Category Archives: MYTHS
Shogrens’ Christmas 2024 Newsletter
Filed under Bible, Costa Rica, ESEPA, Gary Shogren, Karen Shogren, Levanta la Voz, Missions, MYTHS, WorldVenture
OCTOBER 2024 Newsletter
It’s Gary’s month to share.
And I NEED YOUR PRAYERS please! Why?
Answers to prayers are good news, but at times, for every answered prayer, more things need to be prayed for.
The answers to prayer? Editorial CLIE (Barcelona) has in the past year published two of my books; Publicaciones Kerigma has published yet another. All three are on the market, also on Amazon, but only in Spanish.
NEW prayer request: I have three available-only-in-Spanish books. But now I have three books that are totally ready to in English, and that I would like to publish.
I almost never use the word “unique”, but in all three cases I have searched carefully, and was able to find nothing similar in either language.
The one on the left, with the iceberg on it, will be Iceberg Ahead! When God’s Workers CRASH into Cold, Hard Reality. It is about how we deal with disappointments. I examine the many times when the apostle Paul had a collision and how he kept on going. I also develop character sketches of Christians in the 21st century, people who are undergoing the same trials.
The one in the center is a collection of essays I have written over many years: The Gift of the Holy Spirit and his Power in the Church.
And finally, the one on the right just came out: Myths that Christians Believe and Pass Along to Others, on why we succumb to clickbait and circulate unfounded stories to millions. Examples: Did you see on “History” about how they discovered giant human skeletons? Or hear that Greek is the most precise language in the world? Or that human DNA communicates hidden messages from God in Aramaic? We deal with these and 40 other stories.
Hence, I AM LOOKING FOR 1, 2, or 3 English-language publishers to break this logjam.
PRAYERS for this venture, please! I am using these weeks to digitally pound on many doors, looking for interested publishers.
Thanks! Gary
Prayer requests:
* Please continue to pray for Karen’s health, as she has to deal with a combination of issues: blood clots; bad knees; arthritis.
* Our support level has dropped over the last few months. Perhaps our churches would want to raise their giving by $50 a month?
* Very specifically: we need to do some renovations to our upstairs bathroom in our Christiana home. If you would like to contribute or help with the job, please let us know! And please pray: this has been, literally, hanging over our heads for a couple of years!
Filed under Bible, Costa Rica, ESEPA, Gary Shogren, Karen Shogren, Levanta la Voz, Missions, MYTHS, WorldVenture
August 2024 Newsletter
Karen Shares about her Ministry
I (Karen) would like to share about my recent ministry trip, and the organization with which I was working. The Child Safety and Protection Network (CSPN.org) is a consortium of mission agencies and international Christian schools who have come together to empower similar organizations to have an effective child safety program. It is a non-profit that uses mostly volunteers (member missionaries like me!) to accomplish its goals. WorldVenture is a member of CSPN, and I have found it to be the most similar organization to my own Levanta La Voz (Raise Your Voice).
So, my involvement with CSPN gives a double reward: in CSPN I can learn from like-minded people and extend the reach of Levanta La Voz, and I am able to use my own knowledge and experience to spread the word to missionaries around the world through CSPN. I am one of their educators, and last month I had the opportunity to help teach 20 mission agency executives how to set up or improve their own child safety program. Afterwards, I joined 4 others to spend 5 days editing that same training program.
We will continue editing and re-writing for the next 6 months before leading the next training in March in Orlando. Please pray for us as we finish the job, as it is a program that has the potential to protect thousands of children worldwide for many years to come.
Here are some more prayer requests for Karen:
* I am also in the middle of my certificate program at ESEPA Seminary. In addition to teaching 4 students this year, I am training a new co-teacher and compiling all the student notes into a properly formatted workbook, complete with searchable Table of Contents. A big job!
* A former student has gathered a group of people who want to take my virtual 8-week course in Spanish, and we’ll begin August 8.
