Tomorrow morning will mark our second week long excursion into the Kenyan bush to reach out with The Holy Spirit and expect great things from God.
The Turkana people are one of the many ethnic tribes here in Kenya and our whole team has the oppurtunity to spend a week with them teaching, preaching, visiting houses in the community and fellowshipping with the localized church body.
I have already spent some time there with the Turkana and I have seen the dark oppression in much of the area.
One home visit I participated in a few weeks ago saw one of my team mates, Holli, becoming breathless as she enetered the house of an older mother named Monica.
The Holy Sprirt has really moved in many of our students with physical intercessory burdens. They feel it before they hear it or see it and so that we know what God wants us to do.
Its been INTENSE.
She, Monica, told us that some "jealous" people in the community had gone to a local witch doctor to have her home cursed.
Since then she had suffered from night terrors, night sweats, constant snakes and rats in and only in the night. She would barely look us in the face.
We prayed diligently and ministered until the heaviness seemed to lift and when returning next week found her in better conditions. The snakes and rats had gone she said but still she would not smile, until one student Liz touched her hand, locked eyes with her and asked her to take her authority as a Daughter of God and shout the name of her LORD.
She did so, slowly becoming louder until she stood up and began jumping and shouting...SMILING, Yelling the name of JESUS!
OH BOY. Do we want more of this or what??
I sure do. Stealing people (who dont belong to him anyway) from the devil is a good thing.
We will be there Monday to Sunday this upcoming week and we as always need you prayers.
So we are almost half way done this trip already!!... It is hard to believe but there is still much to do.
I should remind you once again of the team blog page where the students seem to have been furiously blogging since we arrived.
You can check this out for so many of the great stories and burdens from our trip so far. I hope you will, I am positive it will bless you.
One last thing i would love to bring before you guys who are praying for us...THANK YOU.
The Lord has really shown me and several, if not most of the students on my team that though we are DECLARED by the Father children of His we, and definately I , harbour in many ways orphan hearts.
Like the lost kid who has been brought off the streets into a loving home and reassured of sonship again and again somehow still in his heart (and actions) he still feels he must stash some of his bread in the drawer, just in case your new home doesnt work out. Just in case your not really wanted. Just in case you blow it. Just incase God doesnt really want you there.
Fear becomes the name of the game and It makes genuinely loving and hurting for and celebrating for people very, very hard.
Romans 5:5 says that God pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Not our ears or our eyes or anything else but our HEARTS. We need this. Truly, We want this too.
If God burdens you for this we would love your intercession.
Romans 1:16
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.
Two weeks in guys......two weeks.
So much has transpired since I last posted and I pray what I share will move you Christians to think about the power of sharing the Gospel and the true power of the Kingdom to which you have been called. I will share just a piece so far.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1
Also to perhaps move to those who do not know the Lord Jesus to be made alive in the light of how awesome our God really is and how unlike the god the world who does not know him says he is. There is power in Jesus. For real. It just takes coming to Him and believing.
Forget the world's words man, just believe.
There has been much talk thus far about the nature of our mission.
That is, how do we define the mission of any AIM team out on the field. This may seem like it should be obvious but we serve against an enemy who uses very gentle slopes to decieve and I can say that it is, and has been, far too easy to be consumed with projects, services, ministries and so on. Gospel and service becomes humanitarianism alone.
My co leader, Patrice Deaton, posed a great question however: Are we really just another branch of the peace corps or are we Christian missionaries?
As I mediate on this statement I arrive at the truth that the difference is God's Spirit within us and that it all hinges on the Gospel of slavation for all who believe. It couldn't be more important.
As I mentioned already our team was preparing for an outreach to the Massai people of the lower plains here in Kenya.
Upon arrival I immediately noticed the "True Africaness" of this missions effort.
I am talking about being in the middle of no where, sleeping in tents, people in animal skin, tribal dancing....(at one point as my translator told the story of him killing a lion to become a man, we came across a group of ten Giraffe!)
This was my third trip to the contininent but this was the first frontier African mission.
We spent all six days that we were their waking up, eating and then breaking into groups and walking sometimes kilometer upon kilometer to visit homes.
Encouraging the believers and preaching, for many students the very first time, the Gospel of Jesus.
It was so much like the missions we liken to our own scriptures but I know it can be done anywhere!
People were getting saved every day! The students simply opened the word faithfully and let the Spirit work.
I spoke to one man after the Spirit's prompting the second day we were there.
