On Mission

My friend Tom is proposing to his girlfriend, Alli, as we speak. Our little community has been planning this out for quite some time now. Everyone has had a hand in making today super special for Alli. Dan and Emily have been practicing the songs that they are singing, Charity and Mark prepared the food, Tom and Dan did tons of stuff like renting boats, borrowing cars, and driving a few hours north to get the ring. It's been cool and fun to see everyone working together to accomplish the goal.

Yesterday afternoon everyone was over at our apartment running through the final plans. And last night Emily and Dan sang the proposal song as a final practice. When Tom realized that the next time he would hear them sing that he would be engaged, he started to get nervous for the first time, and everyone else had the feeling that you get on Christmas Eve. After that the guys said goodbye and we all went to sleep. 

When I woke up this morning the apartment was already buzzing with excitement. Lor was curling Emily's hair, Charity was looking up the recipes, and I was walking around thinking "Merry Christmas! What should I do?"      Soon the guys came over and we were getting closer and closer to fulfilling the mission. It was just so cool to see everyone working together to help out our brother Tom. The people who are making this possible are not gaining anything from this, they are doing out of love for Tom and Alli. 

Right now our church is having a Gospel conference. We are meeting together daily this week and strategizing the best way to live out the Gospel. We are finding that the most Biblical way to do this is to live our normal lives. but with Gospel intentions. Just like our little group has been strategizing and doing everything in our power to make Tom's  proposal the best that it could be, we should be working together and meeting together with the purpose of sharing the Gospel with the people who are in our lives. 

The end of demolition.

For the past two years and three months, God has been tearing down the temple walls that house the idols in my life. Now the walls have been torn down, and lately he has been going straight for the actual idols and destroying them altogether. Let me tell you, it hurts to have those things that I love and worship torn away from me. But thanks be to God that through His grace He is destroying them for me. It probably wouldn't hurt so bad to have them stripped away if I weren't grasping them so tightly, but where I  am weak, God is strong. Where I have failed, God's grace is abounding all the more! I am glad that it has been this painful so that God's grace might shine through, rather than if I would have had an easy battle and not received as much of God's grace, because If I did not have such a tight grip on those idols, the measure of God's mercy and grace would be less.

I know that it's too soon to say, but I think that this morning was the end of demolition--well, at least in one area of my life. I am finding it hard to articulate my experience with grace, and I don't want to make light of it, so I am just going to give a little nugget of goodness for you to chew on for today.  

When Jesus rose from the dead, he rose to show that God's wrath was satisfied in the sacrifice of his perfect and holy Son. When I sin, and I beat myself up about it and feel guilty, I am insulting God, saying that His grace is not enough. The blood that Jesus shed is enough! With that knowledge, I can enjoy the grace that Jesus died to give me! God has graciously saved me from his wrath! Before I believed, he poured his mercy out on me until the day that his grace captured me and saved me eternally! Hallelujah!! Amen. 

defining the term

MISSIONARY.

What exactly is a missionary? Here at Cornerstone and EBC we throw the term around quite a bit. I have heard people use the term "missionary" in these ways:

"We should all be missionaries where we are; in our neighborhoods, at work, and with our families."
"You are a missionary wherever you go."
"I want to be a missionary."
"A missionary is one who preaches the gospel where Christ has not yet been named; every thing else is just cross cultural evangelism."

Ok, so often times when I talk to my dad on the phone, I ask him when he is going to be a missionary. I usually get the same reply, "I am a missionary. God has called me to do Upward Basketball." Dude. That is totally legit. But for some reason I keep pressing. I just feel like using my life to tell the unreached about the Gospel is so important, and I want others to share in that joy with me...I especially want my parents to share that, because I love them so dearly.

So, yesterday I brought the question up again. "Dad, when are you going to be a missionary?" He replied, "If I am going to be a missionary, I am probably going to do domestic missions. I would probably go to the poverty-stricken Appalachia region." I accepted the reply not so much out of satisfaction with the answer as out of respect for my father.

Then this morning I was praying for him. I asked God how I should pray for him, and God totally humbled me. God pretty much said that being a missionary to Appalachia was more an act of humility than going to an unreached tribe somewhere over seas. For my parents to get up and move to the most un-glorious place in America, for the sake of the gospel is truly sacrifice.

