On Monday at the last Freshley of the 2010-11 school year, we had an awesome night of worship. I had to miss the first half because I had to go to a band concert, but when I walked into the Wesley building, I could immediately tell that God had been moving. And while I was there, a few images came to mind. I'm a little hesitant to call them visions because the way I've always understood visions is that a person sees a vivid picture (either a still picture or a scenario being played out) about something that can be interpreted; but I know that God isn't confined to giving visions according to that specific definition, so I'm going to go ahead and say that I had a couple visions.
Not long after I got there, Kyle, my small group leader, asked if he could pray for me. Of course, I won't turn down prayer, so I said yes, and while he was praying, a couple things he said made me think of something. He prayed that I would continue to receive Christ with childlike faith. Then he thanked God for putting His righteousness on us, clothing us in it. When I heard both of those prayers back-to-back, I imagined a parent putting clothes on a toddler; then I thought about how the kid will eventually grow up and learn to get dressed on his/her own. Now, this vision had a meaning that God interpreted for me. (I think it's more of a revelation than a vision though.) When we are young in our faith, new believers, we simply allow our Father to clothe us in His righteousness, letting that covering be our salvation. Our sinful nature is still there, and sanctification takes time, so while we are spiritually young, we continue to just live life while Jesus' blood covers us and saves us. But as we grow older in our faith, we begin to recognize that our way of living doesn't match up with the way God would have us live—we begin to understand why our heavenly Father puts robes of righteousness on us, so we begin to lay claim to that salvation. Our clothing becomes something we're capable of choosing, so we make a conscious effort to put on the clothes of righteousness, the way of life that looks like the life of someone who has been saved by grace. This doesn't mean that we learn to save ourselves, but it does mean that we learn how to prove, both to ourselves and to the world, that we have been saved. And if people like our style, other people will begin to want to dress like us and put on the robes of righteousness. Christians will seek to live in such a way that nobody can question whether or not they have been saved by grace; and those who have not received salvation will long to receive it, and "everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:8).
This next vision, on the other hand, hasn't been interpreted for me yet, and I'm not even sure there's much to interpret. As I was writing this, I realized that Jacob had a vision of angels climbing a staircase/ladder in Genesis 28:10-22, and the shepherds who saw Jesus in Luke 2:8-20 also saw a multitude of angels praising God. Although God sent a message with the angels in both cases, the vision really had no interpretation. The visions were exactly that: visions of—or sneak peaks into—heaven. So I think that's what my next vision was.
While we were singing "With Everything," by Hillsong, I sat down and closed my eyes to pray, and I pictured Jesus being nailed to the cross. Again, the line "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light" was what triggered the vision. (That line triggered another realization that I wrote about here.) Suddenly, I was looking at the scene from Satan's emotional point of view—I still saw everything with my own eyes, but I sensed Satan's fear and was overcome with a feeling of conquering power because my Savior had defeated the enemy, and the devil knew his demise was near.
Anyway, here's the vision: I saw Jesus carrying the cross up the hill to Golgotha, and with every step He took, Satan grew more afraid. Before Jesus was killed, Satan rejoiced in His crucifixion because he thought his victory was complete; but now Satan was having a flashback, and he grew angry with himself, wishing he had never allowed Jesus to be sacrificed for mankind. Finally, Jesus reached the top of the hill, and He was nailed to the cross. The first spike was driven into His right hand (I don't know if that's true or not, but I realized the other day that that's always how I picture it; I think there's a special reason for that, but it might just be because I'm right-handed, and I'm trying too hard to interpret this), and with every strike of the hammer on the nail, I could feel Satan growing more and more anxious, and I heard him scream, "No! Stop! You're going to ruin everything!" Then the left hand was nailed to the cross, and then His feet. As the cross was lifted up and set in place, the atmosphere was that of a coronation ceremony, with the King of kings taking place on His gloriously torturous throne. From His position of human weakness and pain, the Holy Spirit emanated power and majesty from within Him.
Then I saw a large crowd, but I didn't really notice it until quite a while later. I was too focused on the scene in the middle of the circle the crowd had formed: Jesus lifted up on His cross with a figure dressed in a bright white robe in front of Him. This was Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), bowing before Jesus Christ, on his knees with his face on the ground. It was dark all around except for Satan's bright white robe, but I saw Jesus clearly in His own light, even though I couldn't make out any recognizable features about Him, but He didn't seem to be glowing at all. I could see Him even though it was dark all around, but I saw Satan only because of his white robe. (Now that I think about it, maybe there is a little bit of interpreting to do with this vision. Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and he tries to condemn us by making us feel guilty for the slightest failures. He makes everything black and white: be perfect or die. Of course, that is the rule, but because Jesus fulfilled the Law and was sacrificed for us, we are no longer required to be perfect in order to be with God. Jesus appeared as an ordinary Man with nothing special about Him. This shows God's ability—and, in fact, His will—to use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. The picture of Satan glowing in white light and Jesus hanging on the cross in a light that makes Him visible, and nothing more, shows that there is no "black and white" because Jesus is all we need to be saved. God uses even our failures to accomplish His will.) Then I finally noticed the crowd around Jesus and Satan, and I saw—actually, I didn't see any faces, but I somehow knew—that it was made up of everyone who was at Freshley that night, and we were singing the climax of "With Everything" (the wordless "oh" part).
This next part was confusing to me. Before this whole vision came to me, my friend Rachel walked by to pray with someone. That excited me because... well, I won't go into much detail, but Rachel will tell you that she's very shy, and seeing her offer to pray for someone was proof that she has grown a lot in Christ and that God is continuing to work in her. So when I saw the next part of the vision, I thought it might have been because I was proud of Rachel and I was just making it up, but then things started taking unexpected turns. Out of the entire crowd, Rachel stepped forward and pulled two other people along with her: my friends Amy, who was on the Port Maria trip with me, and Nina, who is in Redcoats with me and in Rachel's Freshley small group. Then I saw that they had wings: Rachel had typical angel wings, big enough to cover most of her body; Nina had smaller wings, the kind you might imagine on Cupid; and I couldn't see Amy's wings, but I knew they were there. They didn't do anything; they just stood there, as if they were going to do something with Satan on Jesus' command, but the command never came, and they just stood there ready to act. It seemed like they were there to drag Satan away, but, like I said, nothing happened. Then Satan looked up at Jesus and said, "You've won." Then the vision was over. I wanted to see more, but no matter how hard I tried, all I saw was everything I had just seen repeating in my mind.
Now that I have all of this written down, I'm much less doubtful that this was a real vision. Just recounting everything I saw and seeing how it all played out made me realize just how similar my vision was to some of the visions spoken of in the Bible. I just hope that someone can help interpret my visions and revelations and provide new insights. But even if nobody interprets them, I'm grateful for the encouragement God gave me through them.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Malachi 3:10
"'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.'"
I'm giddy out of my mind right now. This week has been incredible, and it's still only Wednesday! On Saturday after G Day (UGA's spring pre-season football game), Michael (one of my Freshley small group leaders), Meg, Ian, LeAnn, David, Josh (all people from Freshley; the first four went to Jamaica over spring break, and the first three were on my team in Port Maria, in addition to Michael), and I decided to go on a road trip. But I'm going to save that story for last.
Then last night at our weekly Port Maria prayer and worship night, one of our prayer topics was boldness in showing God's love; the first person that came to mind was my roommate because I haven't been a great model of godly love toward him, but then another entirely different voice spoke up in my mind: "Downtown." At the end of our prayer meeting, I announced that I would be going to downtown Athens with whoever else wanted to go, and we would walk around looking for people to pray for. In the end, only Michael and I went, but "where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20), and that was all we needed. In fact, any more than two people (plus God) probably would have been too much for our purposes to succeed according to what God had planned for us. (Actually, I was wrong: the road trip story isn't going to be last; this one is.)
Then today, I was on my way from ECV (one of UGA's dining halls) to band when someone walked by and said, "Congratulations on making Derbies!" (The Derbies are the part of the Redcoats that go to all the away games—because it would be too expensive to pay for transportation, lodging, food, etc. for 400+ college students, so we cut it down to 100 for the away games.) Apparently, the email with the Derbies roster was sent out today. I hadn't seen it yet, so that was a surprise when I heard I made it. Haha. But it was a good surprise. I can't wait for next season now!
But even better, I got back to my dorm just a few minutes ago, and when I went to check my email, the first message I noticed said, "Welcome to Freshley Prayer." I've been waiting for that email since last Thursday. The wait wasn't too suspenseful, but it was still reassuring to finally get the email. And I'm thankful 1) that I was accepted onto the Freshley prayer team for next year, and 2) that the Wesley leaders got around to sending out all the emails so soon. I'm really excited to see what God has for me on the Freshley prayer team in 2011-12!
So last week Meg announced to me, Michael, Ian, and Shelby that she felt like God was telling her that we needed to take a road trip to Kentucky. See, Meg drives a lot when she needs to time to think and pray, or just for fun. So she got Michael and Ian hooked on the idea of driving on a whim two weeks ago. The first time, Ian, Michael, and Meg got lost and had to look for a familiar highway (they were without a GPS), and they ended up staying the night at Michael's house when they found it. The second time, Meg, Michael, and Michael's roommate Alan went through South Carolina to North Carolina, got lost, ended up in Tennessee, then made a loop into Alabama before finally coming back about thirteen hours later. After hearing about their adventures, driving through four states—five including Georgia—we were all eager to join in on the next trip. So Saturday after G Day, we left campus at 8pm. We drove into North Carolina, drove through a suspicious, unpaved mountain highway, ending up at a rest stop in the Nantahala National Forest. (I thought that was cool because I went rafting down the Nantahala River in North Carolina at Snowbird last summer, so we were decently close to where I stayed for a week last year.) At some point, we crossed over into Tennessee, but then we ended up back in North Carolina again. We were looking for a mountain called Mount Mitchell, which, until the Rocky Mountains were discovered, was the tallest known mountain. But somehow we found ourselves too far west, deep into Kentucky; our original mission of reaching Kentucky had been achieved, but now there was so much opportunity to do more. Why not go to Ohio while we're at it? In fact, why not visit the Great Lakes? Well, the time factor was a good reason not to, and that's what eventually made us turn back. But not before cutting through the corner of Ohio, stopping at a playground to stretch, and then having "car church" (similar to house church, but... in a minivan). It was now Sunday morning, and we had gotten to witness the sunrise from Ohio, and we knew we had to decide when we were going to return home. So since it was Sunday and we hadn't found a church to go to (the truth is, we didn't even look for one), we decided to have our own Bible study in Michael's ManVan.
