What have we been up to this month with our new child?Resurrection Day with Taliah!Hope your Easter went well earlier this month! This picture was taken during some fellowship after church with church people. It was such a blessing to have time with our church family, and to connect as a new family ourselves! The fellowship we had was awesome; we even had the privilege to sing some hymns together to express our joy in Christ! Taliah did awesome the whole time...she slept all through-out church... ;) Some thoughts on the Easter season...Did you do anything for Easter? I'm sure that, if you did, you thought about the cross and about the sacrifice that Jesus gave to us through His death. But isn't it terrible how everything is so glamorized? In this picture (to the left), you see a common image of "crosses" - a nice background with some fancifully designed crosses. Obviously you know that this is not how the Roman cross Jesus died on looks, but do you ever think about the seriousness that Jesus Christ, who was completely sinless, took on all of YOUR personal sins? In the picture to the right, you see an illustration that is much more accurate...our lying, stealing, lusting, coveting, greed, and dirty thought life upon Jesus Christ. Only God could die for sins. And that's what we celebrated at church!Our church explained the Gospel extremely well this Easter! Please look at this link for the sermon: www.gbcaz.org/sermon/04-04-sermon/ Taliah got to listen in too!! And she was great the entire time (she slept through it all...) At our church, when there is a new life that the Lord has blessed a family of church members with, they ask the parents to hold the child up to display the blessing of new life on earth! So that's what this picture is, a week before Easter Sunday! Taliah at church - her first time!! She was only one week old! Teaching Scriptural truths since birth...It is our prayer that Taliah will understand Scriptural truths once she gets older...when she’s too old to sleep through church! Our prayer is that this verse will be true for her: 2 Tim. 3:15, “and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” The reason I have a picture of the Ten Commandments is because, without a true knowledge of sin, there is no way to understand the truth of the Gospel. Once we understand that we have broken God’s Law, it will make more sense that we need a Savior. On that note, what evangelism have we been able to do? Reagan tracts and diaper changes!How have we had opportunities to share the gospel since Taliah has been born? We have been blessed with unique opportunities! Because we need to stop for frequent diaper changes, what better opportunity is there to leave tracts in public restrooms? This awesome little holder that I carry Taliah in is also a great tract holder! I’ll come back to evangelism, but how are we doing Greek nowadays? Greek studies!!We have been able to take a little break from Greek, but then to get right back to it! it has been so great to work at our own pace and to study when Taliah is sleeping! The class that Daniel and I have with Greg, our friend up in Michigan, has been really nice! It has been refreshing to be able to still connect with Greg, and to have a very flexible schedule. The other class I am taking has been really fun, also! We have our first test today! We will probably continue our studies until Daniel starts seminary in August. Back to evangelism!!This picture was taken on one of our first times out after I gave birth to Taliah! We had a small group event where we went out to eat at in a nice town in the Phoenix area. This led to some tract opportunities, and some great fellowship, not just our small group, but with a bunch of church people and all of their kids! It’s so encouraging to have the body of Christ with you when you are trying to stay focused on Christ and share the Gospel! Speaking of the body of Christ… Daniel’s Expositor’s Application!Daniel officially got his Expositor’s application in! If you weren’t paying attention before, or this is the first blog post you’ve read, Expositor’s is an in-house church Seminary that Daniel plans to attend this Fall. Completing this training should equip us with the skills we need for the mission field! I just wanted to make a note about the title of this seminary. The whole idea of having such training is so that we can learn how to exegete the text of Scripture. What does that mean? Exegete means that we are to study the text of scripture and learn what it says, and then what it means, not to interpret it however we want to. if we do that… maybe we won’t be as moody as the pictures below… Crazy Taliah faces...I just had to include these! Taliah is so cute, and so crazy! We are so thankful for the gift God has given us! Her silliness is already a springboard for the Gospel, and I pray that it continues to be! No matter where we end up… What does our timeline look like?Have you ever heard of New South Wales!? I hadn’t, before Daniel! it’s in Australia! But this picture was not taken in Australia, it was taken in a cool little antique shop in Phoenix! I included it so that I could explain more about our timeline for those of you who are wondering what it might look like! Of course, it is the Lord that determines our steps, but if we were to say how it looks like things will go right now, this is what we have in mind. The thought is: years of seminary, sometime in Australia before we go to Papua New Guinea, and then at least 10 years in the tribe. In the tribe, we plan to learn the language, teach the tribal people literacy, present the Bible from creation to the cross, disciple the tribal people, and then plant a church that is self-sustaining. It is our goal to work to this end, and not waste our time while we’re here in Phoenix on a goal that is in the future, when we are never promised tomorrow. Redeeming the time at the mall!Daniel, Taliah and I, having a great time at the mall! I have been wanting to get out and share the gospel more, but with the heat of Arizona, and the short amount of free time we had, the mall seemed like the best idea! These pictures show Taliah on one of her first times out of the house, ready to share the gospel! We were able to go throughout the maul and place a lot of tracts in various places. It was a huge blessing to be able to do that again! Find the tract!Do you see the tract in this picture? Here’s a clue, it looks like money sacrificed to idols...but it’s not! I can’t believe