I love the 80s

Hey, --the 1980s are back! -- Sylvester Stallone has prepped another Rambo movie. Not only that, Chuck Norris is an Internet icon and is donating his time for a presidential candidate, (and even Mr. T is doing commercials!)

I loved the decade of the 80s: Faith Bible College for Virginia and me, getting our Great Commission calling from God, Jubilee Christian Center's formative years, --and, stonewashed jeans!

And, think about it, even in the new millennium these tough-guy actors are still as ripped as they were 20 years ago!

Conservative men are cool.

Everytime the wind blows

In the coming weeks Americans will choose only 2 finalists in the job search for the most important CEO position on planet earth. Mrs. O and I believe that leadership/character traits are more important than technical knowledge of, say, foreign policy or economics. But these seem to get all the attention.

These and other things can distract us from the real issue of examining a candidate's fitness.

I remember a long time ago (when Jubilee was across the street in our old sanctuary) Virginia and I were in a Home Fellowship Group leader's meeting, and Pastor and Doug & Danae Roberts called a meeting to invite couples to become "captains" in the H.F.G. During the course of the meeting one of the cell leaders blurted out, "Pastor, I really love you brother, if you were running for President I'd vote for you."

We all chuckled profusely--and it happened to be during a presidential election season--nevertheless everyone in the room instinctively knew that Pastor had this intangible quality to inspire and lead people.

And later, when Pastor asked an older Jubelite (a dentist) to start a Home Fellowship Group, this individual hesitated and told Pastor that he wasn't a Bible scholar. Pastor replied that he wasn't looking for a student of the Bible, --he was looking for a leader to lead a Home Fellowship Group. This was very telling, and I remember this exchange as if it happened yesterday.

If you think about it selecting a President has little to do with their having academic skills. Presidents have to learn a lot on the job, and must surround themselves with advisors much smarter than themselves anyway.

The candidate we want to vote for --has he had some good robust life experiences, personally and professionally? The presidency is a job for a kind of generalist. We never know what crisis or emergency will come calling, nor from what direction it will hit us. A generalist type of President will know the correct actions to take that make sense in whatever context it appears.

Oh, sure, there's something to be said for a candidate's style, grace and charisma, but those things don't take you very far in a showdown...

...How does the presidential candidate view our country? Liberty is America's greatest national asset. Therefore a President must be ruthless in guarding our nation from foreign enemies. Christian citizens should recall how 20-something David of old ruthlessly protected his sheep from lions in the wilderness.

Of all presidential attributes, the American people must see a leader who loves this duty, because if our homeland is threatened or breached --nothing else matters.

They're all colorfull candidates! But would the front-runners make good presidential leaders? Everytime the wind blows can a leader stay the course on his convictions? Lone Wolf Liberties is reminded of two leaders, one in recent memory and one today, unchanged by the direction of continual fierce blowing winds: President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush the Younger.

I hope they still make 'em today.

Reagan; Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! During this Christian season, throughout our fruited plain, men and a woman are presidential candidates to be the Leader of the Free World.

They should stop and listen to America's exponent of the shining city on a hill.

Parabolic encounters

In the spring of 1999 Virginia and I posited an idea that, in nature, the parabola, has correspondence with the gospel of Christ. The idea bears repeating.

The roots of the word parabola can be traced to the Greek word pa-rab-o-le literally meaning, “a comparison or metaphor.”

Curiously, the New Testament word “parable” shares the same Greek meaning: also a comparison! (This was a eureka moment for me, and it occurred when I was coding documents into a database as a temp in a Silicon Valley I.P. law firm, Skjerven Morrill MacPherson Franklin & Friel, just off the 101.)

When a basketball is thrown, it first rises, and then begins to fall. The curve it follows is a parabola. A satellite dish is a parabola. Its curve causes signals to reflect to a central focus. Reflection is a great property of the parabola, and we benefit from it all the time without thinking much about it.

Now, as missionaries, when we transmit faith across a foreign culture we believe that spiritual encounters follow a parabola. It is often problematic sharing Christ in a world dominated by materialism, modernism, mammon and other belief systems, nevertheless...

Each ray in the diagram symbolizes an individual (or possibly even a community of individuals). A ray strikes the parabola and is reflected to the focus.
The parabola is a type of Christian believer. The focus is a type of Christ.I believe that at the point where a ray strikes the parabola, an encounter between the hearer and the missionary has occurred. Even more importantly, at the exact point where the ray is reflected to the focus—the hearer has understood the meaning of Christ.

Salvation may well follow.

Jubilee Vietnam Church

My wife is shown here with her fans--the JVC Youth--and enjoys fellowship and lunch down in the Jubilee galley following the 11:00 AM service.

California's help from Baghdad

After returning from my meeting at Jubilee Christian Center with Fellee, I was happy to learn of a story out of Iraq, --but boycotted by the media.

It seems that a group of Iraqi soldiers in a military camp east of Baghdad collected $1,000.00 last week to send to my neighbors in southern California, affected by the recent wildfires.

Iraqi soldiers risking their lives everyday, --and still find the time to raise money for charity!

These Iraqis have so much class.

Hmm, let's see, how much did the European Union send?

If American soldiers and Marines are washouts and misfits that they have been made out to be by the mainstream media --why would local Iraqis dig into their pockets to assist American civilians?

Iraqis are indeed working with the finest America has to offer.

A huge differential

This year Islam and Judaism's holiest holidays overlapped for 10 days.

But the differential between them was huge: Muslims racked up 397 dead bodies across 10 countries during Ramadan...while the Hebrews quietly worked on their 159th Nobel Prize.