And God had planned ahead and set aside a specific passage of Scripture for us to study. Last week after the PoMo prayer and worship night, I was reading 1 John, and Meg came over and said, "Read to me." After some reluctance (and the addition of two or three other people), we started going through 1 John, with Meg initiating discussion with various questions. We made it through the first three chapters. Then, later last week when Meg made her announcement about Kentucky, we tried to finish chapters 4 and 5, but we didn't get anywhere (although, Michael, Shelby, and I did learn something about 1 John 5:16-17, which never became a part of the discussion with the full group). Meg and I were both convinced that we had received callings to different places—Meg to the Great Lakes and me to the coast of Virginia), and so we knew we needed to test the spirits and see which was true. And, ever the comedian, God speaks through John on exactly that topic: Test the Spirits. After some discussion and deep thinking (and "casting lots," aka flipping a coin), we decided to come home.
During the trip, we stopped in Berea, Kentucky. Coincidentally, Meg had had a dream about Berea, but she couldn't remember what it was about. I remembered the story of the Bereans in Acts 17, so I showed her that passage, and a verse jumped out at me, which led us to turn east to go toward Virginia Beach. That plan didn't fall through though. It would have taken much too long, and we wouldn't have been back home in time for school the next day. So that plan was scrapped. But along the way, we discovered Athens, Kentucky, and, ironically, Baxter Street, which is in Athens. (For those of you who don't know, my dorm is on the corner of Lumpkin Streeet and Baxter Street in Athens, Georgia.) And while we were still in Berea, we stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom and get snacks, and the guy working there was very nice to us, wishing us well on our trip, and even offering us free copies of the local Christian newspaper, called The Seeker. And later we ran into a Muslim man at a rest stop in southeastern Kentucky who had no cash and needed gas money. Josh, being the bold prayer warrior he is, immediately said, "I'd be happy to give some money. And can I pray for you while I'm at it?" Thankfully, Josh went to Jesus in the Quran, a kind of seminar about how to appeal to Muslims with the gospel, so he was able to share the gospel with him. And even though we didn't get to see the man make a confession of faith, we guess that, because he was a white Muslim, he had converted to Islam because he had been hurt at some point by the church. So we were able to show him some love and possibly partially redeem the church in his mind so that he'll be more open to receiving Christ later on down the road. So it doesn't sound like we did much other than driving/riding and talking, growing closer to each other on our 23-hour road trip (God blessed Michael with the energy to drive all 23 hours!), we can expect to see great fruits coming from our journey in the future, whether we get to see the results in this life or in heaven.
Then last night Michael and I went downtown, and God moved in incredible ways. To start, I was still questioning whether or not it was really God's will for us to go downtown at 11pm on a Tuesday night (actually, when I started questioning it, it was only 9:30). So I went over to a corner in the Russell prayer room and prayed and listened to God. Then Ian came over, and we talked about it; he was also trying to decide whether or not he should go. He had a lot of insight to share with me on the topic. He started by asking what my motivation was for going: Was it to bring God glory and praise, or was it for my own selfish ambition? I wanted to be able to say that I wanted to glorify God, but the truth was that I had some pride building up because I wanted to be able to say that I went downtown in the middle of the night to pray with drunk and homeless people. But I wanted it to be all about God, not about me, even though I subconsciously wanted it to be all about me. Then, when Ian said that our motivations will never be entirely pure, and that we will always have pride, and that God will decide where to draw the line, I remembered Proverbs 16:9: "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Whether we were going for selfish reasons or to glorify God, He would see to it that He received the praise for what we were about to go do. But I continued to doubt that my motives were right. But God had an answer for that too, and it just happened to be Proverbs 16:3: "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." So I claimed that promise: Whether I'm doing this to build up my own pride or to honor You, God, let the final outcome of this night point directly to You, and only You. And as Michael and I set out—after being prayed over by Ian and Meg, as well as Melissa and Zack (two RPR regular visitors)—I was reminded of Mark 11:24, which has been on my mind a lot these last couple weeks: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." So we trusted in God, believing that He would move in amazing ways, and that even if we didn't see immediate results, we would know that He was working in the hearts of the men and women that we would talk to, producing results in the future.
Well, starting off, we didn't know what to expect, but what we expected looked nothing like what actually happened. I was expecting to run into a handful of homeless people who wanted prayer and some pre-party sober college students wandering around that we could share the gospel with and pray for. But then we met Robert and Mae Mae, a black homeless man and woman. As we approached them, they seemed to know part of the reason why we went out of our way to talk to them: to help them in any way possible. Before the question "Is there anything you'd like us to pray for?" was out of our mouths, they were asking for money to buy food. Of course, that was a little suspicious because everyone asks that downtown, especially if they're looking for money for drugs. But when another guy walked by asking for money that supposedly was "not for crack," it appeared that Robert and Mae Mae were relatively trustworthy. But, fortunately for us, we didn't have any cash, so we bought them some food from Little Italy and sat and talked with them. Now, I had my Bible with me, so I put it on my lap when I sat down, and almost immediately, Robert noticed it and jumped right in with a barrage of questions. But he had much more to offer than a series of questions that he expected us to answer. If anything, he probably taught us more than we could have hoped to teach him. Mae Mae stayed relatively quiet and was content to listen to Robert share his wisdom and insight into the Scriptures and the Christian life, but she left after about half an hour. But Robert... well, I'll get to it.
There wasn't really any particular thing Robert said that was especially significant or mind-blowing. The adventure was in the whole experience. He basically told us his life story—not his life history, but his recent past and his current story. For six years of his life, he had been a Muslim. He had spent some time in jail for some automobile offense that I couldn't quite understand, but it sounded like it was a crime someone else committed that Robert got convicted of because the vehicle belonged to him... or something like that. He was released in 2008. He has four brothers and three sisters, and his mother passed away last November, leaving him and his oldest brother Jerome a double-wide trailer. Jerome, known as Michael Jackson in downtown Athens (he's a favorite among college students because of his Michael Jackson impressions), has serious drug problems; and as if that weren't enough, he has three different types of cancer, including colon cancer, lung cancer, and one other type that Robert couldn't remember. Robert may be the only Christian in his family from the sound of things. One of his sisters recently bought a $180,000 house, while Robert and Jerome are left scraping up the little money they can in downtown Athens, the poorest city in America. But through all this, Robert continues to trust God and pray for and show His love to his siblings.
While he was still in jail, Robert wrote a song, and Michael and I had the privilege to hear him sing a couple verses of it before we parted ways. It was a simple song, but the raw emotion that went into the composition and performance of it was moving, and I was amazed at the simplicity and sincerity of the praise and thanks Robert gave to God through the song. I know I felt very blessed to be able to hear him sing for us.
Before we left Little Italy (before we heard the song), Robert did one more thing for us. The whole time he was talking, he seemed to have some doubts that we actually believed what he was telling us. And to tell the truth, I'm not entirely sure I believed everything either. But when Robert was telling us about his brother Jerome, he kept saying, "If you don't believe me, come by my double-wide and you'll see I'm telling the truth." After saying the same thing a couple more times, he gave us his address so we can stop by and talk to him and his brother and continue to pray for them and witness to them. (It may sound dangerous going to the home of a random "homeless" guy on the midnight streets of downtown Athens, but no human being could make up the understanding that Robert had of the Bible. I trust him, and I'm really looking forward to visiting him some time.)
So... yeah. That's been my week so far. And all I can do is thank God for it and pray for Robert, Mae Mae, and their families. So please pray for me and Michael as we continue to minister to them and to whoever we run into downtown next time we go.
I'm giddy out of my mind right now. This week has been incredible, and it's still only Wednesday! On Saturday after G Day (UGA's spring pre-season football game), Michael (one of my Freshley small group leaders), Meg, Ian, LeAnn, David, Josh (all people from Freshley; the first four went to Jamaica over spring break, and the first three were on my team in Port Maria, in addition to Michael), and I decided to go on a road trip. But I'm going to save that story for last.
Then last night at our weekly Port Maria prayer and worship night, one of our prayer topics was boldness in showing God's love; the first person that came to mind was my roommate because I haven't been a great model of godly love toward him, but then another entirely different voice spoke up in my mind: "Downtown." At the end of our prayer meeting, I announced that I would be going to downtown Athens with whoever else wanted to go, and we would walk around looking for people to pray for. In the end, only Michael and I went, but "where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20), and that was all we needed. In fact, any more than two people (plus God) probably would have been too much for our purposes to succeed according to what God had planned for us. (Actually, I was wrong: the road trip story isn't going to be last; this one is.)
Then today, I was on my way from ECV (one of UGA's dining halls) to band when someone walked by and said, "Congratulations on making Derbies!" (The Derbies are the part of the Redcoats that go to all the away games—because it would be too expensive to pay for transportation, lodging, food, etc. for 400+ college students, so we cut it down to 100 for the away games.) Apparently, the email with the Derbies roster was sent out today. I hadn't seen it yet, so that was a surprise when I heard I made it. Haha. But it was a good surprise. I can't wait for next season now!
But even better, I got back to my dorm just a few minutes ago, and when I went to check my email, the first message I noticed said, "Welcome to Freshley Prayer." I've been waiting for that email since last Thursday. The wait wasn't too suspenseful, but it was still reassuring to finally get the email. And I'm thankful 1) that I was accepted onto the Freshley prayer team for next year, and 2) that the Wesley leaders got around to sending out all the emails so soon. I'm really excited to see what God has for me on the Freshley prayer team in 2011-12!
