Final instructions…. Thankfulness…





Final instructions…. Thankfulness…

Image result for thankfulness





Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  
1Thes 5:16 - 18

Hebner Family
Christmas 2015
As our time comes to a close in Wales, I feel it is appropriate that we turn our hearts and minds to these wonderful final instructions by Paul who has an incredible way to keep things succinct and clear. God’s will is to be thankful for what we have, where we are, within that or any situation.   These words have rung more and more  true as I have spent the last few years ‘fluttering’ around various African and European countries.  I have seen souls that are truly thankful with nothing, living in a poverty that could make you weep, and I have encountered souls with everything in life, wealth freedom, choice, family and a faith of sorts, facing isolation and pain due to their inability to see what was simply before them.  

This dichotomy has left me to ponder how easy could and would our lives become if we embraced this simple principal.  How much peace would soak into our own soul and into the world around us if we were to grasp the simplicity and depth of this one scripture.


Brigitte  at the HFTN school
Kenya 2016
But unfortunately we are human beings, some of us a little more ADHD than others.  We seem to lose our capacity to keep our eyes on the prize and perspective of our situation in life.  We drift so far that even stopping to be thankful for a meal can become an impossible task as we move farther away from thankfulness into the realm of worry towards the future or regrets from the past.  ‘It is a slow fade as we give ourselves away… ‘as the band Casting Crowns expresses… 

Thankfulness can be replaced with numbness, which leads to bitterness, which leads to anger, which leads to compromise and eventually moral sin.  The loss of thankfulness is the first motion at the top of the hill down a slippery slope of destroyed lives.  This thankfulness is often most fragile in times of major change.  The death of a loved one, a move, a major medical situation.  These events become amplifiers to the soul of those effected.  But we must renew our minds to stay on the right side of the curve. 
Morgan and Madison building Houses
South Africa 2007
More conformation of staying thankful is found in Romans 1 where Paul states  ‘21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.’   This reinforces the importance to be thankful no matter where we find ourselves or in whatever season of life that we are facing.  We need to stop second guessing the past and fear of the future and embrace the moment.  Matt 7... we need to not worry.
Early YL
Leadership Meeting


In this blog as we look back before leaving the UK, I wish to be thankful for:

  • · ·       The incredible family of believers that caught the Hebner’s when we first arrived ignorant here in the UK
  •       The opportunity to serve with Urban Saints both in Wales and in Urban Saints UK for a season.

    First Middle Park Camp
  • The development of the Middle Park camp and the local as well as international support the camp received in the early days of setup.




    YMP Lehae Khya centre 
    build March 2012
    • The development of the TENT charity designed to further the lives of young people in Christ in the UK and abroad
    • ·       The support of Rainbow FM in our transition to work in South Africa and the development of the container humanitarian solution globally.
    •  The vision of AMOR ministries in planting the seed to build in South Africa in the first place
    SPREE 2014
    • And to Young Life who we have partnered with for nearly 30 years off and on.

    Community Centre
    Romania 2005
    Thank you to all that made this season of life  possible and we pray that the seeds laid in the lives we have encountered and what has been planted deep within our own journeys  will be used to multiply the kingdom of Christ no matter from where we live on the planet as we continue to serve.. 

     At the close of this blog, the house is packed, and tickets purchased to Africa to further develop the HIS ministry/company in developing low cost solutions for housing schools and orphanages around the world.  I will continue to blog from the HIS page in the future.  But will keep many abreast as to what is happening in Wales and in our personal lives via this site.   
    YMP Amor
    Grasemere 2009

    Again thank you for what was possible together, we will always covet  your prayers..


    Once again...



    In His Service

    Bill
    Welding school going up in LIV orphanage
    Durban Nov 2016

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