I have already announced to the whole world via my social media accounts and even to my eleven Twitter followers that I consider it the best book I have read in a long time.  Maybe ever.
 
Eric McLaughlin is one of the first members of the Kibuye Hope medical mission team in Burundi, East Africa.  Along with John and Jess Cropsey, well known to LPC, Eric and his wife Rachel, and Jason and Heather Fader are the pioneers in a growing team of physicians and others who, in less than a decade, have built something of eternal consequence. Kibuye Hope Hospital is a place of healing and the gospel proclaimed in Word and Deed. 
 
LPC has had the privilege of contributing a small bit to the Kibuye Hope story.
 
The book, just published, is Promises in the Dark, and through it Eric McLaughlin reflects on the past nine years of his life and ministry as a missionary physician, as he writes, “walking with those in need without losing heart.”  The stories told come from Africa.  The truth conveyed is for Christians in the living of their lives in a real world of need wherever that may be. Tears flow from the stories told; deep thoughts and challenges to the way we live sink into heart and mind as Eric humbly tells us what he has learned. 

It’s really a good book.

Continue reading →

Becky and I are out of town this weekend – a little fall getaway into New England.  In the meantime:
 
One Sunday a long time ago I used the intersection of Bellevue and Richardson Avenues as a sermon illustration.  The point had something to do with obedience with that corner in Langhorne as a good example of not-quite obedience.  The Bellevue and Richardson intersection is one of those places where we tend to roll through rather than come to a complete stop.  I remember at the time of the sermon a number of people shared their own Bellevue and Richardson stories or nominated other intersections as places of even worse offense. The point of the illustration was that a lot of us live roll through Christian lives.
 
Some of you may have seen the new sign that’s been posted just below the stop sign at the southeast corner of the intersection the Bellevue and Richardson.  “Stop Really Means Stop,” it shouts at us as we pass the First National Bank. 
 
The Really Means Stop sign is professionally made and well mounted – by the borough or the police or the vigilantes, I don’t know.  Continue reading →

LPC people know the names of the people and the place. John and Jess Cropsey. Kibuye, Burundi, East Africa.  For eight years we have heard the names and have gotten to know John and Jess just a little bit. They visit with us from time to time.  We have learned about the wonderful work they are doing in that little town we had never heard of before – in a country few of us could have found on a map.

John is an ophthalmologist serving as part of the medical mission team at Kibuye Hope Hospital.  This video was shot five years ago, but still captures the heart of what John is doing.  Indeed, the blind are made to see.

The Kibuye team is building an amazing center of healing in what may be the poorest place on the planet. Continue reading →

A week ago, I was off to a Presbytery meeting where, among other things, LPC’s own Casey Huckel was examined and received by the Presbytery as a candidate for ordained pastoral ministry.  Of course, Casey’s examination and reception were the highlight of the meeting for our LPC delegation, but not the only highlight.  Yes, we are Presbyterians and sometimes it seems we are just a bit taken with our “decently and in order” ways.  But debating procedural minutiae or hearing reports of God’s astounding work in the mission field, there was a good spirit and strong hope in our meeting together.

I like this Presbytery of the East.

We met at the Bethlehem Stetz Reformed Church, EPC, mailing address in Glen Rock, PA.  The church’s website says, “Just four miles west of New Freedom, PA, on State Route 851.”  No offense meant, but it felt pretty much like the middle of nowhere – the rolling hills of the southern York County farmland.

It turns out that this nowhere location for a church building has meant something important, and maybe in its time something to give offense. Continue reading →