So last week Meg announced to me, Michael, Ian, and Shelby that she felt like God was telling her that we needed to take a road trip to Kentucky. See, Meg drives a lot when she needs to time to think and pray, or just for fun. So she got Michael and Ian hooked on the idea of driving on a whim two weeks ago. The first time, Ian, Michael, and Meg got lost and had to look for a familiar highway (they were without a GPS), and they ended up staying the night at Michael's house when they found it. The second time, Meg, Michael, and Michael's roommate Alan went through South Carolina to North Carolina, got lost, ended up in Tennessee, then made a loop into Alabama before finally coming back about thirteen hours later. After hearing about their adventures, driving through four states—five including Georgia—we were all eager to join in on the next trip. So Saturday after G Day, we left campus at 8pm. We drove into North Carolina, drove through a suspicious, unpaved mountain highway, ending up at a rest stop in the Nantahala National Forest. (I thought that was cool because I went rafting down the Nantahala River in North Carolina at Snowbird last summer, so we were decently close to where I stayed for a week last year.) At some point, we crossed over into Tennessee, but then we ended up back in North Carolina again. We were looking for a mountain called Mount Mitchell, which, until the Rocky Mountains were discovered, was the tallest known mountain. But somehow we found ourselves too far west, deep into Kentucky; our original mission of reaching Kentucky had been achieved, but now there was so much opportunity to do more. Why not go to Ohio while we're at it? In fact, why not visit the Great Lakes? Well, the time factor was a good reason not to, and that's what eventually made us turn back. But not before cutting through the corner of Ohio, stopping at a playground to stretch, and then having "car church" (similar to house church, but... in a minivan). It was now Sunday morning, and we had gotten to witness the sunrise from Ohio, and we knew we had to decide when we were going to return home. So since it was Sunday and we hadn't found a church to go to (the truth is, we didn't even look for one), we decided to have our own Bible study in Michael's ManVan.
And God had planned ahead and set aside a specific passage of Scripture for us to study. Last week after the PoMo prayer and worship night, I was reading 1 John, and Meg came over and said, "Read to me." After some reluctance (and the addition of two or three other people), we started going through 1 John, with Meg initiating discussion with various questions. We made it through the first three chapters. Then, later last week when Meg made her announcement about Kentucky, we tried to finish chapters 4 and 5, but we didn't get anywhere (although, Michael, Shelby, and I did learn something about 1 John 5:16-17, which never became a part of the discussion with the full group). Meg and I were both convinced that we had received callings to different places—Meg to the Great Lakes and me to the coast of Virginia), and so we knew we needed to test the spirits and see which was true. And, ever the comedian, God speaks through John on exactly that topic: Test the Spirits. After some discussion and deep thinking (and "casting lots," aka flipping a coin), we decided to come home.
During the trip, we stopped in Berea, Kentucky. Coincidentally, Meg had had a dream about Berea, but she couldn't remember what it was about. I remembered the story of the Bereans in Acts 17, so I showed her that passage, and a verse jumped out at me, which led us to turn east to go toward Virginia Beach. That plan didn't fall through though. It would have taken much too long, and we wouldn't have been back home in time for school the next day. So that plan was scrapped. But along the way, we discovered Athens, Kentucky, and, ironically, Baxter Street, which is in Athens. (For those of you who don't know, my dorm is on the corner of Lumpkin Streeet and Baxter Street in Athens, Georgia.) And while we were still in Berea, we stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom and get snacks, and the guy working there was very nice to us, wishing us well on our trip, and even offering us free copies of the local Christian newspaper, called The Seeker. And later we ran into a Muslim man at a rest stop in southeastern Kentucky who had no cash and needed gas money. Josh, being the bold prayer warrior he is, immediately said, "I'd be happy to give some money. And can I pray for you while I'm at it?" Thankfully, Josh went to Jesus in the Quran, a kind of seminar about how to appeal to Muslims with the gospel, so he was able to share the gospel with him. And even though we didn't get to see the man make a confession of faith, we guess that, because he was a white Muslim, he had converted to Islam because he had been hurt at some point by the church. So we were able to show him some love and possibly partially redeem the church in his mind so that he'll be more open to receiving Christ later on down the road. So it doesn't sound like we did much other than driving/riding and talking, growing closer to each other on our 23-hour road trip (God blessed Michael with the energy to drive all 23 hours!), we can expect to see great fruits coming from our journey in the future, whether we get to see the results in this life or in heaven.
Then last night Michael and I went downtown, and God moved in incredible ways. To start, I was still questioning whether or not it was really God's will for us to go downtown at 11pm on a Tuesday night (actually, when I started questioning it, it was only 9:30). So I went over to a corner in the Russell prayer room and prayed and listened to God. Then Ian came over, and we talked about it; he was also trying to decide whether or not he should go. He had a lot of insight to share with me on the topic. He started by asking what my motivation was for going: Was it to bring God glory and praise, or was it for my own selfish ambition? I wanted to be able to say that I wanted to glorify God, but the truth was that I had some pride building up because I wanted to be able to say that I went downtown in the middle of the night to pray with drunk and homeless people. But I wanted it to be all about God, not about me, even though I subconsciously wanted it to be all about me. Then, when Ian said that our motivations will never be entirely pure, and that we will always have pride, and that God will decide where to draw the line, I remembered Proverbs 16:9: "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Whether we were going for selfish reasons or to glorify God, He would see to it that He received the praise for what we were about to go do. But I continued to doubt that my motives were right. But God had an answer for that too, and it just happened to be Proverbs 16:3: "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." So I claimed that promise: Whether I'm doing this to build up my own pride or to honor You, God, let the final outcome of this night point directly to You, and only You. And as Michael and I set out—after being prayed over by Ian and Meg, as well as Melissa and Zack (two RPR regular visitors)—I was reminded of Mark 11:24, which has been on my mind a lot these last couple weeks: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." So we trusted in God, believing that He would move in amazing ways, and that even if we didn't see immediate results, we would know that He was working in the hearts of the men and women that we would talk to, producing results in the future.
Well, starting off, we didn't know what to expect, but what we expected looked nothing like what actually happened. I was expecting to run into a handful of homeless people who wanted prayer and some pre-party sober college students wandering around that we could share the gospel with and pray for. But then we met Robert and Mae Mae, a black homeless man and woman. As we approached them, they seemed to know part of the reason why we went out of our way to talk to them: to help them in any way possible. Before the question "Is there anything you'd like us to pray for?" was out of our mouths, they were asking for money to buy food. Of course, that was a little suspicious because everyone asks that downtown, especially if they're looking for money for drugs. But when another guy walked by asking for money that supposedly was "not for crack," it appeared that Robert and Mae Mae were relatively trustworthy. But, fortunately for us, we didn't have any cash, so we bought them some food from Little Italy and sat and talked with them. Now, I had my Bible with me, so I put it on my lap when I sat down, and almost immediately, Robert noticed it and jumped right in with a barrage of questions. But he had much more to offer than a series of questions that he expected us to answer. If anything, he probably taught us more than we could have hoped to teach him. Mae Mae stayed relatively quiet and was content to listen to Robert share his wisdom and insight into the Scriptures and the Christian life, but she left after about half an hour. But Robert... well, I'll get to it.
There wasn't really any particular thing Robert said that was especially significant or mind-blowing. The adventure was in the whole experience. He basically told us his life story—not his life history, but his recent past and his current story. For six years of his life, he had been a Muslim. He had spent some time in jail for some automobile offense that I couldn't quite understand, but it sounded like it was a crime someone else committed that Robert got convicted of because the vehicle belonged to him... or something like that. He was released in 2008. He has four brothers and three sisters, and his mother passed away last November, leaving him and his oldest brother Jerome a double-wide trailer. Jerome, known as Michael Jackson in downtown Athens (he's a favorite among college students because of his Michael Jackson impressions), has serious drug problems; and as if that weren't enough, he has three different types of cancer, including colon cancer, lung cancer, and one other type that Robert couldn't remember. Robert may be the only Christian in his family from the sound of things. One of his sisters recently bought a $180,000 house, while Robert and Jerome are left scraping up the little money they can in downtown Athens, the poorest city in America. But through all this, Robert continues to trust God and pray for and show His love to his siblings.
While he was still in jail, Robert wrote a song, and Michael and I had the privilege to hear him sing a couple verses of it before we parted ways. It was a simple song, but the raw emotion that went into the composition and performance of it was moving, and I was amazed at the simplicity and sincerity of the praise and thanks Robert gave to God through the song. I know I felt very blessed to be able to hear him sing for us.
Before we left Little Italy (before we heard the song), Robert did one more thing for us. The whole time he was talking, he seemed to have some doubts that we actually believed what he was telling us. And to tell the truth, I'm not entirely sure I believed everything either. But when Robert was telling us about his brother Jerome, he kept saying, "If you don't believe me, come by my double-wide and you'll see I'm telling the truth." After saying the same thing a couple more times, he gave us his address so we can stop by and talk to him and his brother and continue to pray for them and witness to them. (It may sound dangerous going to the home of a random "homeless" guy on the midnight streets of downtown Athens, but no human being could make up the understanding that Robert had of the Bible. I trust him, and I'm really looking forward to visiting him some time.)
So... yeah. That's been my week so far. And all I can do is thank God for it and pray for Robert, Mae Mae, and their families. So please pray for me and Michael as we continue to minister to them and to whoever we run into downtown next time we go.
Monday, April 18, 2011
"Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light."
This past week has been incredible for me. I've been learning so much from God, and I have been growing so much closer to Him through SPAM than I ever could have imagined, even though it didn't seem like I was growing at first. I've had so many conversations throughout SPAM that have encouraged me and taught me more than I could have hoped to learn through my own individual Bible studies. I don't even know where to start.
I guess I'll start with the title: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light." At Wesley last week, I officially met a girl named Hillary for the first time. I had seen her at house church and at Freshley before, and I knew she was on one of the Jamaica trips, but I had never met her. Anyway, during worship, she sat down to pray, and I felt like God was telling me to pray for her—and looking back, I know it was His voice telling me to do it because I wouldn't have learned what I did if I hadn't prayed for her. As I prayed, Psalm 23:5b came to mind: "You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." I prayed that God would fill her with the Spirit, and that verse made me realize that He had already given her so much of Himself that she was overflowing with the Spirit, pouring Him out to share with others around her. That thought sent a chill down my spine. Then we started singing With Everything, by Hillsong United, and this line came up: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light." And then it clicked in my mind. When I get chills down my spine during worship or when I hear some awesome piece of godly wisdom, the darkness inside me—my flesh, my sinful nature—is trembling in God's presence, the light that exposes every hidden area of my life. My body knows when Jesus is near even when my mind doesn't. When I realized that, all I could do was laugh, amazed at how awesome God is.
