending these meetings are so thankful to the entire team for their love for the kids.  The Lord has allowed Dee and me to be an encouragement as well for which we are thankful and grateful. We sure feel your prayers as well and ask you to please continue to pray over the next few days as we come to the last two days of this week.

We are hearing some incredible reports of what the Lord is doing and how many are being used by God with great impact where all these folks are working.  We will look forward to sharing some of these with you soon but already you are having an impact. Some things I can not share over the internet for obvious reasons. Just yesterday morning I received an email from one of the great ladies in our church who serves as a prayer leader for missions in our church.  She sends out regular emails to several people in our church body in order to have them pray for missionaries all over the world.  She is so faithful and so committed to this powerful and wonderful way to share needs with people in our church the needs of those that we are committed to lift up before the Lord.  Well yesterday she sent out a long list of prayer requests that began with a couple from China.  It just so happens that this couple that she mentioned is here at the meeting in Thailand.  I saw them last night and told them that people in our church were praying for them.  These are not even people we support on a monthly basis, but they said to me "Thank you, Thank you my husband has been very sick with pneumonia and has been suffering for several weeks. They were so moved and so touched that people 10,000 miles away were lifting them up and they said to me the greatest support that anyone can give us is prayer support.  As you know we have been speaking at this meeting who are some of the most wonderful people you would ever want to meet.  I told them about the great folks from Cornerstone who pray on a weekly basis for missionaries from all over the world. I told them about the pictures of the missionaries that we have on the wall of the sanctuary and how people go around each week and pray over the photos.  They were so touched to hear of your commitment to pray that I asked them if we could support them all.  Not support with finances for all of them at this time, but I said that we can give them even greater support; we could support them in prayer.  So now we have asked all of them to send us a prayer card or a business card and we told them that we would put together an extra plaque in the back of our sanctuary. The only condition that I attached to it was that they would have to pray for us as well.  So over the next several weeks we will be receiving prayer cards from many of these who want us to support them in prayer. That is how important your prayers are these folks who live under constant pressure of governmental scrutiny and pressures of life that many of us could not live in.  Thanks for being the kind of people who give lasting support

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Well yesterday we begin to minister here to the families of some of the greatest people you could ever meet.  Sonja and Laurie, Alex and Kathryn had two sessions with the children and Pastor Gavin had the youth of the Missionaries. By the way thanks for your prayers, Kathryn is feeling much better.

I spoke last night about being alone with God. Somethingthat about a month ago God really prompted my heart with for just this time, for this group of people to push in and to have God speak to their lives.  You many want to check out Oswald Chambers on Jan 12 and 13^th about our Solitude with God.  It is always a bit scary to connect with people you have never met before and also even more so when many of them are ministers themselves and have left a lot to come and follow God's call.  But as always God was so faithful to allow His Holy Spirit to speak and to move in the hearts of many people here that are hurting and in some cases really just weary of dealing with the challenges of China.  It was a great encouragement to see people weeping and asking God to come and move in their lives in new and greater ways.  There was an openness from these missionaries many of which do not get together like this more than once a year.  So they often times can not fellowship together so when these 200 people come together to worship it is a celebration that is a long time in the process.  If you are getting checking this blog would you please pray that the next four days would be marked with God's grace and His favor and authority.   We are praying for you and will be ready to share some great stories about what God is doing in the nation of China. 

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One of the team Kathryn Humphries was note feeling well last night so please pray that Lord would touch her as she ministers today. 

Today in my time with the Lord I was reading for Psalm 63 "Oh God you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirst for you my body longs for you in a dry land where there is no water, I have seen in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory, because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you.

Just reading those verses seemed to speak volumes first of all of course of our longing for God.  You and I have both felt that kind of yearning , Lord not only do I need you but I have to have you operating fully in my life and all I can do is to praise you all that you have done and for the longing that you give. Notice that David the psalmist says that not only is there a longing but one that reminds the writer of being in the desert and thirsty waiting for water that will satisfy. We have all learned or should I say are learning that the Lord is all we need and all that we could ever hope for.  But beyond that He is also longing for us.  From the beginning God has longed to be with His people from Adam and Eve to you and I there is a partnership in this longing process.  Our longing for Him because we have been made for Him, His longing for us, because He loves us with an overwhelming love and grace. I was wondering what psalm that you would write to God today, would you say Lord I want you more than Starbucks, or more that PS3 or would you say something like, Oh Lord since you know me you certainly know my great need of you so God take all of me.  I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory, because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you! Lord let it be not only our lips but also our lives.

Thanks for praying with us.  We are here representing all of you, we will let you know how things are going each day so check back when you can.

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It is great to already see some of the people who are connected to Cornerstone as a result of our missions outreach.  Some of the folks here you can see on the walls of the church and you pray over week after week. People like Steve and Linda Lilly who serve in the Northern part of China.  You have helped to run an orphanage there for many years.  People like Keith Kidwell who lives in Hong Kong and who loves the people of this great nation.  Their stories are awesome and the way that we are connected is also awesome as well.  Our God is not limited and neither are you through Him. 

The time difference between Maryland and Thailand is exactly 12 hours so it is now early Sunday Morning and it was neat to be able to join you at the Saturday night prayer rally at 7AM here.  What a wonderful joy it is to see that God in His grace and mercy can allow us to connect even across the thousands of miles that physically separate us. That is the beauty of the Lord and the power of His grace that there is no boundary and no limit to what He can and will do.  That is my prayer for you in the days to come and also my prayer for Cornerstone during this week that we are here in Thailand.  Somehow we hope to convey that you are also here with us.  Ministering to the Missionaries who in turn are touching thousand upon thousands of people here. You and I can only see through a very limited view, our vision is sometimes limited to what we see in our life instead of how God can use our life and multiply it's impact and purpose.  We will do our best to keep you informed on what is transpiring here but please know that are hearts are with you in Maryland Keep lifting up Jesus, Keep Growing in Him, Keep Touching our World.  All for His glory and honor.  Be Blessed Today with the Joy of Jesus and His amazing ways to use each one of us.

