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God Prepares Us

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Christine’s News

Christine has had a busy month with some large hurdles to overcome. Possibly the most significant has been getting permission to show her icons in the gallery she is a part of in downtown Sarasota. The gallery had denied that before and it was cramping Christine’s full talents. Now she can show both the iconography and her symbolic contemporary painting. She made a presentation to our church on iconography which was very informative and had people to color in some icon drawings while she was speaking. You can watch a video of the talk through this link-https://youtu.be/i_kKo9-Zbn0 .

Christine also shipped her large icon of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’, to Fairfield California. This was more of a challenge than we expected, but finally two UPS ladies, got fully behind the project and helped prepare the package to fly out. It is great how people are able warm up to a challenge, when they realize the full significance of it.

Michael’s News

We used to live in Philmont, a small village in Upstate NY. It had been a textile mill village, but all that work had gone abroad long ago, and the village was struggling, as so many rural villages do. Years ago, I felt like God had asked me to make a cross, but I put it off for several weeks, until he questioned me why I had not done it yet and told me exactly where to find six-inch nails in our basement. So, I hammered together two dead cypress tree trunks we had cut down on the property. Then I heard Him ask me to walk it around the village.

It happened to be a Wednesday evening in the summer and the volunteer fire brigade had all gathered outside the fire station and here I was carrying this big cross right past them. It was heavy, and I was totally embarrassed, but inside I felt very close to Christ. After that first time, I walked the cross several times around the village when I felt God asking me to; the young kids would josh me if they saw.

Back In New York for a Short Trip

Well, the reason I am recounting that story is because two weekends ago I was up in NY doing four days of photography.  Somehow my schedule changed, and I had a free evening with time to kill. I happened to be not far from Philmont, so I decided to look at our old house. “Why not?” I thought.

I parked my car down the road from it and walked through the old neighborhood. As it happened one of the neighbors who I had not been in touch with for five years happened to be outside his house and we caught up our news. We parted with a prayer together with his family. I thought to myself that was an unexpected Blessing and left it at that.

Well, I was in the airport days later, on my journey back to Florida, and my phone rang. It was that same neighbor. He was crying. His sister was in hospital in the last stages of her life. He asked me to pray for her while he held the phone up to her ear. Which I did, I shared my faith in Jesus and prayed with her. She passed that evening.

God Prepares Us

So, what were the chances of me being in our old village, the first time I had been back for over five years because my scheduled changed and I had time to kill; that my neighbor was outside when I walked past, and that he knew he could trust me, to pray out of the blue for his dying sister?

Maybe the reason I walked the cross through the village many years ago was so I could take the opportunity to speak for God to his sister. Of course, we never know how God is preparing us and how He may be currently using us, often not until later.

Romans 10:9-10, says there are two significant actions, to this outward evidence of an inward faith. That there is a deep inward trust in our hearts in Christ as our Lord and that we say so. Those two parts will make us want to have more of God, more of His presence, more of His love: just plain more of Him. We get drawn to seek Him out, after all it is a love relationship. With all love relationships there is a mystery and a strength we often do not value while we are involved, it is later we realize how we have been Blessed. As Joni Mitchell sang, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’

Such good advice Paul gives in 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18.   Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

We send you all our love, on this Holy and sacred Fourth of July, praying for peace and love, in our families, in our homes, and especially in our countries.

Love and prayers,

Michael and Christine Mick’s Photography Christine’s Icons

We Shall Be Changed

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Please watch this short video in conjunction with this article, https://youtu.be/iT3hYXjZ6oA , called: “We Shall be Changed”. It has its roots in 1 Corinthians 15:50-55, and resonates with where my ministry has taken me, as a Chaplain for the very old. It revolves around hurdles, we all face at one time or another, but as we approach the last stages of life, the final hurdle calls out for something for us, to hold on to. The light at the end of the tunnel.

” I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:“

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

A vision to live on and approach our own mortality with.

Such incredible words. Such incredible force. The inevitability of ‘The change’ or death, we all know is coming to us but also the assurance of spiritual life a Christian holds real.

 Death is swallowed up in Victory

I spend a lot of time around people for whom, those words are soon to be fulfilled. The perishable aspect of our last days is gruesome, there really is no other way of describing it, but the final relief and freedom from the waning body, has to be glorious.