that no one bats an eye at all of the idolatry that is around us!! Daniel and I have been talking about statues like this, and we were contemplating that maybe this is what Paul meant when he mentioned not stealing money from idols! The amount of new-age stories and ungodly, mystical spiritism seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Pray that the gospel overcomes all of the darkness in our world, because Christ has already won the battle on the cross! A reason to rejoice...In the midst of the darkness of the world, God has given us life! I included these pictures of Taliah, partially because they’re really cute, and partially to explain how important it is to remember the preciousness of human life. Can you believe that this beautiful little girl was less than a month old when these pictures were taken? She’s so alert! She can express herself, she can sneeze... I strongly encourage you to think about the preciousness of human life, and...of course...I have to leave you with a link. Ray Comfort’s 180 movie is a must see, and a must re-watch: Living Waters 180 Movie: https://youtu.be/7y2KsU_dhwI Daniel sharing the Gospel!!One major advocate for 180 is definitely Daniel! This picture shows him getting ready to share the Gospel. The website on his mask will take you to the 180 movie if you didn’t already click the link. Daniel has been able to go to Mill Avenue since the birth of Taliah, along with doing evangelism other places! At Mill he has had not only great fellowship, but plenty of conversations. He has been doing really well through everything, and he is getting more sleep because I’m getting stronger since delivery! What about this little cute face?How has Taliah been doing? She is growing well (note the dried milk on her face). Everything is going great with her health. She is such a joy to be around, and I can’t wait for her to reach milestones as she gets older. I can’t believe how much God has grown her so far! Two growing Aussies...Aren’t these funny? A sweet friend from church gave them to us. I included it to highlight the fact that I’m married to an Australian!! No, I’m not gloating over that, I’m noting it to remind people reading this to think about things that happen around the world! Did you know that Papua New Guinea is just above Australia? Keep reading... Getting ready to read the Bible soon...Taliah, the half-Australian, has the Bible written in her language. As noted above, Australia is right above Papua New Guinea - a country with hundreds of unreached people groups in it who don’t have the Bible in their language. Obviously, Taliah can’t read this Bible, but I wanted to include it because this specific Bible means SO MUCH to me. This is my Evidence Bible. I know that it’s quite torn up, but that’s because I have used it for years in evangelism and personal study. It’s from Living Waters, Ray Comfort’s ministry. 101 Questions and Objections to the faith, Springboards for Evangelism, hundreds of quotes from solid men of the faith, beliefs and Scriptural truth against Major World Religions, Creation/Evolution material... ...these are just a few of it’s many contents. Here's a link for all that material for free: EvidenceBible: http://www.evidencebible.com/witnessingtool/browse.shtml#questionsobjections It’s definitely worth buying on Living Waters website too! Speaking of Bibles...What is Daniel working so hard on? He has been helping out at our church with a major project... It has to do with a previous blog post I did which showed a HUGE slab with Scripture on it. So...what is this?!? You’ll have to wait until the next blog... Taliah waiting to get to the store in the car.I took these pictures with Taliah in the car on the way to the store! She seems to like travel, usually calming down in the car (unless she’s hungry). I could be wrong, but she seems to like being out and about doing things! I’m so thankful for these times when she is content, and she makes it easy to focus on what we should be focused on - the Gospel - while still having her needs and safety in mind. Ready for a game of “find that tract”? Do you see the million dollar Bill tract?Did you find it? Keep looking. Oh? You think you found it now? If you did find it… good job… because honestly… I can’t even find it! I PROMISE IT’S THERE! It’s somewhere on the left... ...somehow when I took the picture I must not have realized that it slipped all the way down. BUT - I wanted to still include this picture just to again display how the world is so focused on New Age thinking that it comes across even in an amoral drink. It’s so ridiculous!! Taliah to the rescue!!That’s why Taliah is here with her million dollar Gospel tracts to save the day!! Okay...maybe she was just sleeping... ...but I thought she looked really cute in the store! And you can see how wide awake she was in the car again, on a journey that could be a few minutes away or thousands of miles away... Time for a PNG (Papua New Guinea) update! Some people from the Do tribe!How are the Do people doing? Really well!! The team is continuing discipleship with the people. Some are responding well and growing in the Lord, and others are still unsure of everything they believe. Members from our church who are serving in Papua New Guinea with the Do tribe should be coming to town within the next few months (if it’s God’s will and nothing bad happens in terms of COVID restrictions)! That will be an awesome blog once that comes out! Continue to pray for the work of the Gospel to be done to the unreached! A kind father and his sweet daughter saying goodbye...Daniel and Taliah! <3 They look so much alike!! I thought this picture was a nice closing pic for the blog, because they both look so cute!! Please seriously consider the things written in this blog, and consider what Gospel truths mean for your own family, because I’m sure they’re precious to you like these two are extremely precious to me. Time is also precious. Be careful to redeem it. Eph. 5:16, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Comment below! Interested in donating while there’s still time?
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AuthorsDaniel and Sarah Bruce desire to be missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world. Daniel is from Australia and Sarah is from Detroit, MI. They reside in Phoenix, AZ, where they are members at Shepherd's House Bible Church in Chandler, AZ. Archives
March 2024
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