Saying Grace
Stories
Object:
Contents
A Story to Live By: "Saying Grace"
Sharing Visions: "That Which Comes from Heaven" by Janet Angel
Good Stories: "The Boy Who Had Everything" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "The Hungry Heart" by John Sumwalt
Dear StoryShare Friends,
The first Sunday of the month is Communion Sunday in our church. This Sunday, as we take the bread and dip it into the cup, I will be thinking about what Jesus said to the crowds that sought him out after he had fed them in what we know as "the feeding of the 5,000": "... you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves" (John 6:26). Why do we seek after Jesus? What is the hunger that draws us to him? In a land of plenty, why is it that so many of us have hungry hearts?
Send us a favorite communion story, one that nourishes the soul and satisfies the hungry heart. Address your communion offerings to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
John
A Story to Live By
Saying Grace
Heather Murray-Elkins tells of stopping at a diner while driving on the Pennsylvania interstate one night. She takes out a sandwich and, "to avoid the nosy eyes of the all-male late-night diners," her eyes focus on a picture above her booth. She experiences an epiphany as she takes in the picture of an old woman and young boy in the midst of a "diner crowd of cynics. Her head is bowed. His head is bowed. She is saying grace."
Heather writes: "What embarrasses and convicts me in a flash point is the gut-level power of a woman saying grace in a graceless place. She does not ask permission or participation. She 'alter's the scene by refusing to distinguish between private and public sphere. What she does at her table, she does in the world." (from Worshiping Women: Re-Forming God's People For Praise, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994, pg. 51)
There is a similar scene in a diner in the movie Witness, where a police detective (played by Harrison Ford) is startled and a bit ashamed as he notices the people he is with, an Amish woman and her little son, offering a simple grace after he has already started to eat.
Return to top
Sharing Visions
That Which Comes from Heaven
by Janet Angel
"Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
John 6:31-34
As a little girl, about five years old, I began to "know" things before they would happen. I was receiving information and musical pieces without formal education. People sought my advice, even as a child, because I could channel information to help them. I experienced a silent dialogue with angels, and then had an apparition of Mary at my bedside at five years of age. I was told that my life would not be ordinary. I understood that I was supposed to spread the word of God, but I wasn't sure how. I was instructed not to discuss what I was receiving until the time was right.
As I grew older, being raised in a Catholic home, I thought that I was supposed to be a nun, so I went in that direction for a time, only to be guided away from that role later on. I have a doctorate in psychology, because my concrete mind wanted to "prove" what I was receiving from God. But I later realized that we cannot differentiate between all that we are, being body, mind, and spirit. I was silently taught about meditation: given incredible wisdom about our truest nature, the hidden vocabulary in our words, cosmic innate intelligence, how to help people heal themselves, the blueprints of our souls, how to stop our cells from aging, telekinesis, clairvoyance, clairaudience, remote viewing, and much, much more. This dialogue with God continues every day.
In my first book, I list questions that I have been asking about our supreme source of light and intelligence and LOVE (God). We are so much more than anyone has ever imagined. Once we perfect our independent lives of all of the illusions on earth and move toward healing, we then will begin to use our innate gifts: those Jesus was trying to teach us.
My message has been consistent as I continue to receive love from the highest source in existence. Some have believed that God stopped communicating with us as humans during the time of Moses. Well, God did not. I am now in the midst of teaching others, through seminars and writing, how to receive the answers we seek directly from God. There are different forms of communication which are appropriate for each person. My deepest desire is to enlighten as many souls as possible to the truth of our identity and potential from a place of unconditional love.
Janet Angel is the author of All That You Are: Your True Identity. See http://www.1stbooks.com
Return to top
Good Stories
The Boy Who Had Everything
by John Sumwalt
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
John 6:35
There was once a little boy who had everything. At least he thought he had everything. He lived in a big, beautiful house, with a swimming pool and a treehouse in the backyard. He had a 10-speed bike, a go-kart, and an all-terrain vehicle in the garage, all of which he could ride any time he pleased. In his bedroom he had a 27-inch color television, a VCR, a stereo, a compact disc player, a computer, a Nintendo, and dozens of movies and video games. He even had his own telephone and answering machine.
So, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, the boy who had everything played all alone with all of his wonderful things. Sometimes he and his dad would go biking, or would ride their all-terrain vehicles down at the beach. In the afternoons he went shopping at the mall with his mom and dad and they bought more wonderful things. Somehow it never seemed to be enough. He had a hunger, deep down inside himself, for something else. He wasn't sure what it was that he was hungry for, but he knew it was something he didn't have.
The boy who lived next door to the boy who had everything didn't have nearly as many nice things. He lived in a modest house with a small backyard which had barely enough room for his tire swing and sandbox. He had a 3-speed bike and a red wagon in his garage, and in his room there was a cage with his pet hamster, his baseball card collection, his comic books, and a wall covered with posters. He also had a dog named Rex who knew how to roll over and play dead.
On Saturdays the boy next door played catch with his dad in the backyard. In the afternoon, sometimes, his mom would fix a picnic supper and they would go to the park or fishing at the lake. On Sundays they all went to church.
The boy who had everything had noticed that the boy next door went to church on Sundays with his parents. He asked his mom and dad about it, and they said that church was fine for some people, but it wasn't for them.
One Sunday morning, the boy who had everything was playing up in his treehouse when he noticed the boy next door getting into the car with his parents. They were all dressed up in their best clothes. He watched as they drove away, and when the car was just about out of sight, he hopped on his 10-speed bike and followed them for several blocks down the street and around the corner to their church. He watched from behind a tree as they got out of the car and went into the building. There were a great many other children going into the church with their parents, too. After everyone had gone in, and he could hear music coming from the organ inside the church, he decided that maybe it would be all right if he went in very quietly to see what it was that went on in church.
He tiptoed in. A door was open to a big room where all the people were seated on long benches. He stood behind the doorpost and watched and listened as the people sang songs, and a man dressed in a white robe and standing on what looked like a little stage with a big lectern read from a large leather-bound book. Then the man closed the book and talked for a little while. After that he invited everyone to give something he called their offerings. Several people went around with little gold bowls to get all of the offerings. It appeared to the boy that people were putting money in the bowls. When they were finished they took the bowls up to a table in the center of the stage. The man in the white robe went over and uncovered a vase and a loaf of bread. He said some words and then he invited everyone to come up and eat. The little boy was surprised to see that people knelt down before they ate. Watching all of this made him very hungry, and he hoped that they would offer him some of the bread, too.
When everyone was finished, the man in the white robe held up the vase and the bread and asked, "Is there anyone else who would like to come?"
The little boy didn't know what came over him, but he couldn't help himself; he stepped out from behind the doorpost and called out, "Yes, I would like to come. May I have some?"
The man in the white robe said, "Why, of course you may have some. It is especially for you."
The little boy who had everything went forward and knelt down in front of the man in the white robe. The man broke off a big piece of the bread and showed the little boy how to dip it in the vase. When he put it in his mouth it tasted sweet and satisfying, like nothing he had ever tasted before. And in that moment the little boy felt something change deep down inside himself. He didn't know what it was that was different; he only knew he wasn't hungry any more.
Return to top
Scrap Pile
The Hungry Heart
by John Sumwalt
My mother's people, the Longs of Templenoe, Tipperary, came from Ireland to southwest Wisconsin during the great potato famine, around 1859. "In the 1840s, 75 percent of Irish farmers were dependent on potatoes, one of the only crops that could grow with any profit on the small parcels of land most farmers owned and that was nutritious enough as a dietary staple to support subsistence living. In 1845 a fungus (known as the black rot) blighted the potato crop, and continued to destroy harvests for five years. As one historian writes, 'the result was mass starvation on a scale not witnessed in the British Isles or in Western Europe for more than a hundred years.' Unable to pay their rents, more than half a million Irish were evicted from their cottages.... All told, more than a million died from starvation, typhus, and dysentery, and three million were reduced to charity.... The Famine depopulated Ireland's population. In the years during and after the famine another three million people -- nearly 30 percent of the island's inhabitants -- left Ireland.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eas5e/Sadlier/History.html Some landlords "paid for their tenants to emigrate, sending hundreds of thousand of Irish to America and other English speaking countries ... Ship owners often crowded hundreds of desperate Irish onto rickety vessels labeled 'coffin ships.' In many cases the ships reached port after losing one third of their passengers to disease, hunger, and other causes." http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eas5e/Irish/Famine.html
We always had plenty of potatoes on the farm where I grew up, just over the hill from where my Irish ancestors settled -- boiled, baked, mashed, hashed, fried, or roasted; we had potatoes at almost every meal. When my mother said to me, "Johnny, eat your potatoes," the urgency in her voice came from a memory handed down from a time when there weren't enough potatoes to go around. "Food mustn't be wasted. There was a time when we didn't have enough to eat," she was trying to tell me.