Recently, I spent time with an elderly couple, at an assisted living facility which I have not visited before, who were going through the agony of their failing bodies; he more than she. Right off the start he desperately asked me to get him back to bed because he said he was so exhausted; the nurse would not let him, because he had spent too much time in bed and only just got out. He would have to wait till after lunch. He felt sick to his stomach and could not imagine the act of eating. Sitting in a wheel chair and slumping over a table in the common room, the television was blaring commercials. Nobody seemed to notice the television, as loud as a leaf blower in the room.

The pain this man was experiencing was tangible, but he was caught hostage to the authority and care of the attendant. I prayed with the couple, but felt complete opposition all around. As if there was mockery pouring out at my attempts. Why would I expect to come into a situation, so established, and expect to see relief for my friends. The television was relentless, lunch was not coming, the hopeless pain was too much for me. So I decided to get them both out into a nearby court yard, away from the noise. After wheeling them out, I started praying again, now just in my prayer language and forcibly, holding on to both of their hands.

Finally my man started to relax, the extreme exhaustion started to lift, he lent back into his wheel chair. The hot Floridian air was caught by a breeze that lifted his hair. With open eyes he told me the Holy Spirit was cooling him and he started to see flashes of color in his eyes. Orange, bright, flashes he said, over and over, as they appeared. The pain was gone and a smile was back. He is 96 and she is 94.

They are dedicated to each other but not married, both of their spouses have passed, so they care for each other now. Together with God, they face their hurdles, wondering if this is going to be the final one in this perishable life; knowing, we shall be changed.

Christine has just finished the beautiful Our Lady of Guadalupe Icon and is ready to ship it to California. It is an amazing icon! She will be leading an intergenerational art activity for our church later this month on “The Face of Jesus”. Together we are facilitating a small group also for Church of the Redeemer, that will meet six times this summer. It’s a wonderful effort to help us draw closer to each other in our relationship with God.

Well, that’s all for this month. We hold you all in prayer and ask for your prayers also.

Love and prayers,

Michael and Christine Hales

Michael’s Photography newchristianicons.com

Hope, Purpose, and Faith

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This has been a very difficult article for Michael to write, because in his Chaplaincy work, he encounters many people who have lost all purpose to live and have lost hope. Those who do not have an underpinning of faith that a better life is to come after death, are left in a void where hopelessness focuses them on their physical decline and not their spiritual gain. So often the message of the Gospel has not been opened to them through a loving heart.


For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.                 Romans 15:4   

Our changing purposes, create changing hopes when supported by a steadfast faith. Without a foundation of faith, we can not maintain hope when our purposes fade.

As our lives evolve and we go through the different seasons of life, the purposes we live for change; it is an inevitable part of growth and pursuing our desires in this extraordinary life, we have been given. Hope is essential to living through each bump or challenge we encounter. Each aspiration or change that comes our way.

Last Saturday, King Charles 111 was crowned with Queen Camilla. The long road which King Charles travelled to his coronation day must have required purpose, hope and faith. From a very different story, on the same day two members of the dissident Russian rock group, Pussy Riot, “Masha” Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova, received the Woody Guthrie Prize. It was rewarded for speaking for the less able through their music and performance serving as a positive force for social change in Russia. Their protests cost them years in Russian prisons, which again must have required purpose, hope and faith, to survive.

These were two notably different stories which were in the ‘news media’, that day.

There were some 1.4 million people in nursing homes in America and an additional 900,000 in Assisted Living Care, who more than likely saw some of those news reports. For most of those people, television is the only entertainment or company they have for most of the day. If they are fortunate, they may have family who are able to visit, but that may be for only hours in a week or month. The majority of their time is spent alone in a room with a television. To get out of bed to go to the bathroom often requires someone else’s help and can take a long time to happen. These facilities are expensive and can drain a family’s savings very quickly, without some form of government assistance. Boredom, loneliness and the futility of a life lived mostly in bed, with diminishing physical abilities inevitably leads to a dark hopeless mind.

That very large question, what is the purpose of my life? For King Charles 111 and Pussy Riot, they will always have an active purpose for their lives to live; at least until they too, find themselves in the equivalent of a nursing home, bedbound. But for those physically depleted who feel there is no real purpose for their lives any more, they will loose hope, without a spiritual knowledge of God’s salvation plan for them.

The bible talks extensively about the hope which comes from faith in God. That message is only meaningful when given in love, by someone who has received it themselves, through love. It is low on the messages we receive through the television media news, when a coronation or a wild performance is center stage. No, this takes ‘one on one’ visitations and sharing a life of hope to come.

