Hey everyone!
Thanks so much for your comments on my last blog. They were super insightful.
I was hoping to do this in a video blog, but the café I’m sitting at with the wifi has super loud music right now, and I just can’t wait to share all the God moments I had yesterday.
So yesterday I finally had some insight and direction from the Lord, and He did some amazing things yesterday.
I’ll start from the beginning…
I woke up, and found out that both teams had made plans to go out for brunch for one of our squadmate’s birthdays. I hadn’t been filled in the night before and had a commitment to our ministry host to go to an art club meeting to continue building relationships. A couple of my teammates told me they were sure our ministry host would understand, and wouldn’t mind me changing my plans given it was a special occasion… but that morning I was in Matthew, and read about how Jesus told us not to swear on anything and just say yes I will or no I won’t. It reminded me that I need to let my yes truly mean yes when I say it. At first I felt super bummed even as I tried to remind myself that it is a privilege to put my ministry first, and answer the Lord’s call. In my heart the spirit was convicting me to be obedient and go. When I explained this to one of my teammates she decided to go with me.
And then, while we were sitting down for morning worship the Lord convicted me again to give a testimony at the church service last night. I really didn’t want to share. I told God that if it was something He really wanted me to do, and this was more than my thoughts that I wanted some encouragement. At that moment my squad leader looks me straight in the eyes and mouths ” you have something” and then announces to the team that I will speak.
We go to the art club, and have a fantastic time building relationships and got to hear one women’s story about her spirituality and how she looks at God and Hinduism. My teammate and I felt so uplifted that we had obeyed and gone. We headed over to still see if we could make brunch, and our teams were still there.
It turned out that everyone got their food earlier and it ended up being just Madison and I sitting at the table after the rest of our teams had left. We’ve been to this restaurant a few times and have always had a decent relationship with our waiter. But as Madison and I got up to pay and leave our waiter asked us how we liked Sombor -and then he just opened up to the two of us. He shared about his family, his goals for life, his feelings about Yugoslavia and how people treat each other. He even told us about how he has a really bad knee problem. We got to share a little about how we had to trust God to put a roof over our heads and give us food as we fundraise and rely on ministry hosts to provide for our needs. And then Madison asked him if we could pray over his knee injury. He said yes. So we put our hands on his knee right there in the middle of the café in the middle of the town square and prayed for healing. We also invited him back to our church/ coffee house to practice English and get to know him better.
As I walked away from the café I realized that had I not been obedient in going to art club that morning, I would have gotten up with the rest of my teammates and left that café. We never would have stayed behind to hear our waiter’s story, to share, and to pray with him. I heard God whisper – “in your obedience I will multiply your opportunities”.
Last night I got to share a difficult story about forgiveness. I had no idea why God wanted me to tell that story. But afterwards one of the women in the church who I have gotten very close to, shared with me an experience that was similar. I felt so honored to have her tell me more of her story, and to have that relationship deepened and strengthened.
So here are my prayer requests:
– Gratitude and thankfulness for hearing some direction from the Lord
– Prayer for the people at art club, especially the women we met
– Prayer for our waiter. Please pray for his knee, that the Lord will heal it.
– Prayer for our church, and the youth who are coming to play games – that they will hunger for more and come to service or Bible studies.
– My team has decided to do the Armor of God Bible study by Priscilla Shirer. I am so excited because I loved doing it exactly one year ago, with a WONDERFUL group of women. It will be interesting to see what the men on our team get out of it. But Ephesians has been declared as the book our team is living by and diving into, pray that God will use it to strengthen us individually and as a team to step out for the Lord.
– Courageous in Christ