Before Wesley, I had dinner with George, a friend that I met at Wesley at the beginning of the semester. Most of our conversation consisted of him asking me questions, me answering, and then him putting my answers in a new light. The majority of our conversation dealt with SPAM. I explained what SPAM is and why I'm doing it, and then I told him what I've been learning about it and through it. When I came home from Jamaica, I talked with my mom about it, and, like George, she put SPAM into a new light for me. Going into SPAM, I had expected it to be like last year: getting into the Word more frequently, reading various Christian books, and learning a lot about God through the Scriptures. But that's not what God had planned for me this year. Last year was the first time I had actually been on fire for God, so that's what I needed then so that I could understand what I was getting myself into and so I could know that, no matter what trials I went through, it would always be worth it. ("For I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." ~ Romans 8:18) But this year I needed something different; although a scriptural foundation is necessary for solid faith, it wasn't what I needed to focus on. What I needed was a community of Christian brothers and sisters that I could stay in contact with so that we could keep each other strong in our faith. That's what my mom helped me understand. But then I got more in-depth with George about what was going on with me during SPAM: rather than getting into the Word more during SPAM (which I thought I needed because I hadn't been in the Word very much before SPAM), I actually started reading less. By fasting from unnecessary use of technology—specifically, Facebook—I had expected to gain a lot of free time, but I still had just as little as I did before SPAM. I didn't understand it. But my mom also helped me understand this: When I'm on Facebook, I don't communicate with people very much; I mostly surf between profile pages and my news feed. I really don't get to know people very well that way, and people don't get to know me at all. But by giving up Facebook, after returning from Jamaica, I found myself hanging out with my Jamaica team all the time: in the Russell prayer room for our prayer and worship nights, in Bolton before Wesley and Freshley, at Snelling after Wesley and Freshley, at "the spot" (our Friday afternoon hangout spot by the O-House parking lot). I spent more time with them getting to know them that I would have if I had kept myself locked up in my room on the computer all day. So while I wasn't getting into the Word to know God more, I was getting to know my brothers and sisters in Christ more, and I was growing closer to God by growing in my relationships with His children. (This past weekend was an awesome time of growth with my brothers and sisters, but that's a story for another time.) Anyway, what George helped me understand was that getting in the Word less frequently was actually what I needed. It feels wrong, and it goes against all logic, but God doesn't always work according to human logic. Before the Jamaica trip, I mentioned in my Freshley small group that I felt like I had been idolizing the Bible. It sounds weird, but my friend Joseph pointed out that that's what the Pharisees did: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life" (John 5:39-40). They studied the Scriptures without acknowledging God and coming into relationship with Him through Jesus, and that's what I had been doing (but, I think, to a lesser extent than the Pharisees). So by "taking a break" from the Scriptures, God was able to teach me where I had gone wrong, and He brought me into the real heart of worship, praising Him first and studying the Word in order to become more familiar with God rather than to learn how many different ways each individual verse can be interpreted. And now that I realize this, I'm actually getting into the Word because I want to, not because of my legalistic need to read a certain amount every day. So I have to thank George—and, of course, God—for clearing that up for me.
George also made an interesting point that fasting is just a physical representation, a reminder, of what we have been called to do with our lives: to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus—to fast from ourselves in order spend time with Christ. That was a cool way of looking at it.
I have more to share, but most of it has to do with this past weekend, so I'm going to leave that for my next post. Hopefully, I'll have that up later today.
So until next time, God bless! And remember: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light, that every eye would see Jesus, our God, great and mighty to be praised."
I guess I'll start with the title: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light." At Wesley last week, I officially met a girl named Hillary for the first time. I had seen her at house church and at Freshley before, and I knew she was on one of the Jamaica trips, but I had never met her. Anyway, during worship, she sat down to pray, and I felt like God was telling me to pray for her—and looking back, I know it was His voice telling me to do it because I wouldn't have learned what I did if I hadn't prayed for her. As I prayed, Psalm 23:5b came to mind: "You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." I prayed that God would fill her with the Spirit, and that verse made me realize that He had already given her so much of Himself that she was overflowing with the Spirit, pouring Him out to share with others around her. That thought sent a chill down my spine. Then we started singing With Everything, by Hillsong United, and this line came up: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light." And then it clicked in my mind. When I get chills down my spine during worship or when I hear some awesome piece of godly wisdom, the darkness inside me—my flesh, my sinful nature—is trembling in God's presence, the light that exposes every hidden area of my life. My body knows when Jesus is near even when my mind doesn't. When I realized that, all I could do was laugh, amazed at how awesome God is.
Before Wesley, I had dinner with George, a friend that I met at Wesley at the beginning of the semester. Most of our conversation consisted of him asking me questions, me answering, and then him putting my answers in a new light. The majority of our conversation dealt with SPAM. I explained what SPAM is and why I'm doing it, and then I told him what I've been learning about it and through it. When I came home from Jamaica, I talked with my mom about it, and, like George, she put SPAM into a new light for me. Going into SPAM, I had expected it to be like last year: getting into the Word more frequently, reading various Christian books, and learning a lot about God through the Scriptures. But that's not what God had planned for me this year. Last year was the first time I had actually been on fire for God, so that's what I needed then so that I could understand what I was getting myself into and so I could know that, no matter what trials I went through, it would always be worth it. ("For I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." ~ Romans 8:18) But this year I needed something different; although a scriptural foundation is necessary for solid faith, it wasn't what I needed to focus on. What I needed was a community of Christian brothers and sisters that I could stay in contact with so that we could keep each other strong in our faith. That's what my mom helped me understand. But then I got more in-depth with George about what was going on with me during SPAM: rather than getting into the Word more during SPAM (which I thought I needed because I hadn't been in the Word very much before SPAM), I actually started reading less. By fasting from unnecessary use of technology—specifically, Facebook—I had expected to gain a lot of free time, but I still had just as little as I did before SPAM. I didn't understand it. But my mom also helped me understand this: When I'm on Facebook, I don't communicate with people very much; I mostly surf between profile pages and my news feed. I really don't get to know people very well that way, and people don't get to know me at all. But by giving up Facebook, after returning from Jamaica, I found myself hanging out with my Jamaica team all the time: in the Russell prayer room for our prayer and worship nights, in Bolton before Wesley and Freshley, at Snelling after Wesley and Freshley, at "the spot" (our Friday afternoon hangout spot by the O-House parking lot). I spent more time with them getting to know them that I would have if I had kept myself locked up in my room on the computer all day. So while I wasn't getting into the Word to know God more, I was getting to know my brothers and sisters in Christ more, and I was growing closer to God by growing in my relationships with His children. (This past weekend was an awesome time of growth with my brothers and sisters, but that's a story for another time.) Anyway, what George helped me understand was that getting in the Word less frequently was actually what I needed. It feels wrong, and it goes against all logic, but God doesn't always work according to human logic. Before the Jamaica trip, I mentioned in my Freshley small group that I felt like I had been idolizing the Bible. It sounds weird, but my friend Joseph pointed out that that's what the Pharisees did: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life" (John 5:39-40). They studied the Scriptures without acknowledging God and coming into relationship with Him through Jesus, and that's what I had been doing (but, I think, to a lesser extent than the Pharisees). So by "taking a break" from the Scriptures, God was able to teach me where I had gone wrong, and He brought me into the real heart of worship, praising Him first and studying the Word in order to become more familiar with God rather than to learn how many different ways each individual verse can be interpreted. And now that I realize this, I'm actually getting into the Word because I want to, not because of my legalistic need to read a certain amount every day. So I have to thank George—and, of course, God—for clearing that up for me.
George also made an interesting point that fasting is just a physical representation, a reminder, of what we have been called to do with our lives: to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus—to fast from ourselves in order spend time with Christ. That was a cool way of looking at it.
I have more to share, but most of it has to do with this past weekend, so I'm going to leave that for my next post. Hopefully, I'll have that up later today.
So until next time, God bless! And remember: "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light, that every eye would see Jesus, our God, great and mighty to be praised."
Friday, April 8, 2011
Infiltration
So yesterday was my eleventh day in the Perspectives class, and it was thought-provoking to say the least. I'm a little reluctant to say that the speaker wasn't a very good teacher because he did get his point across to most of us, but there was still a lot of miscommunication. The majority of the confusion was caused by semantics: redefining missions to get a better sense of progress in reaching the unreached. The idea was that mission is not going on a short-term mission trip and connecting with a local church to do service projects. Although those kinds of short-term "ministry," or "vision," trips are necessary for the encouragement of both the local church and the ministers, we cannot call them "mission trips." Mission is taking the gospel to people who have never heard or accepted it before. Short-term ministry trips are typically associated primarily with the local church, while, according to last night's speaker, a "real" mission trip is when a missionary immerses himself in a primarily non-Christian culture without church connections. Unfortunately, the speaker had a hard time explaining this and didn't do a great job of answering questions, nearly resulting in full-blown arguments more than once. But fortunately, there were some sound minds in the class who understood what he was trying to get across, and we had a good discussion about the topic after class. The biggest misunderstanding was that short-term "mission" trips are bad because they don't really qualify as missions (it definitely sounded like that was the speaker's opinion because of the way he talked about short-term mission trips); however, short-term mission trips are still beneficial, edifying the missionary and the local church, leading the missionary to a better understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus so that he or she can later be effective on a "real" (long-term, relational) mission trip.
Anyway, that was a lot of rambling on one topic. One thing that caught my attention during the session was that churches are progressively leaning toward missions as a works-centered task—going on mission trips to provide practical aid for the physically needy (money for the poor, food for the starving, shelter for the homeless)—and leaving out the spiritual aspect of missions—the much more important need for a Savior. More and more churches are giving temporary aid and neglecting eternal aid, building houses for the homeless without preaching the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. The analogy the speaker used was that church mission (works-based service) without kingdom mission (Word-based service) is like moving chairs on the Titanic: it's all going down anyway, so what's the point? We have to learn to prioritize; address spiritual needs more urgently than physical needs, but continue to provide for physical needs in order to strengthen relationships with the locals and encourage acceptance of the gospel.