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.              Romans 8:18.  

So my prayer is please pray about volunteering in your nearest nursing home or where ever there are shut ins. They need the gospel of hope not television, by default.

Hope

Proverbs 23    Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Psalm 33:18-19, 22.  Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
    on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death
    and keep them alive in famine.

 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
    even as we hope in you.

Psalm 62:5-7. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
    for my hope is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
    my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Psalm 130:5-6. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

Lamentations 3:22-24.     The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b]
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Romans 5:3-5.  3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 8:24-25       24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 15:13      13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

I hope this has been helpful to some of you! Thank you in advance for your prayers, and you are all in ours as we go forward in these challenging times.

Love andprayers,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography Christine’s Icons

Lenten Reflections

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Christine is in one of those undefined periods of her painting career, where she is exploring thoughts and style, for a possible major work, depicting God’s Creation story. Her innocent symbolistic naive style has been turned towards birds and fish with tropical setting. These preparative paintings are small 12 by 12ins, but they harbor that naivety and wonder which is so captivating within her art. They carry a spiritual presence which although quiet is also powerful.

Her work on the ‘Our Lady of Guadeloupe Icon’ by contrast is large in size and moving forward beautifully.

Recently at the Church of the Redeemer, she led a children’s class on iconography, and had the students color in her drawings of Icons. It was a big success and has involved her in more teaching activities in the future there.

Lent Reflections  

For how much longer will the birds be singing?

For how much longer will I be listening?

One only gets to ask these kinds of questions, when we allow ourselves to sit still and be with our Creator God. The irony of course is, God longs for us to be still with Him, but we seldom allow ourselves the gift of His peace, because we think there is always more ‘to get done’, in the day.

Our lives seem to be a race to accomplish so much, which in hindsight is really insignificant. What could be more important than hearing the birds sing and being still with God?

What kind of world would we live in, if everyone regarded the highest achievement was to be intimate with God?

 Of course the demonic does all it can to prevent that. Whatever it takes to break our relationship with God, the demonic has done it and will do it over again. Kill, steal and destroy, are the obvious attributes through the vessels of lies, boredom, lust, envy, pride, jealousy and neglect; and so many other ‘achievements’.

Now, I realize why my Lenten commitment, to spend more personal time with God, has been as difficult as giving up something; like desert. To put it bluntly, to spend more time with God I have to give up something else. That brings me right back to the real question of, have I given my life to Jesus or am I fooling myself with busy work as a Chaplain, carrying Jesus, but not being completely in Jesus? For me the answer has to be, yes, I am fooling myself. I have just been carrying Jesus but not been totally alive in Him.

One of largest parts of being a Chaplain in an elderly residential community is visiting people. People in hospital, nursing care, assisted living and those suffering from loss or grief of one form or another. The challenge of initiating a caring conversation with someone who has sat alone in their room, most likely with a television blaring, hour after hour, anxious, lonely, bored and often in pain. How to find out, where and what God wants you to pray for, with that individual. I stumble into questions to try to get some idea of who they are; I ask, how long have you been here, are you in pain, do you have any family, or where was home for you when you grew up? Often I have to ask them a second time what their names are, because I forget during our interaction, so I can name them before the Lord and start to pray.

I wish I was better at this.

Then I remember, to spend more time listening to the birds singing with our Creator, God. Just to spend more time with God, one on one, and be alive in Him.

Martha was directed by Jesus to not be annoyed with Mary for staying in His presence, instead of being a busy hostess. “ Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42.

Please, let us know how we can pray for you and keep us in your prayers too.

Much love,

Christine and Michael

The Spirit Gives Life

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Well, inevitably Covid paid Christine and myself a visit and has taken a long time to completely leave, however the good news is we were totally up to date with our vaccines and it never developed into a serious problem. We have both been careful about wearing masks and have staved off the virus for a long time, but finally succumbed.

Christine has started to show at an artist cooperative gallery in downtown Sarasota and has already had some sales. This is showing her symbolic figurative painting rather than her icons, and the first to sell was of an egret standing in the mist, a wonderful painting. She also has been busy with the icons with new sales and a large commission for a Californian fellowship. Again she taught an online class where the students all worked on the archangel Michael killing Satan, also a beautiful icon.

