The Kids on His Fridge

 
It’s a cheesy, cliched phrase, but it hits on a beautiful truth about how much God delights in YOU and all His children:
 

 
Yep, we’re His kids. Just as our parents love us and care for us because we’re theirs, He loves us because He loves us because He loves us. He is love, and no matter what we do, no matter how much we reject Him or deny His existence, and no matter what we think of His other kids, He loves us and He loves them. He can’t help it. It’s who He is.
 
His kids. I met several of them in Darwin, Australia this past month. One common thread runs throughout all of their stories: their Father is pursuing their hearts because He loves them like crazy. He is jealous for their affection, and He wants all of them. Every bit.
 

 
When I first saw her bike into the YWAM base with her Domino’s uniform on, I rejoiced at the thought of someone ordering pizza to surprise us. I soon discovered that this delivery girl was actually a 19-year-old woman named Miriam, who returned to the YWAM base (after completing a discipleship training program there recently) as she was travelling the world. Working at Domino’s for her four-month stay in Darwin, she is a light in dark places. When her smile spreads across her face, the love of Christ shines forth. She welcomed us warmly, invited us to the market with her, and opened up to us about the challenges she faces as she travels alone. Miriam was a gift from God, especially during a month when we did not have an opportunity to invest in people and build relationships as much as we wanted. She ate meals with us, prayed with us, and encouraged us. Being with her felt like being reunited with a sister.
 

Please pray for Miriam’s safety as she continues to travel, for her co-workers and customers, and for her family and her time at home when she returns next year.
 

 
Our first friend in Australia, Jonathan is one of the young residents at the local men’s shelter who assists in the kitchen. He immediately treated us like old friends, telling us stories about his family, joking around, and asking us questions about what we were doing in Darwin. His openness excited us, and our conversations gave us a window into some of the dark aspects of life as a homeless young man. He blessed us greatly this month with his friendship, and we looked forward every week to cooking at the shelter, in large part because we wanted to hang out with him.

 
Please pray for full-time employment for Jonathan, as well as for God to place people in His life who can love him well and call him to excellence. Pray for healing and love in his existing relationships. Pray that he would know just how much he is loved by his heavenly Father and to find the freedom that comes from a relationship with Him.

 

 
Pat is an older woman who volunteers at an Anglican church in downtown Darwin. While prayer walking one afternoon, Ryan felt led to go into the church office and talk to her while she was folding papers at a desk alone. Ryan and I followed the Spirit’s prompting and soon found ourselves in deep conversation with this warm, giving woman. She opened up to us about her life, her journey to Darwin, her work with Iranian migrants, and her faith. Ryan and I prayed over her and her life, and she blessed us by praying for us and our futures as well.
 
Please pray that Pat would continue to be a light in Darwin, bringing hope to the hopeless and love to those who have been abandoned, abused, and hurt. Pray that she would be a voice of truth in her church, pointing others to Jesus and avoiding the church politics that so often get in the way of God’s work.

 

 
Joanna and Mary are two middle-school-aged, aboriginal girls, whom I met while working at the Youth Night at a local church. Both have families who live on aboriginal land outside Darwin, but the girls commute to Darwin for their education. They sat in the back row during the evening’s teaching and worship; eyes fixed to their cell phones. They barely spoke, except to giggle at someone who was talking or nearby. I sat with them and prayed non-stop for them, and I felt the presence of God around them, pursuing them and working in them, even if I could see zero fruit from it. From time to time Joanna would answer my questions, telling me about her family and her passion for music, but otherwise we sat in silence. Still I felt God encourage me through my time with them because I knew that He was calling me to increase my faith that He is mighty to save, that He is sovereign in the people we encounter and the situations in which we find ourselves. I know that He is working in their lives.
 
Pray that Joanna and Mary’s hearts would be softened by the Lord, that they would see themselves as He sees them: beautiful and precious daughters of the Creator of the Universe. Pray against any strongholds that might be keeping them from knowing God and accepting His love. Pray for freedom in Christ.

 

 
Cassie and Brendan are an amazing couple who we had the privilege of meeting while living at the YWAM base. They run a school/home for aboriginal girls about two hours outside of town, bringing God’s love to girls who have been hurt by the people who are supposed to love them most. While staying at the base, they blessed us with deep conversations, encouraging stories of healings and miracles, and greatly appreciated gifts of mangos, ice cream, raspberries, toothbrush covers, and chocolate. Their hearts are bursting with God’s love, and their stories of how God has transformed their lives increased my faith. They were my spiritual Mom and Dad this month, and I am so thankful for them.
 

 

 

 
The first time I met Kathryn, she was assigned to cook dinner with Ryan and me for the entire YWAM base. A university student studying classical piano, Kathryn has lived on the base for the past few years, and I just felt in her way that entire first evening together. I didn’t know what to make of the spiritual climate I was feeling in the kitchen, but it certainly wasn’t warm. I asked Alicia to pray for me because I was starting to see myself shut down and avoid her, instead of pressing in and loving her through the tension. Alicia and I thanked God for Kathryn because she was an answer to our prayer. On the Race we pray daily for God to make us more like Him, and the tension I was feeling with her was a perfect opportunity to practice loving those who don’t necessarily show they love us back. Through that prayer God planted in me a pure and genuine affection for her, a feeling that could only come from a loving Father. Over the course of the month, God blessed us with a most unexpected friendship, and on one of our last nights in Darwin, Patrice, Kaleena, and I went to see her perform piano at a university event. She played beautifully, and I could feel God’s delight in His beautiful daughter as she played.
 
Pray that Kathryn would continue to use the gift God has given her. Pray that others would come to know Jesus through the beauty of her music, that she would bear fruit in her spiritual life, and that she would be blessed with mentors to challenge her in her walk with God.
 

 
Lord, Thank you for being a Father who delights in His children, who is the hope in our lives when there is no hope, and the peace in our lives when there is no peace. Thank you that you made us all differently, each to reflect different aspects of your character. Thank you that you have given us hearts to love one another; we know that we could not love without you. Give us hearts to love those who are different from us, who are needy and neglected, and who offend or insult us. Help us to rejoice in others like you do and, in so doing, help us to praise and glorify you in every relationship, conversation, and interaction with your kids. Thank you that in your awesome grace, we are called sons and daughters.  I pray all these things in Jesus’ name, Amen.