Private Property

I took this photo myself back in Virginia, yes me and no, not my husband (although he takes a lot of the lovely photos you get to enjoy on this blog). Some friends of ours last summer took us on a nice outing venturing up a mountain and back. It was really fun, exhausting, but fun. I found this sign, Private Property, used to keep folks out of the gated area where the mean bull stood. Not that the bull was intimidating enough already, but they had to go ahead and let us all know that the gated area was off limits with their small sign. I often find places here that hold up their intimidating signs of "Private Property" in this country as well. And when their sign is too small there is always a mean bull standing nearby to enforce their point that they do not want intruders on their premises. I do not see these signs with my physical eyes of course, I am talking about those signs put up spiritually. Everytime I walk into a new territory, a territory where by faith I am claiming as Father's, I repeatedly see these signs go up. They come from either the locals who refuse to hear the Gospel and politely reject my message, a guard on the premises that keeps staring my way as I share Truth with those interested, or something else that you know comes staight from the enemy. But strangely somehow, God can take that intimidating bull and use it for His Glory. You have read before how I made relationships within a local restaurant with some young girls, well I am now a part of their restaurant family and the guard to the street that ventures into the restaurant often, the bull in this situation, is now becoming my friend and trusting me as well. She bought me lunch last week, to my surprise, and gave her daughter my phone number so that I could be friends with her. Not only that, but Father opened my eyes to this person, whom I thought was an intimidating bull, to a hurting individual that needs His love as well. That same day her elderly father came into the restaurant and asked her some pretty forceful questions. I can’t tell you what he was so upset about, but the look in her eyes in response to his embarrassing charade broke my heart. She too needs to know of God’s love and He was showing me that. Another worker there flat out refused to hear me share any Truth with her, but after finding out that she had a fond for our cartoon Sponge Bob..of all cartoons (one I like too!), I found at a nearby gift shop a small notepad with his goofy face on there and gave it to her, deciding to myself that I will then have to show her this love of God that she is rejecting. We have guards to our apartment complex, who are told to keep guard and probably to keep tabs on us, the foreigners, as well. What do you do? You love them to the Lord and in doing so by acknowledging them. So both my husband and I greet everyone of them each time we enter and leave our complex. They love it! Now they sometimes greet us before we get a chance to greet them. I shared recently with a co-worker here that there is a lot of red tape in this country that we have to go through to get things done, another “private property” sign, but I also told her that Father can do the impossible and allow us to walk right through all that political tape to accomplish His task. I think God likes the red tape and “private property” signs and big bulls.. He likes to defeat them through us in order for Him to receive the Glory. On the other hand.. we need to learn to like those things too and not allow them to intimidate us. “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Romans 9:17

Spin the Top

This is by the far the best game I have come across in this country ever! It is a top that you spin with a string and you control the top with the same string. There are two sticks at each end of the string and you move them up and down slowly. The difficult part of the game is that the top is not ever attached to the string and you have to somehow get it to spin along the string as you manuever it between two sticks. This woman is my teacher of this game. I don't know if you can see but here she has tossed the top in the air, detaching it from the string as a small stunt for us. There is a man in the background with his top and string, he was really talented. At one time that man did a hoola hoop thing with his string and top! That's my next goal with this top game, although I have set my desired acheivement pretty high. These are difficult things to buy because a young man told me in a nearby toy store, his name is Jack, that they are not in high demand and that he could order me one on their web page similar to our Ebay. I was so excited that he ordered me one that I gave him a track of the Gospel and made a new friend! He was excited that I was excited too. I hope to have many adventures with my new top toy thingy..still trying to catch the name of it. I told my new teacher to text me when they go out and play so that I could join them as well. Most of the players gather together in a park that actually is close to where we live, and most of the players are retired and older than me, but I like them and love the game!

Let Us Become Fishers of Men...NOW

School is back in session so that means my time to go out and make new friends has become limited with all the studying that I need to do in order to communicate with them. It's a tough balance to keep, between knowing when to stay home and study the language and when to go out to meet new locals that have not heard the Good News of Christ yet. Everytime I go out I quickly see my need to understand the language more and say to myself that I need to spend more time studying, and at the same time every time I stay in to study the language I have this awful guilt feeling that I should be out with the people! It's really horrible actually and I am learning that in order to feel satisfied with both, which both are my call right now, I need to share my time equally between the two. So I have set for myself a goal of telling at least ten locals the Good News per week, and studying enough to get all my homework done as well as taking time to learn new spiritual language that they do not teach in the classroom. Some will argue that it is better to focus on and learn the language first, then you will be ready to go out and share a whole lot. My problem with that is that you grow more aware everyday of the vast lostness of a city this crowded and you learn that you do not want to miss out on any opportunity that God has in store for you to be a part of, with or without knowing the language well. My husband and I have had plenty of talks on how to balance learning language while ministering and loving the people. We have concluded several things:

1. You can not retain what language you have learned without going out and using it often.

2. Going out and talking with the locals challenges us to learn more as we see our need for the language.

3. God is faithful and always provides communication between the locals and us when we are communicating the Gospel to them no matter how much language we do or do not know.

4. Practice makes perfect.

5. Being out with the people reminds us of why we have been graciously placed here in the first place and we never want to lose sight of that while our noses are in books.

This issue has reminded me of some wonderful friends back in the States who have mentioned to me once or a few times how they would be more willing to go out and share the Gospel once they had been trained thoroughly in it. I am pretty sure that is our culture speaking through us when we make comments like that and when we believe that we are only as good as our education takes us. But for some reason all of this reasoning goes out the door when it comes to how our Lord works. I often see Jesus in Scripture calling out the uneducated, the not so esteemed, the ones almost forgotten in society as the first evangelists. They did not have any seminars to attend to nor were they asked to write a ten page paper on how to evangelize. In fact, they were told by Jesus to not "be afraid; from now on you will catch men." Within context Jesus was helping them at the time to catch fish, telling them where to put their fishing nets. I am not against being educated on evangelism, being a Theology major myself, but experience with sharing proves to me over and over how He does it His way uniquely everytime. I also am guessing that many folks back at home and here have a fear that builds up in them when it is time to share our faith. This fear does not come from Him, because He tells the disciples to not be afraid. Fear holds back our proclaiming with confidence what He has done for us and fear is possibly the main reason why many of us justify why we do not go and share. Sharing the Gospel has such a HUGE impact on a lost soul and at the same time has such a HUGE impact on those sharing. Both speaker and listener get to experience the Lord at work in a beautiful way, one receiving Truth for the first time and the other seeing His faithfulness through being our Words for us. My habit of sharing with another comes from a motivation of wanting to know my God more and more. Everytime I experience the miracle of Him speaking through me to a lost soul I become more and more addicted to the presence that shows up, His presence. I have learned that waiting on something big to come through my front door in answer to my complaints of an empty and powerless life is a waiting on nothing. My personal time alone with Jesus within my home is a preparing of watching Him work outside of my home through little 'ol me. He is such a great God and loves us so much that He will allow us to be a part of His working in a lost soul. We need only to have no fear and allow Him to make us fishers of men... Now.