When the speaker mentioned the fact that short-term mission trips usually work with local churches in the mission site, I was reminded of something I had heard on Tuesday: Alex, a friend from TNT, is going to Africa on a service trip with a non-Christian organization, so she asked for prayer that she would be able to minister both to the Africans and to her teammates. This got me thinking: What if missionaries started going on "mission trips" with non-Christian organizations? After all, secular service groups aren't going to be associated with foreign churches. Most mission organizations only send missionaries to where a growing church community has already been established, but a secular organization may be able to slip through the cracks and reach areas where the gospel has never been heard. This is the idea of "business-as-mission"; in other words, Paul's tent-making strategy, using his business as a way of getting connected with people so that he could share the gospel with them. So if secular organizations can get to where no church can reach (due to government restrictions against Christianity), wouldn't it seem like a good idea to send missionaries with those groups to reach the unreached?
I mentioned this to my friend Shelby, who was visiting the Perspectives class. She summed up the idea in a single word: infiltration. It sounds drastic, but that's essentially what it is. Then she said that she had been thinking about joining the Peace Corps for a while, and with infiltration as new motivation, she seemed even more confident that the Peace Corps is where God wants her. And after hearing that, I'm slowly starting to see what God may have planned for me. Ever since I started thinking about being a missionary, I've wanted to go to the unreached to share the gospel with people who have never heard it before. But when I started looking for mission organizations to work with, I had a hard time finding any organizations that are sending missionaries to unreached and unengaged areas (according to the Joshua Project). And now it seems like working with an organization outside of the church would be a great way of getting to where I want to go.
But now the question is where God is going to take me. I've been wanting to go to India since last summer, but I keep hearing people say that they also want to go to India on mission trips. It seems like there are so many people who want to go to India that all the smaller, less known countries are being forgotten. Thanks to some information from my friend Meg, Kazakhstan is looking kind of appealing to me. (Kazakhstan is one of the few places that the Peace Corps works where the community is very closed-minded against Christians.) But I've felt so strongly for so long that I'm supposed to go to India that I can't tell if my reluctance to not go to India is because of my own desire to go there or because God wants me to go there. I'm kind of thinking that it's because God has called me there because, despite my desire to take the gospel to people who have never heard it or accepted it (who are abundant in Kazakhstan where the Muslim communities thrive), my desire for a specific spiritual audience (the unreached of the world) isn't as strong as my desire for a specific ethnic audience (the unbelieving Indians). In other words, I want to go to the Indian non-believers who have heard the gospel but haven't accepted it more than I want to go to the Kazakhstani who have never heard the name of Jesus. That sounds bad, but I think God has called me to go to India, while He has called others to go to Kazakhstan. But I don't know. This will obviously take a lot of prayer and listening, so any and all prayers are appreciated.
Anyway, that was a lot of rambling on one topic. One thing that caught my attention during the session was that churches are progressively leaning toward missions as a works-centered task—going on mission trips to provide practical aid for the physically needy (money for the poor, food for the starving, shelter for the homeless)—and leaving out the spiritual aspect of missions—the much more important need for a Savior. More and more churches are giving temporary aid and neglecting eternal aid, building houses for the homeless without preaching the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. The analogy the speaker used was that church mission (works-based service) without kingdom mission (Word-based service) is like moving chairs on the Titanic: it's all going down anyway, so what's the point? We have to learn to prioritize; address spiritual needs more urgently than physical needs, but continue to provide for physical needs in order to strengthen relationships with the locals and encourage acceptance of the gospel.
When the speaker mentioned the fact that short-term mission trips usually work with local churches in the mission site, I was reminded of something I had heard on Tuesday: Alex, a friend from TNT, is going to Africa on a service trip with a non-Christian organization, so she asked for prayer that she would be able to minister both to the Africans and to her teammates. This got me thinking: What if missionaries started going on "mission trips" with non-Christian organizations? After all, secular service groups aren't going to be associated with foreign churches. Most mission organizations only send missionaries to where a growing church community has already been established, but a secular organization may be able to slip through the cracks and reach areas where the gospel has never been heard. This is the idea of "business-as-mission"; in other words, Paul's tent-making strategy, using his business as a way of getting connected with people so that he could share the gospel with them. So if secular organizations can get to where no church can reach (due to government restrictions against Christianity), wouldn't it seem like a good idea to send missionaries with those groups to reach the unreached?
I mentioned this to my friend Shelby, who was visiting the Perspectives class. She summed up the idea in a single word: infiltration. It sounds drastic, but that's essentially what it is. Then she said that she had been thinking about joining the Peace Corps for a while, and with infiltration as new motivation, she seemed even more confident that the Peace Corps is where God wants her. And after hearing that, I'm slowly starting to see what God may have planned for me. Ever since I started thinking about being a missionary, I've wanted to go to the unreached to share the gospel with people who have never heard it before. But when I started looking for mission organizations to work with, I had a hard time finding any organizations that are sending missionaries to unreached and unengaged areas (according to the Joshua Project). And now it seems like working with an organization outside of the church would be a great way of getting to where I want to go.
But now the question is where God is going to take me. I've been wanting to go to India since last summer, but I keep hearing people say that they also want to go to India on mission trips. It seems like there are so many people who want to go to India that all the smaller, less known countries are being forgotten. Thanks to some information from my friend Meg, Kazakhstan is looking kind of appealing to me. (Kazakhstan is one of the few places that the Peace Corps works where the community is very closed-minded against Christians.) But I've felt so strongly for so long that I'm supposed to go to India that I can't tell if my reluctance to not go to India is because of my own desire to go there or because God wants me to go there. I'm kind of thinking that it's because God has called me there because, despite my desire to take the gospel to people who have never heard it or accepted it (who are abundant in Kazakhstan where the Muslim communities thrive), my desire for a specific spiritual audience (the unreached of the world) isn't as strong as my desire for a specific ethnic audience (the unbelieving Indians). In other words, I want to go to the Indian non-believers who have heard the gospel but haven't accepted it more than I want to go to the Kazakhstani who have never heard the name of Jesus. That sounds bad, but I think God has called me to go to India, while He has called others to go to Kazakhstan. But I don't know. This will obviously take a lot of prayer and listening, so any and all prayers are appreciated.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Refined by Fire
Coming back from my mission trip to Jamaica with the Wesley Foundation, I was on a strange kind of spiritual high. It wasn't the "spiritual" spiritual high, where you feel like you're on fire for God and nothing can stop you. It was a different kind, where I was grateful for all the new friendships God gave me over the course of the week and thankful that they would be here for me to help me stay strong in my faith. Of course, I'm still very thankful for them, but the other night at house church, I suddenly dropped off of my spiritual high. I can't explain why; it just happened. (What was interesting is that the speaker at house church mentioned, just a few moments later, that we were not meant to stay on our spiritual mountaintops, but to come down into the valley to support those down below and encourage them to move up the mountain.) And then I started doubting. It was weird. I had never experienced that kind of doubt before, thinking that maybe there was something I was missing and that I was on the wrong path. I hated that feeling, and I wanted to get back on the mountain again, but God wouldn't let me. I needed to stay in the valley and learn to trust Him there.
While I was in Jamaica, I was struggling with not knowing what God was trying to teach me and where He was taking me. I knew God was teaching me, but I didn't know if I was learning, and if so, what I was learning. So I talked with my friend Shelby, and she helped put things into perspective for me. I think God planned to bring up the mountaintop analogy at house church, because he brought it up in my conversation with Shelby too. He knew I would need that analogy to figure out where I'm headed. Anyway, I told Shelby how I felt like I just wasn't learning anything, not moving anywhere, and she told me about a vision someone had had about her: a sailboat sitting on the still water, waiting for the wind to come move it. And she explained that we are meant to come down off the mountain in order to teach the people in the valley and encourage them, to show them that it's possible to trust God even in the tough times and the times when nothing is happening. Then when I was reading James later that night, a thought hit me when I got to verse 4 of Chapter 1 ("Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything"): Perseverance is not simply being able to stand up under temptation; it's being able to trust God no matter what, even when you fall off the mountain. That was my exact thought, as if God was telling me what I was about to experience in a little over a week. And we will know when perseverance has finished its work because we will be able to see every valley as a mountaintop, creating a picture of a never ending staircase. When you fall off of the mountain and into the valley, your perception will adjust to see the valley as a new mountain; then when you fall off of that one, your perception will change again; and the process continues, only to be interrupted by climbing onto a new mountain through God's wisdom, which God offers freely to us when we ask for it (James 1:5).
So while I had climbed onto a new mountain of close community with my Jamaica team, I was still in the valley of not knowing what I was learning; and from that valley, Satan attacked at house church, trying to make me doubt God. He had taken me down another step on my neverending staircase, but I'm still learning to see it as just another step. That kind of perseverance is something that God is going to have to continue to teach me for the rest of my life.
Now, this is probably going to sound really prideful, which I don't mean for it to be, so just bear with me. From that valley, I continued to trust God, asking Him to increase my faith so that I would have no cause to doubt Him. I was like Job, being tested to see if I would reject God. I was given the opportunity to deny Him, but I refused. My valley became a new mountain.
Of course, it was only made possible because God gave me the strength to stand strong. He answered my prayer and increased my faith, even though it didn't feel like my faith was any stronger in the moment of my weakness.
