LIVING A LIFE OF THANKSGIVING TO THE LORD

By Evelyn Melendez

 

 For God's people, Thanksgiving is far more than a special day on the calendar. The Bible urges us to live a life of thanksgiving each day. Being thankful to God for all of His blessings is truly a mark of the Christian. ...

The Bible says, "Make a joyful shout to the LORD" (Ps. 100:1). In the Bible, shouting is associated with great achievement or joy. Joshua told Israel to march around Jericho for six days and on the seventh day to lift a great shout. When they did, the walls fell down (Josh. 6).

When you are thanking and praising God, don't be afraid to be a little loud. God loves to hear our praises, and it will also make you biblical!

We should be grateful every day for what God has done for us. Let's make it our determination to praise and worship God this holiday season!

A SON'S BEST FRIEND

There once was a service in a Church, where a prominent Pastor was speaking. Suddenly the Pastor changes the subject, as His eyes focus on someone in the crowded church. He goes on to say how he recognized an old friend. He also felt so compelled to cut his own message short. And he went on to introduce his friend, as he invited him to come up to the alter, and share some words with the church. An elderly man comes up, and very eloquently starts to introduce himself. He thanks the Pastor for the moment, as He says; I want to share with you a Testimony. You may be looking up at an old run down man. "Old" yes, but not run down. I have been around for a lot of years, and I was blessed because I got to know the Lord Jesus Christ, since I was a small boy. Many years ago, when I was much younger I went on a fishing boat. I only had one Son, and He came with me , along with a friend of his. My Son, would always be close to me. It did not matter if we were going to Church, or if we were playing ball, or going fishing. My Son and I, were always together. You see, my Son Loved the Lord also. This was supposed to be a day trip. Our schedule was to have us back to the dock, before nightfall. But the unexpected happened. A tropical storm hit us by surprise. Everyone had to real in their lines, and hold on. As the sky grew darker, and the waves started pounding the sides of the boat. It was not a small boat,on someone in the crowded church. He goes on to say how he recognized an old friend. He also felt so compelled to cut his own message short. And he went on to introduce his friend, as he invited him to come up to the alter, and share some words with the church. An elderly man comes up, and very eloquently starts to introduce himself. He thanks the Pastor for the moment, as He says; I want to share with you a Testimony. You may be looking up at an old run down man. "Old" yes, but not run down. I have been around for a lot of years, and I was blessed because I got to know the Lord Jesus Christ, since I was a small boy. Many years ago, when I was much younger I went on a fishing boat. I only had one Son, and He came with me , along with a friend of his. My Son, would always be close to me. It did not matter if we were going to Church, or if we were playing ball, or going fishing. My Son and I, were always together. You see, my Son Loved the Lord also. This was supposed to be a day trip. Our schedule was to have us back to the dock, before nightfall. But the unexpected happened. A tropical storm hit us by surprise. Everyone had to real in their lines, and hold on. As the sky grew darker, and the waves started pounding the sides of the boat. It was not a small boat, but it felt small in comparison to the size of the waves swelling up. The boat would be facing down, the next second. , it would be facing up. Suddenly a huge splash comes crashing over the front of the vessel taking with it several people. The sky`s are dark, the rain is falling. The wind is hitting us with all it`s got. And the ocean is violently trying to consume us. There is yelling and screaming all around me. When I was able to clear my vision. I realize that both my Son, and His friend were also taken over board. I ran to get a life preserver, as I yelled for help. The currents were strong. I was only able to get one small life ring, attached to a rope. There was no time to spare, for you would see them one second, then they would appear to go under the next. I knew my Son cold swim, but this angry ocean could not be dealt with, by just a good swimmer. His friend on the other hand could not swim to good. I only had a few seconds to decide; To Who, do i throw this life preserver first. Was I going to sacrifice one person over the other? I knew my Son, was a saved Christian. And I also knew that His friend, still had not committed to accepting Christ. Was I going to deny him an opportunity? If he perishes today? The currents was pulling us farther apart. It was just a matter of seconds to react. I cried out, Oh God! As I threw the life preserver to my Son`s friend. We pulled and hung on, as hard as we could. We finally get this young man on board. And I immediately run to the edge of the boat, to see which way do I throw out again, to recover my Son. It was a sad moment, it had groaned darker, the ocean was not letting up. The rain was stinging my flesh as it pounded me. I looked, and I looked. Yelling out as loud as I could. But my Son would never be found. I was held back by other men, who would not let me enter the water. When these things happen, it feels like seconds. When actually minutes go by. Then when everything slows down to where you think it took a few minutes. It really all went down in the matter of seconds. The elderly man went on to say, though we may walk with Christ, we still have no guarantee when it`s time to leave this earth. Only God knows. Parents sometimes rebel against God, because they think He does not care. With out remembering, that it was God, who sacrificed His only Son, for all of us. It was God, who was with me on that terrible day. And it is God, who comforted me, and has been with me since that day. As the elderly man turns toward the Pastor. They embrace each other. They are both in tears. The Pastor tells the Church;....You better decide today! Oh, you better decide today. Today is the day of Salvation. This man, my dearest friend. He rapped it all up in a nut shell for you. No one knows what will happen to them tomorrow. There is never a day that goes by, that I don`t think about that day. Do you want to know why? I was His Son`s, best friend. I was the one pulled out of the ocean. God, saved me for a purpose. And I know He has a purpose for you my friend, After this an alter call was made, and many came forth to accept Christ, as their Lord and Savior. I hope this short story encourages you to take a closer walk with Christ. And be thankful for all He has done for you. May God Bless you. Love always, Irving Serrano Sr.

