Missionary Spotlight ~ Dave & Jan Veldhorst, Thailand

Rev. Dave and Jan Veldhorst have been in Thailand with their 5 children since graduating from Covenant Seminary in August, 2000. The Mission to the World-Thailand team has been blessed to see God answer many prayers from the early years of field ministry. God has blessed them with a good team composed of 4 families from the US, 2 single women, and 4 full time Thai staff.

The team currently has several support ministries that help with the work of church planting. Dave and Jan have begun work on Ramkhamheng University campus in the Bangna area. They have established New Community Foundation--a foundation that reaches out to the poor in their area through word and deed ministries. New Community English currently seeks to build relationships with about 100 students through teaching conversational English. New City Fellowship Church has English worship on Sunday morning and Thai worship in the afternoon with about 30 attending each service. Dave and Jan have much to be thankful for with regards to the ministry there. Years ago they asked God especially for two things: the ability to speak the Thai language and the development of a good network with other Christian leaders. God, in His kind providence, has answered both prayers. They are still praying for a full time Thai pastor to come and lead the church planting work.

God has also blessed their family. Their oldest son James will finish up his last year of high school in Thailand and then will be entering college stateside. They have seen their other children grow, both as young children and young teens, spiritually and relationally. Jan and Dave also will be celebrating 18 years of marriage. This year marks the 10th year that they have enjoyed their marriage in a cross cultural foreign context. They have no regrets that the Lord has called them to the gospel ministry overseas as a couple.

Goals for the year ahead include being more active in discipling young Thai believers and being more intentional in mentoring the young Bible College and seminary interns assisting them. Growing in balancing work and rest also is an ongoing prayer need and goal. Dave and Jan give God thanks for 36 supporting churches and the way First PCA Jackson has shown great support both financially, through prayer, and through sending short term teams there.

* Pray for peace in Thailand. There is an unsettled feeling as the country moves to vote in November on a new prime minister.

* Pray for wisdom for Dave and Jan as they minister in Thailand.

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Robert C. Cannada's Homegoing

It pleased the Lord to gather to Himself His servant, Robert C. "Bob" Cannada, faithful Ruling Elder of this congregation, on Thursday, July 5, 2007, around 1 o'clock p.m., in Jackson, Mississippi.

The Funeral Service and Visitation will be at First Presbyterian Church. As follows:

Visitation, Miller Hall, Monday, July 9, 2007, 5 until 8 o’clock p.m.

Visitation, Courtyard (adjacent to Sanctuary), Tuesday, July 10, 2007, 9 until 10:30 o’clock a.m.

Funeral, Tuesday, July 10, 2007, 11 o'clock a.m., followed by a Graveside Service at Lakewood Memorial Park.
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Missionary Spotlight ~ Bill & Marion Baldwin, Greece

Bill was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Houston, Texas when he was 15. In college his roommate invited him to church and there he made a public confession of his faith. After college, with a BS in Religion he attended Moody Bible Institute for one year and then Dallas Seminary where he received his MTh. While at seminary he met Bob Evans, founder of Greater Europe Mission and felt that GEM's thrust of starting Bible Colleges all over Europe was a wise idea. For some reason God placed Greece on Bill’s heart. GEM expected all candidates to attend Missionary Internship, a 7-month training program for would-be missionaries, in Detroit, which is where Bill & Marion met.

Marion was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She graduated from Toronto Bible College and then became a registered nurse before going to Missionary Internship.

Bill served as youth pastor at West Chicago Bible church for one year after their marriage and then a year later, having raised their support, Bill & Marion left for Greece with a very simple job description: start a Bible Institute. So....that's what they did....and therein lies a LONG story of learning a language, gaining the trust of the Greek evangelicals, finding a 'home' for the Greek Bible Institute, finding teachers and students and the money to pay for it all....GOD HAS BEEN FAITHFUL. Bill has taught all the Theology courses at the Bible college, Marion used to teach a course to young women, but now does the book-keeping for the college for Greater Europe Mission.

Today the director of the college is their son Jeff. The graduates are pastors of the majority of the Greek Evangelical churches in Greece. They head up most para-church organizations in Greece, and are also serving as missionaries.

Bill and Marion’s four children have all married Greeks and 2 of them are also missionaries with GEM in Greece. Thank God they are all committed Christians, married to people from committed Christian homes. They also have 11 grandchildren.