I knew he was very proud and the leader of some of the people. I called him out on some things and challenged his perception of this weak, powerless Jesus and because of this insight from the Spirit I was able to share with Him of Christs strength and power and rule.
He thanked me for sharing and asked if we would pray for rain. There was serious drought and it had not rained in some time. We did so and then went home.
That night it rained so hard our tents flooded from the ground up. The reserviors overflowed and we were forced to sleep four guys in one bed in a mud house.
Two days later i saw him again and asked: "Did you happen to notice that it rained the other night?"
He answers, I will never forget this,
" I have been back and forth through all the land and I have never met a man who knows the God who when he asks will send the rains."
Paul says the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
There is much power in the efforts of our God to reach the peoples of Africa and America and Canada alike.
I see that it is the great need of every believer to know and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit to show the world there is more to our Christian lives than morality and words but there is ACTIVE relationship with GOD.
GOD who is love, who brings rain, who saves wives and men and families and heals bodies and delivers us from the sting of death and will leave our very graves empty and powerless!
This is now my second try at this as I struggle to communicate in a tiny office on dial up internet.
Time has gone by qiuckly. Wasn't it just christmas??
My last post came having just come home to Canada from the novas teams in southern africa, only to qiuckly head back to georgia and help a friend move his place, meet all my AWESOME students at training camp, jump on another plane and fly to Holland for a day and end up here in Kijabe, Kenya.
Kijabe is as beautifull as one might imagine of this high mountain haven. There is a huge missions base here as well as hospital which serves the surrounding community.
My team (9 girls and 3 guys) has been so willing to recieve the work of the Holy Spirit and to follow his leading and I am looking to God for direction that we might be used of Him and be filled with friut and joy.
I also have a new co leader Patrice Deaton who I look forward to getting to know. Serious guys, this team is rocking my world, I am so excited for them.
Leading a trip of your own is not like taking a trip thats for sure, this is a whole different challenge.
I pray for just severe love for these students that I might help them in every way I can. I want them to grow, to engage and even to hurt the hurt of God.
I want them to see Jesus face, be Jesus miraculous hands, shout truth as Jesus mouth and shake the kingdom of darkness to the glory of the Father and the good of the gospel.
Of course i want these things too, and so it feels like "Follow me as I follow Christ"
Please, please pray, tommorow we head out to a nearby village. The village belongs to the massai people, an unreached nomadic group from right here in Kenya. Wow.
We are all excited.
Student blogs are to come next week at www.kenya.adventures.org
I had promised a Christmas blog to follow at some point this month and here we are already on December 24th.
I am certain you ALL have much higher things to attend to this evening as well as tomorrow but still maybe a few of you will catch this message before it all passes away for another year...
I recently, while in Mexico took in the new Jim Carrey "Scrooge" movie and upon exiting the theatre I was illuminated with words that went beyond a simple story of some old cranky Englishman and felt compelled to write them in an entry. The following are those written words.
May we come to know and Love the Lord Jesus, remember that he is no baby in a manger and may we seek His Spirit well beyond the shopping season of december 2009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scrooge is the story of a man's heart. Of every mans heart. An annually visited journey of vicarious salvation. Where a man might learn the darkest parts of his heart and meet grace.
It's a story we can celebrate because inside of us all we long it become our own. Its a story of repentance, truly it's a story of re-birth. Not a changed man but a new man!
We delight in the release of self.... the freedom and the joy that now flows from this new creation. Blessed, and made new by the refining night gone by. It was not Scrooge's "effort" that made any inner difference whatsoever, and certainly it was by no personal righteous merit that he should be given any such intervention! He was not deserving...at all
1st Timothy 1:15,16 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
But how sad for us that this owned longing is scarcely personally considered, and like an unfound fortune, it passes silently through our lives once a year as something merely "seasonal" than as something deeply human and we fail to see ourselves or this great Gospel expression.
Was this Dickens intent?? I do not know, but certainly a piece of every heart could have inspired this story. From that place deep inside the soul which will (and does) endlessly seek reconciliation...perhaps, like Scrooge, in money. Perhaps not. Maybe something else.
I think we shall revisit it in some form or another as long as we are estranged from its archetype. This Christmas is about Grace come down from heaven and how that Grace, in the fullness of Jesus Christ, can make us completely new.
Its not about a religious system, or a building or a tradition. It is about God with us, that we might be saved. 2nd Corinthians 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
2nd Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Hey guys,
Very quick thing I wanted to ask of you.... There is a great update of my time in Swaziland from My co-leader Rebecca.