Now I'm about to get really off track because this is where my mind is wandering. The Wesley Foundation is asking for leadership applicants for next year, and I really want to stay a part of Freshley, so I'm planning on doing Freshley leadership. I've been considering either being a Freshley small group leader or being on the Freshley prayer team, but I was more strongly considering small groups. But over the course of the last week, I've had probably ten people tell me that they think I would be good on prayer leadership, that I strike them as a "prayer warrior." Last Tuesday God had me lead prayer at the Port Maria prayer and worship night. In fact, He had me plan it and put it into action. Then Thursday came, and after having some kind of Christian fellowship every night this week (except for last Sunday, ironically), I dropped off of my spiritual high. (This is where it gets really prideful, so think of this as encouragement. Tell yourself that this is true of you.) Up until that point, Satan didn't think I was much of a threat. Then after the prayer and worship night, he realized that God had been training me to be a prayer warrior, a strong soldier in His army. For nineteen years, I've been a civilian in training, but now God has seen fit to put me on the battlefield. And now that Satan has seen me armed and ready for war, he has decided to attack full force, aiming for my faith, trying to take me down before I can hinder his schemes. But thanks to God's training, I was able to counter the devil's attacks. Like Job, I relied on God, even in the face of trials. So I'm glad to be considered worthy of being tested, and to be given the strength to withstand my trials.
In a way, the picture of being a prayer warrior is an answer to an unconscious prayer. For a while I've been struggling a little bit with self-image in that I'm not a typical bold, tough, adventurous guy. It's a pretty minor thing in my thought life though, and I'm content with who I am. I didn't even know it was an answer to prayer until just now. But still, being called a prayer warrior is a great encouragement for me, knowing that I have been made strong in Christ.
So yeah, I'm pretty much convinced now that Freshley prayer leadership is where I belong, and that God is teaching me to put all my trust in Him until I can truthfully sing, "All my fountains are in You."
While I was in Jamaica, I was struggling with not knowing what God was trying to teach me and where He was taking me. I knew God was teaching me, but I didn't know if I was learning, and if so, what I was learning. So I talked with my friend Shelby, and she helped put things into perspective for me. I think God planned to bring up the mountaintop analogy at house church, because he brought it up in my conversation with Shelby too. He knew I would need that analogy to figure out where I'm headed. Anyway, I told Shelby how I felt like I just wasn't learning anything, not moving anywhere, and she told me about a vision someone had had about her: a sailboat sitting on the still water, waiting for the wind to come move it. And she explained that we are meant to come down off the mountain in order to teach the people in the valley and encourage them, to show them that it's possible to trust God even in the tough times and the times when nothing is happening. Then when I was reading James later that night, a thought hit me when I got to verse 4 of Chapter 1 ("Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything"): Perseverance is not simply being able to stand up under temptation; it's being able to trust God no matter what, even when you fall off the mountain. That was my exact thought, as if God was telling me what I was about to experience in a little over a week. And we will know when perseverance has finished its work because we will be able to see every valley as a mountaintop, creating a picture of a never ending staircase. When you fall off of the mountain and into the valley, your perception will adjust to see the valley as a new mountain; then when you fall off of that one, your perception will change again; and the process continues, only to be interrupted by climbing onto a new mountain through God's wisdom, which God offers freely to us when we ask for it (James 1:5).
So while I had climbed onto a new mountain of close community with my Jamaica team, I was still in the valley of not knowing what I was learning; and from that valley, Satan attacked at house church, trying to make me doubt God. He had taken me down another step on my neverending staircase, but I'm still learning to see it as just another step. That kind of perseverance is something that God is going to have to continue to teach me for the rest of my life.
Now, this is probably going to sound really prideful, which I don't mean for it to be, so just bear with me. From that valley, I continued to trust God, asking Him to increase my faith so that I would have no cause to doubt Him. I was like Job, being tested to see if I would reject God. I was given the opportunity to deny Him, but I refused. My valley became a new mountain.
Of course, it was only made possible because God gave me the strength to stand strong. He answered my prayer and increased my faith, even though it didn't feel like my faith was any stronger in the moment of my weakness.
Now I'm about to get really off track because this is where my mind is wandering. The Wesley Foundation is asking for leadership applicants for next year, and I really want to stay a part of Freshley, so I'm planning on doing Freshley leadership. I've been considering either being a Freshley small group leader or being on the Freshley prayer team, but I was more strongly considering small groups. But over the course of the last week, I've had probably ten people tell me that they think I would be good on prayer leadership, that I strike them as a "prayer warrior." Last Tuesday God had me lead prayer at the Port Maria prayer and worship night. In fact, He had me plan it and put it into action. Then Thursday came, and after having some kind of Christian fellowship every night this week (except for last Sunday, ironically), I dropped off of my spiritual high. (This is where it gets really prideful, so think of this as encouragement. Tell yourself that this is true of you.) Up until that point, Satan didn't think I was much of a threat. Then after the prayer and worship night, he realized that God had been training me to be a prayer warrior, a strong soldier in His army. For nineteen years, I've been a civilian in training, but now God has seen fit to put me on the battlefield. And now that Satan has seen me armed and ready for war, he has decided to attack full force, aiming for my faith, trying to take me down before I can hinder his schemes. But thanks to God's training, I was able to counter the devil's attacks. Like Job, I relied on God, even in the face of trials. So I'm glad to be considered worthy of being tested, and to be given the strength to withstand my trials.
In a way, the picture of being a prayer warrior is an answer to an unconscious prayer. For a while I've been struggling a little bit with self-image in that I'm not a typical bold, tough, adventurous guy. It's a pretty minor thing in my thought life though, and I'm content with who I am. I didn't even know it was an answer to prayer until just now. But still, being called a prayer warrior is a great encouragement for me, knowing that I have been made strong in Christ.
So yeah, I'm pretty much convinced now that Freshley prayer leadership is where I belong, and that God is teaching me to put all my trust in Him until I can truthfully sing, "All my fountains are in You."
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Port Maria Prayer Night
Okay, so Sunday God laid it on my heart to get a few people together to pray over the Freshley Jamaica teams that went to Port Maria, St. Anns, and Montego Bay, so I wanted to go to the Russell prayer room, which is a study lounge in Russell Hall that the students converted into a prayer room simply by decorating it with biblical artwork and Bible verses taped up on the walls. Originally I had four or five people in mind, so I asked a couple people if they were interested and asked them to spread the word to the other two or three. But we weren't able to do it Sunday night. So I waited until Freshley on Monday to talk with them and set up a time. And I couldn't keep it between just the five of us, especially with the humongous party the Jamaica teams had at Freshley and at Snelling later. So word spread quickly. We decided to have our prayer night tonight at 8.
So we did it. We had our prayer night. And I can't even start to tell you how amazing it was. God is incredible! Two weeks ago, I would have been much too shy to lead a group that big in prayer. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have even known who or what to pray for, or how. I wouldn't have even known who to invite to prayer night. But God's timing is perfect. He delayed us from having our meeting on Sunday so that we would be able to invite more people on Monday. When I got there tonight, there were probably 20 people there! And over the course of an hour and a half, we probably had another 10 walk in late. That's almost half of the Port Maria team! (Of course, we did have a few people from Mo Bay and St. Anns, so it wasn't really half of PoMo, but still, 30 people is impressive.) God was there in the Russell prayer room, but the sheer number of people wasn't the only evidence of His presence.
When I got there, my friends Josh and Melissa, from Wesley and house church, were already there with Josh's friend Des (short for Desirae). Around 8:20, we started with some worship, courtesy of John Hunter, from the Freshley praise team. After a few songs to get us into a heart of prayer, we started praying over the Port Maria team. (I realized afterward that we only prayed for the PoMo team, when I meant to pray for all three teams. But we can pray for the others next week... but I'm getting ahead of myself.) We prayed for boldness in going out into Athens to share God's love and His word with the people of UGA and the poorest city in America. We prayed for healing over the physically sick, the emotionally distressed, the economically broken, and the spiritually dead. We prayed for persistence in keeping up with our school work so that God would be glorified, even in the most grueling essays. Not long into our prayer session, Des, who had been reading, put down her book and started listening. Josh has been praying for her for two and a half years, trying to bring her to know the Lord. And tonight, something changed: she was willing to listen. Josh started reading the Bible to her, and she started crying. He prayed for her, and she cried some more. And then she had to leave, but she said that she wanted to talk to him more about what he believed and about what was going on in that room tonight. I had no idea she would be there. Josh had no idea we would be there. God put us there in the RPR at the perfect time. He is so awesome!
So many people stood up to testify to what God has been doing in their lives. We shared our victories with each other, because the victory of one brother or sister in Christ is the victory of all of God's family. We shared thanks for all our new friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who we can relate to in a more intimate way than has ever been possible. We rejoiced in the authority given us by Jesus, the authority to laugh in the face of sin and declare that Satan no longer has power over us. We rejoiced in the conquering power of the Holy Spirit, who was very present in the prayer room tonight. It was incredible!
Toward the end, Kyle, my small group leader, had to leave. He texted me soon after, saying that our praises were echoing outside the building from the eighth floor: "Come like a flood and saturate me now! You're all I want! Come like the wind and sweep throughout this place! You're all we want!" So we thanked God for spreading His glory all over campus without us even realizing it.
Everyone enjoyed tonight so much that we decided that we're going to continue doing this. So we're having Jamaica prayer and worship again next week, and hopefully every week for the rest of the semester! So that's what I was talking about earlier when I said that we would pray for Mo Bay and St. Anns next week (and maybe the next; we might just pray for one team each week). Anyway, I'm really excited to do this again next week. It was so much more than I could have ever hoped it would be!
So I want to thank everyone for showing up tonight. You guys made it awesome! Thanks to Meg for sending out the Facebook invitation so that people could hear the news. Thanks to everyone who lives in Russell Hall for letting us into the building and giving us access to the RPR. Thanks to all the Russell students who made the prayer room what it is, and thanks to the Russell staff for allowing them to do it; and of course, thanks to the Russell staff for being gracious enough to allow us to sing at the top of our lungs without disturbance. Thanks to all the eighth floor Russell residents for being patient with us despite all the noise we were making right next door to you. Thanks again to John Hunter for leading worship; "Prayer and Worship Night" couldn't have been what it was without you! And of course, thank You God for making all of this possible! Thank You for pouring out Your Spirit and Your love on us so that we could praise You and bring You all the glory in spreading Your love to others. You are awesome, Father!
