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Endorsement
by Brad Jersak:
"Having
watched the Rosen's launch their tour from my little town of
Aldergrove, I was thrilled to finally see an account of the whole
faith-journey across Canada. If you've ever wondered what would happen
if you surrendered yourself to simply listening to God and doing what
He says, this is the book for you."
Brad
Jersak, pastor of Freshwind Community Fellowship, Abbotsford,
Canada, and author of Can
you Hear Me? Tuning In
To the God Who Speaks.
Forward
by Mark Buchanan:
A
strange irony is afoot in contemporary churches: we have become wary
of people who actually follow Jesus. Those rare folk who take Jesus at
face value, with all his stark commands and cryptic stories and
disruptive influence, seem to us reckless and capricious, like people
who run off to join the circus. Somehow, most of us in the church got
to equating gospel faithfulness with middle-class stability. We think
kingdom righteousness and domestic decency are the exact same thing.
Not that decency and stability are bad things. But Jesus had nowhere to
lay his head at night. Jesus resorted to tricks with fish to pay his
taxes and feed his followers. Jesus sought solitary places and rough
company. Jesus had demons running from him and hookers running to him.
Surely not just suburbanites with their SUVs and whopping mortgages can
lay claim to being his disciples.
I have loved Russ and Sandy Rosen since first I met them, and for many
reasons: but maybe most because they are both a rebuke and an
inspiration to me. They are those rare folk who take Jesus at face
value. And in their case it led them, in a manner of speaking, to join
the circus – a five year escapade, exhilarating and grueling
all
at once, to cross Canada in a convoy of semi-trailers and Winnebagos in
order to take the message of God’s love to every nook and
cranny
of this vast country. On the way, God stretched them, tested them,
emptied them, filled them, and used them to heal and to bless. Truly,
they and their team, Upstream, were “ambassadors of
reconciliation” and “signs and symbols”
of the
Almighty.
Off The Map is the story of those five years. It is testament of both
Upstream’s stubborn faith and God’s enduring,
abiding
faithfulness. It is a diary, psalm-like, of fear and doubt and hope and
wonder, and an anthem of the ways God’s spills his glory in
clay
pots.
The movie Hidalgo is about Frank Hopkins and his Mustang horse that won
a race across the Arabian desert. In one scene, someone asks Frank how
he managed to tame Hidalgo.
“I didn’t,” Frank says.
I picture someone asking God, “How did you tame the
Rosens.”
“I didn’t,” he says.
Read this book only if you’ve become too tame, too settled,
and
long to feel again the wind in your face.
Mark
Buchanan, Author of The
Rest of God
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