Leaving church last week I overheard a conversation when someone said, ‘I want him to know that I really care for his situation, but I do not want to get drawn into an extended conversation.’ I thought to myself, that comes up so often in ministering with people. How to seriously engage and then appropriately finish, without being offensive or using all your energy on one person. The only right answer to that is we go as the Holy Spirit leads us. Each situation of ministry is going to be different and each person needs a unique focus of attention. To some degree a minister has to assess very quickly, in affect, do a spiritual triage; what degree of suffering is this person in and what is the best way for me to help or pray for them.

Mass medical triages situations where time is so important, like a train wreck, medics asses then assign a color coding: Black, for those expired, so leave where they lie; Red, absolute emergency where immediate medical attention could save their lives; Yellow, delayed serious injuries, after stabilizing which can wait; Green, are the walking wounded, for minor injuries.

In ministering spiritually, the presenting issues are often caused by trauma experienced sometime ago, possibly in the formative years of development and are well hidden or forgotten when someone asks, ‘What or how, can I pray for you?’ When there is time, we gather as much background on the person’s situation as possible, handing that to the Holy Spirit for direction. Without time, we just go directly to the Holy Spirit with love, calling on Jesus Christ for healing. Quite often the presenting issue has become a health issue, especially with the elderly which I minister to primarily. They have been going to a medical doctor for so long for that diagnosis there is no idea, no belief, no thought that God could heal them through prayer.  Consequently there is little hunger to receive prayer, or it is accepted as a social nicety from an enthusiastic chaplain. In which case I have to remember, this is God working, not me. Thank goodness.

2 Corinthians 3:5-6.

“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Please keep us in your prayers and let us know how we can pray for you.

Love and Prayers,

Christine and Michael Micael’s Photography Christine’s Art Work

God’s Overflow

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Advent Blessings

Christine has had some long term prayers answered, by joining a gallery of a co operative artist community,  The Uptown Art Gallery, with great location in the heart of Sarasota.  She will be able to show her more contemporary work there, while still completing commissions and teaching iconography from her Bradenton studio.

Veterans Day and Thanksgiving are large events in Michael’s Chaplaincy work. $1500 worth of grocery gift cards were given to our local homeless mission, raised by the generosity of our elderly community. In years past turkeys were donated but now a gift card for a local grocery store is more helpful to the variety culinary traditions. Veterans day is a big event as so many residents here served in the military, mostly now in their 80s and 90s.

Michael,  just came back from spending a couple of days in Fort Meyers helping the Omaha Rapid Response team clean up some hurricane Ian flooded houses and a church. Everything which got sea water on it has to be thrown away and ‘dry wall’, has to be taken out at least three feet above the water line and all the insulation removed. Then there is a wait to see if it will dry out or not.

As you can imagine this can be heart breaking, to have all your belongings rotting outside your home. The clean up is going to take a long time, to restore everything  physically and for people to heal emotionally.

In situations like this, we are forced to examine ourselves and what foundations our lives stand on. There is so much to worry about. Who is going to pay for all the work that needs to get done, let alone find a contractor to do it? Will this house ever stop smelling of mold? How can we replace all the personal belongings we lost, family pictures and mementos, let alone beds and clothes.

But, the pastor of the church which I was volunteering with, was full of hope. She was telling me even though she and all of her congregation had suffered the storm surge and had a couple of feet of water in their homes, spiritually they were much stronger than they had ever been. Yes, it was exhausting, all that had to be done. She and her husband were living in a trailer as their home was being worked on. Everything was a mess, for her and for her church members.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13.

There was a man there who helped with the clean up. He was an alcoholic who was trying to get sober. He was able to stop drinking for a week or so and then he would pick up and drink again. He was sleeping rough. The church had found him a tent and the Omaha Rapid Response team had given him a cot and sleeping bag. He was living somewhere in the woods and he described how wild pigs had been smelling around outside his tent at night to me. The church was helping him with food, AA meetings and bus tickets. He had to get ID to get a job. He was hopeful, this was his chance to get his life back together.

One story I heard was, one of the flooded houses had lost an album of family photographs and it turned up hundreds of yards away when people were allowed back into the area. The mother of the family spent days searching all around the neighborhood for it and when it was returned to her she cried tragically, like someone who just loved a loved one. Deep guttural cry, because that album meant so much to her, the emotions of her losses were finally released in wailing of JOY.

May the God of Hope fill you with all Joy and peace in believing.

