Restoration Ministries offers hope, healing and wholistic growth in Jesus Christ. Caring for individuals, families, churches and organizations, we provide space to know and experience Christ's Holy Presence. We facilitate freedom, healing and wholeness and provide paths for spiritual growth and deeper communion with God by offering:

•Spiritual direction and soul care ministries
•Healing prayer sessions
•Resources for support and recovery at personal and/or family points of fracture
•Scripture and spirituality groups
•Retreats and retreat space where souls can find rest and renewal
•Collaborative ministries with the Church, local and at-large

RESTORATION MINISTRIES NEWSLETTER

My soul was disturbed, deeply disturbed.

It took me a bit to name the anger that manifested as being “disturbed in my soul.” I had attended an educational forum on human trafficking and my awareness soared to a new level. It was disturbing to know that trafficking is a billion-dollar industry that sells women and children, boys and girls, into slavery, sex slavery as well as forced labor. It was disturbing to know that this kind of slavery not only exists, it is widespread, and is in our own backyard. I had been aware, but now I was awakened to a new reality.

At my worst, I would like to go back to sleep, to discount, or minimize this human-perpetrated evil that is supported by buying and selling human beings for profit and for the sex act that gratifies at a base, animalistic level—predator and prey. There must be a seller as well as a buyer for this to happen. Both sides of this particular economic equation are a devastating evil and I would like to not know what I now do know.

At my best, I am in prayer and compassionate action working out of God’s very intention for our world, for the ways and person of Christ to be known. Christ who was for the outcast, the beggars, the lepers, the prostitutes, the demonized, the victimized. Christ saw, spoke, touched, healed, set free, delivered victims and perpetrators alike. Bearing the Spirit of Christ, I cannot look the other way.

I have been pondering the words from Romans 13 (The Message) as I have thought of my own awakening:

But make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!

For me to be up and about, I had to do one thing, just one thing, to have some sense of being a part of abolishing human slavery and trafficking. I went online to the Not For Sale website at www.notforsalecampaign.org and purchased a freedom journal, made in India. Then I re-centered myself in prayer, bringing my attention to the God who creates, loves, guides, heals and restores. This poem by Wendell Berry brought me to another place of stillness.

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water; and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
Or grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Writing this article is the next right thing.

Pastor Jean Leih

UPCOMING RETREAT OPPORTUNITY

Advent Stillness Creating a space To enter the season with silence Being still to know The I AM

WHEN: Saturday, December 3 8:30AM-3:30PM
WHERE: Trinity Episcopal Church
322 2nd St. Excelsior
COST: $35.00 (Includes lunch)
REGISTRATION: To register go to www.restorationmn.org/opportunities

CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES

Come and Sit With Me Awhile…

Do you long to find rest for your soul? Are you willing to consider this a God-invitation? How does a day away from the busyness of your life and schedule sound to you? A personal spiritual get-away can provide a time set apart to be with God. A day or half day at our ministry center may include time and space for:

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION MINISTRY AVAILABLE
Restoration Ministries has a number of trained spiritual directors available to provide spiritual companionship in one-to-one sessions. The intention is to provide space and time to listen, notice and be attentive to God's invitations in one's life and journey, to foster a deeper relationship with God, and to cultivate noticing, discerning and responding to God's Holy Spirit.
Call to schedule an appointment at: 952.241.4150

EVENINGS OF LISTENING PRAYER
Every Wednesday: 7-9 pm
Join with us and others for evenings of LISTENING PRAYER. Framed in simple worship, Scripture and prayerful sharing, this space is provided for attentiveness to listening to God and others. We meet every Wednesday evening from 7-9 pm. There is neither registration nor cost. Anyone is welcome to come and experience this quiet, worshipful listening space.
Location: Restoration Ministry Center, 952.241.415

Blessings,

Pastor Jean Leih

For your information and interest:

Dr. Glenn Myers on Christian Spirituality:
http://www.deepwellswithglennmyers.blogspot.com/

Pastor Jean Leih on integrating faith and life:
http://integratingfaithandlife.blogspot.com/

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