Not Disciplined In The Word.

The other day, I was lying in my hammock with the sides tucked in like a cocoon around me.  I took a lovely nap and then talked to God for a long time.  I told Him everything that was on my mind.  And I hadn't done that in awhile.  I love that He is not only our awesome King, but He is our friend.  I love that piece of the hymn What A Friend We Have In Jesus, "What a priviledge to carry everything to God in prayer."

So as I was talking to Him, I asked Him the question that I continually ask, because He answers it every time in different ways:  "How do I love like You do?"

{Honestly, I know that I'll ever understand the fullness of God's love.  Wow.  That concept always blows my mind.  I love that I can keep learning about Him and there's always something new to understand.}

 Anyway, I decided to tell you about this question, "How do I love like God?" because of the answer God gave me today.

Lately I've been trying to encourage my friends and be an Christ-like example to them.  I want to teach my Christian friends to teach others the Gospel, and I want to encourage those who are either struggling with their faith, or just need to know God (in general).  He's blessed me with opportunities to do that!  I've gotten to hang out one-on-one with some of the girls on my hall, pray with my team, call my friends who aren't here, and tell some Gospel stories to a family (that I've written about in previous posts).  

BUT (there's always a 'but') I realized today how worn down I was.  I felt like I really didn't have much to say to those people who I could've encouraged.  Why?  Because I haven't been disciplined in the Word.  I can't love people like God does on my own.  He is love.  When I'm not spending good solid time with Him, when I'm not asking Him to fill me with Himself, I have only my own love, and my own wisdom to give, which is very little... and never enough.  

So here I am, a believer in the Gospel training to share Jesus' love, telling you that I haven't been disciplined in the Word like I should have.  I've been lazy in seeking God's face.  And you have no idea how hard that is for me to say.  But I know from experience, that when I fall out of that good beautiful habit of personally seeking God, I simply (maybe not easily) have to get back into that habit.  He makes everyday that I pursue Him infinitely more wonderful, because His name is being glorified... not my own.

So, in conclusion, God showed me that in order to share His love, I have to consistently seek Him out.  It's like my car.  If I don't consistenly put gas in the tank, how will it take me anywhere?  If I don't consistently (daily) seek out God, then how is this relationship going to go anywhere?  He is faithful to provide His love, Himself, but this love He has for His children is clearly seen when we go to Him for it.

HOW YOU CAN BE PRAYING:

1. Please pray for the family (and others) that we share the Gospel with.  Ask God to prepare their hearts with peace and to keep their minds open to His truth.  

2.  Praise God for the obedience to God that people here have been showing.  It's truly so humbling and purely good.

3.  Ask God to teach me, and the other students here, how to remain disciplined in studying God and His love.  We need to be consitently filled with Him so that we can share Him.

Thank you for your prayers!  And Thank you for reading!  I'm still so excited for what God is doing now and will do in the future as we go overseas next semester!!

1 Peter 1:23 "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."

1 Thessalonians 5: 23-24  "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it."

Escape Routes & City Buses

About a week ago, we had our first official training weekend.  We took a day or two of class time to talk about being ready to leave at a moments notice, how to avoid being surveilled, and plans of escape.

In other countries that are potentially dangerous, we HAVE to be ready to leave our "home" at any time.  We learned how to set up escape routes, alternate escape routes, and escape destinations.  It's like setting up a fire escape plan, or practicing tornado drills, except that this is no natural disaster situation.  We have a cool phrase here that reminds us to be always ready: STAY ALERT. STAY ALIVE.