Another story I heard of God working. The team that drove from Nebraska, a 26 hr drive, pulling a heavy trailer were coming down of the mountains into Chattanooga, when one person in the front passenger seat said he felt odd, he felt sick, he slumped over on to the window, and then he fell forward in his seat. They were travelling fast with heavy trucks all around them with no where to pull over. The driver, Ken, reached over to try to find a pulse, but he could not. He called to a lady sitting behind and she struggled to find a pulse on him. There was no pulse, no breath and no way to try CPR.

The driver shouted to her to look again. She stretched forward but could not get a pulse, and out of desperation and fear she shouted out: ‘Jesus’. The man sat up strait and started breathing again. When they were able to pull off the highway 12 miles later, and they began to take in what had happened, a deep peace came on them realizing they had all survived a deadly situation, particularly because the man who had the attack had offered to drive at the last rest stop, not half an hour earlier. He was left in Atlanta, on their way, with a family member to get medical attention.

These are the kind of stories people hear when they are able to get out of their own lives and share in someone else’s situation. People involved in mission work, are familiar with incredible stories of God working and healing the sick. Even mundane stories of how God moves in our lives, need to be shared, because our God is the God of Hope, and that hope is needed by everyone. The Holy Spirit is integrally connected with our hope and belief, and whether we are at the start or end of our lives, it is God’s loving Spirit we seek, for power and comfort, to rightfully glorify God.

We pray that you have a blessed Advent and a joyous Christmas season. We all have so much to be grateful for!

Much love and prayers, from us to you!

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography Website Christine’s Icons and Paintings Website

Mercy

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The Blue dot is our location

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,

for in you my soul takes refuge:

in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,

till the storms of destruction pass by. Psalm 57:1

It is thought David wrote this Psalm, when he was being hunted by the jealous King Saul, who despised the peoples’ acclaim that David was a better warrior.

As the long night of Hurricane Ian pounding South West Florida unfolded, very similar prayers were being offered up by thousands of people. For hours I was thanking God for keeping us safe up until that point, not knowing what would come next. I watched in the grey night a live oak tree, with all of it’s limbs gyrate to the demands of the gale, and I thanked God for it’s resilience. It survived hour after hour of relentless fury, but it’s neighboring live oak fell with a split trunk.

Christine and I were very fortunate, our house came through undamaged.

That night there were forces at work which, thankfully, we do not experience often although certainly they will become more frequent. Climate change is a reality, which half of congress has stubbornly denied, even though the evidence has been shouted out for years. Even the FOX NEWS company realized the reality of climate change back in 2008 and made logistical changes to its business locations at that time. It continued though to broadcast an editorial portrayal denying climate change, presumably to uphold its business and political models.

At work I talked with a 97 year old woman, charging her cell phone in a corridor, because there was no power in her apartment. She was saying to me, ‘My mother taught me that lying was a sin. Plain and simple. What has happened to this country, is lying and denying the truth Okay now? Has money and political power become more important than truth?’

People are not often as forthright about their political thoughts, especially in a tight knit community of elderly people, but the storm seemed to give her license. She continued, ‘I know a lot of my friends here are Republicans, but can’t they see what their party has done?’

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26

Studio View

The bible uses the term, ‘dominion over’, which portrays two arms of the same privilege; to have control over, as well as have responsibility for.

I would suggest Saul, had been given dominion over David, but driven by jealousy he just wanted to destroy him. David on the other hand respected the dominion God had placed on Saul, and would not interfere with that privilege even though he clearly had the chance to kill Saul, while he was alone relieving himself in the cave.

Fox News with it’s enormous media power, willfully chose to use it’s editorial muscle and  denied climate change on it’s airwaves. With that amount of power comes an equal amount of responsibility.

Steps which should have been taken years ago, were ridiculed by news pundits and half of congress as recently as six months ago. Now, the generation which has wielded power will hand over to their children a world facing increasing hurricanes, wild fires, flooding, drought, pollution and displaced people. We have taken the pin out of the grenade and given it to our children to hold.

Has the desire for political power in part of the church, the body of Christ, become so strident that it now has earned the name ‘Christian Nationalism’? I do not recognize nationalism as part of Christ’s teaching. Indeed, the spirit of politics and the Holy Spirit come from two very different dominions and can only be corrupted when presented as the same.