Most of us have not known real physical hunger. But we know other kinds of hunger. We who live in the time of fast food restaurants and supermarkets and shopping malls, whose refrigerators and pantries are full, know another kind of hunger -- the hunger of the heart, the hunger of the soul. It is a longing in the depths of our beings that cannot be satisfied by anything we can buy. The best symbol of our consumer-rich society is the "open mouth." We are always hungry, always wanting more. Advertisements in the media all around us are continually stimulating our appetites for super-sized meals, bigger houses, plusher furnishings, smarter and faster technological gadgets. We are never satisfied.
In August of 1992, Kenneth Lutgen, Jr., of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) sent out an urgent appeal to churches regarding a famine in South Africa: "Last summer I spent several months visiting the shack cities of South Africa. As we ate I began to be aware of something very disturbing. The women and children of the community were not eating. When I asked why, I was told it was not their tradition. There was not enough food to go around, and their tradition of hospitality dictated that a guest be fed first." We can learn from this tradition as news of another severe famine comes to us from southern Africa. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has described the food crisis in southern Africa as the most severe and urgent dilemma facing the international community at the moment. Some 14.4 million people will require urgent humanitarian assistance in the next seven months. It is the worst agricultural disaster that this part of Africa has faced in a decade. The countries affected are Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has been hit the hardest. Many now eat only one small meal a day; the poorest are forced to beg for a handful of corn meal from their neighbors. Eating only one meal per day has a severe nutritional impact, especially on children, pregnant women, elderly, and disabled people. Lives are under serious threat due to the food shortages. Thousand of children and elderly have already died. An estimated 6 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are threatened by the hunger crisis. The government has declared the hunger situation in the country a national disaster. Over 700,000 people have been displaced by war in Liberia. An estimated 100 people cross into Sierra Leone daily. There are between 53,000 and 55,000 Liberians currently registered in refugee camps. These figures do not take into account unregistered refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within Liberia or those who are waiting to cross the borders. Some of these people, particularly from the Lofa region of Liberia, are finding themselves displaced for the third time as a consequence of violence and instability in the area. UMCOR Reports -- see http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/03/liberiacrisis2.stm
When we respond to needs such as these by putting money in the offering plate, bringing food for food pantries, by working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and by building Habitat For Humanity homes, we discover that our hungry hearts are fed. In giving of ourselves we find sustenance for our souls. For it is as the one who taught us to serve has said: "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life ..." (John 6:27a)
**********************************************
Return to top
New Book Released
We are happy to report that the second volume in the vision series, Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences , is now available from CSS Publishing Company. You can see what the book looks like by going to the home page of the CSS website http://www.csspub.com. Then click on the cover of the book to get more information.
Special Pricing for StoryShare Subscribers
Sharing Visions retails for $19.95. CSS has graciously agreed to make the book available to StoryShare subscribers for just $11.97 (plus shipping & handling). To take advantage of this special pricing, you must use the special code SS40SV. Simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.
Practical Ministry Tool
I found the first volume of Vision Stories to be a great tool for ministry. I give a copy to each family after a funeral, and to each couple after a wedding. I give copies to people who come in for counseling and are searching for God's presence, seeking comfort or assurance. And I have given the book to many people who have visions and have wondered if they dared to tell anyone. I also make the books available to the congregation at my cost.
I am willing to come to your community to do a book signing, tell vision stories, or do a vision seminar if you will take a free will offering to cover travel expenses.
Collecting Personal Stories of "Holy Moments"
We are collecting personal stories for a third volume in the vision series, to be released in 2004. The working title is Holy Moments: Life-Changing Visions and Other Signs of God's Presence. If you have any stories to share of your personal experience of the holy, please send them to jsumwalt@naspa.net
Praise For Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions . What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
To learn more about John and Jo Sumwalt, visit their church website: http://www.waumc.org Click on "staff" for bios and photos.