LIVING A LIFE OF THANKSGIVING TO THE LORD

By Evelyn Melendez

 For God's people, Thanksgiving is far more than a special day on the calendar. The Bible urges us to live a life of thanksgiving each day. Being thankful to God for all of His blessings is truly a mark of the Christian. ...

The Bible says, "Make a joyful shout to the LORD" (Ps. 100:1). In the Bible, shouting is associated with great achievement or joy. Joshua told Israel to march around Jericho for six days and on the seventh day to lift a great shout. When they did, the walls fell down (Josh. 6).

When you are thanking and praising God, don't be afraid to be a little loud. God loves to hear our praises, and it will also make you biblical!

We should be grateful every day for what God has done for us. Let's make it our determination to praise and worship God this holiday season!

REMEMBERING THAT SAD DAY IN NOVEMBER IN 1963

By Noel Serrano

This November 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was a traumatic experience for people in the U.S. and around the globe. Those old enough to remember can tell you the exact spot they were standing when they heard the news. Kennedy seemed to represent a new, vigorous leadership, after the gray Eisenhower years, committed to reforming American society and making a better  and peaceful world.

Many liberal Democrats also believe there was a deeper tragedy in Kennedy's death--that it literally altered the course of U.S. history. As they see it, the so-called "turmoil" of the 1960s--the ghetto uprisings, the war in Vietnam .--all would have been avoided if Kennedy had lived.

