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| The fact that my first blog entry of 2007 comes in the middle of the month of May should be a clue that I don't do this often enough. Many times I don't feel the need to update because I don't feel like I am doing anything worth telling people about, but it is in those times that I need prayers the most. So, unfortunately, this will probably be my last blog while I am in India. My countdown is at 24 days and change. I am really excited about what God has for me in the coming years. I will be attending seminary either at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary or Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary. The reasoning behind this is that they give really good scholarships for journeyman! Anyways! I will be there working on my master's degree and possibly my doctorate before I head back overseas to live my life serving the Lord and telling others about His plan for their lives. I'm not 100% certain about timing, but then again, I never have been. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me over the past 2 years. Your prayers have made a difference in my life.
I would like to take a little bit of time to give thanks to a great man of faith who recently went to be with his father in heaven. Don and his wife Melba have been a part of my life before I was even born. She would teach the sunday school kids about missionaries and he would raise money so that the church could go on mission trips. It was this pair that knew where God was calling me, even before I knew what God had in mind for me. I will always remember Don as a very loyal friend and great example of the faith. He was 74 when he passed away. Right before he had a heart attack, he was planning with Melba about what they still needed to buy for their upcoming mission trip to build a church in Brazil in the next couple of weeks. I only hope that I can live a similar life and have a similar impact on people's lives as Don had. He will be missed, but there are hundreds of people in heaven who were waiting to greet him because he enabled others to share the gospel while he worked behind the scenes. Thank you Don, for all that you have done. I will miss you.
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| Hey guys!
I didn't realize that it had been so long since I had posted, but I was
doing some blog surfing and realized that some people actually post
WEEKLY updates instead of QUARTERLY updates :) Anyways, things have
been really crazy around here for the past couple of months. I can't
believe that I could be sitting at home (for good this time) in as
little as 5 months. It just seems like yesterday when I stepped off of
the airplane with the Welborn's and got my first taste of India. Enough
nostalgia!
I just thought that I would wish all of you a very merry Christmas and
a happy new year and show you some pics from our tree decorating that
some new friends and I did a couple of days ago, but since I didn't
actually take any of me hanging stuff on it, those will have to wait
until my next entry.
Here is the whole thing.
And my massive star
and this isnt Christmassy... I just thought it was an awesome towel to find in a random market
FRAGGLES ROCK!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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| Time sure seems to fly by! I can't believe that I have been here over a year, and it seems like I am just starting to catch a glimpse of what God is doing, and how He is working among the people, not to mention how he is working in me! Great things have been happening over the past could of months and I don't think that I will be able to remember all of them, but I will try.
I'll start with my time in Thailand. Our annual meeting was a great time of refreshment and spiritual renewal. I didn't realize how much I missed fellowship with other people who speak my language! Needless to say, right before I left for Thailand, I think that I was going through a bit of culture shock, and this was the best thing for it. It was wonderful to see friends, and hear testimonies about what God is doing throughout our region.
I came back home with a fire both for my people, and a fresh sense of God's continual work in me as a man, and as a servant. I immediately put some things into practice that I felt God had led me to do while I was away, and I'm happy to report that everything is going great.
In Thailand, I met some of the new people in our region that are doing some amazing work down south as a result of the tsunami relief work and now their influence is spreading all over South Asia! I had the opportunity to go to this training and make a plan to start teachig this training in various places in my area. Please pray that God would lead me to catch more of a vision about where He wants this wonderful information to be taught specifically.
I was able to get quite a bit of work done on a video that I am producing that should be a great help to those who are interested in praying for the people group that I am working among. This video will, eventually, be a 12 min explination of what these people believe, and how they attempt to reach god. I hope that God will be able to use it to equip many people back home as they pray for the nations! I should be done with that within a week, and then I have to send it off to be OK'ed by the regional folks who deal with security.
On a more personal note, I'm finally starting to get into a rhythm when it comes to sharing my faith and trying to impact the city that I live in with the truth of the gospel. I would never have guessed that I would enjoy this aspect of our walk so much! While I can't speak the language enough to tell people in their own language, most of the college students that I speak with go to school where the classes (university & post graduate level) are only taught in language, so I would not be surprised if they have a better grasp of the english language than I do! I have had multiple opportunities to share with people since I have been back, and, even now, God is urging me to spend more time out in the community sharing with random people that I meet and befriend. I'll let you know more about that as it comes up.
That's about all that is going on right now. I'm enrolled in some online courses through a seminary back home. So far I have learned tons of new stuff that I am able to apply almost as I learn it! It's amazing that I like to be at school now that I enjoy what I am learning about.
