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Education Expectations

It’s that time of year. Caps and gowns galore. Graduation party after party, celebrating the accomplishment of the young people in our lives. I’m not just referring to high school graduation here. We celebrate our kids after kindergarten, fifth grade, middle school, and so on. Endless congratulations scattered across numerous graduations, however, it is only after the completion of high school that the inevitable questions arise.

What are you doing next year? Are you going to college? What are you going to study? What are you going to do with that? Where do you hope to be in 5 years?

For so many of America’s youth, the answers to these questions are dripping with ambition: universities, travel, careers, wealth, education, and the hope of long life surrounded by loved ones.

Here in the US of A, children finish one grade bubbling with an eagerness for summer and anticipation for the upcoming school year. The question is never whether or not they will be returning to school, but what teacher they will have and which friends will be in class with them.

Often, in this American culture, we take for granted the education of our children. It is a right not to be earned, but to be expected. 

12 years ago, a young couple in America started thinking about education from the lens of African children. They learned about the challenges children in Sudan face everyday, and how these obstacles often keep them from attending school. They took it upon themselves to do something about the orphans and abandoned children that would provide them with education. 

8 years ago the first His Voice Global orphanage was born. This year, the first class of students graduated; 3 young men whose lives are forever changed because they were able to have an education. One of the boys, Emmy, talks about his experience here.

Education cannot be something we take for granted, whether here or abroad. Get involved in our efforts to educate the young people of Sudan. Our current project is in Yida. It is a refugee camp near the war-torn Nuba Mountains in South Sudan. Our goal is to supply this camp with the resources they need to provide an education for their children. This includes, supplies, teachers, teachers salaries, and uniforms.

Not only do we want our little brothers and sisters overseas to have an education, but we long for our children here to learn about other cultures and feel empowered to make a difference. If you have children, we would love your family’s involvement in our Reading for Refugees program. 

No matter a child’s surroundings, education is power- the kind of power this world needs. 

Reading for Refugees

This summer, get your kids involved in our effort to resource the Yida refugee camp with the means to educate their children. 
From June 1- August 1, His Voice Global will be holding a Reading for Refugees fundraiser. This is the perfect way for kids to get a glimpse into what education is like on the other side of the world and be involved in making a difference.
 
We believe that each of these is extremely important in our children’s education: reading, learning about different cultures, recognizing the need to give, and feeling empowered to make a difference in the world. All of these can be accomplished this summer with Reading for Refugees!
Here’s how it works. Have your kids: 
  1. Set a goal. How much would they like to raise this summer?
  2. Find sponsors, and ask them how much they would like to pledge PER PAGE read.
  3. Read! Every time a book is finished, list it on your form with the number of pages it contains.
  4. At the end of the summer, tally up all the pages you’ve read then multiply that number by each pledge you received. 
  5. Send in your earnings by check, make them out to His Voice Global. Put “Reading for Refugees” in the memo. 
    His Voice Global
    3434 1/2 Shenandoah St.
    Dallas, TX 75205

We would love for you to get involved! Click here to get the forms necessary to participate.

HVG Weekend -Vernon Burger at The Well

Last Wednesday night, Vernon had the opportunity to speak at the college gathering, The Well, at Freshwater Church. To hear the whole talk, go to our media page.

He started out the night stating, “we feed people principle after principle and we go out and wonder why aren’t things different? It’s because we objectivize God.” We’ve turned what should be relationship into a list of things we can do and expect God to feel loved by us. We read scripture and spin it into what we need to do instead of asking “what does this teach me about God?” 

Throughout the night, Vernon provided four instances of lamentation in scripture: the story of Job, Herod ordering the murder of all male babies under 2, the death of Lazarus, and Jesus feeling forsaken by God.

Vernon expresses our need to realize that the Lord weeps alongside us, and will meet us in our tears. He offers a list of the parts of our life that can drastically change if we would only recognize that truth in our life.

This sermon set the tone for the weekend. It got conversation and contemplation flowing, and opened up several young minds to this too-foreign concept of lament in the Christian world. 

