Nathan Neighbors
Follower of Christ, Husband, Father, & Youth Pastor
It’s been such a long time since my last blog entry. Seven months seems like an eternity. As I look back over the last nine years of blog posts, this has probably been my longest hiatus. This blog post will be my 500th. Back in the first few months of the blog I don’t think I even had a Facebook account. Most people in my church had never heard of a “BLOG.” In fact, most of my students would giggle just a bit every time I said the word, “blog.” Today, blogs are everywhere and everyone has a dozen or so different forms of social media. And who knew nine years ago that people would actually be “blogging…PINNING…craft ideas…lol.” Blogs these days tend to just be…the…Top 10 Things… You…never wanted to know anyway. Typically they show up in your Facebook feed and are reposted by all your friends. You’re friends either love it or hate it and try to draw you into their obsession or frustration. In church circles where I spend most of my time, blogs from pastors and church leaders tend to be great words of encouragement or divisive & controversial. Blogs have changed a lot over the years. So, as I come back today to this blog, I ask myself whether or not I should continue to write it.
In 2006 I started this blog on WordPress (a fairly new company at the time). My goal was to use it as a way to share stories of life and ministry. In those days very few people had a smart phone (if you can call a Blackberry smart) and My Space was just starting to fade into the sunset. I’ve used this blog as a platform to journal about the adventures of life, family and ministry that the Lord has placed before me and Ashley. The very first blog ever written on wwww.nathanneighbors.com was the birth announcement of our second son in 2006. Since those days, so much has changed in our family and in the world of ministry and technology.
Now that it’s 2015, where do we go from here? As Ashley and I begin our seventeenth year of marriage and full-time ministry this summer, we’re confident that the best is yet to come! Who knows where blogs and other social media will be nine years from now. Though I’ll post to Facebook and keep sharing great images on Instagram, I’ll keep writing this blog too. My prayer is that it serves as reminder to us of the Lord’s faithfulness and as an encouragemnt to each of you! May you continue seeking after the Lord, point others to Him and remember that our God is faithful!
It’s 10:30am on Sunday morning and people all over this church campus are in small group Bible studies reading the Word of God. Many of these people just left one of the most powerful services I’ve experienced in a while. The Honduras Mission Team spoke about our July trip today in worship. This service was far more than just a report. It was an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to move. From the heart-felt testimonies of God’s hand in the lives of our team members to the images of the orphans in Honduras…God was at work. Seeing so many come forward to pray, surrender their lives and to let Christ be Lord was powerful. This will be a day I won’t soon forget. When He fills us up with His Spirit, will we go? Will be go be the hands and feet of Jesus? May we go from this place Ebenezer with the Good News of Christ to the least of these in Florence and beyond.
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After leaving our last clinic and saying goodbye to the orphans we headed to Roatan on three tiny airplanes. We’ve spent the last 36 hours or so getting a little rest, playing together as a team in the surf, and debriefing our last ten days of ministry.
It really is hard to put this experience into words. Though I’ve been on dozens of mission trips, each are different. This trip was even different than the Honduras trip this past October. One consistent theme of this Honduras trip vs. the many others that have been taken by Ebenezer is the youth factor. Many long time team members have been telling me how much they’ve enjoyed having all the teenagers. It really has changed the dynamic and the face of this trip. But more so than just having young people, is having a wide range of ages working together for the Kingdom. That’s what makes this team special.
I’ve put a collage of pictures in this post to show each passing of the Tuareg cross so far on this trip. Though not all 39 team members wore the cross, they all showed the light of Christ. What’s amazing to me about these pictures and the way people passed the cross is how many times it was passed from an adult to a teen or a teen to an adult. The students didn’t just keep it among the teenagers. This is the way the church is meant to be…young and old working together being the hands and feet of Jesus.
I finish out these blogs of our trip with this picture because that’s what it’s about…The Cross. For it was on the cross that our debt was paid. It was on the cross that our Jesus Christ gave his life. The ground at the cross is level. American, Honduran, young, old, poor, wealthy…we all need a relationship with God. It’s only through the cross of Christ and his sacrifice that we can be made right with The Lord.
We’re homeward bound in the morning ready to continue being the church in Florence and plan the next time we can work with our brothers and sisters in Honduras.
Nathan Neighbors 