Through my time in Thailand, and now back home, I truly believe that I am being called to do this kind of work for the rest of my life. It's an amazing thing to think about, but God has been faithful to this point, and I know that He is faithful, and will be faithful, to the end. I don't know what kind of time frame I will be looking at, but I know that once I get home, seminary is in the making, and that might include several more years of study (possibly a doctorate?) and I need to set some other things in order, so I will be at home preparing for the journey ahead for a couple of years before I make the long trip. That is too far in the future for me to worry about now :). I hope that this update finds everyone well. Know that you are in my prayers and I apprecieate your prayers.
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| Man it has been a long time since I posted anything on my website. I do appologize to anyone who checks it. It has been a time of trial for me as I come to the midpoint of my time over here. This happens with just about everything that I do evidently (school especially . But, through quite a bit of Prayer, and a few kicks in the behind from Daddy up above, somehow I have managed to make my way above the muck and mire of everyday life and catch anew a breath of what He is doing in my area.
I covet your pr@yers over the next couple of weeks, more than ever. One of the things that has jolted me out of my time of culture shock is the prospect of some new projects on the horizion. One that will begin within the next couple days is a virtual video pr@yerwalk for my people group. I am very excited with the prospect of taking video footage and compiling it in a way to allow people back home to view it and know how to pr@y for the people over here.
Later this month, I will travel to Thailand to go to our region's annual meeting. Please pr@y for all of the people who will be traveling over the next couple of weeks to vacation before and after the meeting. I will not be doing any such thing as I got to take a great week at home to celebrate the accomplishments of my mentor as he retired.
I started my master's degree through my company. This being my first time actually paying (from my own bank account) for my education, I felt a much higher sense of needing to do well, I don't know why :) All in all, I got a B+ in the class and this next semester, I will be working on several more classes to get a jump start on my Mdiv. Please pr@y that I will be faithful to my studies and balance the time required for the classes with my work.
I mentioned a fresh breath of what Daddy is doing over here, and I will delve into that for the remainder of this update. It is really exciting to see what Daddy can do even with the people we thought were unreachable.
Last month, our national partner Sidney* (a pseudonym) held a training. This was exciting for several reasons. Firstly, this was the first time that he did the seminar on his own, completely in the language of the people he was speaking to. There were no white people there for him to translate for, his only authority came from the Word. Secondly, through that training, Daddy has been doing amazing works. As a result of the training (over the past 20 days) there have been at least 4 new fellowships established in homes in an area that is the enemie's largest stronghold in our whole area. And its not just that these 4 have been established that is the exciting part. Those four (accounting for about 30 new brothers and sisters) are all the result of only one man who was at the confrence. That one man took the good news to his family and began a work, then some friends who heard about what had happened, invited him to another village to hear the same good news, and those friends all made a glorious decision. Those friends went to another village to talk with their families, and their families and friends in ANOTHER VILLAGE! Pr@ise God. We can see a start of something that we hope will consume the whole region with the fire of the Comforter. These fellowships are growing as we speak, and now it is time for you to jump in. Please pr@y for protection for these people as they come into a renewed life, and a radical life. Their step of faith is putting them at odds with their surrounding families, and the persecution is starting to slowly unfold. Pr@y for strength during these times of emotional, and physical stress. | | |
| Greetings from the village!
It has been an eye opening experience to live out of the reach of McDonalds and KFC. I have had more 'cultural experiences' in the past two weeks, than I had in the first seven months that I lived here. Thank you for all of your prayers during this time, I have needed every one.
So on to my new experience of the day. Today I got to go to a wedding! How exciting! It was everything that I had expected (my expectations were low) and I was even shocked by some of the practices that this certain pastor implemented. Needless to say, my host was supposed to be the officiator, but for reasons that were unspoken ($) the pastor who set these two people up (mediator between families in an arranged marriage) wanted to be the person to wed them. Ahh well, I got to sit in the front and look at the faces of the couple. I have seen enough movies from this culture to know that marriage is not a happy time for either the bride or groom. Luckily the bride only broke down in tears one time while at the 'altar.' The only time I saw a crack of a smile in either face was when their friends and families were all throwing money into their laps to help them get started. Now to the weird part. Two or three times in the wedding ceremony, the preacher told the people to give HIM money!!! As they were giving to their families, they were also expected to give to, I think the phrase was, 'Gds ministry.' Needless to say, I was not too happy with this, but I smiled and prayed that he would get what he deserved (in both a nice and not nice way). It was an experience. I leave the village in a little more than a day and make the 6 hour bus ride back to my apartment in 4 hours!! WOO HOO!
I hope that y'all (happy alisha?) are having a blessed week. Catch you on the flip side. | | |
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