~natural exponent

If mothers ruled the world

While catching up on world events on FOX News, I saw FOX's report on Sally Field's Emmy award acceptance speech. But FOX News had to bleep parts of it!

In her bleeped Emmy acceptance speech Sunday night, Sally Field said:

Let's face it, if mothers ruled the world, there would be no god_ _ _ n wars in the firstplace.

Wow; I could almost see fire coming out of her eyes.

But this is such false premise. Have you ever seen a mother's reaction when someone tries to come between her and her children? War comes to mind.

Natural Exponent would like to remind Sally Field that there have been female heads of state, mothers, who have waged war. This can be found in any High School history book:

Israel's Golda Meir, India's Indira Gandhi, and Britain's Maggie Thatcher. These 3 mothers waged war in defense of their nation's sovereignty.

Battle dogs

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. David Hornsby and his special security dog Lisa are hoisted into a helicopter during a canine-hoist training mission near Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, on July 15, 2007.

Lisa is attached to the 101st Air Assault Division.

Dogs - they truly do like us, don't they? I'm trying to imagine how poorer man would be without dogs.

.

An exponent of liberty

Edmund Burke
"I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman... It is one of the gifts of Providence."

Long Live The Queen!

A firestorm has been sweeping across the Muslim world because H.M. Queen Elizabeth knighted the "infidel" Salman Rushdie.

Happily, free speech is a heritage of English-speaking nations.

I think that by knighting Rushdie, the Queen is honoring the freedom of conscience (and speech) that English-speaking nations love. That makes her a symbol of free thought. Indeed this is how one comes to Christ --through the free-speech efforts of the evangelist.

Long live the Queen!

The Genuine Article II

Ho Chi Minh City: A pastor explains to me that his friend (at right, with his wife) has been jailed 6 times because of his Christian faith.

This underscored a hard reality to me: I do not know what it means to be a Christian, --and suffer its consequences. (He is the genuine article.)

(J-Team Vietnam::May 2007)

Solution to Illegal Immigration

If illegal aliens are here to do the jobs Americans won't do, maybe more could come to Jubilee Christian Center --George & Virginia could use more missionary candidates.

The Genuine Article

What does it mean to be a Christian?

Mrs. Obregon with a woman (left) who lives somewhere in the 10/40 drop zone.

This woman has had to live without her husband for 15 years—that’s how long he’s been imprisoned for his Christian faith. She sells cloth to make a living.

“I am uneducated, but God uses me,” she informs Virginia and me.

She goes on to inform us of the most astonishing fact—150 people worship at her house each Sunday. This woman has also seen minority tribesmen come to Christ in her country.

Her husband’s previous evangelistic efforts have resulted in 21 churches planted throughout her area.

(She is the genuine article.)

Two Orchids of Vietnam

Above, First Lady Mrs. Lan Bui and First Lady Mrs. Virginia Obregon of J-Team, relax before our hectic back-to-back Prophetic Seminars in Ho Chi Minh City.

Our 5-man J-Team was composed of all Jubelites from Jubilee Christian Center, rare, since Virginia and I have always deployed to Vietnam with missionaries from different churches.

Love is in the Air

Upon returning from Vietnam on Tactical Team-J, Virginia and I shared with Jubilee Vietnam the same ideas that we delivered to Vietnam's church leaders, i.e., the love of our Father God.

Indeed, Mrs. Obregon is all too aware of the kinetic energy of a moving mass:

Therefore she sought help from me, Andrew Le, and Kevin Danh as the congregants melted under God's hand.

Love is in the air.

Greenpeace is building a god!

Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat--where the biblical vessel landed after the Great Flood.

According to AP from Istanbul:

Turkish and German volunteer carpenters are making the wooden ship on the mountain in eastern Turkey, bordering Iran. The ark will be revealed in a ceremony on May 31, a day after Greenpeace activists climb the mountain and call on world leaders to take action to tackle climate change.


~ Hmmm, does anyone doubt that global warming is a substitute religion?

The data on mass murder

Virginia Tech Shooter
Originally uploaded by Geo & VO.

Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing --this is the case of the Virginia Tech shooter.

But since the Fall of Adam there have always been deranged individuals. If someone is determined to commit mass murder there is usually very little that can be done to prevent it.

(Curious: NBC must be the network of choice for homocidal maniacs.)

Most of the time these creatures can't be locked up, until it's too late. You see, in the USA it's not against the law to be crazy. It's certainly
not against the law to be an unsociable loner.

Wait, he mailed a package? What? --on his way to murder as many people as he could he dropped off a package at the Post Office?

My head is spinning.

But another thing, if you study history general purpose sociopaths don't issue manifestos, --there is some sort of ideology involved here. I need more data on this creature.

But this is the experimental data we do have:

32 are dead at Virginia Tech...50 million dead from Roe v. Wade...

Young Laotian delegate, Bangkok

VIRGINIA IN BANGKOK, WITH LAOTIAN
Originally uploaded by Geo & VO.

Virginia is seen here giving a wristwatch to a young Laotian, who was a delegate to the Missionary Symposium in Bangkok; March 2007.

We always take California-donated gifts on every deployment so that we may bless others with whom we meet and interact.

Assemblies of God school--Bangladesh

Virginia and I found the source of the tiny pitter-patter at the AGE Center in Bangladesh: children who are attending class served by the Assemblies of God.

We were surprised to learn that Muslim parents also send their children to this Christian school. They enroll their children because of the quality of education, even though Christian principles and the gospel are taught to all students.

The AGE Center contains a triad: a Christian school, a Bible college, and an A.G. Church.

This campus is a little larger than our Jubilee Christian Center admin campus in San Jose, California.