Now that Matariki (the Maori New Year) has become a public holiday in New Zealand, Christians need to be discerning about how they celebrate it. Matariki emphasizes stargazing and family, good things, but as this article points out, the roots of this holiday point to Maori gods. Though many Kiwis find meaning in life from these Maori legends, Christians need to recognize these beings as false gods, an affront to the true God in heaven.  We need to find life’s meaning in the God of the Bible.

If you wish to celebrate Matariki, here are some good ways to do it.

• Study the stars which God made.
• Remember that these stars, the Pleiades, were in place when Job 9:9 and Job 38:31were written some 4000 years ago. Thank God for the accuracy of Scripture.
• Consider Isaiah 40:26 and rejoice in the way God sustains nature, calling out the stars each night.
• Celebrate the family God has given you and recognize God’s goodness in establishing the family from the beginning of creation.

For more about Maori creation stories see my blog about a parent or teacher’s response to them.

Instant winner!

I will choose a winner at random from the first five readers to comment on this Book Blast in the comment boxes below. You can see who the winner is and read more about Private Justice at the end of this Book Blast.

In Private Justice, firefighters and police take risks every day just by showing up for work. These risks bleed into their personal lives when their wives are targeted for murder. Terri Blackstock writes a very suspenseful novel dealing with characters in these occupations just doing their job.

 Real Life Suspense

 Suspense novels usually deal with situations where life and death are at stake. In real life, most people take other kinds of risk. For the Christian, risks are part of the life of faith.

Since my husband and I are missionaries, we’re often invited home to dinner with the pastor of a supporting church. One particular time we were meeting a pastor for the first time. He seemed to be in his early sixties but when we arrived, he and his wife seemed to be unsure about how to serve the dinner. They kept asking each other questions that most couples their age don’t have to ask. They had hardly any pictures hanging on their walls, which seemed a bit odd as well. Then we found out they had only been married two weeks and we were the first guests to be served in their home!

That got me thinking. Sometimes a missionary wife dies and her husband finds he really needs to remarry. How would a missionary in his fifties go about dating someone in his home country which he only visited during short furloughs? And what would it be like for a woman who had never been in fulltime ministry to consider a relationship with a veteran missionary?

These days, while I experience the ups and downs of ministry during Covid and approach retirement age in our ministry, I’m making my fictional characters take risks as well. Since Christmas I’ve been working on the second draft of Give It a Go and pushing my fictional character, Jennifer Titus, into a bungy jump of faith. She has to ask God if he is leading her away from her comfortable life into a new direction. She learns God sometimes leads us away from the well-worn paths that keep us comfortable, into new paths that stretch our faith.

At present I’m about 75% of the way through my second draft. After that comes a final polish and edit, sending it to my proofreader and beta readers, making final changes, and then publication. While I hope to publish it later in the year, Covid continues to change the plans we make. At this point we’re hoping to take a furlough that’s overdue by about two years. I’ve learned I have to be flexible, sometimes changing my life to fit Plan B or C or D.

How about you?

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could see even five years ahead in your future? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make plans and decisions, to get some certainty in your life?

 I often feel this way. Lately I’ve been challenged by this quote from Elisabeth Elliot: “There is no grace for your imagination.” My friend, Donna Hart, who lives with ALS every day, continues this quote with her words: “God never promises grace for my desperate peering into the future, when He has told me to concentrate only on today. But God does promise sufficient, overflowing, abundant grace for every real moment of my life, for every trial He leads me through.”

May God give you peace in the struggle you may be facing today, when you want to walk by sight but God asks you to walk by faith.

Here are five inspirational true stories of Christian woman who learned to walk by faith. They had to overcome hardship by trusting God in difficult circumstances. Their stories can encourage us when we face obstacles in our own faith journeys.

Now for the free drawing.

And the winner is … Anna K.

Here’s my review of Private Justice by Terri Blackwell #1 in Newpointe 911 series:

When someone seems intent on murdering the wives of firefighters, Mark Branning has to figure out how to keep his wife alive while his marriage is slowly dying. This book was well written and suspenseful. I especially appreciated the Christian emphasis in this book: the importance of a personal relationship with Christ and regular worship at a local church, daily feeding on God’s word, the dangers of alcohol, and the importance of building your marriage.

This series presents a community of firefighters and police in the town of Newpointe, Louisiana. Many of these characters are also connected to a church whose pastor is a firefighter. I love the community spirit these portray and have given 5*’s to most of them. I highly recommend this series.

Instant winner!

