Meet Troy Anderson – HGE Board Member

Sharon and I consider ourselves extremely blessed regarding  those whom the Lord has given to us to serve as Board Members of Holy Ground Explorations .  Over the next few weeks I have asked them to post in our Blog section because I want you to know more than just their names.

So, first up will be Troy Anderson.

A bit about me

My sweet, supportive and beautiful bride, Jacinda and I have been blessed by God with two sons who are currently 9 and 7 years old. Through the grace of God I was called to faith in our Lord Jesus about 14 years ago. We live in Parker, Colorado which is a suburb of Denver and we keep busy with what most people with kids at 9 and 7 do, feed the boys while picking up the house in between going from this lesson to that game then you go to bed and do it again and again and again.

My passion for Israel

I can’t say that I had a strong desire to go to Israel prior to my first trip in 2012 but I was curious and then I believe God invited me and opened doors for me to go. I have not read scripture the same since. Being in Israel, seeing the sites, meeting the people and walking the land have added color to scripture that I was blind to before. I went to Israel that first time with Dan and Sharon Stolebarger and their love and passion for the people and the land were endearing and contagious. I have been to Israel and Turkey with Dan and Sharon a total of four times on trips including tours and work trips.

My king and savior, the Lord Jesus, is the Son of God who was born a Jew to fulfill the law passed down by God through the Jewish people and He is the “anointed one” the Messiah or Christ spoken of by the Jewish prophets. For me to be passionate for Jesus results in a passion for Israel, both the land and the people.

Involvement with Holy Ground Explorations

After meeting Dan and Sharon I signed up for Kfir, the daily scripture readings and commentary. This has helped me to read the Word of God on a daily basis and join other believers in prayer. I also participated in a yearlong on-line bible study of the Torah and the footprints of Yeshua as well as other small group studies coordinated and led by Dan and Sharon.

Love for Jesus along with passion for Israel and devotion to small group studies is how I got involved with Holy Ground Explorations (HGE) and why I am excited to see how God uses this ministry. Because of the work that God has done in my life, God has given me the opportunity to be involved with HGE to inspire, motivate, foster and encourage fellow members in the Body of Christ to experience a life changing love for and desire to seek God through the study of His Word and the exploration of His land.

Damascus Road Experience

The Lord is always at work in our lives if we open ourselves up to Him. He refines us or alters our path using any and all means necessary to develop character or stop us from straying too far because of His love for us. These moments that it becomes obvious to us that He is at work in our lives we sometimes refer to as “Damascus Road moments”.

My most recent Damascus Road experience was this past weekend. To start the story we will go back to four or five months ago when we realized we had pretty significant water damage in my son’s room that is adjacent to the bathroom. We hired someone to come in, find where the water is coming from and repair the damage. A couple of weeks later everything was fixed (or so we thought) and we got on with life, refer to the first paragraph for a description of my routine.

Last week my lovely wife realized there was water again in my son’s room adjacent to the bathroom. This time I tore out everything, and I mean all the way down to the studs in the bathroom. Tub – gone, toilet – gone, vanity – gone, floor – gone, and drywall – gone. I was extremely irritated and snapping at my wife and kids for something that wasn’t really anybody’s fault. Remodeling a bathroom was not on my list of things to do at the moment and this is just one big irritation and I was being a baby about it.

On Saturday I felt a tap on the shoulder and I could almost hear God tell me I was being an ungrateful little punk and a whiny baby. God has blessed me with a job and a home, given me ability and health that I can work and He has answered countless prayers but here I am acting like this over an inconvenience. I have a father that is confined to a wheel chair who would give anything to be able to remodel a bathroom, HOW DARE I !

Thank you God for the blessings and the lessons and THANK YOU for loving me even though I do not deserve it. Thank you God for my health and ability and forgive me for my ungratefulness.

Word from the Bible

1 Samuel 3   The Prophetic Call to Samuel

3 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, ^[a]visions were infrequent.

² It happened at that time as Eli was lying down in his place (now his eyesight had begun to grow dim and he could not see well), ³ and the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was, ⁴ that the Lord called Samuel; and he said, “Here I am.”⁵ Then he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, lie down again.” So he went and lay down. ⁶ The Lord called yet again, “Samuel!” So Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he ^[b]answered, “I did not call, my son, lie down again.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him. ⁸ So the Lord called Samuel again for the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli discerned that theLord was calling the boy. ⁹ And Eli said to Samuel, “Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Some of us may have an active prayer life but are we talking so much that we don’t even recognize it when God talks to us? I need to listen more than I need to talk.