As much as I would love for them to experience planting a church in the jungle somewhere, I think that being a "missionary" in the Appalachian Mountains is a greater sacrifice. Who wouldn't want to go live in the beautiful jungle, learn a new culture and language, and then see a pure and beautiful church form out of nothing? There is so much reward in that, even here on earth! But to go live in the poverty of forgotten America, among the narrow minds of the religious folk and the moonshine and shotguns would take a serious act of humility.

With all of that said, I still think that a missionary is one who goes out to the unreached. Sharing the Gospel where you are, that is called a Christian.

So, if you are seirously staying in America as an act of submission to God, and not as a cop-out for going overseas, Hallelujah! Praise God that you are so overwhelmed by his love that you are sharing it with your unbelieving friends here. But if your reason for staying is that you have not felt "called" to missions....we have some talking to do.

forgetting what we dont know

At the beginning of this month, we started approaching prayer as if we knew nothing about it. It was raw. It was pure. It was sweet. We learned so much because we had so much to learn.

But lately we have forgotten our place in the story of God. We have seen God do so many amazing things through our prayers, and so we turned the camera onto ourselves. For a while we imagined that we were the main characters. We started praying for the needs that we saw without asking Him what the needs really were. Because we imagined our roles to be greater than they really are, we tried to play a part that was not ours to play. We have also stopped asking God to grant us the grace to pray, and as a result, we have been neglecting to meet together some times.

Tonight we are going to start fresh again. I am excited to pray again. And I am so thankful that I do get to play a part in the story of God. And the part that I play is not insignificant, as long as I play the role that I have been assigned.


In his grace,

bethy

Psam 86

86:1 Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,for I am poor and needy.
2 Preserve my life, for I am godly;save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,for to you do I cry all the day.
4 Gladden the soul of your servant,for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;listen to my plea for grace.
7 In the day of my trouble I call upon you,for you answer me.
8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,nor are there any works like yours.
9 All the nations you have made shall comeand worship before you, O Lord,and shall glorify your name.
10 For you are great and do wondrous things;you alone are God.
11 Teach me your way, O Lord,that I may walk in your truth;unite my heart to fear your name.
12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,and I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your steadfast love toward me;you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
14 O God, insolent men have risen up against me;a band of ruthless men seeks my life,and they do not set you before them.
15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me;give your strength to your servant,and save the son of your maidservant.
17 Show me a sign of your favor,that those who hate me may see and be put to shamebecause you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

My brain is so very scatterd right now, ok, not my brain, my thoughts, but just work with me people. I just have so much information to process through right now and I hope that you guys can help me work through it. Ill tell you how:

Background information: When I went to Africa in '06 I went with an orginization (it just took me 3 tries to spell "orginization" because I am listening to music right now, and I CANNOT multi-task.) called PIONEERS. They are a missions agency based out of Orlando, FL. When I was in FL for briefing and de-briefing, I met the Director of Recruitment, Lauri Neivius. She is a way cool lady, and so very wise.

I found out that she was going to be in Southern California for a missions conference this week, and we planned on meeting up, but with the conference and all, it just didn't work out. So we had a phone conversation instead.

(I just want you to know that it is very hard for me to focus right now because there is a sea-gull in the dumpster and a random orange cat on my upstairs balcony. I don't know how it got up here. Crazy cat!)

The conversation with Lauri gave me so much clarity about the past three years of my life, and gave me some direction as far as preparing for missions goes. I was so ready to go, but I just didnt know what steps I needed to take next. Lauri gave me some great new jewels of wisdom, and confirmed some of the thoughts that I had already been thinking through.

This is where you come in. Sometime I will tell the story of everything between Africa and today. But as it is, we will start from today, and just take it as it comes. Today I am just asking you to pray for me. AHhh! Prayer. Prayer, prayer, prayer. OOhhh there is so much power in prayer. In prayer God reveals things, He uses prayer to accomplish is will, and it is just so sweet. I LOVE PRAYER. (Hmmm. I am going to write a post about prayer soon.)

-->Pray that I would find a group of 5-6 people who will committ to praying for me through this decision making process and who will even be willing to debrief me when I come back to the states on furlough. It would be best if there were some older people in this group, and preferably at least one person with missions experience.

--> Pray that I would choose the best orginization to serve with.