It was the fall of 1960. I was 4 years old, I used to spend a lot of time looking out the window of my mother’s bedroom and see the New York skyline. I loved watching the fabulous structure of the Tri-Borough Bridge and loved to watch the helicopters land on Randall’s Island. It was on a cloudy day like this that I gazed down the  wide New York streets and saw crowds of people flocking around a group of cars. It looked like a parade. There was much excitement for one of the long cars. They were waving and trying their best to reach out and shake the hand of a tall man with light brown hair. There was a roar of excitement as throngs would run and surround the car.  I did not know  what was the commotion and I did not know that  I was viewing the 1960 Presidential Campaign. This was the first time that I saw  the young man who would, weeks later, become the 35^th President of the United States. I can still recall the sound of the roaring throngs of friendly crowds and the long motorcade winding down from 7^th Ave and entering Spanish Harlem  the and enormous crowds of people surrounding the Limosine and running towards  the man that stood erect, shaking hands and waving to the adoring crowd. At that moment, I did not understand what I was looking at and I was too young to realize that I was watching history and yet, this view captivated my attention and it was seared to my memory. On November of 1963, I was 6 years old. It was a normal autumn day with memories of brown and orange leaves on the ground. I walked to the nearby grade school of P.S.123 in Queens, NY.  All the children at my first grade class were excited because we had a substitute teacher on that Friday morning of November 22, 1963. I glanced around the room and there was a lot of kids acting up and I remember feeling a little sorry for the Sub teacher trying to get the students attention to start the lesson for the day.  It seemed like a normal Friday and I was excited because Fridays meant that it would be the start of another weekend to play with my brothers. I recall great commotion in the early afternoon in that small classroom. The teachers seemed distressed as they asked all the children to form a line on the right hand side of the classroom , facing the doorway. The teachers frantically placed us all , row by row on the hallway, just outside of the classroom. I thought that maybe it was a special Fire Drill or even Assembly which was common on Fridays. I waited patiently as I leaned on the massive yellow brick wall  in the hallway  and gazed up at the dimly lit beige lighting fixtures  that hung from the ceiling. The children were fidgeting and occasionally a teacher would come and quietly nudge them to be silent. It seemed as an eternity, standing in that hallway.  I started getting a deep feeling that something terrible had happened but I did not know what t was. It was just a feeling. I remember the light at the end of the school hallway reflecting off the floor as word went round and the weight in the air the days after. Finally  we were allowed to leave to go home. My cousin Pecio came running to me and hugged me as was his custom. We quietly walked home  a couple of blocks away and went  to the kitchen where my father and his brother were talking about what had happened on that terrible November day.  Heard my Uncle say; “Did you hear that someone shot at the President today?” My heart sank and  at that moment in time I became  keenly aware  that someone had killed the Leader of our Country. For kids my age, it was like losing a father It was stunning and so awful. And so unreal. To have just seen the young, vibrant, charismatic president a few months before and now he was dead. A true pivot point in my life. Nothing was ever the same and the 60s were downhill from there. I always tried to imagine how the world would have been different had he lived. I don't believe he would escalated Vietnam, as his manhood was not open to debate with him being a war hero. I do wonder if he could have passed the Civil Rights legislation as effectively as President Johnson, but do think he would have tried. A huge, irredeemable loss from which many of us have never fully recovered. I was 6 years old on 11/22/63. Long after remembering the tears that were all around me shed on that day, I still feel haunted that somehow it could have been prevented. This event has followed me throughout my life. I'm a man that has stood by and often quoted from the Presidents most well written speech that will stand true for all of time. "Ask not what my country can do for me but rather ask what I can do for my country." We are so accustomed at doing just the opposite that we have completely stepped away from what once made America a great Nation. Can you only Imagine if every person that lives in the boundary of the United States of America would only adopt what President Kennedy echoed so long ago, how the lives of every American would literally take on a new meaning. America would return to the way America once was so very long ago. we have lost sight of what is really important, not only for us but more important, for our neighbors. He is perhaps one of the  leading visionaries from the standpoint of American presidents. His presidency presented international and national challenges that were up to that time, unlike never before. America I'm sure cannot help to wonder what could have come had this assassination never occurred. A certain second term of leadership and progress.  The 50th anniversary of J.F.K.’s assassination is both too much and not enough. The inexplicable loss, the unanswerable questions, the sense of history suspended—they’re all still being fed by the powerful charisma of the man who was America’s first Pop president. "He's frozen in people's minds at age 46," said Kennedy biographer Robert Dallek. "Kennedy still gives people a sense - to this day - of hope for the future."His appearance changed with his mood, strikingly so, and this made him always more interesting than what he was saying. He would seem at one moment older than his age, forty-eight or fifty, a tall, slim, sunburned professor with a pleasant weathered face. Five minutes later, talking to a press conference on his lawn, three microphones before him, a television camera turning, his appearance would have gone through a metamorphosis, he would look again like a movie star, his coloring vivid, his manner rich, his gestures strong and quick, alive with that concentration of vitality a successful actor always seems to radiate. Much of what people know about Kennedy comes from his inauguration speech, with its rhetorical flourishes that seem to inspire liberal activism.