Before the storm

In exactly the same place in the hallway where the lady shared her views that lying is a sin, that morning after the Hurricane Ian passed, I spoke with another woman. Her husband died at the height of the storm the night before. He had been bedridden for some time. She knew he was in a better place with Jesus. She knew that because of their faith. It had nothing to do with Christian Nationalism, Fox News, lies, jealousy or hurricanes, but everything to do with faith, love, peace, patience and self control in Jesus.

Lord, please help us to see as You see, direct our thoughts, emotions and actions so that all may be pleasing and honorable to You.

Love and prayers to you all. Please continue your prayers for us as well. We love you!

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography Christine’s Icons and Paintings

Prayed Up?

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Christine’s PBS broadcast has received a lot of attention and great responses, if you missed it here is a link . Indeed last month Christine had an article in Guideposts, the PBS video and she placed a in-house show of icons at the facility where Michael works. It has been wonderful to hear all the different positive reactions to her work and particularly from non believers and those of the evangelistic traditions which tend to be unfamiliar with icons.

She is now being contacted by another television station to possibly do another video which has a very large audience base. The wonderful part behind all of this is that these opportunities came to Christine without her physically seeking them, although praying for new doors to open for Christine have been consistently offered by us for years.
Christine also completed teaching another icon writing class online and has built up a healthy group of students who love to take the classes with her, this class wrote an icon of Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene written by Christine Hales

Michael has taken on a further body of people to minister to, as well as the independent living population, who are all in need of assistant care or active nursing care. One of the hardest realities for people to face in this age group is that of loss. Loss comes in so many ways, loss of memory, loss of driving, loss of hearing or seeing, loss of independence, loss of loved ones; the list varies with each person but the pain of these losses keeps surfacing for them.

One lady recently told me of her home of many years which she had to give up to move into assisted living. Apparently her old Floridian home had a large porch and she would sit out painting water colors and get visited by a wood stork. This had been happening for nearly twenty years and she called the stork, ‘Ugly, because wood storks are.’ She missed that stork so much and she was sure it missed her.

Orchid photo by Mick Hales

Different stories rise to the surface of lives once lived, memories which can not be experienced again except as memories. Bodies become slowly unresponsive, tired and slow, until they can’t do what they could do a month before.

I have come to realize this is a work, a ministry, which can not be done if I am not prayed up. Of course that is so obvious, and yet so easy to fall down on.
Global Awakening always taught us, not to go into any ministry arena, without being totally in touch with God in prayer, and yet somehow I found myself dry praying for others.

I know full well that my prayer life had not been calling to be filled with the Holy Spirit as it now requires. The business of getting myself physically ready for the job had overlooked the more important responsibility of being closely in touch with God. After all it is our responsibility to pray, to open the door, for God to answer that prayer. We have a role to play from which God answers according his sovereign wisdom. At the end of Job, God says to Job’s friends, that Job will pray for them so He will ‘not deal with you according to your folly’. [Job 42:8]

Our role as believers to really focus on prayer and staying close to God is so easily lost, especially when we are in active ministry, but it is the most important role we have. That is the role God has given us to do, with which He will flow into this world.

Please keep us in your prayers, and please pray that Michael and I can focus and go deeper in prayer.

Pride

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Beautiful Flower Found at RIngling Museum Garden

I had to admit it, my pride had been running my ministry. Actually, my pride had been running me. My pride was evaluating ‘my ministry’, when in reality God is the minister not me.

The Expanded Duties

Two weeks into visitations with a whole different set of residents, those receiving nursing care, short and long term, rehabilitation and memory care, I realized I was coming away exhausted and unhappy about what I judged as ‘my ministry.’ I was having a hard time making a connection with people, let alone a meaningful one. I was opening doors to doubts about myself and why I had requested to expand my Chaplain responsibilities to include these residents. It was clear that the need for a spiritual presence was there, of all the people in the large elderly residential facility, these were the most challenged and by extension, the nurses and staff were as well.

Talking with an independent counselor and Christian, I was able to recognize I was attempting to minister through my own abilities, rather than placing it in God’s hands. It was then the phrase, ‘You have a big spitball of pride,’ was born in my brain and I just had to verbalize it.

Proverbs 16:18 is succinct. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

My counselor had been able to turn my inward thinking, outward. Pride can be a difficult sin to see in oneself, it is inherently so by it’s very nature. It can take a large dose of truth to recognize pride at work.

Sea Shell photo by Mick Hales

What Does Pride Do To Us?