--> Pray for the people group that I will be serving. Pray that God will make ready their hearts to hear the Gospel.

--> Pray for the team that I will be serving with.

I am fully convinced that spreading the Gospel is the only thing that is worthy of spending my life on. I hope that you will join me as I continue taking steps towards the unreached.

In His Grace,

Bethany

Learning to enjoy Him

I have a hard time being still sometimes. I just don't like wasting time. I don't like wasting anything really, but that is beside the point. This is the story of how Emily and I enjoyed God for an afternoon.

Lately I have been in this crazy funk. I can't seem to figure out what God is trying to teach me. I have been really really selfish for the past two weeks, and I am allowing my feelings manifest themselves. Ugh! I hate hate hate being selfish. I really hate being in this place, where everything makes me irritable, and where I have to work so hard to love people. But I don't want it to pass yet. I really want to know what God is trying to produce in me.

Anyways, yesterday after class, Emily and I went to the beach and just enjoyed God's creation. The sun was so soft on our skin. It was warm, but not harsh. God allowed the sun to kiss my skin without burning me and causing me pain. I read Romans, and meditated upon chapter 8. It is so good. I am starting to think that the reason that I am in this "blah" state of being is that my whole self is groaning for the future glory that is to come. So, right now I am trying to process how I am able to enjoy God and his creation, and what my "groanings" tell me about this life. Hmmmm.....

Romans 8 talks about how the whole creation is groaning as it waits eagerly for the future glory. More on this later, but for now...go read Romans and then go back and meditate on chapter 8.

So, I have started this post three times, regarding three different topics, but this time I am just going to write and see what comes out. So, consider this a warning.

Man, I just don't want to write about myself right now. I want to write about beauty. I want to write something poetic. Something that makes you feel like you are sitting on a comfy chair in a little coffee shop, reading out of an old journal that you found in the old book case. Hmmm....I am just going to leave you with a few of my favorite quotes.

“I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” — Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf


“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light” — John Keith Falconer


When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.”

Trust. (and a little bit of discipline)

Ok, so this is going to be short, because my writing this at 12:42 a.m. is contradictory to what I am writing about.

TRUST.

I have to trust God for everything. Even things that I would not normally think require trust.

the sabbath.
homework.
my neighbors' salvation.
my future.
sleep.


I am learning that trusting God with my time is huge. If I am obedient to Him, he is faithful to give me exactly the amount of time that I need. For instance, when I sleep enough, I am in a much better mood, and much healthier. I just serve Him better when I get enough sleep. But for me, I always feel like I should be studying, praying, or serving someone instead of sleeping. I feel like it is just a waste of time to sleep. But I am noticing in my life, that when I am willing to trust Him with sleep, He is faithful to give me time to do what needs to be done. And by sleeping well, the time that I am awake is much more productive.

The same goes with taking a sabbath. I have to trust God when he says that I need rest.

It takes more discipline for me to rest than it does for me to put all of my effort into something. And I think that is exactly what He is trying to teach me. He wants me to rest so that I will realize that it is not me who does anything, but His grace working through me that accomplishes His will.

Ok, but now it is way too late to be awake, and so I must exercise the fruit of the Spirit: self-control. I must sleep now. Goodnight.

His mercies are new every morning. :)

I can't keep up!

So much is happening around here that I can't seem to keep up with it all!

Sunday night on the way home from church, Mark, our neighbor, told us a neat thing about thse high school boys I mentioned in the previous post. When they were over for game night, they stole one of the guy's cologne. Immediately we were all so excited about this opportunity. The guys get to tell the boys that they know that they stole the cologne and they still love them. What an opportunity to show the love of Christ through forgiveness! We are praying that the boys will be blown away and even confused by this type of love.

After that, Emily and I were waiting for Kyle to come over to pray, but he was being really late. We texted him and he said that he was in a roomate meeting and to wait for him. Quite a bit later, he came through our door with an expression on his face that said, "I just jumped into a freezing cold river!" He had not in fact jumped in a river, but the power of God seemed to have had the same effect on him.

We had been praying for unity in his apartment, and Kyle himself had been broken over the fact that his apartment was disunified. The short of the story is this: all of the roomates of "the salt shaker" (the name of the boys' apartment) came home from church at different times, but all eventually got there and started talking and got crazy honest and are now getting so unified in heart.

