Joel Vestal

I hear so many people every year who struggle with shopping for gifts for their friends.  The whole “buying something that someone does not really need” thing.  The average person spends $700 during the holidays.  Now for kids, it is another issue. I plan to purchase my kids some toys.  But for your spouse or other family and friends, it is an issue.

Please go to this link here to see ServLife Christmas Gift Campaign and small dollar amounts that go to the work we are doing       

• The care and rescue of children in the world   ($10,$20, or $30)
• Training local leaders  ($50)
• Ending Hunger through small business development ($100)

ServLife will send a beautiful handmade card from Nepal to the person you want to honor during the holidays with your gift.     view gifts  (more…)

Elise’s grandmother died last week and I preached her funeral on Saturday.  Olive Jones was an gracious and loving woman.   Elise was always very close to her growing up.      

I am reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis,  “In eternity, it is where our questions and answers become one”. (more…)

Yesterday was the International day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  A global movement to call the church to pray for Christians who are being persecuted and being denying basic human rights for the their faith.   The message of the gospel is unstoppable.  

I spoke 4 times at Common Ground Church in Indianapolis - I also got a phone call from my good friend Albert Das who was speaking in a church in Bangkok on the persecuted church in India.  Pray for him and the work of ServLife in India.   We have 26 church planters in Orissa where intense persecution has been going on this year.  I shared this

In 197 A.D. in a book he entitled  he Apology. In it, Tertullian writes to the Roman governor of his province, refuting various false charges being made against Christians and the Christian faith, arguing that the followers of Christ were loyal subjects of the empire, and thus, should not be persecuted. At any rate, Tertullian observes, the persecution was failing to destroy Christianity.

He writes, “kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent. Therefore God suffers (allows) that we thus suffer. . The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.” (more…)

Thank you Darren Moore (ServLife board member)  who told me about mint.com -   If you are like me, I like to always see the ‘big picture” -  Up until now,  i kept my own excel sheet of my personal finances.  With this service, you can track everything and it helps you budget as well.

This is amazing financial web site that allows you to see all your finances in ONE place (investments, credit, bank, etc) 

Best of all - IT IS FREE.   mint.com  Check out their demo video. It is real helpful

Daya went with me this morning to vote and had fun running around my voting booth about 20 times while I voted. I thought she was going to knock it down.

 As we left, low and behold… Indiana’s current governor, Mitch Daniels, came walking in all by himself.   He stopped to talk to us and called one of his staff over to take a picture with us using my phone.  What a guy! 

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