Bill & Marion first heard of First Presbyterian church in Jackson, Mississippi when their then pastor, Don Patterson, asked Bill to lead a tour group he was bringing to Greece. Bill and Marion got a burden for Greece and even sent Van and Alice Rusling to Greece to work with the GEM team for a few years. Van actually taught Marion her job!

Please pray for Bill and Marion as they serve in Greece.

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July 4, 1942

Cindy Mercer Photography

On July 4, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt challenged the nation to vigilance in war-time. He called for Americans to continue working through the Independence Day Holiday. The War and Navy Departments, the Post Office, and the State Department all put in a regular day's work. Roosevelt set the example for the nation by scheduling a full day of work at the White House. Many businesses and corporations in the private sector remained opened. The few ceremonies held that day were mostly military-related exercises. In Philadelphia at the base of the Liberty Bell, 200 young men were inducted into the armed forces while in New York citizens there hear over 400 air raid sirens wail at noon. There was a marked absence of fireworks that night due to blackouts in all cities and towns. Roosevelt said:

For 166 years this Fourth Day of July has been a symbol to the people of our country of the democratic freedom which our citizens claim as their precious birthright. On this grim anniversary its meaning has spread over the entire globe--focusing the attention of the world upon the modern freedoms for which all the United Nations are now engaged in deadly war.

On the desert sands of Africa, along the thousands of miles of battle lines in Russia, in New Zealand and Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, in war-torn China and all over the seven seas, free men are fighting desperately--and dying--to preserve the liberties and the decencies of modern civilization. And in the overrun and occupied nations of the world, this day is filled with added significance, coming at a time when freedom and religion have been attacked and trampled upon by tyrannies unequaled in human history.

Never since it first was created in Philadelphia, has this anniversary come in times so dangerous to everything for which it stands. We celebrate it this year, not in the fireworks of make-believe but in the death-dealing reality of tanks and planes and guns and ships. We celebrate it also by running without interruption the assembly lines which turn out these weapons to be shipped to all the embattled points of the globe. Not to waste one hour, not to stop one shot, not to hold back one blow--that is the way to mark our great national holiday in this year of 1942.

To the weary, hungry, unequipped Army of the American Revolution, the Fourth of July was a tonic of hope and inspiration. So is it now. The tough, grim men who fight for freedom in this dark hour take heart in its message--the assurance of the right to liberty under God--for all peoples and races and groups and nations, everywhere in the world.

(Source: New York Times, 5 July 1942, 23.)

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Lines For Summer (2)

Cindy Mercer Photography

Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.

Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 1998
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Report on our team in Peru

PCA minister Roland Barnes is in Peru right now, and gives this glimpse of what our own team (led by Ruling Elder Danny Story) is doing:

"Yesterday, after a time of devotion and prayer, we continued work at the construction site. Some of us were pounding away with a small sledge hammer busting up an old concrete column so we could remove it.

Others were cutting rebar into lengths so that they could then be bent into a square shape. These pieces of rebar will be used to build the rebar frame for a new column. Other workers were mixing concrete so they could pour it into the footings. At the same time that we are working on the building the medical team from FPC, Jackson is at work in the church building. They had to close the doors this morning because someone put an announcement on a local radio station about the free clinic and when they arrived this morning there were already too many people to see. They worked until 8:00 p.m. last night. The sanctuary is the waiting room and the back rooms are the patient rooms. Phil went over and translated an evangelistic message for those who were waiting to be seen. There is also a cardiologist from FPC, Jackson who is seeing patients. There is another group of people from FPC, Jackson who are doing VBS and sports with the children."
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Missionary Spotlight ~ Hugh & Martine Wessel, Proclaiming Christ in France

Hugh and Martine met in 1969 while Hugh was serving in the United States Army in Munich, Germany. They were converted at L’Abri in Switzerland in 1972, and were married by their pastor, Francis Schaeffer, in 1973.

The Wessels have been serving with Mission to the World since 1979. Their initial charge: church planting, evangelism and church renewal. During their second term, the Wessels founded the Marseille Team. In 1989 Hugh was made country director for France, and supervised teams with CoMission in Ukraine. In 1995 Hugh was asked to be European regional director for MTW, giving oversight to church-planting teams, opening new fields, and training missionaries.

Currently, Hugh has moved into a role of consultant for research and development. In addition, he trains French pastors and laypeople in evangelism; gives oversight to French church plants; and preaches, teaches, and lectures throughout France.