Pretty much, God broke them down individually so that He could build them up together.

Kyle told us most of what went on, and we started to realize just how little we know about being the Body of Christ (more on this later).

Then Lor came in and told us about what is going on with her, and how she is so excited to start doing whatever it takes to live out the Gospel. She has been having such good interactions with her co-workers and the youth that she works with, and is now taking huge steps towards going overseas next semester. This was a definate evidence of God's work on her heart.

Oh, and God broke the boys' X-Box. Something that Kyle had been praying for because it was hindering their unity. And they are now all in agreement that it is a good thing.

We prayed together, and then we parted ways and went to sleep, rejoicing in what He is doing.

Yesterday Emily and I had just gotten home from the doctor (I have crazy nasty poison oak on my leg and it is spreading to the rest of my body, so I needed prescription strength stuff), when Lor met us outside. She was on her way over to the salt shaker to talk to the guys about having a guy named Robert stay with them.

Robert is the boyfriend of her co-worker, Raquel. The story is a bit confusing, but Raquel and Robert were, in essence, excommunicated from their church because of some sin issues. Anyways, he is staying with the guys for a while in order to get back on his feet....that was yesterday...

Tonight Lor, Emily, and I were talking in the living room when Tom and Kyle (both from the salt shaker) came up the stairs to our apartment. They said that they randomly met Robert's family in front of the church building tonight and got to talk to them for about thirty minutes. It's really cool how God is forming so many connections in this spider web of relationships.

Ok, I am exhausted. I will finish up about how we are learning about Church soon. Goodnight!

There's only one explanation...

Lately our neighborhood has been different. Crazy stuff is happening around our apartment complex, and our only explanation is that God is faithful to answer prayers. 1 John 3:22 is becoming so real to us. John writes, "and whatever we are asking, we are recieving from Him, because we are keeping His commandments and we do the pleasing things before him." Wow! What a promise! It is so encouraging to know that whenever we ask God something that is according to His will He is faithful to do it!

So, here's the update:

Friday night Emily, Kyle, and I were getting ready to bring some flowers over to Lavenya's house. On the way there our downstairs neighbor, Renee, stopped us and asked us to help her move a T.V. into her house the next day. We talked to her for a bit and then headed over to Lavenya's apartment.

Her good friend Madre was there too. We sat on the couch and talked for hours. We talked a lot about India, and Lavenya and Madre were giddy with nostalgia. Lavenya made us some of the most wonderful Chai Tea that I have ever tasted! Watch out Starbucks! Lavenya is here!

Lavenya loves to cook, and so she made us an Indian snack that was much like spicy Top Ramen. It was super tasty, and SPICY! The ladies laughed at us as we sniffled, because the spice was making our noses run while Madre said that it tasted very bland.

Lavenya was trying to explain the process of how they made it so spicy, and she could not think of the English word for "spice" so she used the Telegu (their language) word, pronounced "poop."
All five us were laughing uncontrolably at this point. We were sniffling, laughing, and just enjoying life together.

Then Lavenya's husband came home. This is rare because he usually works until very late. We offered to leave, so that he could rest, but they insisted that we stay. In fact, the reason that he left work early was so that he could hang out with us. How cool! I think they like us. Madre went home, and we stayed and talked with Lavenya's family (we are still working on names, Ill let you know what her husband's name is).

This was totally the coolest thing ever! We have been praying that we could understand their worldview and their culture so that when we present the Gospel to them it will make sense, and it wont be like we are just trying to add another god to the hundreds of gods that they already pray to (they are Hindi. And they have a little shrine in their dining room.) So, having the entire family there was great because we could see how they interact together. It was amazing to see the love that they have for each other! They are so respectful and fun and loving towards each other. It seemed so genuine, I can't understand how this is possible without Christ. And our hope is that we will se what it looks like with Christ.

Then on Saturday, Lor and I were sitting in the living room talking about Lor's plans to go overseas to spread the Gospel (I can't say where, sorry) when someone knocked on the door. It was Renee asking for help moving her T.V. Yessss! We called up the boys and got to help her. She invited us over for movie night on her huge couch some time. Yesss!

This is a double whammy! Not only did we get to serve Renee, but we got to do it together! We have been praying for unity, and helping her move really was a step towards unity. (I will explain more about this later).