As well as some exposure to a ridiculous water crisis in the area we stayed in I feel is absolutely worth greater attention than it now recieves. Prayers and support!!!
*also could i ask you all to be speaking life and praying for our Ugandan teams as they have come up against some difficulty and they need rallied support. Thank you all.
Man we've been moving a lot. Some great stories to tell to get you guys up to speed.
I have less than ten days in Africa!
So my journey from Swaziland to South Africa was an adventure in itself. A road that was liitered with angels and grace to get us along safely.
We started out the day at the Manzini bus rank in Swaziland, waiting in a kombi (van/bus) for it to fill up and take us to Nelspruit South Africa and meet up with the other team.
Well, after waiting almost 3 hours the driver came to us and said there were not enough people going so we would have to wait until tommorow morning.
Not ok with us.
We had to be in Nelspruit that night as we were expected there and we really had no reason to be in Swaziland anymore.
A woman in our Kombi then informs us that she will be moving on regardless, and that she will just take connecting Kombis the whole way.
Bus by Bus by Bus By Bus By Bus by Bus. She was truly a God send and her name was Miriam.
We would have been TERRIBLY lost without her. So 10 hours and six Kombis later we made it to the Nelspruit bus rank but it was a LOT later than it should have been and there we were, two westerners with our packs stuffed to the top, hands full hanging around well after dark.
South Africa is a pretty dangerous place to begin with and this was really sketchy.
So God sends another angel....
As we waited for our ride a securtity gaurd (owen) came and hung out with us, told us we were nuts for being out there and that if he were to leave us we would soon be in serious trouble. He let us use his phone, our ride soon came and off we went.
We then spent a few days with the team at "The Bater House", which is a South African home for Missionaries all over Southern Africa come to group up, rest, relax and get supplies from S.A.
I met some AMAZING people who told me life stories that seem right out of the scriptures.
There IS ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER KINGDOM WHAT WE SEE IS ABSOLUTELY NOT ALL THERE IS.
did they ever love and reflect Jesus.
I got re grouped with the S.A. Team, took a run into Mozambique (where I almost got arrested!...tell that story another time)
I have since moved again with the team to an Iris ministries (large Mozambique ministry) base called Michael's Childrens village out side of white river, S.A. It's a home for troubled children who have been abused and neglected and its a place where these children have a stable home and experience incredible restoration and healing by Gods care and grace.
We've been there two days now. Right now I am in town with a sick student and the others are back at the house seperating toys and clothing for a Christmas party that we will be planning.
Had an AMAZING church service yesterday, almost 3 and a half hours, dancing, singing and plain African craziness. Living Stones Church: I am looking forward to worshipping with you and getting to see your faces. I need prayers to be in this 100 percent for the remaining time and I will see many of you very soon, God willing.
What an amazing year it has been.
I'll be updating before the new year for certain, but thank you all for following, praying and supporting. Its ALL because of Jesus' sacrifice for us on that cross.
We have NOTHING with out it. Its all passing away.
So I am currently in a little grocery store in Mattata, Swaziland! It is amazing to be back here again and I am greatly blessed by these people already as I remeber thier hearts. I see so much goodness in them. They make me laugh.
I am with the Swaziland team for another week and a half and then I will be traveling back to South Africa to meet up with the other team.
Currently we are settled into our living space at the Nsoko compound where we have spent the first few days we have been here meeting people in the community, watching amazing storms, playing some music (we have a flute player!), as well as meeting with the local pastor and getting into the vision he has for the community and where this team will fit into that over the next six months. The Holy Sprirt continues to minister to our brokeness and challenge us as we get to know each other and seek to find what Jesus is really about out here. We ahve recently been challenged about past dating and relationships that members of the team have walked through and just uncovering so much hurt and repenting of different sins. Its been deep and I feel like in our culture its a HUGE issue among our youth....and me i guess.
Meanwhile..
Nsoko project is an Aim initiative in Swaziland to provide orphan and widow care, food distribution, community development, youth ministries as well as provide a place for teams to land.
It is a bit different as I am no longer in the city area but way out into the rural areas of Swaziland. Its hot and I hear there are a LOT of snakes. So far so good.
Tommorow we will be starting helping with a "vision trip" from America which means, get this.......
NFL wives. Like football, NFL.
How random is that! but so cool.
My prayers from here are for the team to be hungry and get right into the ministries placed before them. I also hope to see some of my boys from last year which are difficult to find.
Please pray for an outpouring of His Spirit on us and the community, we need it so bad.
