Normal
0
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-style-parent:””;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
This last
week got off to a rocky start for me, so I emailed a couple friends from ODPC,
my church back in the U.S., several prayer requests. I made sure I sent that email well before our
Tuesday night prayer meetings (I miss y’all!) so I’d get a bit of backup.
Y’all
must’ve been praying a whole lot, ‘cause I felt more than a bit of backup – it was like having the Spanish Armada on my back. It was Wednesday morning
here, Tuesday night there, after I had prayed over Carly, when I felt the same
kind of heaviness that brought me facedown on my knees as I did during training
camp.
As I
prayed, I felt as thought I might start weeping, but there were no tears — just
more prayer beyond words. Then I just
felt something in my gut — compassion in the Greek means something along the
lines of visceral organs (bowels) being moved. When the heaviness lifted, the sign that I was done praying, my abs felt
tighter. I
might’ve gotten as much confirmation as — if not more than — Carly did to go
out.
Aside
from Dennis, who is making the way for us in Voldemort (see previous post), and
Ben, I was the last one to meet Hazel and Coy Coy (just a nickname, from
Marcos). True to Carly’s words, they are
both so precious; meeting them was like waving a gold detector and finding an
X, marking the spot. I felt like I just
started digging, and I’ve barely caught glimpses of the gold glistening beneath
the layers.
We spent
almost four quick hours with them and their family. Carly and I literally got a taste of Luke
10:8 when we had lunch with Hazel and Coy Coy. Their invitation for us to stay for lunch felt like a catch-22: do we impose on them or risk being rude by
rejecting their hospitality? The latter
didn’t seem like much of a choice, so we stayed and enjoyed a meal of rice,
bean sprouts and tofu.
It was
confusing to be told that was all they would be eating today then being egged
to eat more, “pretend we’ve known each other for years,� said Hazel. And we were given tall glasses of Coke to
drink with our meal, which is a pretty big deal. It was quite humbling to receive such
hospitality and generosity.
Here is a
woman struggling to find a job yet out of her poverty shares a meal with
foreigners. Luke 10:7 says “a worker
deserves his wages.� How blessed we are
that our work this month has been to play with some of the cutest kids and
share God’s word?
We could
not have spent all that time with them had we not been filled with His Spirit —
first with Carly asking me to pray with her, for her; then, as I prayed on my
own in the Spirit and reading God’s word and praying even more in the
Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit came
upon me this strongly as a fruit of your prayers.
So I
thank you, and ask you would continue to regularly intercede for us —
especially in the next month. Really,
who needs high speed internet when God gives the Spirit without measure (John
3:34) and Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express when
we don’t know what to pray for (Romans 8:26)?