Also, I have something special for all the PoMo people next week. I meant to hand it out today, but I forgot: I wrote the names of everyone on the PoMo team on slips of paper so that everyone can draw a name and pray for that person over the course of the week (or maybe the entire semester). So find me either at prayer night next week or at Wesley tomorrow or Freshley next Monday and I'll give you someone to pray for. (And if you want to make that person your Warm Fuzzy, feel free. It'll help develop our already incredibly strong community even more.) And if you have friends who went on the other Jamaica trips, invite them next week. I wanted to keep it limited to PoMo people tonight so that we wouldn't overcrowd the prayer room, but obviously enough people enjoyed it that space is going to be an issue no matter how hard we try to prevent it. So we want to get so many people that we have to expand out of the RPR and onto either the Russell parking deck or Brumby Beach. God is moving, and no one can contain Him!
So we did it. We had our prayer night. And I can't even start to tell you how amazing it was. God is incredible! Two weeks ago, I would have been much too shy to lead a group that big in prayer. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have even known who or what to pray for, or how. I wouldn't have even known who to invite to prayer night. But God's timing is perfect. He delayed us from having our meeting on Sunday so that we would be able to invite more people on Monday. When I got there tonight, there were probably 20 people there! And over the course of an hour and a half, we probably had another 10 walk in late. That's almost half of the Port Maria team! (Of course, we did have a few people from Mo Bay and St. Anns, so it wasn't really half of PoMo, but still, 30 people is impressive.) God was there in the Russell prayer room, but the sheer number of people wasn't the only evidence of His presence.
When I got there, my friends Josh and Melissa, from Wesley and house church, were already there with Josh's friend Des (short for Desirae). Around 8:20, we started with some worship, courtesy of John Hunter, from the Freshley praise team. After a few songs to get us into a heart of prayer, we started praying over the Port Maria team. (I realized afterward that we only prayed for the PoMo team, when I meant to pray for all three teams. But we can pray for the others next week... but I'm getting ahead of myself.) We prayed for boldness in going out into Athens to share God's love and His word with the people of UGA and the poorest city in America. We prayed for healing over the physically sick, the emotionally distressed, the economically broken, and the spiritually dead. We prayed for persistence in keeping up with our school work so that God would be glorified, even in the most grueling essays. Not long into our prayer session, Des, who had been reading, put down her book and started listening. Josh has been praying for her for two and a half years, trying to bring her to know the Lord. And tonight, something changed: she was willing to listen. Josh started reading the Bible to her, and she started crying. He prayed for her, and she cried some more. And then she had to leave, but she said that she wanted to talk to him more about what he believed and about what was going on in that room tonight. I had no idea she would be there. Josh had no idea we would be there. God put us there in the RPR at the perfect time. He is so awesome!
So many people stood up to testify to what God has been doing in their lives. We shared our victories with each other, because the victory of one brother or sister in Christ is the victory of all of God's family. We shared thanks for all our new friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who we can relate to in a more intimate way than has ever been possible. We rejoiced in the authority given us by Jesus, the authority to laugh in the face of sin and declare that Satan no longer has power over us. We rejoiced in the conquering power of the Holy Spirit, who was very present in the prayer room tonight. It was incredible!
Toward the end, Kyle, my small group leader, had to leave. He texted me soon after, saying that our praises were echoing outside the building from the eighth floor: "Come like a flood and saturate me now! You're all I want! Come like the wind and sweep throughout this place! You're all we want!" So we thanked God for spreading His glory all over campus without us even realizing it.
Everyone enjoyed tonight so much that we decided that we're going to continue doing this. So we're having Jamaica prayer and worship again next week, and hopefully every week for the rest of the semester! So that's what I was talking about earlier when I said that we would pray for Mo Bay and St. Anns next week (and maybe the next; we might just pray for one team each week). Anyway, I'm really excited to do this again next week. It was so much more than I could have ever hoped it would be!
So I want to thank everyone for showing up tonight. You guys made it awesome! Thanks to Meg for sending out the Facebook invitation so that people could hear the news. Thanks to everyone who lives in Russell Hall for letting us into the building and giving us access to the RPR. Thanks to all the Russell students who made the prayer room what it is, and thanks to the Russell staff for allowing them to do it; and of course, thanks to the Russell staff for being gracious enough to allow us to sing at the top of our lungs without disturbance. Thanks to all the eighth floor Russell residents for being patient with us despite all the noise we were making right next door to you. Thanks again to John Hunter for leading worship; "Prayer and Worship Night" couldn't have been what it was without you! And of course, thank You God for making all of this possible! Thank You for pouring out Your Spirit and Your love on us so that we could praise You and bring You all the glory in spreading Your love to others. You are awesome, Father!
Also, I have something special for all the PoMo people next week. I meant to hand it out today, but I forgot: I wrote the names of everyone on the PoMo team on slips of paper so that everyone can draw a name and pray for that person over the course of the week (or maybe the entire semester). So find me either at prayer night next week or at Wesley tomorrow or Freshley next Monday and I'll give you someone to pray for. (And if you want to make that person your Warm Fuzzy, feel free. It'll help develop our already incredibly strong community even more.) And if you have friends who went on the other Jamaica trips, invite them next week. I wanted to keep it limited to PoMo people tonight so that we wouldn't overcrowd the prayer room, but obviously enough people enjoyed it that space is going to be an issue no matter how hard we try to prevent it. So we want to get so many people that we have to expand out of the RPR and onto either the Russell parking deck or Brumby Beach. God is moving, and no one can contain Him!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Port Maria, Jamaica
Well, I just got back from Jamaica on Saturday, and it was amazing! I just want to say thank you to everyone for your prayers and support. It wouldn't have been possible without you!
Before I get into the details of the week, I have some explaining to do. I'm doing SPAM (Spiritual Preparation And Meditation), which is basically Lent with a specific purpose: giving up unnecessary use of secular technology to spend more time with God. So I was a little bit reluctant to get on Facebook to give an update because it felt like I was breaking Lent, but I was persuaded because I needed to do it in order to keep my relationship with all of you strong and to let you know what I did and learned this past week.
More than anything this week, I brought back with me an incredible sense of community. The majority of our time in Jamaica was spent getting to know each other: at the Casa Maria hotel, on the work sites, at Dunns River Falls, on the plane and the buses, and over some delicious food and around a box of "communal Whales." We brought back with us something practical: a group of 68 friends to hang out with and to keep each other accountable in our growth in Christ.
But that's not all we did in Jamaica, not by a long shot. We also had a chance to meet several Jamaicans and make friends with them, including Mr. Eddie and Melanie, who live on the farm that we worked at; Trevor and Edwin, our bus drivers; and Jonoy, Campbell, and Ricky, as well as the children of the Galina Primary School and many others (those were just the ones that I knew). We now have friends in Jamaica to stay in contact with, brothers and sisters from a foreign country that we can pray for to keep each other strong in our faith, and that we can just talk to about life.
But there's still more. Saturday and Sunday were community building days, time to get to know everyone on the Port Maria team and to see what Jamaican churches are like. I went to Port Maria United Church, which was incredible and very different from your typical American church: when the pastor asks you to greet your neighbor, he means, "Get up out of your seat, dance across the room, and greet everyone you make eye contact with." Then Monday came. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were our work days. We worked at two churches, Galina Primary, Mr. Eddie's farm, and Ms. Beth's house. My work sites were the farm, Ms. Beth's house, and Galina Primary, in that order.
At the farm, my team dug rocks out of a creek and built a dam, made stone steps leading to the creek and through the front of the farm, and filled in potholes in the long driveway leading to Mr. Eddie's house. I spent the majority of the morning with four or five other people digging rocks out of the creek, leaving us all with an immense sense of satisfaction: we had pulled rocks out of the rock bed that were up to half our size and at least half our weight. And we didn't just dig out one or two of them; we successfully conquered at least five rocks that size, one right after the other. We accomplished much more than any normal human being would have been capable of, and it showed how God's presence can make any job possible, no matter how difficult and seemingly impossible the task. Then, after we had eaten lunch and finished our section of the road, Mr. Eddie invited us to take a tour of his farm. So he led us into the jungle in his backyard, and showed us such generosity that he made "southern hospitality" look like post 9/11 airports. Mr. Eddie personally climbed a tree to cut down star apples for us, which was an interesting food experience, and we all got to taste coconut milk, jelly coconuts, and coconut meat (the white stuff on the inside of the shell). And before we left, Melanie, who is our age, made sure to get everyone's names so she could find us on Facebook. It was amazing to me just how similar Jamaicans are to us Americans, even though they're so different. When I go out of the country, I expect to have to speak slowly and explain everything, but they already understand so much of our culture that it was an easy transition.
On Tuesday I worked at Ms. Beth's house, working with a new team to lay the foundation for a new house. While there, we met Dennis, a very enthusiastic Jamaican and a very talented singer, who helped us with our work. We spent all day mixing and pouring concrete, which was a new experience for most of us. I was already sore from lifting rocks the day before, but God gave us all the strength we needed to get through the day.
Wednesday was a little different for me. After spending two days doing heavy manual labor, I got to mix some more concrete to help build a wall. But what was different about it was that we were building the wall for Galina Primary, which meant that we had time to spend with the kids during their recess. We started the day off by doing a devotional for the kids, and they especially enjoyed the "Tootietah" song, which they learned from the group that went on Monday. After the devotional, we immediately set to work on the wall. Then, after lunch we got to play with the kids, although it would probably be more accurate to say that they played with us. The girls played with everyone's hair, and the boys all fought for a ride on the guys' backs. I grew especially attached to Christopher, a very shy twelve-year-old, and Alex, an eight-year-old who just couldn't get his fill of piggyback rides. I was told later that the Wesley Foundation might be setting up some way to sponsor some of the Galina kids, so I would really like to sponsor Christopher and Alex, if possible.