HVG Weekend- Vernon on Love

Sunday morning, Vernon stepped in as the pastor for Freshwater’s services. He spoke on the ever difficult concept of loving our enemies. To hear the entire sermon, go to our media page.

We’ve all heard it said, love your enemies as yourself. However, this concept is much easier said than done. Vernon shed a lot of insight on the idea of loving your enemies, forgiving your enemies, and choose mercy over justice.

He asked, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if we loved our enemies so much that they’d be stunned to find out they’re even our enemies?”


He spoke on forgiveness and the reasons we have such an aversion to it. Throughout his sermon, Vernon reiterates that these topics do not have simple instructions that, when followed, miraculously heal all wounds. He did, however, offer a way of dealing with forgiveness that surrenders ourselves and our basic instinct to start with the offense, and instead, puts Christ at the center. In doing so, we have freedom to love through the eyes of God.

He explores an alternate to enemy love, found in the story of Jonah. By contrasting love, and its alternate, Vernon invites us again to choose love. He invites us to choose mercy over justice, and he brings us back to this common theme of the weekend: that right now we have a God who is presently weeping for us. 

Finally, he quickly digs into the effect self-hatred and its prevalence in society has on our ability to love others.

 

This sermon offers a genuine and compelling argument for the sake of love. Though nobody is claiming it is easy, Vernon reminds us in this message that it is as straightforward as it can be. 

HVG Weekend- Dr. Rodney Reeves on Lament

During main sessions #2 and #3, Dr. Rodney Reeves spoke on Lament through the eyes of Paul, and through the lens of Revelation respectively. Both of these can be found on our media page.

The idea of lament as worship is not something we often think about in the Christian world, and almost never see in our churches. Reeves said “It’s hard to be a follower of Jesus and still think like an American.” We have learned to hide our mortality and we’ve forgotten how to grieve well. Reeves offers the idea that it’s because we don’t take the death of Jesus seriously enough that we have lost our true sense of grieving.

In the Bible, acts of repentance and acts of grief look the same. The same rituals were applied to both circumstances. It’s important that we recognize the significance of this.

Paul believes that when we look around at the world, we get a mixed message. Spring, green, things in bloom, creation- all these things prove that life is abundant. But there is plenty of decay around us. Creation groans and we groan along with it, proving that we, too, are creation.

Saturday night Reeves talked about the paradox of being part of God’s reclamation of that which is His; how it is both world-affirming and world denying- a dialectic conflict. He explored the common elements in apocalyptic films, and put them side by side with Revelation’s depiction of the end of times. He also introduced the fact that in Revelation there are angels, faithful witnesses, crying out for us on our behalf.

The idea of lament is not one commonly broached in the modern Christian world. It is, however, an important part of our spiritual lives and often gets misinterpreted. Dr. Reeves does a phenomenal job intriguing fellow Christians on this idea of lamenting as worship.  

HVG Weekend- Vernon on Literature

Friday night, during the first main session, Vernon spoke on the topic of literature. To hear the entire sermon go to our media page.

In his talk, Vernon explores the importance of literature and the different ways we need to interpret different genres. 

Literature is holy. It calls us out of ourselves and into relationship.

He invited us to recover a dialogue with the author. He said that literature, like the Bible, is not an end. It is an invitation to a dialogue with God, others, and all of creation. He also made the point that all literature cannot be read the same way.

He explored the diversity of biblical literature through 6 genres: poetry, fiction, myth, philosophy, apocalyptic, and allegory. 

In his message, Vernon begs the question: should we read non-christian literature? He says that if we keep the Bible at the center of all that we read, and let the Bible inform everything else we read, then yes. We should definitely be reading. Not only should we be reading, but Christians should be at the forefront of the creative world.

Podcasts Available

If you were unable to attend our His Voice Global Weekend in Bolivar, MO, fear not! All of the sessions are available via podcast. All the main sessions are posted on our His Voice Global website HERE, and all the main sessions, the panel discussion, and the breakouts are available at Freshwater’s website HERE. 

To hear the spoken word pieces by Allyson Wermelskirchen, you can listen to “Zombies” at the end of main session one on literature. You can listen to “Lament” at the end of main session three on Lament through the Lens of of Revelation. 

Enjoy!