StoryShare, August 3, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
A Story to Live By: "Saying Grace"
Sharing Visions: "That Which Comes from Heaven" by Janet Angel
Good Stories: "The Boy Who Had Everything" by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "The Hungry Heart" by John Sumwalt
Dear StoryShare Friends,
The first Sunday of the month is Communion Sunday in our church. This Sunday, as we take the bread and dip it into the cup, I will be thinking about what Jesus said to the crowds that sought him out after he had fed them in what we know as "the feeding of the 5,000": "... you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves" (John 6:26). Why do we seek after Jesus? What is the hunger that draws us to him? In a land of plenty, why is it that so many of us have hungry hearts?
Send us a favorite communion story, one that nourishes the soul and satisfies the hungry heart. Address your communion offerings to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
John
A Story to Live By
Saying Grace
Heather Murray-Elkins tells of stopping at a diner while driving on the Pennsylvania interstate one night. She takes out a sandwich and, "to avoid the nosy eyes of the all-male late-night diners," her eyes focus on a picture above her booth. She experiences an epiphany as she takes in the picture of an old woman and young boy in the midst of a "diner crowd of cynics. Her head is bowed. His head is bowed. She is saying grace."
Heather writes: "What embarrasses and convicts me in a flash point is the gut-level power of a woman saying grace in a graceless place. She does not ask permission or participation. She 'alter's the scene by refusing to distinguish between private and public sphere. What she does at her table, she does in the world." (from Worshiping Women: Re-Forming God's People For Praise, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994, pg. 51)
There is a similar scene in a diner in the movie Witness, where a police detective (played by Harrison Ford) is startled and a bit ashamed as he notices the people he is with, an Amish woman and her little son, offering a simple grace after he has already started to eat.
Return to top
Sharing Visions
That Which Comes from Heaven
by Janet Angel
"Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
John 6:31-34
As a little girl, about five years old, I began to "know" things before they would happen. I was receiving information and musical pieces without formal education. People sought my advice, even as a child, because I could channel information to help them. I experienced a silent dialogue with angels, and then had an apparition of Mary at my bedside at five years of age. I was told that my life would not be ordinary. I understood that I was supposed to spread the word of God, but I wasn't sure how. I was instructed not to discuss what I was receiving until the time was right.
As I grew older, being raised in a Catholic home, I thought that I was supposed to be a nun, so I went in that direction for a time, only to be guided away from that role later on. I have a doctorate in psychology, because my concrete mind wanted to "prove" what I was receiving from God. But I later realized that we cannot differentiate between all that we are, being body, mind, and spirit. I was silently taught about meditation: given incredible wisdom about our truest nature, the hidden vocabulary in our words, cosmic innate intelligence, how to help people heal themselves, the blueprints of our souls, how to stop our cells from aging, telekinesis, clairvoyance, clairaudience, remote viewing, and much, much more. This dialogue with God continues every day.
In my first book, I list questions that I have been asking about our supreme source of light and intelligence and LOVE (God). We are so much more than anyone has ever imagined. Once we perfect our independent lives of all of the illusions on earth and move toward healing, we then will begin to use our innate gifts: those Jesus was trying to teach us.
My message has been consistent as I continue to receive love from the highest source in existence. Some have believed that God stopped communicating with us as humans during the time of Moses. Well, God did not. I am now in the midst of teaching others, through seminars and writing, how to receive the answers we seek directly from God. There are different forms of communication which are appropriate for each person. My deepest desire is to enlighten as many souls as possible to the truth of our identity and potential from a place of unconditional love.
Janet Angel is the author of All That You Are: Your True Identity. See http://www.1stbooks.com
Return to top
Good Stories
The Boy Who Had Everything
by John Sumwalt
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
John 6:35
There was once a little boy who had everything. At least he thought he had everything. He lived in a big, beautiful house, with a swimming pool and a treehouse in the backyard. He had a 10-speed bike, a go-kart, and an all-terrain vehicle in the garage, all of which he could ride any time he pleased. In his bedroom he had a 27-inch color television, a VCR, a stereo, a compact disc player, a computer, a Nintendo, and dozens of movies and video games. He even had his own telephone and answering machine.
So, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, the boy who had everything played all alone with all of his wonderful things. Sometimes he and his dad would go biking, or would ride their all-terrain vehicles down at the beach. In the afternoons he went shopping at the mall with his mom and dad and they bought more wonderful things. Somehow it never seemed to be enough. He had a hunger, deep down inside himself, for something else. He wasn't sure what it was that he was hungry for, but he knew it was something he didn't have.
The boy who lived next door to the boy who had everything didn't have nearly as many nice things. He lived in a modest house with a small backyard which had barely enough room for his tire swing and sandbox. He had a 3-speed bike and a red wagon in his garage, and in his room there was a cage with his pet hamster, his baseball card collection, his comic books, and a wall covered with posters. He also had a dog named Rex who knew how to roll over and play dead.
On Saturdays the boy next door played catch with his dad in the backyard. In the afternoon, sometimes, his mom would fix a picnic supper and they would go to the park or fishing at the lake. On Sundays they all went to church.
The boy who had everything had noticed that the boy next door went to church on Sundays with his parents. He asked his mom and dad about it, and they said that church was fine for some people, but it wasn't for them.
One Sunday morning, the boy who had everything was playing up in his treehouse when he noticed the boy next door getting into the car with his parents. They were all dressed up in their best clothes. He watched as they drove away, and when the car was just about out of sight, he hopped on his 10-speed bike and followed them for several blocks down the street and around the corner to their church. He watched from behind a tree as they got out of the car and went into the building. There were a great many other children going into the church with their parents, too. After everyone had gone in, and he could hear music coming from the organ inside the church, he decided that maybe it would be all right if he went in very quietly to see what it was that went on in church.
He tiptoed in. A door was open to a big room where all the people were seated on long benches. He stood behind the doorpost and watched and listened as the people sang songs, and a man dressed in a white robe and standing on what looked like a little stage with a big lectern read from a large leather-bound book. Then the man closed the book and talked for a little while. After that he invited everyone to give something he called their offerings. Several people went around with little gold bowls to get all of the offerings. It appeared to the boy that people were putting money in the bowls. When they were finished they took the bowls up to a table in the center of the stage. The man in the white robe went over and uncovered a vase and a loaf of bread. He said some words and then he invited everyone to come up and eat. The little boy was surprised to see that people knelt down before they ate. Watching all of this made him very hungry, and he hoped that they would offer him some of the bread, too.
When everyone was finished, the man in the white robe held up the vase and the bread and asked, "Is there anyone else who would like to come?"
The little boy didn't know what came over him, but he couldn't help himself; he stepped out from behind the doorpost and called out, "Yes, I would like to come. May I have some?"
The man in the white robe said, "Why, of course you may have some. It is especially for you."
The little boy who had everything went forward and knelt down in front of the man in the white robe. The man broke off a big piece of the bread and showed the little boy how to dip it in the vase. When he put it in his mouth it tasted sweet and satisfying, like nothing he had ever tasted before. And in that moment the little boy felt something change deep down inside himself. He didn't know what it was that was different; he only knew he wasn't hungry any more.
Return to top
Scrap Pile
The Hungry Heart
by John Sumwalt
My mother's people, the Longs of Templenoe, Tipperary, came from Ireland to southwest Wisconsin during the great potato famine, around 1859. "In the 1840s, 75 percent of Irish farmers were dependent on potatoes, one of the only crops that could grow with any profit on the small parcels of land most farmers owned and that was nutritious enough as a dietary staple to support subsistence living. In 1845 a fungus (known as the black rot) blighted the potato crop, and continued to destroy harvests for five years. As one historian writes, 'the result was mass starvation on a scale not witnessed in the British Isles or in Western Europe for more than a hundred years.' Unable to pay their rents, more than half a million Irish were evicted from their cottages.... All told, more than a million died from starvation, typhus, and dysentery, and three million were reduced to charity.... The Famine depopulated Ireland's population. In the years during and after the famine another three million people -- nearly 30 percent of the island's inhabitants -- left Ireland.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eas5e/Sadlier/History.html Some landlords "paid for their tenants to emigrate, sending hundreds of thousand of Irish to America and other English speaking countries ... Ship owners often crowded hundreds of desperate Irish onto rickety vessels labeled 'coffin ships.' In many cases the ships reached port after losing one third of their passengers to disease, hunger, and other causes." http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eas5e/Irish/Famine.html
We always had plenty of potatoes on the farm where I grew up, just over the hill from where my Irish ancestors settled -- boiled, baked, mashed, hashed, fried, or roasted; we had potatoes at almost every meal. When my mother said to me, "Johnny, eat your potatoes," the urgency in her voice came from a memory handed down from a time when there weren't enough potatoes to go around. "Food mustn't be wasted. There was a time when we didn't have enough to eat," she was trying to tell me.
