One of my questions when I get to Heaven, if I can get up the nerve to ask, is; “Why, when we were replacing a clutch under a Toyota Hilux, for needy missionaries, in the dirt, in Haitian humidity and heat, after ten hours of work, would You send a dog to mark his territory on the legs sticking out under the truck? It’s a first world excuse for persecution, but it did seem unnecessary.

Who’s going in 2018:

• Dan – Leading his own mini team of “Mr. Fix its.” Dan’s team will head to Haiti a week before the other travelers to prepare the home and school grounds for English Camp.
• Megan – IS NOT LEADING A TEAM this year…. and she is very happy about it. She’ll participate with the main missions team and stay for 7 days.
• Cooley Friend – The Cooley’s have a friend! This friend would like to go to Haiti but due to personal restraints cannot fundraise. We would like to surprise him with the financial support to go. Not only does he already have a love for Haiti, he would be a substantial help in ways many volunteers cannot. He doesn’t mind dogs.

Why go?

Maranatha Children’s Ministry (mcmhaiti.org) English Camp is a school program run in the summer months for children of all ages that wouldn’t otherwise get an education or a healthy diet. They teach Bible, English, Science and PE to over 400 kids along with 2 nutritious meals and an opportunity to play and enjoy a safe environment. That is after you get off the motorcycle your dad brought you on.

How can you help?

• Prayer – we need people to commit to praying for safety, rest, and ways to encourage the missionaries who live in Haiti year round. Just shoot us a note below to let us know you are praying. That way we can keep you updated by email when we are there.
• Money – We need to raise our own funds to pay for transportation, insurance, and room and board at Maranatha. Simply go to anchorpoint.life
  • Click “giving”
  • Click “continue to give”
  • In the box that says “message” specify “Cooley Haiti Trip”
• It costs us around $1350 each to go. If we raise that much we aren’t a financial drain to the Maranatha, the mission who is housing us.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Dan for all

I saw Only Imagine yesterday for two reasons.

1. Bart, the song’s author that the movie is about, is an old friend, and
2. I had been up since 3:15am, done church and had a wonderful fish taco lunch, and figured the reclining theater seats would make for a fabulous nap.

I was wrong on both accounts.

First, I am Bart’s old friend like a White House substitute one-day groundskeeper is a friend of Obama. We met once, when I was at a Mark Matlock Youth Conference. Mark and I had run into each other before, and he at least knew my name. I once booked him at our church in Tucson for a weekend conference. Later JoLynn and I moved to Winnipeg, and we brought a youth group down to Fargo to see Mark and this band that was traveling with him, called Mercy Me.

They weren’t bad.

The conference was small and, for Mark / Mercy Me Conference, a little flat. Mark decided to spice things up by escaping from a strait jacket, while suspended 100-ft high from a crane connected only with a fast burning rope tied to one leg, over concrete and hissing cobras. Or something like that. Bert decided that the best way to spice things up was to sing a song he had written for his dad called I Can Only Imagine. It wasn’t released yet except on a CD that Matlock I think had produced.

We heard it first.

I still remember that night, and still have that early release CD of the song. Not sure there is a working CD player left to play it on however.

I also kept the hospital wrist tag that Mark wore later that night.

The lessons are these:

1. If you ever say you are, “driving down to Fargo,” you are living in the wrong place.
2. It’s OK to lie in blogs. Mark didn’t go to the ER. But I do remember him escaping from a strait jacket while hanging from church beams over a large organ. Not sure why he didn’t get the movie.
3. There IS a good Christian move! Well, for anything but a nap.  I missed mine till after I got home.
4. Go see Only Imagine.

By the way, it came in as the third-biggest movie in America last weekend, behind only Black Panther and Tomb Raider. Not bad for a movie about a guy who has forgotten he once knew Dan Cooley… for a day.

Bizarre Bible Stories sold, in part I think, because the books included some of the Bible stories we would like left out of the Bible.

Did you know Thomas Jefferson made his own cut-and-paste Bible?

Well, not exactly, but close.

In 1819 Jefferson sat down with a bible, some glue, and a pair of scissors. He looked for the teachings of Jesus that he liked, and sliced them out. Then he glued them into a new book he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. When done, I suppose he trashed the left-over bible, attempting to eliminate all of Christ’s miracles and any signs of His divinity. You can read a complete copy of the Jefferson Bible here (with links to what he took out.)

If you sat down to make a cut-and-paste Bible, what parts would you take out? I certainly have some parts I don’t like. Maybe a bit less about judgment would be nice; a kinder, gentler entrance into the Promised land would be easier to stomach; and was Song of Solomon really necessary?

However…

Cutting truth out of the Bible doesn’t remove the truth. It just removes the Truth from affecting our lives. It cuts truth out of us, not out of reality.

I believe God spoke to us, and He spoke without error, through His Word, the Bible.

God had it written for our benefit, as the means to the end of a relationship with the Author. Removing parts of the book removes its impact. We lose. Truth is unaffected. Unfortunately, we are too.

Paul told Timothy, All scripture is profitable. (2 Timothy 3:15-17) That includes the bizarre stories as well.