After helping Renee, we had a game night at the boys' apartment, and a few of the high-school boys (who Kyle has been hanging out with) who live in the apartment complex came over and stayed for a bit.

Oh, and Kevin is making us dinner tonight. (Remember, the guy who's cat we fed).

Ok, so you may think that this is all good and happy and stuff, but if you could see the difference between the way our apartment complex looks today compared to they way it looked four weeks ago, your jaw would drop and you would praise God. Seriously. There is no way to explain what is going on in Meadowood except that it is all Him. We are so excited every time God answers prayers, but we are not so surprised anymore. We are expecting Him to do wonderful things for the sake of His name, and when it happens we are super excited, but we just think, "Of course He did this. Why wouldn't He? We asked for it, and it is according to His will."

This is going to be a slow process- getting deep into our neighbor's lives, but it is worth the wait.

Single Minded Love

Tonight we prayed that we would love each other deeply.

We are willing to confess that we do not love each other as we ought. We are praying that God would give us the grace to love each other for reals. The Bible says that they will know that we are Christians by our love. Our prayer is that the people of Meadowood would see something so unique and so sincere about our love for each other, that it would cause them to question everything they have ever known about love. We want to break down their world view and replace it with a world view in light of Christ and the redemption of the world.

Our hope is that we would be so united towards the single mission of proclaiming the Gospel, that we can't help but to be united in mind and action. Like, if our apartment was flooding, we would not be divided, we would not take time to delegate leaders, and we would certainly not be distracted by meaningless things. We would be so focussed on accomplishing the goal of stopping the source of the flood, and then riding the apartment of water.

We want to be so focussed on the Gospel that the things of this world are but mere shadows in the corner. We want to be so consumed with the grace of God and His love for us and consumed with everything that He is, that we will naturally work together because it is the only way to bring about our one desire.

We are begining to recognize that the forces of evil are working against what God is doing in His Church at Meadowood. Satan is trying to cause dis-unity in us. But we recognize it. And we are praying against division by praying for single minded love.

I am saying all of this to you who are far away so that when these prayers are answered, you may praise our Father who is near to us all.

Number 17

Back on that list of 57 things I mentioned in number 17 that in Papua New Gineua there are 17 people groups asking for missionaries to come live with them.


There are hundreds of tribes in PNG, and only a few of them have missionaries. Since each tribe has a different language, it takes years to effectively communicate the Gospel to each group of people. The different tribes communicate with each other using the national trade language, but the vocabulary is so small that they do not have words to express deeper things than trade and economics.

Let me explain this with a little bit more detail by quoting the man that gave me this information. He is a missionary to PNG and he and his family are back in the states on furlough. This is what he said:

“I have had three letters handed to me personally, asking for missionaries, saying, ‘If you send us missionaries, we’ll house them, we’ll put them in our little village, and we’ll give them land. We just want someone to tell us! We’ve seen the difference in the tribe up river. We want that change. Just send us something! Send us someone!’ And I replied, “We don’t have anyone to send.” The people replied, “Well then, this message must not be as important as you missionaries say it is.”

The nations are among us!

Today Emily and I walked over to Lavenya's apartment. When she opened the door, she was so excited to see us. We sat down, she got us a drink of water, and we immediately started talking and asking questions. It was so much fun! We talked for about two hours! Lavenya told us so much about her culture, her country, and her family. She explained that many of the families have moved to Meadowood (our apartment complex) because there is a strong Indian community. Many of them are here on short-term work permits, and will be returning back to India within one to three years (unless they get green cards).

We talked some more, and then we watched the DVD of Lavenya's wedding. The ceremony was three days long, and the video was techno and abstract. It was like a pop-music video mixed with fruity pebbles. It was really good to watch that and understand her culture a little bit better. As she pointed out her family members in the video, she told us that she is going back to India next summer for three months to visit them. Then she invited us to come with her to meet them! Heck Yes! I am so there!


Then we had to leave because I had to go to work and we also wanted to say goodbye to our roomate Sandi who just moved back home. As we were walking home, giddy with excitement, we started processing what had just happened. First of all, we had so much fun hanging out with our new friend! She really enjoyed the company as well.

