The third hour.

Blog break.

My butt is bored.

My back is bent.

My brain is bloated.

I have been working on my Pioneers application for the past three hours. Almost done. Kinda. Its good though. I get to remember all the fundamentals. Here are a few cool reminders. Take a minute for each of them and remember that these are truths. They are a reality!

Jesus is in heaven right now interceding for me!

I am a co-heir of Christ!

I have been justified in the sight of God. He does not see my sin, guilt, or shame.

The essential guide to a perfect Indian Party

1. Have good food.

When Indians say that they eat meat, they generally mean chicken, not beef. When we invited our neighbors over, they told us that they wanted to come over on Friday and not Saturday because one of the guys does not eat meat on Saturday. We took that to mean that they wanted us to make them some meat- like, some manly meat. We went to the store and picked out some nice seasoned beef. Enough for all the guys next door to enjoy. When we served it, they asked what it was and Emily said, "beef." I followed up with, "you know, cow." And then we realized: we were talking to Hindu Indians.

2. Remember your guests' names; use household objects as a guide when necessary.

Emily started this fad. We have a little 3 year-old friend who we called "pair of shoes" until we could remember that his name is Predju. (It actually does sound similar).

So tonight, one of the neighbors was asking me if I remembered his name. I was babbling and making up excuses about why I forgot when all of the sudden... I remembered his nick name! Ball of Cheese. I shouted, "Wait, Ballocheze!" The whole room erupted in laughter. I was so sure that he was going to walk right out the door because I called him a ball of cheese. But to my surprise, he gave me a high five and said, "you remembered!"

3. Music is a must-have.

We got to playing some music for each other, just enjoying the different types of music that was being preformed. We ended up singing My God is Mighty to Save, and Blessed be the Name of the Lord for our new friends. It was sweet. And they loved it. And we are praying that someday they will be singing with us.

4. To ensure good party conversations, always have a Monique handy.

Monique was talking to one of the girls who came over, and she wants to go to church with us on Sunday. Aaaaaand, she saw one of the post-it notes with a Bible verse on it that Monique had put up last weekend and commented on how much she liked it. Monique told her to take it, and she so excitedly did.

5. Make secret plans.

I can't reveal this one yet, but it is going to be good.

Soon an exhaustive Indian survival guide will be out, but for now, I need sleep. It is almost two by now, and I am helping a family pack up for a move tomorrow before work.

GOOD NIGHT.

TRUST

I have to trust God right now. Every little bit of my flesh wants to worry, but I won't let it.

I am going to give a letter to the elders of my church today. I am asking them for their blessing and support to be a missionary. I just fear that they are going to say, "not yet."

But I am not going to worry about it. How could I be arrogant enough to think that I know better than the godly authorities that he has placed over me? The elders are there to shepherd me.

Besides, it's not about me. God will build His Church (Matthew 16). So I know that if He tells me, through my elders, that I am not ready yet, that I will wait on Him and be assured that He is still going to accomplish His plan- with or without me. (But isn't it so stinking cool that He uses us? I love being a servant of the Most High God!)

Goings on

 I first started this blog when we were just getting to know our neighbors. Now that we know them much better, and interact with them regularly, it is hard for me to remember to update you guys on how everything is going because it's not that big of a deal anymore.

Yesterday I was unloading the dishwasher and I was thinking about sharing the gospel with our Indian neighbors. We have not laid it out for them yet. We do not understand how we should approach it. They are hindu, and they believe in many different gods. They go to the temple to worship, and they pray in the mornings. Then I was thinking, however we do this, it is going to step on their toes. Our interactions might be awkward for a while afterwards. They might get offended and not be our friends anymore. 

And then I was thinking about overseas missions. I usually have this inaccurate picture in my head that I am just going to go overseas and tell people the story of God, and that it is going to be such music to their ears that they all fall on their faces in worship of the One True God. But I forget that before I (when I say "I", that includes the team of believers that I will be a part of) will be friends with the people when I move to their country. I will have lived with them, learned their language, and asked thousands of questions about their culture. I will have cried with them, laughed with them, and we will be friends. I think about sharing the gospel with them then. I will probably loose some friends. That is okay. I must tell them to repent because I love them. Dude, I love them already, and I don't even know them yet. I pray for them, and so my heart is already attached to them. Please pray for the people that I will be living among in a few years. Pray that their hearts will be opened to the gospel. 