I am kind of in a wierd place right now where I am feeling less fervour and zeal and that scares the heck outta me. I want it gone. Immediately.
Thank you all so much for your support and prayers you guys are all amazing and faithful and I dont deserve the kind of people in my life that I have had.
Siyabonga Jesu....means "Thank you Jesus" in SiSwati.
well we are drawing very near to the end of our time here in Mexico. The air is cooler and the setting is much, much quieter.
All of our students are now scattered to different places in Mexico for a week of outreach before they return to the base to say goodbye to one another as a group and board planes bound for south and central Africa. 6 months of African life lay ahead of them and excitement is stirred in every one them. I can see it.
So they are out bringing food and working hands to the communities that God has led them too and we leaders remain at the base for now.
For myself there is expectation of what is to come but there is also deep reflection on what has passed. The emotion of this reflection is somewhat surprising to be honest. I will miss this team, and as I accept this feeling of loss I realize that it will be a repetitious part of the call to which I am a part of.
People, coming and leaving. Greeting and going.
People are SO important to God. Obvious? Perhaps, but understood not so much.
People.
Last week we were were able to finish building a floor and pour the concrete for a roof in a home to be owned by a woman who could not afford it. As she spoke with us before we left she was filled with emotion and so was I. We praised not ourselves for a job well done, but our God.
For I worked harder than them all, but it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 1st Corinthians 15:10
Abundant life lies in Jesus Christ and He it seems, in the scriptures as well as my own experience, is quick to manifest His Spirit among the meeting of people in good work.
He works and wills in us (Phill 2:13) that we might do this, and then rewards us graciously with such good fruit. (John15:16)
I was in a real funk of sorts last Sunday night, and on this same night of low spirits I was asked if I would preach among a Church body I had never before even met! Never formally preached before either, but it is very common in Spanish culture to have visitors share a word.
I saw opportunity to delight in my weakness and fellowship with the Jesus in power. Without joy, I preached of joy and was given joy.
My message and m preaching were not with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power.... 1st Corinthians 2:4
And He said to me, "My grace will be sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in weakness in order that Christ's power might rest on me. 2nd Corinthians 12:9
And so I preached, completely unprepared, from the Gospel of John and 1st Peter. They rejoiced over Jesus and we shared a meal together. Awesome. (LOVE spicy food now by the way!)
People.
We met in communities, visited prisons, built things, painted, studied, and learned of the sprirtual nature and so on and so on.... I have recieved grace upon grace to learn, do and see many things
these past 8 weeks but I suppose what will encompass them all is people.
People of whom The Lord loves and wishes for us to do the same in His power not our own.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you so you too must love another. By this all men will know you are my disciples if you do this; if you love one another. John 13:34,35
Next week I travel to Africa once again and I greatly look forward to seeing my boys from the Salesian school in Swaziland. Isnt that incredible, to go back already? What amazing grace!
Prayers for safe and productive flights are welcome. (you can do a lot on a 24 hour plane ride)
I will be there until the 22nd of December when I will return to Canada for a REAL Christmas!! and then venture on into the New Year. It will be exhausting travel, as I will be traveling to Africa and back through London and immediately moving on to Canada form Houston.
I count myself VERY blessed and excited but ask for some strength to stay in that spirit.
I have somewhat of a holiday blog to come shortly that I would love to share now but it seems a bit early for that yet, so it should come shortly into December.
Wow guys. What an intense week we just had down here.
It all stemmed out of us doing away with the schedule all together and pursuing God the way He would always have us do anyway: Look at Jesus and then do as He does.
Some discussions arose with the students about them feeling a lack of discipline and how they really wanted to dig in deeper, about how they "were feeling comfortable." We as a leadership team also felt this way about just how slow and spaced out things could feel if you let them get that way.
So..... We prayed and after a quite lengthy meeting we came to the conclusion we should just stop trying so hard and do what Jesus did. Literally.
So we went through all four Gospels and wrote down every scripture explaining Jesus doing something or having his disciples do something and then do it that day.
This meant literal word for word acceptance. None of this contextualizing business. No explaining what "Jesus really meant" in certain passages.
SO CHALLENGING. WE ATE LESS. WE SLEPT LESS. WE WORKED MORE. WE SAW GOD MORE.
We were more alive and close to Jesus! and yes we were insane in the worlds eyes.
Hmm, funny how that worked out.
John 7:17 If anyone is willing to obey my teaching he will know of the teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak It from myself.
