We are in Cambodia! We have been staying in rough living conditions with no internet (among other things), so this is why you haven’t heard from us in a while. This month we have been leading Bible studies, going to villages, teaching English, and leading Sunday morning services at different Cambodian churches.
One of the particular services that we lead, Michael, our team leader gave a message on the desert and how God brings us to the desert a lot of the times to prepare us for what He has in store for us next. Before Jesus started His ministry He went to the desert for 40 days, which prepared Him for His earthly ministry. After the message the congregation of about 25 got in a circle to pray for different people in the church. One of the men in the middle spoke English very well and I was drawn to him the entire time. We began to pray for a couple of families and I couldn’t even pray for the people I was supposed to be praying for because all I could pray for was this man (David). I prayed fervently for David, and God’s love came over me and I was able to love this man in the way God loves us. While I was praying I was asking the Holy Spirit to speak to me concerning David and the Holy Spirit gave me a word for him. The word was “you have an emptiness inside you that I (Jesus) want to fill in you”. After we got done praying I asked David if I could talk with him. We began to talk and he told me that he was born in Cambodia and when the genocide was going on here he fled to America. After making small talk I told him that God gave me a word for him, and I told him that there is an emptiness inside him that Jesus wants to fill in his life and immediately David started weeping. An older man that never met me in his life starts weeping in front of me. I put my hand on his back and asked him if we could pray for him, so Michael (our team leader) and I began to pray that the Holy Spirit would draw him into a relationship with Jesus. Again, as I was praying the Lord gave me another word for him. In the middle of praying I stopped and told him that the Lord just told me, you (David) don’t feel you can approach Jesus because of all the things that you had done in your past. Once again, David began to weep once he heard the words. I began to tell him that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, and there is nothing that he could’ve done in his past to separate him from that love. Once we were done praying David looks up at us as said “Wow I feel better” as me and Michael start laughing uncontrollably. David later told us that he was deported from America because he had been in Federal Prison in the USA, which made a lot of sense why Jesus would give me those words for Him.
Jesus is desperately in love with us, with you! Even in whatever circumstances you may be going through. God is always pursuing a relationship with us and in David’s case God could have spoken directly to him, but He chose to use me to bring life into David’s life. God shows me through this how much He loves me, because God doesn’t need me, but wants me and through this it shows me how much my Daddy loves me. This same God loves you and desperately wants a relationship with you. Know that you are loved today in whatever struggles you may be going through.
It’s amazing how God works!!! It was such a humbling experience knowing that it was only the power of God that impacted David that day. I could have tried to say all the right words, but without hearing God’s voice in the situation and then speaking those words nothing would’ve gotten through to him.
We have a powerful God. He brings death to life!