Martine has ministered through teaching Sunday school, using their home extensively for hospitality, and leading women’s Bible studies. Martine and Hugh have three adult children: Laurence, Damaris, and Nils.

Please pray for the Wessels as they spread the gospel in France.
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"Many Mansions"

On December 25, 1737, after the seating of the third new meetinghouse in Northampton’s history, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled, “Many Mansions.” In eighteenth century New England, seats in the meetinghouse were assigned according to social rank. The sermon is based on John 14:2, “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” This is his conclusion:

'Tis very little worth the while for us to pursue after honor in this world, where the greatest honor is but a bubble and will soon vanish away, and death will level all. Some have more stately houses than others, and some are in higher office than others, and some are richer than others and have higher seats in the meeting-house than others; but all graves are upon a level.

But the mansions in God's house above are everlasting mansions. Those that have seats allotted 'em there, whether of greater or lesser dignity, whether nearer or further from the throne, will hold 'em to all eternity. This is promised, Revelation 3:12 :"Him that overcometh I will make him a pillar in the temple [of my God, and he shall go no more out]." If it be worth the while to desire and seek high seats in the meeting-house, where you are one day in a week, and where you shall never come but few days in all; if it be worth the while much to prize one seat above another in the house of worship only because it is the pew or seat that is ranked first in number, and to be seen here for a few days, how will it be worth the while to seek an high mansion in God's temple and in that glorious place that is the everlasting habitation of God and all his children!

You that are pleased with your seats in this house because you are seated high or in a place that is looked upon honorable by those that sit round about, and because many can behold you, consider how short a time you will enjoy this pleasure. And if there be any that are not suited in their seats because they are too low for them, let them consider that it is but a very little while before it will [be] all one to you whether you have sat high or low here. But it will be of infinite and everlasting concern to you where your seat is in another world. Let your great concern be while in this world so to improve your opportunities in God's house in this world, whether you sit high or low, as that you may have a distinguished and glorious mansion in God's house in heaven, where you may be fixed in your place in that glorious assembly in an everlasting rest.

Let the main thing that we prize in God's house be, not the outward ornaments of it, or a high seat in it, but the word of God and his ordinances in it. And spend your time here in seeking Christ, that he may prepare a place for you in his Father's house, that when he comes again to this world, he may take you to himself, that where he is, there you may be also.

From Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, edited with introduction and notes by H. Horman Gardiner, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1904.
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Lord's Day in the New Meeting House

Preparatory Thoughts for Worship
Lord's Day, June 24, 2007
First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS

On Sunday morning, October 9, 1853, Dr. Benjamin Morgan Palmer (then the Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, SC, later the Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans – who incidentally preached the dedication of our second sanctuary in 1892) said in his sermon dedicating the new church building for First Columbia –

"As for this building, beautiful as it may be in our eyes, let it please us to call only a plain Presbyterian meeting house.

The glory we see in it,
let it not be the glory of its arches and its timbers;
not the glory of its lofty and graceful spire, pointing ever upwards to that home the pious shall find [with] God;
not the glory of this chaste pulpit, with its delicate tracery and marble whiteness;
not the glory found in the eloquence or learning of those who, through generations, shall here proclaim the gospel;
nor yet the glory traced in the wealth and fashion, refinement and social position of those who throng its courts.

But let its glory be The Glory of the Lord Risen Upon It!
Let its glory be the promises of the covenant engraved upon its walls, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus.
Let its glory be found in the purity, soundness, and unction of its pastors; in the fidelity and watchfulness of its elders; in the piety and godliness of its members.
Let its glory be as a birthplace of souls, where shall always be heard the sobs of awakened penitence and the songs of newborn love.
Let its glory be the spirituality of its worship, its fervent prayers, its adoring praise, and the simplicity and truth of its ordinances and sacraments.
Let its glory be the communion of saints, who here have fellowship one with another and also with the Father and his son, Jesus Christ.
Let its glory be as the resting place of weary pilgrims toiling on toward the heavenly city—the emblem of that Church above—Where congregations ne’er break up, And Sabbaths never end."

May the glory of the Lord be so manifest in your hearts and lives and public worship, through the grace of Christ in the Gospel, that those who gather with us to join in his praise will ever say, surely God is among you (1 Corinthians 14:25), and surely the Lord is in this place (Genesis 28:16).
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Lines for Summer

Cindy Mercer Photography

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be--
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

Robert Frost

For the heart of this people has become dull,
And with their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes
Lest they should see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I should heal them.

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. "

Matthew 13:15-16
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