So we did some fun (maybe a little stressful) exercises during the weekend that helped us practice evreything we learned.  Then Sunday night, our second training segment started.  We stayed the night in *PEANUTBUTTER* (if you remember my ground school post, you'll know that peanutbutter means that information is confidential. top secret stuff. you know.) and the next morning, with our camelbacks loaded with snacks and water, we headed out in our teams to travel our city.  Walking and city buses were our main mode of transportation.  Let me tell you what, city buses are FULL of, what we call, very interesting people.  (Ask me about that in person if you really want to know).  We had a number of interesting destinations to go to throughout the day, while taking pictures of ourselves at each site (to prove that we were there).  Here's a few pictures:

Can you tell we're a little tired?  We walked to this cool little Jazz Museum.  There was a janitor there who saw us taking a picture and called to us from the door, "Hey you!  I can help y'all wich yo map!"  Our first instinct was to walk away, but he added, "I saw yo other groups earlier!"  So we decided he was trustworthy and got his help with our other destinations.

This is a very large badminton birdie.  Who comes up with this stuff?

This is our full team trying to do one of those cliche jumping photos in front of this amusment park called Worlds of Fun.  If it hadn't been closed, we would've tried to get a free ride by telling the park that we were doing an Amazing Race... well, maybe another time.

Unpredictable Situations... be flexible

Well.  I guess it’s time for another exciting blog post.  I’ll update you on the family that my friend, Jeremiah, and I have been sharing the Gospel with.  Then I’ll let you all know how you can pray... because we’ve got some crazy events coming up.

UPDATE SINCE LAST POST:

So, if you read my last post you’ll remember the family Jeremiah and I have met with on Wednesdays for the past three weeks.  Jack and Amanda are the sweetest couple.  They have three little kids.  The oldest is a girl named Mira.  She’s about six or seven.  A couple weeks ago, we bonded over some tossing of a yellow kickball.  I guess she really enjoyed that time we had because the next week, when we came back, Mira ran up to me and gave me a big hug saying, “I missed you!”  She also asked, “Hey, can I play that game on your phone again?” but that’s irrelevant.  

Before we arrived at their house I had prepared to share the creation story (Jeremiah shared the story of Adam and Eve) with the family, so I drew a couple coloring pictures for Mira to color.  I did this in hopes she would be listening too. 

Anyway, things didn’t go as predicted... but is God ever predictable?  Nope.  I called them beforehand to remind them we were coming.  They were happy to know we were coming.  Then we arrived and found out Jack wasn’t feeling well because of a bad infection.  Therefore, he wasn’t going to sit and talk that day.  Also, Amanda was very tired and therefore not as responsive as usual.  ALSO, Jeremiah had a bit of a cold (or allergies, I forget).  ALSO, Mira had to clean her room before she could hang out with us... so this is why flexibility is the theme of today’s post.

Jeremiah and I sat down with Amanda in her living room.  The kids were a little distracting, but we started our story telling.  

[side note: it’s always awkward to start telling these stories.  I mean, who goes into someone’s house and says, “Hey can I tell you some stories?”  The facial reactions are usually a little weird.]

Jeremiah kind of prompted me to start telling the creation story, and so it began.  Amanda seemed to enjoy the stories, even with the frequent distractions from the kids.  It ended up being a pretty good evening.  Mira even finished cleaning her room before we left, so I was able to give her the coloring pictures and tell her a quick story about creation and Adam and Eve.  I shared the encouraging Philippians 4 with Amanda, we prayed for her and Jack, then we headed out.  

Even if it hadn’t gone as planned, God still worked in the situation.  I pray that He’ll continue to work in their lives.  He is always good, even when there are uncomfortable conditions.

CRAZY THINGS COMING UP:

Later this week, we’ll be having our first hands on training (other than Ground School).  This is called Bulldog 1.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going down, but by now it’s just the norm to not know what’s going on.  The following week, we have a couple days of transportation training in the city.  I am very excited for this!

HOW YOU CAN PRAY:

1. Pray that God will heal Jack’s infection and ask God to turn both Jack’s and Amanda’s hearts toward Him.
2. Pray for me and the other students as we are about to go through training this week and the next, starting Thursday.  Ask God to prepare us for the things we will be encountering in other countries... not just physically, but mentally.
3. Pray that we will all be extremely humbled by God and His incredible story.  Pride is one of our greatest enemies right now.  It’s pride that causes disunity in a team, disrespect, and a closed mind.  In order to make it through this semester, we have to be unified as the body of Christ, thinking of others before ourselves, and ready to learn from and understand each experience we go through.  We have to be FLEXIBLE.