They are largely misinterpreted. It is a conservative, Cold War, anti-Communist speech. When Kennedy declared: "Ask not what you country can do for you but what you can do for your country," he wasn't asking people to go out and fight poverty, he was saying don't expect the federal government to hugely expand social welfare programs.

When Kennedy said, "Let every nation know...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden...in order to insure the survival and success of liberty," he was not talking about the U.S. defending the right of nations to self-determination but that the U.S. would intervene against any threats to its power, like in Cuba, that just had a revolution against a U.S.-backed dictatorship.

"We will not prematurely...risk the cost of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouths--but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced," Kennedy declared in his address to the nation on October 22, 1962. The Russians didn't run the blockade and withdrew their missiles. And this is how the world came the closest ever to nuclear holocaust--under John F. Kennedy. When the truth is discovered, it becomes clear that far from being a progressive liberal, JFK was a moderate-centrist with viewpoints that were considerably to the right of the Democratic party's liberal wing. And if JFK was not truly "progressive" before or during his presidency, then the idea that he was murdered by reactionaries opposed to "progressive reform" loses all credibility. And who was JFK the Man, ultimately? A gifted speaker and eloquent communicator. A man who understood the pulse of the nation enough in 1946 when he positioned himself apart from the natural heirs to the liberal New Deal tradition. A man who recognized early the need for an assertive stance in the developing days of the Cold War, and who positioned himself perfectly within the framework of what Louis Hartz has called the "Age of Consensus." Part of the consensus on America's place in the world, and on the moral correctness of the Cold War struggle that would endure until the late 1960s. A man who understood the moral correctness of integration but who was reluctant to press too far in the struggle for racial justice. A man who as President, never forgot his roots and was an active Cold Warrior in the tradition of Truman and Eisenhower, and who in domestic policy kept himself positioned to the right of the Democratic party's liberal wing. Kennedy and his image of youth and vigor have not lost a hold on the American imagination. The five decades since Kennedy's murder have also seen a decline in respect for government in general and presidents in particular. Dallek noted that, since Kennedy's death, only President Reagan has been able to hold a large measure of affection from a mass of Americans.

"So many of the other presidents have fared so poorly," he said. "Kennedy and Reagan gave the country optimism and hope. They gave the sense of the country's best values."

 

WELL DONE

By  Rev Joseph S. Semoi Kenema, Sierra Leone West Africa

 