Together for Jesus

Pastor Mark

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Secondly, I have also been impressed by how God allows our paths to connect and then reconnect.  Cornerstone as you know is made up of people all over the world and people that often transfer to different parts of the world.  Yesterday we had lunch with Ron and Julie Mitchell and there family who attend Cornerstone for about 2 years and moved to Japan last fall.  It reminded me that every thing we do matters and every time we greet someone at church and they feel welcomed it matters, and every person matters to God.  So church this week on Sunday and Wednesday will you go out of your way to be friendly and to welcome people, who may be with us for years or only for months, but who the Lord longs to encourage and grow through interaction with Cornerstone's family.  I will be praying for you this weekend that God will anoint the services at Cornerstone with a great presence of God.  We love you and thank you for your prayers as we leave for Thailand, and pray for the team as we arrive to minister and to encourage, May God use each one of us who call Cornerstone their home as ambassadors of His Love and Grace. Will write more from Thailand.  We love you and are praying for each one of you.

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It is important to remember that the people we pray for on the walls of our church most every Saturday night are more than just pictures they are partners.  Dee and I are so glad we came to see Alex and Kathryn and to see how well they are doing. Please keep praying for them and believing for God to use them in greater ways than any of us can imagine.  Thanks for praying for us as well we will be heading to Thailand on Saturday morning and will be joining the rest of our team there on Saturday evening. Please pray for safe flights and for God great ability to help us all recover so that we will be able to bless many people this coming week.  Check back when you can and we will try to keep you informed and what is happening on this trip to asia.

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The Favor that I would like to ask of you is that you who follow this blog would pray and ask the Lord for His supernatural power and grace.  We will be speaking 5-6 times starting next Monday and Sonja, Pastor Gavin, Laurie Solhjem, and Alex and Kathryn Humphries who are missionaries to Japan from Cornerstone will be ministering to some 50-60 children at the same time.  Would you pray that God would use us and would you pray that the Lord would so direct our steps and our words that we would see the Lord do amazing things among us?  Dee and I are heading to Japan this morning and will be there for a couple of days with Alex and Kathryn meeting people that they are currently serving with and seeing the need in Japan first handed.  Then we will arrive with the rest of the team on Saturday in Thailand and will begin to serve. 

I will do my best to let know what is happening through this blog for time to time so feel to check back and see how things are going.  The times are of course different about a 12-13 hour difference, so you may be sleeping while we are awake and vice versa, but the wonderful thing about our God is that He never sleeps, He never slumbers, we can trust in Him. We are honored to represent you and are believing for God moments and God sized miracles.  More Soon

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My life is not really a connection of many different facets.  It is not compartmentalized by what I do , who I am related to or what things I own.  My life really comes down to what my heart is connected to and whether or not my heart is functioning as it should.  In the natural a person with a heart condition is always on the verge of facing some major problems.  The same is true spiritual a person with a spiritual heart issue is always on the verge of spiritual heart failure and sickness.  In the natural if a persons heart is not beating with a proper cadence doctor's can put a pace maker implanted in that person in order to have them develop a regular and healthy heart beat.  The same can also be said of the spiritual realm.  God longs for each of us to have a regular heartbeat that is not encumbered by other things that stop us from functioning with the kind of heart action the Lord longs for us to have. 

Finally the Lord longs to clear out any blockages that can quickly form in our hearts that will inhibited His holy flow in us and have the potential to cause catastrophic loss.  Our walk with God is easy to know how to live but is often so difficult to live it out with a heart that is not functioning as it was made to. So like the doctors would say about the physical heart. Eat healthy, exercise and don't do things that would clog the plumbing.  Spiritually speaking Eat healthy on God's word, exercise an attitude of grace and love, and whatever you must do, keep any spiritual blockages from forming so that the Lord can flow in you. There is nothing worse than spiritual heart failure.  Let's keep our heart right for the one we love the most,  Jesus!

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I wanted to share an experience with you that remind me that God is always working in and through us.  Several years ago I met a store owner.  Although not a believer, he is a great guy and is one of those individuals who you instantly have a level of confidence that he knows what he's doing and also you can take his word to the bank. Every time I would see him overthe years we would end up talking about things other than the items in the store.  I would often invite him to church even though I knew it was a long shot.  Over the years I have seen him maybe 10 times.  But I have to remember that the Word of God says that one person plants another waters but God gives the increase.  Over those 10 times we began to develop somewhat of a friendship.  To make a long story short after several years and not really seeing any response, God did some neat miracles and the Holy Spirit was faithful as always to allow our paths to cross again.  It is always important to remember that God is working even when we do not see.  This past week I had the honor of introducing he and his wife to the Lord.  It was fabulous and an incredible encouragement to me and a great joy just to see how the Lord works in ways that often times we do not see. I'm not sure who was happier them or me.   I wanted to encourage all of those who are reading this not to minimize the opportunities that the Holy Spirit offers us. Now I will be the first to tell you that there are many times that I wonder whether or not my life or my words are making an impact.  We must remember that it is not us and it is not our ability that makes the difference, but our availability.  God chooses to use us sometimes even in spite of our selves.   All we have to do be willing to share our love for God and for people. Now I am praying that God would grow this couple, but also that God would allow many of us to have the honor to leading people to the King not only when we feel especially spiritual or we feel convicted to share our love for God.  He wants to use us as His servants at all times in all ways.  All we need to be is available and God will do the rest.

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