* I am still teaching my virtual 8-week course in English to a group of church leaders from India. Since they translate it as we go, we can only cover about 30 minutes of material each week, which turns it into a 48-week course! But I’m willing to keep at it if they are! I’m getting great feedback from them: the information is new, biblical, and helpful to them personally. The pastor said he’d looked for this type of information, but our program was all he could find. That encourages me that truly this is needed!
* We are still sorting out various health problems in the aftermath of my serious blood clots. I need good medical professionals, wisdom, pain relief, and patience.
ALSO! Gary’s new book just came out, for now only in Spanish – an English version under the title Myths that Christians Believe and Pass Along might take place in the future! It has to do with myths and rumors that circulate among believers, and how to be more discerning. Here is a blog post from 2012, which later germinated into a book: Christians and myths – Open Our Eyes, Lord! (openoureyeslord.com)
Filed under Bible, Costa Rica, ESEPA, Gary Shogren, Karen Shogren, Levanta la Voz, Missions, MYTHS, Sexual abuse, WorldVenture
OCTOBER 2022 NEWSLETTER
FINANCIAL UPDATE
Since this is a short announcement, we’ll put it at the top: we are calculating our budget for the coming year. Due to inflation, etc., etc., we have a $1223/month shortfall in our pledged giving. We encourage our friends to be regular backers of our work. You can start at https://worldventure.com or call WorldVenture at (720) 283-2000 or write them at info@worldventure.com. We do not give away tote bags or mugs, but each new regular donor will get one of Gary’s books in the mail. Many thanks!
THIS MONTH, IT’S GARY’S TURN TO SHARE
Gary! You are a regular professor at ESEPA and just gave an online course on how to read ancient Greek manuscripts! And you are editing the Old Testament in SUN, for deaf non-readers! So, what do you do in your spare time?
GARY: Well, go to the gym. Read a lot, sometimes at the gym. Watch foreign movies while Karen teaches online. Do the New York Times crossword puzzle.
And importantly, I just finished a new book in Spanish:
MYTHS THAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE. AND CIRCULATE.
As a kid I was captivated by stories of pirate treasure, Bigfoot, UFOs. Years later, we visited Loch Ness. And one of my pet topics lately has been to either confirm or debunk those stories that get circulated among believers. So when my publisher in Spain asked, “What is the next book you want to publish with us?”, we hit upon that theme.
In the book I examine about 35 such stories. A few turned out to be true, but most were false rumors. Several have to do with Hebrew and Greek. Some have to do with the Bible. Some have to do with current events or the End Times.
Why is this book important just now?
First, because we are living in a crisis of truth, where we tend to accept a story if it agrees with what we already think. We then circulate them without determining if they are fact or fiction. Second, as Christians, we should be a model of telling the truth in love, of not bearing false witness. My book is not just to fact-check past or present myths, but to teach Christians how to value the truth, and how to be discerning when the next one lands in our In-Box.
Here are a few of my topics. Which do you think are True and which False?
- The Soviets dug a well so deep that they broke through into hell and heard the screams of the damned.
- “The Eye of the Needle” was a low gate in Jerusalem.
- NASA proved Joshua’s account of how the sun stood still.
- The Hubble spotted the New Jerusalem approaching the Earth.
- There is a computer in Belgium called The Beast and it contains all your data (the picture that comes with that rumor is on the front cover of my book).
- Archaeologists have found Egyptian chariots and horse skeletons under the Red Sea.
- Christian pilots are always paired with non-Christian ones. “In case of Rapture.”
Each one is False, as I go to great lengths to demonstrate.
My publisher liked the book and said, “Why don’t we also publish it in English?” So possibly we will see that in a couple of years. In the meantime, go to my blog, openoureyeslord.com, and look up “myths” to see a few.
PRAYER:
- Gary is planning to teach a course in Cuba in mid-October. Pray he gets his visa and travel plans settled
- Pray that our support level comes up to 100%
- Pray for Karen’s course from Levanta la Voz
Filed under Bible, Costa Rica, ESEPA, Gary Shogren, Karen Shogren, Missions, MYTHS, New Testament, seminario, Sexual abuse, WorldVenture
Karen Shogren
Gary Shogren
Shogrens in Costa Rica 