Thursday was different for everyone. Instead of doing physically taxing work, we spent the morning at an infirmary, which was much more emotionally taxing for most people. It was sad because all the men and women there had been left there to die, but it was amazing to see the joy that they had despite that fact. Two men stuck out to me the most: Lloyd and Richard. Lloyd seemed, to me, to be one of the very few in his right mind. His hope was fully in the Lord, knowing that whatever happened, God would take care of him; and he was confident that healing is in His hands. But then I met Richard. Jon, a member of the Freshley, Wesley, and Watkinsville First Baptist praise bands, had his guitar with him, so he started playing, and Richard eagerly joined in singing and listening. He was so joyful to hear Jon play and sing along with a handful of other guys on the trip, and it was incredible to see the effect he had, directly and indirectly through us, on the others in the infirmary. After laying hands on him to pray, he closed us out with a powerful prayer—not powerful because of the words he was saying, but because of the passion in his words, despite his frailty. Then, after our oddly joyful goodbyes, we left for Port Maria United Church for some more prayer time. We stayed at the church for a couple hours just worshiping and praying, singing to God and interceding for the Jamaicans, Mr. Eddie and Melanie, Ms. Beth, Trevor, the kids at Galina Primary, and both churches. We prayed God's blessings on the island and that He would reveal His glory all over Jamaica. It was a very spiritually heavy day. So we finished off the day with a talent show to lighten the mood. After all, God does want us to have fun, even when we're praising Him. The show was hilarious, and Bob, the main speaker of the Wesley Foundation, said that it was hands down the best Jamaica talent show with no close second.
Then came Friday. We spent the morning in a Jamaican market, which was interesting because there was a lot of haggling going on, not something I'm used to. While we were there, we ran into all our friends from the other trips, the groups from Saint Anns and Montego Bay, and had a great reunion. But the real reunion was when we got to Dunns River, where we got to hang out on the beach and climb the falls. Friday was a good day, but in a very different way from the rest of the week. It was another community-centered day, much like last Saturday and Sunday, but in many ways, it was very different from Saturday and Sunday. For one thing, we all know each other on the PoMo trip now. And for another, we were preparing to leave Jamaica rather than preparing to be there for a week. We all had an intense longing to be able to stay in Jamaica longer, and in some ways, we got what we asked for: a handful of us stayed up all night, even though the hours dragged by and we felt like it would be impossible to stay awake. Of course, we all slept on the bus to the airport and on the plane back home. But those sleepless hours were just what we needed to get to know each other even better before returning home to Athens.
Jamaica depression started off a little rough. We got back to the airport in Atlanta, and we found out that half of our luggage had to be shipped on the next flight because of a conveyor belt malfunction. So we were stuck in the airport for another hour or so before we finally decided to leave and have them ship our bags to our houses. But at least we got to spend more time with each other, and a piece of us got to stay in Jamaica a little longer—just not the piece we would have liked (although our flight was delayed by about 15 minutes because of the malfunction before they decided to take off and send our luggage after us).
Anyway, now I'm back in Athens. I have about 50 new friends, including a couple Jamaicans, and 68 stronger friendships. I have a new understanding of service and hope, and a new joy in the Lord. I have more to share about what I learned this past week, but that will have to wait until later. Right now, I'm off to bed and looking forward to a new day in my walk with God, with my PoMo friends to keep me going strong.
Before I get into the details of the week, I have some explaining to do. I'm doing SPAM (Spiritual Preparation And Meditation), which is basically Lent with a specific purpose: giving up unnecessary use of secular technology to spend more time with God. So I was a little bit reluctant to get on Facebook to give an update because it felt like I was breaking Lent, but I was persuaded because I needed to do it in order to keep my relationship with all of you strong and to let you know what I did and learned this past week.
More than anything this week, I brought back with me an incredible sense of community. The majority of our time in Jamaica was spent getting to know each other: at the Casa Maria hotel, on the work sites, at Dunns River Falls, on the plane and the buses, and over some delicious food and around a box of "communal Whales." We brought back with us something practical: a group of 68 friends to hang out with and to keep each other accountable in our growth in Christ.
But that's not all we did in Jamaica, not by a long shot. We also had a chance to meet several Jamaicans and make friends with them, including Mr. Eddie and Melanie, who live on the farm that we worked at; Trevor and Edwin, our bus drivers; and Jonoy, Campbell, and Ricky, as well as the children of the Galina Primary School and many others (those were just the ones that I knew). We now have friends in Jamaica to stay in contact with, brothers and sisters from a foreign country that we can pray for to keep each other strong in our faith, and that we can just talk to about life.
But there's still more. Saturday and Sunday were community building days, time to get to know everyone on the Port Maria team and to see what Jamaican churches are like. I went to Port Maria United Church, which was incredible and very different from your typical American church: when the pastor asks you to greet your neighbor, he means, "Get up out of your seat, dance across the room, and greet everyone you make eye contact with." Then Monday came. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were our work days. We worked at two churches, Galina Primary, Mr. Eddie's farm, and Ms. Beth's house. My work sites were the farm, Ms. Beth's house, and Galina Primary, in that order.
At the farm, my team dug rocks out of a creek and built a dam, made stone steps leading to the creek and through the front of the farm, and filled in potholes in the long driveway leading to Mr. Eddie's house. I spent the majority of the morning with four or five other people digging rocks out of the creek, leaving us all with an immense sense of satisfaction: we had pulled rocks out of the rock bed that were up to half our size and at least half our weight. And we didn't just dig out one or two of them; we successfully conquered at least five rocks that size, one right after the other. We accomplished much more than any normal human being would have been capable of, and it showed how God's presence can make any job possible, no matter how difficult and seemingly impossible the task. Then, after we had eaten lunch and finished our section of the road, Mr. Eddie invited us to take a tour of his farm. So he led us into the jungle in his backyard, and showed us such generosity that he made "southern hospitality" look like post 9/11 airports. Mr. Eddie personally climbed a tree to cut down star apples for us, which was an interesting food experience, and we all got to taste coconut milk, jelly coconuts, and coconut meat (the white stuff on the inside of the shell). And before we left, Melanie, who is our age, made sure to get everyone's names so she could find us on Facebook. It was amazing to me just how similar Jamaicans are to us Americans, even though they're so different. When I go out of the country, I expect to have to speak slowly and explain everything, but they already understand so much of our culture that it was an easy transition.
On Tuesday I worked at Ms. Beth's house, working with a new team to lay the foundation for a new house. While there, we met Dennis, a very enthusiastic Jamaican and a very talented singer, who helped us with our work. We spent all day mixing and pouring concrete, which was a new experience for most of us. I was already sore from lifting rocks the day before, but God gave us all the strength we needed to get through the day.
Wednesday was a little different for me. After spending two days doing heavy manual labor, I got to mix some more concrete to help build a wall. But what was different about it was that we were building the wall for Galina Primary, which meant that we had time to spend with the kids during their recess. We started the day off by doing a devotional for the kids, and they especially enjoyed the "Tootietah" song, which they learned from the group that went on Monday. After the devotional, we immediately set to work on the wall. Then, after lunch we got to play with the kids, although it would probably be more accurate to say that they played with us. The girls played with everyone's hair, and the boys all fought for a ride on the guys' backs. I grew especially attached to Christopher, a very shy twelve-year-old, and Alex, an eight-year-old who just couldn't get his fill of piggyback rides. I was told later that the Wesley Foundation might be setting up some way to sponsor some of the Galina kids, so I would really like to sponsor Christopher and Alex, if possible.
Thursday was different for everyone. Instead of doing physically taxing work, we spent the morning at an infirmary, which was much more emotionally taxing for most people. It was sad because all the men and women there had been left there to die, but it was amazing to see the joy that they had despite that fact. Two men stuck out to me the most: Lloyd and Richard. Lloyd seemed, to me, to be one of the very few in his right mind. His hope was fully in the Lord, knowing that whatever happened, God would take care of him; and he was confident that healing is in His hands. But then I met Richard. Jon, a member of the Freshley, Wesley, and Watkinsville First Baptist praise bands, had his guitar with him, so he started playing, and Richard eagerly joined in singing and listening. He was so joyful to hear Jon play and sing along with a handful of other guys on the trip, and it was incredible to see the effect he had, directly and indirectly through us, on the others in the infirmary. After laying hands on him to pray, he closed us out with a powerful prayer—not powerful because of the words he was saying, but because of the passion in his words, despite his frailty. Then, after our oddly joyful goodbyes, we left for Port Maria United Church for some more prayer time. We stayed at the church for a couple hours just worshiping and praying, singing to God and interceding for the Jamaicans, Mr. Eddie and Melanie, Ms. Beth, Trevor, the kids at Galina Primary, and both churches. We prayed God's blessings on the island and that He would reveal His glory all over Jamaica. It was a very spiritually heavy day. So we finished off the day with a talent show to lighten the mood. After all, God does want us to have fun, even when we're praising Him. The show was hilarious, and Bob, the main speaker of the Wesley Foundation, said that it was hands down the best Jamaica talent show with no close second.
Then came Friday. We spent the morning in a Jamaican market, which was interesting because there was a lot of haggling going on, not something I'm used to. While we were there, we ran into all our friends from the other trips, the groups from Saint Anns and Montego Bay, and had a great reunion. But the real reunion was when we got to Dunns River, where we got to hang out on the beach and climb the falls. Friday was a good day, but in a very different way from the rest of the week. It was another community-centered day, much like last Saturday and Sunday, but in many ways, it was very different from Saturday and Sunday. For one thing, we all know each other on the PoMo trip now. And for another, we were preparing to leave Jamaica rather than preparing to be there for a week. We all had an intense longing to be able to stay in Jamaica longer, and in some ways, we got what we asked for: a handful of us stayed up all night, even though the hours dragged by and we felt like it would be impossible to stay awake. Of course, we all slept on the bus to the airport and on the plane back home. But those sleepless hours were just what we needed to get to know each other even better before returning home to Athens.
Jamaica depression started off a little rough. We got back to the airport in Atlanta, and we found out that half of our luggage had to be shipped on the next flight because of a conveyor belt malfunction. So we were stuck in the airport for another hour or so before we finally decided to leave and have them ship our bags to our houses. But at least we got to spend more time with each other, and a piece of us got to stay in Jamaica a little longer—just not the piece we would have liked (although our flight was delayed by about 15 minutes because of the malfunction before they decided to take off and send our luggage after us).
Anyway, now I'm back in Athens. I have about 50 new friends, including a couple Jamaicans, and 68 stronger friendships. I have a new understanding of service and hope, and a new joy in the Lord. I have more to share about what I learned this past week, but that will have to wait until later. Right now, I'm off to bed and looking forward to a new day in my walk with God, with my PoMo friends to keep me going strong.
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