Being a subscriber to Deb’s Book Blast automatically qualifies you to be in the draw to win the Kindle version of Looking into You by Chris Fabry. I’ll announce the winner at the end of this Book Blast.

Our international trip during Covid

 Recently my husband and I left Invercargill, New Zealand, where we live and minister, to go to the States for his mother’s memorial service. All of his mom’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren attended the service. It was not only the celebration of the spiritual heritage she left behind, but also a great family reunion. During those four weeks in the States I was also able to visit all my siblings. It was great to see family who had come from all across the States for these two reunions and God did extra things for us during that time.

God helped us overcome many obstacles to make this travel possible. New Zealand, a country of about 5 million people who live on land about the same size as Colorado, has exercised strict Covid restrictions with the pandemic since the beginning. These restrictions have been very effective. Since March 2020, we’ve only had about four thousand confirmed and probable cases of Covid. Most of these came from a recent spike in numbers. Most New Zealanders live on two islands, which also helps keep Covid under control. But these results are partly due to very strict border control. As a result, at this time travel is expensive and complicated. God helped us get through many challenging obstacles to allow us to travel during Covid. Here are some of the obstacles:

• We couldn’t bring a pastoral couple to fill in for us outside New Zealand borders.
• We had to find a flight from the US back to NZ that linked to a MIQ voucher. (A reserved spot in special facilities to remain isolated in for two weeks.) This obstacle is huge all by itself.
• Though Covid jabs weren’t mandatory, we felt we needed them for travel and the schedule for them in our town was filled up until after we needed to leave.
• Covid added thousands of dollars of expenses to our trip.
• When we got out of MIQ there were no flights to Invercargill for eight days.

One by one God helped us past these obstacles. We are so thankful.

During managed isolation we were only allowed out of our rooms for a bit of exercise several times a day. The rest of the time we were in our motel room. Meals were dropped in front of our door three times daily. Some found this isolation very trying, but Art and I enjoyed our time together. We had plenty of time to read. I read Looking into You during our travels or isolation. I also spent much of these two weeks working on my book, Short Poppies, which I hope to publish by the end of the year.

How are you doing?

During our recent visit, it seemed like many Americans had largely forgotten about Covid and were living pretty much as normal. Others, of course, have lost jobs or loved ones. Some churches have special struggles. Covid means people around us may be scared, angry, confused, worried, or resentful. As friends and neighbors experience pandemic fatigue, we can be the kind faces (even if masked) and cheery voices that make their day a bit brighter.

Here is a meme to remind us of this. Feel free to copy it and post it in the social network you like to use. I’ve posted two versions which can be used in a portrait or landscape orientation. Or you can pin it to a Pinterest Board.

A Song about God’s goodness during dark days

You may have heard of Ron and Shelly Hamilton. Ron has written hundreds of songs and hymns and cantatas. Shelly wrote the music for many of these songs. They are probably the foremost couple in composing, performing and publishing conservative Christian songs.

As a boy, Jonathan, their son, was the voice of Pee Wee Pirate on the Patch the Pirate audio tapes. During college a medication for acne triggered a clinical depression Jonathan never came out of. He was an outspoken Christian and wrote beautiful music, but on Mother’s Day in 2013 he took his life. During the dark days following his death, his family commissioned a songwriter to write lyrics to a tune Jonathan had written. It is a powerful testimony of God’s goodness in difficult times. I’m hoping this song, “You Are Always Good,” will encourage you as it has me.

Now for the free drawing.

I have randomly picked several winners from my subscribers list to receive the Kindle version of Looking into You by Chris Fabry.

And the winner could be … you! This time I’ve picked several winners from my list, but none of them were able to get back to me. As a result, I will chose the first person to get back to me as the winner of this drawing. The second to get back to me will be the winner of the next drawing. All you have to do is send these words to this address: artdebbrammer@gmail.com. The words are: I have read your Book Blast and want to go into the drawing for a free book. The winners will be announced as soon as they reply.

My review of Looking into You:

Paige Redwine is haunted by a choice she made when she was only seventeen. Now a well-respected English teacher, she finds the baby she gave up for adoption is a student in one of her classes. She must choose between keeping silent about the past or revealing herself to her daughter and risking her reputation as a teacher. Fabry gives a personal and intimate look into the lives of the birth mom and her daughter and the choices they must make. Though several things seemed a bit unrealistic I did enjoy this book for the personal look it gave into giving up a baby to adoption. I don’t give 5 stars to many books, but I did for this one.

These words can shape your attitude today. Copy and share one of these in your favorite social network.