Monday, November 28, 2005

God is good...all the time!

Sorry about the lack of posts, but what an awesome two weeks I have had! We spent a week at a conference/lecture with Jim Stier learning about evangelism and God’s heart for missions. Stier told some incredible, faith building stories. My favorite was about a 15 year old boy that was on a mission trip in Hade. He was going door to door asking people if they needed prayer. He came to a house and the woman told him that her neighbor could probably use some prayer because she looked horrible (“like she was about to die”) earlier that week. So the boy went to the neighbors home and found the front gate and front door wide open. He clapped (instead of knocking) and saw that there was someone sleeping on the bed just inside the house. So he, quite boldly, went in and just started praying that God would touch the woman. The next thing he knew there was a man standing behind him. The boy asked who he was and the man replied that he was the owner of the house and that it was his wife lying on the bed. The man asked what the boy was doing in the house and he said that he was just praying for his wife and that she was healed. The man told the boy that she hadn’t healed. The boy argued that yes, she had because she was stirring right there on the bed. The man said again “You didn’t heal her because she died last night, you raised her from the dead!” The man had just been at the coroner and funeral home making arrangements for her burial. When he came inside and saw the boy praying there was another man there as well. The other man touched his wife when the boy asked God to touch her. True story. The point was that we should expect miracles and pray with faith when we pray.

The conference was great preparation for the following week that we spent in Byron Bay doing outreach. Byron Bay is like the Daytona Beach of Australia. All of the students that just graduated (yes, they graduate in November here – weird, huh?) go there for what they call “Schoolies,” a time to pretty much just let loose and party like crazy. It is a beautiful area, but very full of all kinds of very innovative spiritual concepts (witchcraft, Buddhism, worshiping the dim star of the southern cross, etc.). All of these people are just searching for the true Lord, Jesus Christ and because it is such a “spiritual” place, it is very common for “God conversations” to start. It was an amazing week! Our group of about 40 students from different YWAM bases did sports outreach on the beach during the day (for me, it just doesn’t get any better than talking to people about God, playing soccer on the beach and getting a tan all at the same time!), had free cookouts (sausage on the barbie, anyone?) and worshipped in the parks at night. People were really drawn to our worship and we always ended up with a big crowd around us. Countless seeds were planted and several names were added to the book of life – glory to God! I was asked many difficult questions, but God totally spoke wonderful answers through me. I had many moments when I was actually surprised at the words coming out of my mouth! I talked and prayed with a girl named Jenna (crazy, huh?) who accepted Christ into her heart. It was such an incredible experience.

I am now back at the base for three more weeks of lectures. We have the former President of YWAM speaking this week and I am really looking forward to some inspiring insight from him. The countdown has begun (okay, okay, I started a couple of weeks ago) for when Jason arrives - 18 days to go! Then it's off to India on December 26th. As always, prayers are greatly needed and appreciated.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Once again, we have been blessed with a remarkable teacher this week. I just want to pass along a bit of the wealth of knowledge that I have taken in over the past few days.

In following God’s will, we need to remember the WOW principle:
What do I need to do?
Our attitude as we go through.
What do I have to leave off?

We are made up of a body, soul and spirit. The soul is composed of the mind, will and emotions. The body and sprit are constantly in a tug-of-war battle for the soul. Consider the analogy of a white dog (spirit) vs. a black dog (body). Whichever dog is fed, will win the battle for your soul.

Read Luke 10:25-37, the story of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite didn’t stop to help because they put their reputations before the man in need. The priest would have been “unclean” for 21 days, meaning he would not be able to work or receive income. God doesn’t respect our reputations – he desires that we act righteously in all situations, no matter what the cost. The mistakes or the priest and Levite teach us that we should never put our position, profit or a program before people. The Good Samaritan let the man ride on his animal while he walked, paid for him to stay at the inn (plus any other expenses incurred) and was made late for wherever he was going (probably an important meeting). In return for laying down his rights to help the wounded and robbed man, the Samaritan got tired, poor and inconvenienced, BUT he was the hero of the story.

