Preparing for take off

I cannot believe our time in SA is nearly over. It has been such an amazing trip. God is daily blowing me away with his love and faithfulness and relentless pursuit of my own heart. We just returned yesterday from Pilanesberg. We were able to be amoung the mist of God and the glory of his wonderful creation while taking sometime to reflect and evaluate on all that he has done in just the last 7 weeks. I am daily grateful to have had the opportunity to follow Jesus here this summer and I cannot wait to tell you all more about the work He is doing in the hearts of our team, UJB students and myself. Thanks for your prayers. Please pray for safe travels.

Delightful

"God is most Glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." This was the main point that the speaker at our leadership retreat spoke on. We talked about how serving the Lord in an honorable way can be done from duty, desire, or delight. All three are honorable, but only one is the best. We can have all sorts of reasons to read our bibles, pray, go to church, share our faith, go to Christian things, or do good deeds. God wants us to find delight in these things and more than anything he wants us to find delight in Him. It brings him the most Glory when we read our bibles, because we just couldn't help ourselves. Duty and desire are honorable, but what a sweet place it is for us to be when we are delighting in the Lord. After all he did come that we might have life and have it abundantly! His word promises that in his presence are pleasures forever more. The problem is not that we desire lesser things, the problem is that our desire are not great enough. We can desire so little that a lifeless idol might temporarily fulfill that desire. But God wants to give us desires that only he might possibly meet. This is what i have been praying, that God would make my desires so Big, that running to anything else would just seem unthinkable. That my heart would say with the Psalmist. "Whom have i in heaven but you, and earth has nothing a desire but you" oh God. (psalm 73) Why do we settle for lesser joys, when God is continually inviting us to come and find true and full joy in him, like he invites in Isaiah 55. After all Jesus did say that the Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When we finally see just how good it is, we go and sale everything, just that we might have the treasure. We always praise what we prize, and we will never give him the praise he deserves unless we are truly prizing him far above all other things. Fight to Delight in God my friends! he is the only one who can satisfy the thirst in our souls. Thanks for praying!

word alive!

This past week we attended a conference at Melville Union Church with the student leaders. This conference was truly a blessing. I feel like the students were really encouraged to step out of their comfort zones and begin to walk by faith. One of the main themes of the conference was how God chooses to use weak sinners like me and you, to do impossible things for His glory. We all at times can feel crippled by our circumstances or our inadequacies. God has so many things he wants to use his children for, and often the weaker we are the better because it creates room for his power to be made perfect in us. Matt Ballard, a pastor from Atlanta, gave a wonderful talk on discipleship (2 Timothy 2:1-7). He reminded us that the gospel was meant to be passed on. How often do we keep this wonderful gift of God’s grace to ourselves and miss out on all of the goodness and riches he wants us to experience through living our lives for the sake of his kingdom and glory and dying to our selves? The students were all greatly encouraged by the preaching, comforting, and strengthening of God’s word, as were we. Pray that we would all realize how much this thing called life is not about us, and it is all about HIM.

Please keep praying for the leadership camp in Sun Valley this weekend. This will be the last time we get to deeply invest in the students.

From God's word

2 Corinthians 5:14 “For the love of Christ compels us.”

Some of my friends on Summer Beach Project are learning about the meaning of this verse this summer. But lately it has taken on a new meaning for me. As a team we are reading a book by Jerry Bridges called Transforming Grace, and we are studying the book of 1 Thessalonians. One of the chapters in TG is about being compelled by God’s love. I have also just applied this verse to giving my life away to others. Knowing that since God has so deeply loved me; I should go and love others. But this past week I have been learning how Christ’s love is what should compel me to love God. I think so many times as Christians we get is wrong. We turn our walk with the Lord into a list of dos and don’ts and some how convince ourselves that if you do enough right God will love us more but if you do too much wrong God will love us less. This is all wrong. I am not supposed to read my bible in the morning or pray or go to church so that I can receive some extra blessing for the day or week. But Christ’s love for me should be compelling me to love him back out of desire and gratitude. It is not a fear of consequence or expectation of reward that should keep us pursing the heart of God, but a pure and utter love for Him. I am thankful the Lord has been gracious enough to remind me of this truth.

Children's Farm

This Saturday we went to a place where all of the farm children from that town come on Saturday mornings. A couple from Holland owns the land. Every Saturday they pick up all the children, bring them here for a bible lesson and then play games with them. This past weekend we had the privilege of playing with these children, having a cookout with them, and sharing a bible message with them. None of them were able to speak English, but it was neat to see how even that did not stop God from showing all of us His love in a deeper way. Saturdays have been so refreshing. Getting to serve and show God’s love to people in this way always brings our team together with love and joy.

Loving South Africa

Mamelodi:
On Saturday we went to a township to work with an organization called Africa Revolution. This ministry is partnered with a church called, Power House, and together they are working to reach out to the community be bringing the message and the ministry of Christ. We spent the day working on two houses, owned by elderly widows. We had the opportunity of cleaning and painting the houses. It was such a refreshing time to serve in this way. Even getting to work along side the church members and share stories and learn about what God is doing in their lives was beautiful. It was good to be reminded that God is God of the Universe, and His love remains the same no matter where you go.

Culture:
The African culture is much different from American culture and I am learning a lot from it. The Christians I have met here are very grateful to the God for everything he does. As a matter of fact they are very grateful to everyone. It has shown me how often I can just be about me and not others. Even those who have very little to give, are constantly giving. Lifestyle here is very communal. So people are always eating together and sitting around and talking together and enjoy each other. It has shown me that I don’t stop to do that enough. Everyone shares everything which I love, because most do not have a lot. The students we have been getting to know have an eagerness and a hunger to know God more like you would not believe. South Africa is beautiful. The people, the landscape, and the languages are all so beautiful. The Lord is really teaching me to slow down more and take those things in.

And.... we're... outta here!!

Oh wow! I cannot even begin to express the excitement and joy in my heart! First of all God is amazing, He has truly done immeasurably more ALREADY than all that I could have asked or imagine. As far as support...He provided not only for what i needed, my goal, or what i was trusting him for, but even beyond that! We leave in just two days to go to Johannesburg. I honestly don't know what to expect from this summer. I just know that I expect God to show up and do BIG, HUGE, AMAZING things for his Kingdom through and in us....He likes to do that ;)
Thank you so much everyone who has supported and who has been praying. It means more than you'll ever know! I'm ready! Let's GO!

"...Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire, Let me not sink to be a clod. Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God." -Amy Carmichael

LOVE AND GRACE