Then we started realizing how big this story really is. It all started last semester when we prayed for opportunities to reach our neighbors with the Gospel. We tried several times to interact with our neighbors, but we never really got anywhere. Emily started going down to say hi to the neighbors below us, and then we started going in groups (so as to not be overwhelming), but it seemed like we were shooting at the dust.

Then God started growing things in our hearts. Emily really had a burden for the Indian family below us, and I was so certain that God was calling us into coorporate prayer. By the grace of God, we joined together and started praying for these neighbors of ours.

For seven months we have been praying for our neighbors, and this weekend, God opened the floodgates of heaven and started doing crazy things. The birthday party, now we are planning on meeting with Lavenya often, and the crazyiest thing is that we are not doing anything! He has already established a community of Indian people here; it is like a Church waiting to happen. We were faithful to pray and knock on some doors and be awkward and introduce ourselves a few times, and He is doing all of the growth! I am so grateful that I get to be a part of this!

We are starting to realize the urgency of the Gospel with our new friends. We only have so long before they go home to India....but that is good news. If they become Christians here, and then go back home to India, what an opportunity this will be for the Gospel to be spread to the ends of the earth!



If I can leave you with one thing, it is this: GOD IS FAITHFUL. He is faithful. Seven months. And we only just now realized it. Trust Him. He will see it through.

Wonderful Weekend

Friday

Friday night we met to pray. We always meet to pray for our neighbors, because we know that whatever we ask that is according to God's will, we will recieve, becuase it is pleasing to him. We had visited the Koolas on Wednesday, and knew that their oldest daughter, Roshni, was having a birthday on Saturday. Emily prayed specifically for them, that somehow we could be a part of Roshni's birthday celebration. Then we built a fort and slept in it.

Saturday

9:25 a.m. Monique and I were getting into my car so that I could take her home before I went to work and Mr. Koola came outside. I said good morning, but was kind-of rushing to get Monique home and not be late for work. As I was pulling out of the parking space, the in-laws were trying to wave me down to get my attention, but I did not see them. Monique said, "Look! They are waving goodbye to you!" I got excited and looked up noticing that they were trying to get my attention. I pulled back into the parking space, and rolled down my manual window.

Through broken English Mr. Koola said to me, "Today is my daughters birthday. You come to the party. Five o'clock. Tell all of them up there." He pointed to my apartment asking me to invite my roomates.

As soon as I dropped Monique off, I pulled my phone out. Emily answered in a sleepy voice.
"Wake up! God is faithful!" I screamed because I knew she would want to wake up for this news. I told her about the invitation and we immediately praised God for his direct answer to our request.

During my lunch break at work, I met up with Emily and we talked about what the night would hold. We were so excited, knowing that not only would we get to spend some time with the Koola family, but that their friends would be there too! (If you know anything about Indian culture, you know that they group together. Our apartment complex is easily 40% Indian.) We were in tears realizing that we are being missionaries right in our own complex!

When I went back to work, Ben asked me "What's up?" and I said "God is so faithful!!" He said how? I told him that my friends and I had been meeting together to pray and we are seeing God answer the prayers....To make a long story short, he said, somewhat jokingly, "Tell God to send some of that good my way." So that is what I am going to do. So, I have been praying confidently that God would show him somthing, and I cant wait till Monday to ask him if he "saw" anything. Ill keep you updated.

I got off of work late (at 7) and was therefore very late for the party. But they all waited for me! I handed a small bundle of balloons to Roshni and when she let them go, the kids went crazy, each child trying to grab the strings and bring the balloons back down from the ceiling. Then I noticed Emily sitting on the rug across the room, and we got so excited. The adults were super nice, the women greeted me with the few English phrases they had picked up.

This is where we met Laurenjah. She invited us to come over any time, so tomorrow we shall go. We also invited the Koolas over for dinner sometime.




The story will continue.....

Heinz 57

Heinz 57. Yes, that's right. Ketchup. I hope that this post will catch you up a little bit more. In honor of the title, I will list 57 things that you should know if you want this blog to make sense.


1. Right now it is 2:29 a.m. and so I may get a little bit silly. But this is serious stuff....that is why I am still awake. I want to record what God is doing before I forget.


2. Kevin. He is a lonely guy who lives across from us with his cat "sneaky." We fed sneaky for him while He went on vacation, and he is going to cook dinner for us to re-pay us. Pray that we could show him Christ's love.


