Nairobi, Kenya, September 3rd, 2002

Dear Friend, 

We are now finally back in Kenya after having been away for more than two months.  During our two months stay in Norway we had 39 meetings, traveled 8.000 kilometers by car plus traveled by boat and plane.  We were preaching in many different churches and conferences. Everywhere we went we were well received, and saw people being saved, healed, and baptized in the Holy Spirit.  God is so good.

The last week before we came back to Kenya we ministered in Tintagel, Cornwall at Valley Ministries summer camp together with Jonathan Conrathe, Derek Brown, Ian Andrews and others.  This was our third time to be at this camp, and our whole family love to be there.  The praise and worship there is heavenly, and in this atmosphere of Gods presence, healings and miracles happen.

WORD OF THE MONTH:
MATT.6:21.  “FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE ALSO.”  

We could also say:  “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also.”

In everything we do and say, Jesus wants us to do it with all our heart, - wholehearted. But we are only able to do it with all our heart, if it is important to us.  So, what is it that we are able to do and say wholeheartedly?  -Anything at all?

In ‘Ben Campbell Johnson, A Relational Paraphrase of Matthew and Mark’, we are reading in the same verse:  “Wherever you place your highest values, you will be motivated to propel your life in that direction.  Valuing and motivation go together.”

I believe it is important that we are honest when we ask ourselves this question:  WHERE DO I PLACE MY HIGHEST VALUES?  WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE?  - Think about it for a moment.  We may come up with answers that include: - Jesus, spouse, children, parents, job, holidays etc.

Why is it so important to find out where we place our highest values? – Because we will be motivated to propel our lives in that direction.

Most of us born again believers will probably answer: “JESUS”, to this question.  Still, the direction that your life has taken, and the plans you have for your future can witness about very different values.

Jesus is talking about a treasure, and then it is important to find out what “treasure hunt” we are on?  Whether you realize it or not, we are all on our way to something and are getting closer to what is most important in our lives.

Most of us have probably used this excuse many times when we should have done something or met someone we did not think important enough to spend our time on: “I’m sorry, but I do not have the time.”  Most people are accepting this answer, but if we are honest (and we should be), the problem was not really that we didn’t have the time to do this or that, we just didn’t think it was important enough.  That is why we didn’t have the motivation to do it, because values and motivation go together.

We always get time to do the most important things in our lives, because we are motivated to do them.  We will always have time to meet a person who is important enough to us, and we will always get time to do what we consider important.  The reason many people have not cleaned out their garage for years, is not first of all because they have not had the time, even though that is the excuse they give.  They just have not valued it as anything important enough to spend their time on, else it would have been done years ago!

God has given to each one of us 24 hours to use each day as we desire.  Time does not fly any faster today than it did two hundred years ago.  It is still 60 seconds in one minute. But still we hear people complaining: “Time flies…I am not able to do everything I should do.”  But even in our hectic schedules, we always seem to get time to do what really matters to us.  What we didn’t get time to do, were the things that were not that important to us.

You and I are therefore daily proving through our acts, priorities, choices and decisions what is most important in our lives.  When we make excuses about why we have not read our Bible or prayed for several days; “because we have had so much to do”, we are not really honest.  We did get time to eat dinner, to watch the news, to exercise and sleep, didn’t we?  Why? - Because those other things were more important to us, than reading our Bible and praying.

It is not enough to have good intentions.  Your spouse will not be blessed by your good intention of buying her flowers, if you never do it.  You will also not be able to convince Jesus that you love Him above anything else on the face of the earth, by your good intentions of setting aside time for prayer and the Bible every day, but have done nothing about it for the last four years.  You may claim to have a passion for souls and have had the intention to witness to your neighbor for the last two years, but have still not done it.  If you highly valued these things, you would have done something about it a long time ago.

So, if I ask you again:  WHERE DO YOU PLACE YOUR HIGHEST VALUES?   It is revealing enough to look at how you have chosen to spend your time the last months and years.  How have we managed the time that we have at our disposal? There are time consuming things we are doing daily, that the Lord never intended for us to do.  When we get our priorities right; to fellowship with the Lord in prayer and through reading our Bible, to invest into our marriage and families, to spend time being a witness, leading people to the Lord, to be active in the local church, to give our tithe and so on, then we will find time to do those things that matter the most to the Lord and those things will also become the most valuable in our lives as well, not only in words but also in deed.

Now at the end of the summer and at the beginning of a new semester in church; if your pastor or a leader would ask you about getting more actively involved in the work of the church, would you answer: “I would love to, but I do not have the time”? You know by now that it would not be the full truth.  Rather say that it is just not important enough for you to spend your time on.  Because what is important to you, you will always find time to do!

Thank you to all of you who are praying for us and supporting us financially.  We pray for you every day.

Your friends in Christ,  

Hilde & Erik J. Bedsvaag.

If you write a cheque to us, please write it to: CHEAM COMMUNITY CHURCH with RE: BEDSVAAG on the back of the cheque. Please, send cheques, the Gift Aid Declaration and the Standing Order to the Treasurer.

The address is:        ERIK & HILDE BEDSVAAG
                                C/o Miss Olive Creed
                                98, St. James Road, Sutton 
                                Surrey, SM1 2TT   ENGLAND.      

 Bank details: National Westminister Bank, Sutton, Surrey, England.
 Sort code:  60-21-08.       Account number; 30490693.