Ok, but back to being a missionary today... sometimes I just really enjoy being friends with my neighbors and I just get comfortable around them. But then yesterday happened, and I remembered how exciting it was to watch God move in the beginning. 

Mike and his son, Alex, live in the apartment below us. A few weeks ago it was Alex's birthday, so we gave him a card with some money in it. When we gave it to him, Mike was blown away. He could not understand why the heck we would do something like that. 

Fast foreword to last night. We borrowed Mike's broom to sweep off our porch. When we brought it back to him, he handed us a brand new broom! He was so stoked for what we did for his son that he wanted to do something nice for us. Wow.   (Plus the fact that through him, God provided a broom for us!)

After this, we were feeling good, so we walked the 6 feet across to the neighbors who live directly across from us. They are a bunch of Indian bachelors, probably in their early 30's. We haven't really had any good interactions with them, hellos and how are you doings, but that is about it. Their door was open because they were cleaning, so we poked our heads in and introduced ourselves again. We had such a blast trying to say each other's names and invited them all to dinner on Friday night. We are inviting all four apartments in our block, and we hope that not only will we get to know all of the neighbors a little bit better, but hopefully they will get to know each other. Please pray that they see God in us, and not just think that we are good people. 

false prophets and true prophets

Since moving to Simi Valley nearly a year ago I have unknowingly begun to buy into this false gospel that "God wants me to be spoiled rotten here on earth." I can't find that anywhere in scripture.

     Now that i think about it, I have believed this my entire life. That is why i don't give away very much money. Because i still want to have enough to go out with my friends and play and stuff. That is why i don't pray as much and read scripture as much and fast and tell people hard truths on and on I could go.

When you think of the people in Africa, you think: starving. AIDS. dirty. they need me. 

     But when you actually go see what is on the other side of the camera, you realize that they are quite happy people, especially the Christians. I will never forget the words of a pastor from Kibera, Africa's largest slum. Some other Americans and I were visiting this church and he said, "Most people look at us and think that we need to get out of this slum. But why do we need an Exodus? God has found us here."

     As those words ring in my ears, I wonder why I am so surprised at what he said. I think, "They don't have anything and yet they are so happy! How can this be?" 

Then I realize: Every day in America, I am bombarded by media. Everywhere I look, everyone is telling me that I need more in order to be happy. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Literally. Satan uses media to tell us that we need new stuff and more stuff and better stuff. He tells us that if we do not have it, we should be miserable. And somehow, we believe him. That is why we are so surprised. 

And we carry this view over into our view of God. We assume that God wants us to be happy. So we make decisions based on that assumption. 

I have been reading Ezekiel lately, and it is rocking my world. God loves Ezekiel. He is His chosen prophet. Yet God asks Ezekiel to do some hard stuff. He has to lay on his side for over a year (and then on the other side for 40 days)! God asks him to become like an exile in front of everyone. He does all of this stuff to symbolize Israel's unfaithfulness and coming judgement. It's just crazy that Ezekiel is one of the few righteous men left among Israel, and yet God asks him to do all of the uncomfortable stuff. 

Meanwhile, there are these false prophets going around telling everyone, "Peace!" They are like, "Don't worry guys, we are God's chosen people. He loves us, and would never harm us."

So naturally, the people believe the false prophets who are proclaiming peace rather than Ezekiel who is telling the hard truth. 

Oh Lord, please give us the grace to see you as you really are, not as we wish you would be!

The will of the Father

   Ok, here goes an attempt at trying to figure out what just happened. We got back from Mexico on Friday, and I am still recovering from spiritual whiplash. 

Here is a typical day at Mexico Caravan Ministries :

6:30 Rise and Shine!

7:00 Morning Devotionals (by ourselves) 

7:30 Breakfast

8:00 Morning Meeting (someone would teach us from the Word, either a guest speaker or Eddie, the man in charge)

9:30ish Head off to build a house

We spent the rest of the day building, usually finishing the house between 3 and 4 o'clock.

After that, was pretty much free time except on Tuesday and Thursday night we met together to hear staff testimonies. 