You are probably familiar with Matthew 7:13-14 that says “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.” I heard a very cool way of describing this verse. Pretend you enter the subway station in NYC and go through the little gate to get down to the subway. It’s rush hour so there are a lot of people trying to get down into the subway system (this narrows the path) and you realize you don’t know which one to get on so you stop, turn around and try to go back to the gate to ask security. The path going toward the subway is wide – there are many people going that way and they are all wondering why you are trying to go the other way (some probably think you are crazy). They may stop you to ask what you are doing and tell you that you should just go to the subway because it is easier. You may just get caught up in the crowd (talking to a friend or even your spouse) and taken down to the subway. When you commit your life to Christ, people – friends, family, co-workers – will block the path because they know your old reputation. You have to stop to explain and justify yourself to everyone. The path to heaven becomes smaller and smaller as more people that are going the other way block your path. It’s not enough to just stop and turn around (repentance), but you actually have to start walking (sometimes fighting your way) toward heaven. A great reason to stay plugged into a church is because it is a lot easier to go against the current with a big group of people. I just want to encourage you to continue going against the flow!

After the fall of man, God put curses on Adam. Genesis 3:18 says “Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” Thorns and thistles came along with sin. I don’t think that it is just a coincidence that Jesus had a crown of thorns on His head (Matt 27:29), bearing the sins of all mankind, when He was crucified on the cross. This proves that God knew what was going on and had a divine plan in place all along.

Well, if you made it this far, I hope you learned a little something. For now, I am feeling a bit tired, poor and inconvenienced (praise the Lord) so it is time to end this post.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Random Updates

Okay, I have been super slack on my blogging lately and I am sorry. For the past week and a half, I have literally been overwhelmed with information on the Holy Spirit (last week) and Spiritual Warfare (this week). I couldn’t begin to tell you all that I have learned – I haven’t even had time to process it all myself – but my personal highlight of the Holy Spirit week was learning about the Power and Spirit of Elijah. Before last week, I am not even sure that I knew anything about the Spirit of Elijah, but the basis is that it is a prophetic call to prepare the bride of Christ for Jesus’ return. It coincides with a Spirit of Repentance, Healing and Reconciliation. We are called to draw the treasure out of people. John the Baptist had the Spirit of Elijah on him (Luke 1:15-17) to prepare the way for the first coming of Christ, but it now applies to the context of Christ’s return to reign on earth for 1,000 years. I also learned a lot of innovative details about the Five Fold Ministry (Eph 4:11) and the Gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:8-10). As for this week, I’ll just say this… I thought I knew a good bit about Spiritual Warfare and over the past couple of days I haven’t even been able to keep up with new information that we are being fed. It’s crazy. We have been so blessed with wonderfully anointed teachers.

Last weekend was a free weekend so Saara and Johanna and I went to Surfer’s Paradise to celebrate Johanna’s birthday. It was really nice to get off the base and away from so many people. We just relaxed on the beautiful beach (water is still a little too cold for me to go surfing!), shopped a bit and Johanna’s mom paid for us to go to a really nice dinner.

I have found out some info about the India trip. We will be staying in a village on the outskirts of Bangalore. There will be no running water – that means bucket showers and holes in the ground for toilets (oh yeah!). This realization has helped me to really appreciate our base bathrooms! It’s going to be like heaven when I return to the States. Anyways, there are 25,000 people in the village and 1% are Christian. They cannot speak English and we cannot speak Tamil (their primary language) so that is going to make for some interesting ministry time. The majority probably can’t even read so it’s not like we can just show them a Bible passage. If you have any skit, drama, dance or other ministry ideas, please feel free to share. Otherwise, our team could really use your prayers.

~Shout Outs ~ I want to give a shout out to Carrie Davis and the little one that God is knitting inside her as I type. I also want to give a shout out to my awesomely supportive boyfriend Jason Surratt – you are unbelievable and I can’t wait to see your gorgeous face in just 43 days!
That’s all for now. I should be sending out some new snapfish photos soon. If you haven’t received them and would like to, please just send me an e-mail and I will be happy to get you the link.