Thanks you for all your love, support, and prayer!

1 Peter 1:13

“Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God Opens A Door. Literally.

On Wednesday nights, a group of us goes out to do some good ol' door to door evangelism.  Fun stuff. So two weeks ago, my friend, Jeremiah, and I were paired up.  Jeremiah is pretty much a pro at door to door evangelism, since he made it his hobby when he's home with friends.  What?  Who does that?  So I was really glad that we're a team.  I've been learning a lot from him.  

Anyway, on the first Wednesday, God brought us to this one lady that let us in the house... let me repeat that... SHE LET US IN HER HOUSE.  All we said was, "Hello we're from this church and we're just walking around to see how people are doing and how we can pray for anyone today."  And she casually responded, "Yeah, sure, come on in."  We just kind of looked at each other like, "Whoa.  We just got invited in her house!"  We got really excited.  

We exchanged introductions (her name is Amanda) and asked her how she was doing, etc.  We talked for a little bit and asked her how we could pray for her.  She said she and her husband wanted to strengthen their marriage... which was PERFECT because we also happend to be handing out flyers about this session at the church about biblical marriage, sexuality, and relationships.  Dang, God works fast.  

Her husband (Jack) came home at that point and we got to pray with BOTH of them.  Afterwards, we were able to exchange phone numbers and invite them to our church.  We spent about fifteen minutes with them.  We walked out the door, light on our feet, realizing that God had just handed us a family that was ready to hear his message.  Whoa.  Mind blown... but that was nothing compared to what happened the next week.

So last week, Jeremiah and I walked straight to Amanda and Jack's house.  Amanda let us in again and this time we got to spend a whole hour and a half with both of them and their three little kids.  Jeremiah got straight to the point and asked them if we could hear some of their life stories and then tell them our stories.  They agreed with hardly any hesitation (whoa).  They both have pretty heart breaking and sad pasts; not much hope.  But, the good thing is that they each recognize that they are broken people and they both sort of implied that they are Christians, but they haven't been to church in awhile.  Jeremiah and I can see that they REALLY want some hope.  They need someone or something SOLID that they can rely on... put their hope in.  JESUS.  Haha, heck yes!  

So we shared our testimonies with them too.  Neither of us can relate to thier difficult pasts, since we both grew up in Christian homes.  But, God has given each of us pasts that have built our faith in Him and He's given us passion for His message.  So we pray that the Holy Spirit will work through us; speak through us.  How could we possibly understand what they've been through?  Only God could truly understand.  So basically we have to completely rely on Him to draw them to Himself.  It's gonna be rad!

We asked if we could come back next week and do some Bible study with them.  They were very interested... whoa!  So we prayed for them again and then left the house to join the rest of our group back at the cars.  I'm pretty sure we half skipped down the sidewalk and rejoiced about the whole situation as we headed back.  There is no greater joy than to obey God (share His love and the Gospel) and have God work through you to bring people Hope.  Holy flipping cow!  I'm so blessed to have been chosen to be a part of sharing God's hope with this family.  Let His name be glorified.

HOW YOU CAN PRAY:

- Please pray for Jack and Amanda and their three kids (the oldest is 6).  Pray that their hearts and minds will be open and ready to hear the truth of the Word.  Pray also that their marriage will be strengthened as God draws them to Himself.  

- Please pray for me and Jeremiah.  Ask God to humble us and have love for this family as Jesus would.  Pray that we will have boldness, peace, and hope in the words we speak and (most of all) that we will glorify God no matter what the outcome.  

Thanks for all your support!  I hope these stories are encouraging to you in your own life.  To God be the glory!

                                        

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." 1 Peter 1:8-9 "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are recieving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."