7/9 I woke up feeling pretty bad today. My stomach hurt, my head hurt, and some other stuff was going on. I was left to do one thing. Pray to God for strength and have Him get me through the day. As I've talked about before it's hot in EGP, but it's so beautiful and I love the people. Our leader Stephanie had also decided to give us a fruit of the spirit to practice for the day and it corresponded well with my reading of Galatians 5:16-26 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=galatians%205:16-26&version=NIV. When I received my fruit for the day it was joy. My thoughts were not that good. How can I be joyful when I feel like garbage I thought? How can I be joyful when there's a gnat of a problem affecting my happiness? Here's how, God. Mike and I were first presenting our lesson that day and we needed to give some energy, happiness, and joy. Flat out I had to leave my physical nature up to God and I'll be honest. Other than the time I was teaching I had little to no strength (I don't want sympathy by the way, I want you to realize the power that the Holy Spirit truly holds). A few days later Nicole told me that I should've sat down when I was up there and let Mike do everything. Funny thing is that after the first five minutes I felt fine. Yeah, I messed up in some of the introductions, but Mike covered for me and we got through it. Unfortunately though the room felt a little flat. Daniel, myself, and Chad had a group together as we had under 20 students, but it all worked out. That night we had people come visit us at the hotel so we could spend time with them. At lunchtime I had to shower and lay down while blocking out some of the frustrations that accompanied me in the room for the trip. There were a few interesting conversations that happened for me that night. Although I was still feeling a little down (eating crackers helped) I wanted to speak with our new friends.
One person, Stacy, had a vast knowledge of he Bible as she related Aaron's rod (Moses's brother) to Aaron. Interesting right? She even related Nicodemus to Nick. I doubt there are many Christians in America who could replicate that knowledge. Mike was able to share his testimony with her and was able to ask a lot of leading questions while Aaron gave his input too. Aaron utilized a passage from Ephesians 4 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians%204&version=NIV) talking about how him and Rose do not go to bed angry. It was absolutely amazing, but as I excused myself to utilize the restroom I ran into a security guard. Steve was a very nice man and introduced himself to me. He was so eager to practice his English with me and I wish I had his heart language to speak to him. It was very frustrating to me though as we spoke over the next few days that I was only able to have a simple conversation with him. Maybe it was my lack of faith that God would allow him to understand more difficult words? I truly yearned to know his language so that I could share with him. He knew maybe 150 English words. As I exited the restroom I excused myself to go to bed as everything was a little uneasy so to speak.
One person, Stacy, had a vast knowledge of he Bible as she related Aaron's rod (Moses's brother) to Aaron. Interesting right? She even related Nicodemus to Nick. I doubt there are many Christians in America who could replicate that knowledge. Mike was able to share his testimony with her and was able to ask a lot of leading questions while Aaron gave his input too. Aaron utilized a passage from Ephesians 4 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians%204&version=NIV) talking about how him and Rose do not go to bed angry. It was absolutely amazing, but as I excused myself to utilize the restroom I ran into a security guard. Steve was a very nice man and introduced himself to me. He was so eager to practice his English with me and I wish I had his heart language to speak to him. It was very frustrating to me though as we spoke over the next few days that I was only able to have a simple conversation with him. Maybe it was my lack of faith that God would allow him to understand more difficult words? I truly yearned to know his language so that I could share with him. He knew maybe 150 English words. As I exited the restroom I excused myself to go to bed as everything was a little uneasy so to speak.
7/10 Halfway there/Going down the mountain
As I was going through this trip I was reading Forgotten God by Francis Chan and Christian Beliefs by Wayne Grudem. They were two books that I had wanted to tackle for a long time. There were things I was going through and one of them was divine election. The idea that God has selected people to be with Him in His kingdom. Then I realized that God has decided to use us to find the next person He's elected. I wanted to be really intentional as today was our last day with the teachers. We wanted to make sure that we could have conversations that would help guide them. My fruit today was love and what better demonstration of love then to share our faith?
And with that we went into our last day. Unimportant things happened like we chose who the top students were, but some cool things happened too. The girls scheduled that night to spend time with the females from our class as they went to "The Square". I still have no clue what happened there. However, the guys played basketball with them. I wish I could tell you that we dazzled them with our American skills, but we didn't. We lost, although we had some good plays. We were supposed to hang out with our friends after the game, but something got lost in the translation. It wouldn't be our last game with them, but we were able to do one thing. Show our patience and fruit as we had numerous calls go against us with fouls and turnovers.
One last thing, I saw my friend the security guard that night. I didn't know what to do to show him love, so I bought him a drink. Sometimes gifts go a long way.
As I was going through this trip I was reading Forgotten God by Francis Chan and Christian Beliefs by Wayne Grudem. They were two books that I had wanted to tackle for a long time. There were things I was going through and one of them was divine election. The idea that God has selected people to be with Him in His kingdom. Then I realized that God has decided to use us to find the next person He's elected. I wanted to be really intentional as today was our last day with the teachers. We wanted to make sure that we could have conversations that would help guide them. My fruit today was love and what better demonstration of love then to share our faith?
And with that we went into our last day. Unimportant things happened like we chose who the top students were, but some cool things happened too. The girls scheduled that night to spend time with the females from our class as they went to "The Square". I still have no clue what happened there. However, the guys played basketball with them. I wish I could tell you that we dazzled them with our American skills, but we didn't. We lost, although we had some good plays. We were supposed to hang out with our friends after the game, but something got lost in the translation. It wouldn't be our last game with them, but we were able to do one thing. Show our patience and fruit as we had numerous calls go against us with fouls and turnovers.
One last thing, I saw my friend the security guard that night. I didn't know what to do to show him love, so I bought him a drink. Sometimes gifts go a long way.
Until next time,
NG
NG