  The really cool part for me was that I knew most of the speakers and  some of the staff. The whole week they spoke Truth from the Word. The funny thing is, from all of the teaching we heard, I really did not learn anything new. Like, I had heard all of what they taught before. It was just  that they taught with authority and conviction. They did not go easy on us because the commands are hard. They did not give us the option to just sit and listen. It was quite clear that obedience is the only option. But breathe. There is joy in obedience. 

    Have you ever asked the question, "God, what is your will for my life?" I thought you might have. Guess what! I know the answer!

God's will for your life is this:  Find out what His will is, and mold your life to fit His will.

Easy as that. 

But how do I find out what the will of God is? Read the Bible. Just start reading. Pay attention to what God's heart is, and viola. You understand the will of God. Not as big of a deal as you thought (I mean, seriously, If God is about accomplishing His will--which He is--why would He hide it from us? He has clearly laid it out in His word).

Here is one thing that hit me this week. The weight of the cross. 

Think with me for a minute. If you were living in Jesus-times, and you heard that your neighbor was carrying his cross, you would assume that he was going to die very soon. Like, that day. We would run outside and watch him walk the narrow road to his death. 

He only had one option at this point: death. He could not lay his cross down and say never mind. He could not stop and get a new pair of shoes first, or say wait, I wanted to say goodbye to my family. He only had one thing on his mind: death.

When I decided to follow Jesus, he commanded me to pick up my cross in order to follow Him. He did not feel sorry for me because it is heavy. He did not apologize for the inconvenience. He requires much of his followers.  

       So, this week what I experienced this week was the heartbeat of God. It was not new, but refreshingly old. 

I have lost nothing

I am reading a book by Elizabeth Elliot, and I just want to share a huge truth that I have just come to realize. 

This is an excerpt from a letter that she received from Jim Elliot before they were married. They wanted so badly to be married, but the Lord told them to wait. They would get frustrated thinking about the fact that they could be doing missions together, but then Jim said this:

     "Besides this, there is the somewhat philosophical realization that actually I have lost nothing. We may imagine what it would be like to share a given event and feel loss at having to experience it alone. But let us not forget-- that loss is imagined , not real. I imagine peaks of enjoyment when I think of doing things together, but let not the hoping for it dull the doing of it alone. What is, is actual-what might be simply is not, and I must not therefore query God as though He robbed me-- of things that are not. ... Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living."

   Wow. Now, I am not in the same boat as Jim and Elizabeth, but it still applies to my desires. Sometimes I just really want to go to the beach, or go be doing missions on the other side of the world, and not just in Simi Valley, or I want to go backpacking with my friends.

     But when I have to work on Saturday, and can't go on the backpacking trip, or when I am don't have enough gas money to drive to the beach, I just have to remember that I have lost nothing. 

Be encouraged. God is good.

Mexico prayer letter.

I went to mexico this past week, and here is the prayer letter that I sent out to the Church prior to the trip. I will write about the trip soon!

Hello Family!

I am so excited to tell you more of what God is doing in my neck of the woods. I have the wonderful opportunity, along with some other leaders at my church (Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, CA www.cornerstonesimi.com ), to take a group of high school students to Mexico on a mission trip. We are leaving today and we will return on Friday.  We are driving down to Tijuana, Mexico for two reasons:

Reason number one: We are going to be God’s hands to his children in Tijuana who are in need of a better living situation. We will build one living structure each day. We are going to put up four walls and a roof, trusting that God will turn those shelters into homes. 

Reason number two: To mobilize the hearts of the students that we are bringing down there. More than 40% of the world has no access to the Gospel. They do not have anybody or any literature in their language that will lead them to the knowledge of the one true God. While the people of Tijuana have plenty of access to God and his Word, we will be using the change of culture and the third-world environment to teach the students about the need for the Gospel all over the world. 

In Matthew 9:37, Jesus says that there are many people who are ready to hear about Him, but there are very few people who will go and share His love with them. Please pray that the students who are going this week will understand God’s heart for the world and give their lives to spreading the love of God to the unreached. 

Thank you for your prayers!

Bethany Reinbolt

Check my blog a few days after we get back because I will post a report about how the trip went. www.stubborngrace.blogspot.com 

You can also find out more about the status of the Gospel around the world on www.joshuaproject.net