We were so challenged and we learned so much about our dependence on the basic things of life such as sleep and food and even planning! These things are all good things at times yes but they were always meant to point to our dependence on Him.
Since we have such an unending abundance of time and food, entertainment etc, it is almost impossible to overstate how much more of The Lord we can meet when we go against the flow of what our culture says is not even excessive and follow the Way.
This all simply came to the surface by obeying what Jesus did and said. Seems simple right?
We fellowshipped deeper. We ate slower and richer. We heard Him clearer. We slept deeper. We were free from the numbness of endless craving and desire.
Jesus got up very early and prayed...."Do not waste a thing"...."go into to the towns and preach"..."you give them something to eat"...when you have a banquet invite the poor, those who cannot pay you back...
It was hard and it took us to the end of ourselves so He might begin in us and gain glory.
"My power is made perfect in weakness" and "For when I am weak then I am strong"
(2nd Corinthians 12:9,10)
Below is an anonymous student entry into a community journal that was set out for use to those who desired to write in it as we conducted all night prayer this past week. I find it to be a great testimony to what the Lord is doing in these students.
Luke 9:23
The He said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take us your cross daily and follow me.
So here we are: Sick, exhausted, thirsty, broken and HUNGRY, but in the sense that we are not satisfied with being comfortable. We are hungry for your Spirit and to be fed we must remove ourselves from this world and the rights that we think we must claim.
What must we deny in ourselves? Our whole selves we must deny, wholeheartedly devoted to you we come.
May we follow you without question or doubt, may we pray without ceasing. May we take up our crosses and follow you daily with every step we take and with every breath that we breathe.
Give us strength and boldness and faith to step out and become your fishers of men.
BREAK DOWN OUR WALLS of comfort, expectation and selfishness in the name of your Son who has graciously united us as one. Amen.
Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"
He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
Greater Love has no other than this, that He lay down His life for his friends. John 15:13
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Matthew 21:28
Here we see Jesus defining real love while obliterating the dominating
cultural idea of "leadership" that loves to command and always "looks upon" instead of
"walks beside" those whom they are leading.
Sanctification is by the simplest definition: the process becoming more like Jesus. I am challenged and humbled qiute often these days as the Lord open's up my gaze to this new horizon on what it means to work, serve, engage, love and lead other people who love and desire Him.
We are all learning so much about The kingdom of God, and for me two things right now seem to be dominating my heart and my thoughts.
The first......His aim is His Glory. period. Everything leads there and it all ends there.
It's not about me, its about His glory. EVERYTHING, is for His glory.
Perhaps we can take a deeper look at that another time.
The second thing however is; His divine anointing of the affection of people. All people. All the time.
Serving them.
talking to them.
loving them.
engaging them.
being humble, real, honest, concerned, listening, talking less. Being outward not inward.
This may seem extremely obvious but relationship is a deep ocean of learning and for my often selfish and solitary personality this is a big learning process.
Leadership is first off all not leading but following the Master, who alone leads.
It is also chiefly, service and work. That others may get ahead in the kingdom and that The Name be lifted up............not that I have attained all this, I say with Paul. By grace and patience I learn.
So let me move on from this introspect and introduce to you the two teams that will be heading to Southern Africa with us (co-leader Becca and I) in November.
I am excited that you guys can actually see , at least in some way the ministry that God has appointed us too and also to see the faces of these wonderful, smart, hungry, funny and motivated people we get to be with every day.
We are learning to walk along side them that they might be built up into the instruments of the Kingdom of God that they are in Christ releasing power and love following The Way to the ends of the earth.
I've been to a gym to lift weights about a thousand times but this is realbody building.
Swaziland Team
Playng Soccer and Spending Time With Family From Local Community
Bryan Marsh, Jonathan Melo, Jessica Leonardi, Katie Graves and Lila Dillon
(front) (Back)
The South African Team Heading Off to Dinner After Some Debrief/Team Time
Cait Evangelista, Rebecca Florke, Jenny Christensen, Garret Berkley, Myles Long
You Can follow each one of them for news, support and prayer on thier own individual blog pages. I will put there names and links below and don't forget they will be up for the remainder of the year they are in Africa.
South Africa:
Cait Evangelista- http://caitlynevangelista.myadventures.org
Rebecca Florke- http://rebeccaflorke.myadventures.org
Jenny Christensen-http://jennychristensen.myadventures.org
Please pray that they will be filled by and in fellowship with The Holy Spirit more than ever before and that the world would know whom they belong to by the way they love each other.
That I would serve them like Jesus and with carry His own Heart for each of them.