So what happens when pride is set free to operate within a power rich arena, where counseling and criticism are not happening or not allowed? Unfortunately, we see this too often in the workplace, even in the church, we see it in state and national politics, and we are having a text book review of how pride’s deadly consequences are realized, in the Ukraine. Putin’s pride has been working to restore the Soviet Union era’s position that Russia held, no matter what the consequences are for lives of innocent people.

Pride is such a powerful and insidious sin it is placed as first on the fictitious list of ‘seven deadly sins’, since all sins separate us from the love of God, spiritually they are all on a par with each other. However, within the affects they have on other people’s lives in our physical world, some are much more deadly than others.

Photo by Mick Hales

So the question arises, and perhaps it is too vague to be answered. Is pride more prevalent in our highly visible social media lives now, than it was even twenty years ago?

And here is another question, which is not vague at all, is pride trying to lead your life?

Please partner with me over the next month, for God to reveal ways that pride might be getting a foothold in our lives. Let us pray also for God to remove all vestiges of it and replace it with knowledge of our utter dependence on Him, His mercy, and His love. More of You Lord!

Christine’s News

Mary Magdalene Icon in Progress

I’m working on a double commission to paint a new and original icon of Saint Paul- as a young man and as a tentmaker. I’ve spent countless hours researching, drawing, and painting studies. And now I’m ready to start painting! Yay! My favorite part!

I’ll be teaching another online Icon writing class May 24-27 that I am very excited about. The subject is Mary Magdalene. I’ve written a blog about her that you might also want to read. I can’t remember if I shared the link to the Guidepost article about my work, so here it is.

Sending you all lots of love and prayers- and we very much appreciate yours! We can’t do this without each other!

Love and Prayers, Christine and Michael

Michael’s Photography Christine’s Icons

God’s Hand in Our Lives

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Photo from PBS Interview, Courtesy Dalia Colon

Well, the exciting news in March was the filming of Christine in her icon studio by a PBS film crew, for a national spot on ‘Arts Plus.’  As this is being written the editing is underway. We do not know yet when it will be aired, but will be sure to provide a link, when that is available.

God has been at work in all of this from the start!

St. George des Gardes Convent in France where Christine had a God encounter with Icons and Sister Myriam

It is so wonderful to see Christine’s years of work teaching and promoting Contemporary Christian Icons in America, finally get some televised recognition. What is particularly wonderful, is recognition from within the contemporary Art arena, for a Christian medium so often rejected out of hand. Christine has taken the gift assigned to her from a French nun in a monastery in France, to bring iconography into a broader church body in America. She incorporated with that overall commission, her own painting style of innocence, naivety and depth of color, moving away from chiseled hard edges and precise detail, but still heavily leaning on the traditional Russian Icon writing style.

Christine Painting Prophetic Art During Global Awakening Ministry School

Using the visual image, as a bridge, to bring people closer to God, has been in the roots of Kingdom Arts Ministry for many years. It is always wonderful to discover how God wants to direct and develop the gifts God has given us. In Christine’s case, when she went to that meeting with Sister Myriam in France, it was more as an appreciative guest honoring an invitation than the expectation a life changing spiritual encounter.

Mick Hales Photography

We never know what God has waiting for us to do. Often it is associated with a path we have been on; only for us to find ourselves on a similar path we had never thought about, but that we are also gifted in. John 10:10 reminds me, God’s way is much more abundant than a way I would create for myself.

‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’

March has also been, sadly, heavy with the actions of ‘the Thief’ in Ukraine.  We in America have no concept of the tragedy being endured in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the same could be said of most Russian people, even though they are citizens of the aggression.

Mick Hales Photography

For millions in that area, life has been turned upside down. For thousands life is no more. It is even more important now for us to pray for the destructive power wielded by Putin to be bound and replaced by the power to heal and renew. For God’s Holy presence in Ukraine through the Holy Spirit. After all, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ, with God the Father, for such a time as this. Never doubt the power of prayer.

God is With Us

 But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.  John 1:2.

Michael the Adventurer!

MORE NEWS, JUST IN:

Predictably, Michael has been adding so much Holy Spirit to the Chaplaincy he has been working at for the last three years that he has been approved for a program expansion. He will now be able to pray for even more people at the retirement home- and you know how much he loves praying for people! Congratulations Michael!

We love you all and love praying for you! Let us know if there’s anything specific you need prayer for! And thank you for your prayers for us! We can feel them and are so grateful to all of you!

Love and prayers,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography Website Christine’s Icon Website