New Year 2001! Hopes, Dreams and Aspirations
For you and Soulfoodministry.org
By
surprisedbyjoy@yahoo.comHappy New Year
Time flies, doesn’t it? It seems like it was just yesterday that we greeted a new millennium. Where has the time gone? What kind of year did you experience? Have you made any New Year resolutions? What are your hopes, dreams and aspirations for 2001? How has soulfoodministry.org helped your spiritual life? I’d love to hear from you. You are cordially invited to email me personally at surprisedbyjoy@yahoo.com with your comments, insights, thoughts and stories!
Reviewing 2000
Many have found it a helpful spiritual practice to look back and review the past year, before looking forward in anticipation of the new. Such is the case with soulfoodministry.org. God has been good and blessed us with website visitors from more than 80 countries.
People came from 83 countries
People came from the American Samoa, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chili, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldavia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Polynesia, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vatican, Venezuela, Yemen and Yugoslavia.
People were straight and gay, old and young, married, single, rich and poor. Some had never read a Bible before; others needed prayer and a safe place to ask their many questions about God. Each person was treated with respect, directed towards helpful resources, prayed for, and valued as one of God’s beloved people.
Living as the Beloved: One Day at a time
The most popular feature of soulfoodministry.org was the daily devotional. Many of you expressed a wish to see these English reflections published in a traditional book form. This will happen! The book will be titled, "Living as the Beloved: One Day at a time." It will be available through www.ChiRhoPress.com by November 30, 2001. As these specific daily devotional cyber-documents are gradually removed from the website, new materials will be added throughout 2001 to offer fresh insights and nourishing words to care for your heart and soul.
Other popular resources
Other popular resources were the Lent 2000 and Advent 2000: Journey to Christmas meditations. People printed these reflections off and generously shared them with offline friends, people in prison and hospitals. Entire churches used them for their congregations and clergy staff. A number of readers cut and pasted them, and shared them with a number of email lists. Only God knows how many were encouraged and blessed through these meditations.
And many of you took advantage of the wonderful prayer resource available to soulfoodministry.org readers through www.mccdc.com/inside/prayer.html volunteers. This wonderful and dedicated prayer team has been praying for Internet seekers since 1998. They are a source of strength, comfort and blessing. I often call them a "gracious sign of Christ in cyberspace!" They generously pray for all our English, Spanish and Portuguese prayer requests. Do you need prayer? When www.mccdc.com/inside/prayer.html saints pray, God listens!
A very special ministry indeed
Soulfoodministry.org became a special ministry of www.mccdc.com, a valued multilingual www.ufmcc.com Internet and Intranet resource, and shared the popular Lenten 2000 and
Advent 2000: Journey to Christmas reflections with www.whosoever.org and www.christianlesbians.com
. This empowered even more people to experience their belovedness in God.By intentionally sharing resources with these websites, many people around the world learned for the first time of this exciting, growing, distinctly Christian global voice of faith being expressed by sexual minorities. Truly, God is big and God is good!
Some readers rejoiced with these insights while others bemoaned our inclusiveness. Certain readers returned again and again while others never returned. Throughout the year, God graciously continued to increase our international readership from 33 to 83 countries.
What’s ahead for 2001?
I’m so glad you asked! There are a number of great offerings ahead. In January we will be posting several really good and important teaching messages on Domestic Violence, World AIDS Day Awareness and Our Power to Bless. In February we will be adding 30 daily meditations with the Labyrinth. Later in the year, a four part New Life in Christ series will be offered, along with a series on Spiritual Empowerment and some reflections based on the gospel of John. John knew how to linger with Jesus and ask many questions. He has a great deal to teach us about life, belief, discipleship, meaningful service to others, and living for God when life is difficult.
Finally, it is my personal hope to introduce four simple virtual retreats known as "Ember Days." Ember Days are an ancient Christian tradition of quarterly one-day retreats. These retreats offer time, space and structure for weary people around the world. Ember Days provide occasions of prayer, fasting and renewal. Spiritual pilgrims have experienced profound moments of refreshment through them for centuries. An Ember Day virtual retreat will be posted in March, June, September and December 2001.
Perhaps you prefer to attend an actual event in a retreat center? There are many wonderful retreat centers, but Dayspring retreat center is world renown for their silent retreats. Their website is www.serve.com/dayspringretreat
And I cordially invite each of you to reuse, share and continue distributing the posted Lenten and Advent reflections around the world.
Hopes, dreams and aspirations for soulfoodministry.org
It is my personal hope and prayer to bless and empower even more international readers in the year ahead. While the gospel is free, translation and operating costs are not. Last year soulfoodministry.org was challenged to consider expanding into Asian and other languages. My hope, dream and prayer for 2001 is to see this happen, as well as have the necessary dedicated and trusted HTML bilingual volunteers to help with such ministry expansion needs. I ask for your prayers.
All multilingual documents at soulfoodministry.org have been provided through the generosity of readers who feel God’s calling to financially help with translation work. As a special ministry of MCC-DC (www.mccdc.com), we have established a special account for soulfoodministry.org operating costs and ongoing translation work. If international, multilingual outreach is a hope, dream and aspiration of yours, I invite you to prayerfully consider contributing to our Great Commission outreach.
God bless you, beloved readers
It is my prayer for you, that this year be one of spiritual empowerment and blessing for you and those you love. May you experience the kindness of God, while being surprised with many moments of great joy through new life in Christ this year!
By surprisedbyjoy@yahoo.com