“…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” -Phil.3:12b
Have you ever had a task set
before you, you didn’t feel like doing?
Where you felt unprepared, had a bad attitude toward it, and were too
tired to care? How about being somewhere
you didn’t want to be?
Well, this was the four of
us (Haley, Sarah, Christie, and I) on Thursday before heading out for
evangelism, an hour or so away from Dumaguete with Pastor Attos. We were sitting in the park, since we were
early, with a heaviness that overwhelmed all of us. Realizing that we all felt the same pressure,
it seemed as if Satan was prevalent and wanting to discourage us. We discussed what it meant to be a
missionary, the struggles we were having, and also the ways we were growing,
seeking to understand why we might feel this way at this time.
We decided to pray and talk
to God for awhile before heading to Pastor’s house. We prayed for a strength that had to come
from God, a joy that had to come from Him as well, and a love for these people. We prayed against Satan’s schemes and plans
to destroy God’s plan. We had nothing to
give. We were emptied. We were nothing. We realized that everything during those hours
had to come completely from God.
We walked down to Pastor
Attos’ house from the park and prayed with him and some church members for our
day. As we were walking out, the girl
that was with me, Cheryl (sweetest girl ever!), said she just didn’t feel
prepared. Then I knew Satan was up to
something and in my mind He wasn’t going to have victory!
(courtesy ten thousand villages website)
As we went our separate ways
to different parts of the village, Cheryl and I stopped in a little house where
a young guy was playing guitar. In their
culture it’s normal for people you don’t know to come by and they just welcome
you in their house (unlike the US
where I think it is almost rude to go door-to-door). Roelfy opened his door to us and I told him I
want to learn how to play guitar sometime, too.
As I asked about his life, he told me that he never used to go to church
and he was into some bad things, but some happenings occurred in his life that
made him go back to church. He is Roman
Catholic (as most of the population in
the Philippines is) but I was able to open my Bible and just go through what God
has done for him and that He can know for sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that
He is going to heaven. I explained what
it was to have a personal relationship with Christ and that it’s different than
religion. We prayed for him as we
left. I could tell he was thinking about
a lot of things that I had said when we left.
The next person we talked to
was a woman with three children named Christy.
She is so sweet and is a born again Christian. Her husband has been looking for a job for a
long time, so it has been a struggle to pay for food for their children. We
were able to encourage her with God’s word.
It was such a blessing to me.
Another older lady I was able
to talk to was Nida. She is also a born
again Christian already and she was so grateful for us to stop by and just talk
to her about what I am doing. She had a
lot of questions and was encouraged by what God has been doing in my life.
God poured into me, gave me
boldness to share His word and talk to people.
He gave me the words to say and energy to keep going! God answered prayer in a big way. I knew it was all God because as soon as I
got in the van to head home, I was so tired again. When you think you can’t go on, you don’t
feel like doing it, and want to give up, keep going! You never know what God has in store. When God asks us to do something, without
hesitation we need to. God had much in store when we obey 🙂
“It is the Lord your God you must follow, and Him
you must revere. Keep His commands and
obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him.”
–Deuteronomy 13:4
*Check out Sarah‘s blog about our construction project this past week
*Read Mark‘s view on the Philippines and what we’ve seen