  First and foremost I give thanks to the Almighty Father for deeming me fit to be a member of this honorable organization know as Gala Foundation under the leadership of my spiritual  father,  Noel Serrano. I also give thanks to  him for giving me this golden opportunity by asking me to file in my message to the desk of the Gala Foundation. I pray that the God will continue with you in this Noble Organization till the coming of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ. More so, I pray that His grace will always be sufficient for you In every endeavor in life.my desire also is that the entire membership of Gala Foundation round the glob will see their expected end.in the mighty name of Jesus Amen. By His grace , I want to share the word of God with you in the gospel of Jesus Christ according to {Mathew chapter twenty five verse twenty three {Matt. 25 :23} Topic: WELL DONE His Lord said unto Him, well done good and faithful servants, thou hast been faithful over few things {small things} I will make you ruler over many things {Big things}: enter thou in to the joy of thy Lord Mathew 25:23 INTRODUCTION :Never you despise the days of small beginning. In our lives, small days will makes us faithful in small things, so that we can be trusted with big things tomorrow . my spirit man has urged me to say some things about this honorable organization how it came in to existence, its all started very small and today it has been globally interested. This small days is all so where we learn to find our satisfaction not in prophecy or promise but in God. He {God} must be sole source of our identity. Each of us start in Bethlehem, finding our identity in God and become faithful in small things. Every great man or woman in the Bible calendar today went through his or her Bethlehem. Before Jesus became great he past through his Bethlehem, Joseph and many others etc..it would be dangerous, to skip Bethlehem and go straight to Zion. Let us not for get our topic WELL DONE  . The journey to our highest destiny starts with small responsibilities. It may be neglected, pushed aside, and ignored. But this significant season lays the foundation for success later on. It is vital, an inescapable part of our journey, from which no body is exempted, not even the messiah. Both David and Jesus had their small beginnings unto their Bethlehem, yet they where destined to ruled with Gods authority. The Gala Foundation is as great and noble Project, its all started very small many years ago with our Dear  Elders  Felicita Serrano, Francisco Serrano, Nieves Bosch, who met at the home of Noel Serrano to begin the planning and deliberation of this  Gala Concept. It was back in 1986 and it started very small. As you can see , The Foundation is growing.The Lord is saying to  the Director of Gala Foundation , WELL DONE!!! for keeping the fire burning. So many of us hate to start small in anything we do. The bible says though our beginning was very small, but our latter end will  greatly increase {Job 8:7} some people bury their talents because they comparing themselves with those who stay focused to start small and succeed in their endeavors. Conclusion… we all have different gifts that God gave to us, and He will ask us how well we used those gift given to us. To them that started small and the  latter multiplies, He would {God} say WELL DONE, good and faithful servant . My God and my maker is saying to the Leadership of the Gala Foundation whose dreams have been materialized  {WELL DONE }especially our late grand mother .Felicita Serrano, may her soul rest in perfect peace of God. And my wish also is that the Almighty Father in Heaven will continue to lead and direct Noel Serrano and the entire membership of the Gala Foundation. God's richest blessing to you all as you continue to embark in this journey.Faithfully yours in the service of the Lord

Pastor Joseph S. Semoi Kenema, Sierra Leone West Africa

GOD IS NEVER WRONG!

By Evelyn Melendez

 

A king who did not believe in the goodness of God, had a slave who, in all circumstances would always say “my king, do not be discouraged, because everything God does is perfect. He makes no mistakes!” ...

One day they went hunting and along the way a wild animal attacked the king. His slave managed to kill the animal, but could not prevent his majesty from losing a finger.

Furious and without showing his gratitude for being saved, the nobleman asked "Is God good? If He was good, I would not have been attacked and lost my finger."

The slave replied: "My king, despite all these things, I can only tell you that God is good, and he knows why these things happened. What God does is perfect. He is never wrong!"

Outraged by the response, the king ordered the arrest of his slave.

Later, the King left for another hunt, this time alone. He was captured by savages who engaged in human sacrifices.

On the altar and ready to sacrifice the nobleman, the savages discovered that their victim did not have one of his fingers. According to them, only a whole person with all his/her parts intact could be offered to the gods.

The King without a finger was deemed an abominable sacrifice for their gods. So they released the King.

Upon his return to the palace, the King authorized the release of his slave. He received the slave affectionately.

He asked his slave, "my dear, God was really good to me! I was almost killed by the wild men, but for lack of a single finger, I was let go! But I have a question: if God is so good, why did he allow me to put you in jail?"

The slave answered, "my King, if I had gone with you on this hunt, I would have been sacrificed instead because I have no missing finger. Remember everything God does is perfect. He is never wrong. He made you keep me in jail so I would not be with you on the hunt."

Often we complain about life, and negative things that happen to us, forgetting that nothing is random and that everything has a purpose.

Every morning, offer your day to God, don't be in a rush.

Ask God to inspire your thoughts, guide your actions, and ease your feelings. And do not be afraid. God is never wrong!