Most of us have not known real physical hunger. But we know other kinds of hunger. We who live in the time of fast food restaurants and supermarkets and shopping malls, whose refrigerators and pantries are full, know another kind of hunger -- the hunger of the heart, the hunger of the soul. It is a longing in the depths of our beings that cannot be satisfied by anything we can buy. The best symbol of our consumer-rich society is the "open mouth." We are always hungry, always wanting more. Advertisements in the media all around us are continually stimulating our appetites for super-sized meals, bigger houses, plusher furnishings, smarter and faster technological gadgets. We are never satisfied.
In August of 1992, Kenneth Lutgen, Jr., of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) sent out an urgent appeal to churches regarding a famine in South Africa: "Last summer I spent several months visiting the shack cities of South Africa. As we ate I began to be aware of something very disturbing. The women and children of the community were not eating. When I asked why, I was told it was not their tradition. There was not enough food to go around, and their tradition of hospitality dictated that a guest be fed first." We can learn from this tradition as news of another severe famine comes to us from southern Africa. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has described the food crisis in southern Africa as the most severe and urgent dilemma facing the international community at the moment. Some 14.4 million people will require urgent humanitarian assistance in the next seven months. It is the worst agricultural disaster that this part of Africa has faced in a decade. The countries affected are Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has been hit the hardest. Many now eat only one small meal a day; the poorest are forced to beg for a handful of corn meal from their neighbors. Eating only one meal per day has a severe nutritional impact, especially on children, pregnant women, elderly, and disabled people. Lives are under serious threat due to the food shortages. Thousand of children and elderly have already died. An estimated 6 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are threatened by the hunger crisis. The government has declared the hunger situation in the country a national disaster. Over 700,000 people have been displaced by war in Liberia. An estimated 100 people cross into Sierra Leone daily. There are between 53,000 and 55,000 Liberians currently registered in refugee camps. These figures do not take into account unregistered refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) within Liberia or those who are waiting to cross the borders. Some of these people, particularly from the Lofa region of Liberia, are finding themselves displaced for the third time as a consequence of violence and instability in the area. UMCOR Reports -- see http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/03/liberiacrisis2.stm
When we respond to needs such as these by putting money in the offering plate, bringing food for food pantries, by working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and by building Habitat For Humanity homes, we discover that our hungry hearts are fed. In giving of ourselves we find sustenance for our souls. For it is as the one who taught us to serve has said: "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life ..." (John 6:27a)
**********************************************
Return to top
New Book Released
We are happy to report that the second volume in the vision series, Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences , is now available from CSS Publishing Company. You can see what the book looks like by going to the home page of the CSS website http://www.csspub.com. Then click on the cover of the book to get more information.
Special Pricing for StoryShare Subscribers
Sharing Visions retails for $19.95. CSS has graciously agreed to make the book available to StoryShare subscribers for just $11.97 (plus shipping & handling). To take advantage of this special pricing, you must use the special code SS40SV. Simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.
Practical Ministry Tool
I found the first volume of Vision Stories to be a great tool for ministry. I give a copy to each family after a funeral, and to each couple after a wedding. I give copies to people who come in for counseling and are searching for God's presence, seeking comfort or assurance. And I have given the book to many people who have visions and have wondered if they dared to tell anyone. I also make the books available to the congregation at my cost.
I am willing to come to your community to do a book signing, tell vision stories, or do a vision seminar if you will take a free will offering to cover travel expenses.
Collecting Personal Stories of "Holy Moments"
We are collecting personal stories for a third volume in the vision series, to be released in 2004. The working title is Holy Moments: Life-Changing Visions and Other Signs of God's Presence. If you have any stories to share of your personal experience of the holy, please send them to jsumwalt@naspa.net
Praise For Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions . What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
To learn more about John and Jo Sumwalt, visit their church website: http://www.waumc.org Click on "staff" for bios and photos.
StoryShare, August 3, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