3. Renee. I have only seen her about 4 times. She lives right below us.


4. Matthew. In the book of Matthew (Chapter 19) Jesus teaches that we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are praying for the grace to do that.

5. I bet you did not know that Leviticus chapter 19 says the same thing about loving your neighbor.

6. India. The Koola family lives in the apartment diagonal from us. They are from India. My roomate Emily and I have been to visit them a few times, and we really like them. I have a cool story about them.

7. Ben. I work with Ben. He hates organized religion, but he is very interested in God. We have some good talks. Yesterday I told him that God is faithful. More about him later.

8. Greek. I am really thankful that I have the opportunity to study Greek. My Greek class and I will have just finished translating the book of 1 John on Tuesday.

9. I don't know if I am going to make it all the way to number 57.

10. Lauryenjah. She is from India as well. Tomorrow Emily and I are going over to her house.

11. BLESS is the name of our apartment. Bethany, Lor, Emily, Sandi, and Sarah live here. But Sandi is moving out tomorrow. We are trusting in God's faithfulness to find us another roomate.

12. Cornerstone. www.cornerstonesimi.com is the website for the group of believers (you know, the Church) that I am a part of.

13. EBC. www.eternitybiblecollege.com My school's website.

14. If I am not busy, or if I am busy but just need to get away, I will be at the beach or in the mountains.

15. Monique. I met Monique at Cornerstone's youth group. She loves Jesus.

16. UPG. Unreached People Group. It is a group of people who has no access to the Gospel.

17. PNG. In Papua New Gineua there are 17 UPGs who are asking people to come live with them.

18. Kristina. She came and sat down at the table with Emily and Me at Starbucks when we were studying. We invited her to church and she came.

19. Missionaries. A lot of missionaries have been influencing me lately, and I am so excited to reach the ends of the earth! But for now, God has me in Simi Valley, California, and so my fellow laborers and I are trying to be faithful while we are here.

20.-57. God is faithful, see the next post.

The (sort-of) beginning...

I think that we can start in January and be ok. At the beginning of the semester, in Theology class, we were assigned to study the prayers of Jesus. It was wonderful! I read about how Jesus got up early in the morning to spend time with His Father, how He prayed in solitude, and how it prepard Him so much for ministry. After writing a paper about the way in which Jesus prayed, I could not help but to want to pray in the same manner. So for a couple of weeks I started going to bed earlier, and waking up before the sun in order to pray to my Father while the apartment was still quiet.
God is faithful. And he heard my prayers.

Then, a few weeks later, we had another assignment: This time we were to study Paul's prayers, and do two prayer walks with believers modeling Paul's prayers. I read the prayers that Paul wrote at the beginning of most of his letters, and then set out to find some people to prayer-walk with. I asked my roomates, but they were all busy. Then I walked across the street to another apartment full of EBC students, and they were either busy or disenchanted with the idea.
I must confess, I did wait until the last minute to ask people to pray with me, which shows that I did not have a correct understanding of prayer. But what surprised me the most is that most of the people that I asked were busy with entertaining themselves. Something was not ok, and so I went home prayer-less, and started re-reading Paul's prayers.

I was reading 1 Corinthians when I realized that what Paul did not thank God for the Corinthian's faith, but rather he thanked God for giving enabling grace to the Corinthians. This was huge for me. Rather than getting upset at my brothers and sisters for not wanting to pray, I began to pray that God would give us all the grace to pray together.

The next couple of mornings I asked God to give us the grace to pray, and He did. I asked my brothers and sisters again if we could pray together, and that night a bunch of us gathered in our apartment. We came to God asking Him to teach us how to pray. We realized that we really have no idea what prayer is: If we knew, we would be so inclinded to do it.

The group has gotten pretty small. Most nights there are just three of us. We are still asking God to continue to grant us the grace to pray, realizing that we are unable to do it on our own strength. We are still asking Him to teach us to pray, and daily we are learning more and more about how to approach this King.

He is so faithful. I wish that I could detail all of what He has done, but you would never finish reading if I were to write it all out for you. I will update this blog often, as He continues to do amazing works. I hope that you will give Him praise for the things that you are about to hear...

Welkom

Hey Everyone! 

     Welcome to my new blog. Here's why I am doing this: God is doing some crazy awesome stuff, and I want you to give Him glory for it. I also want you to be involved in the process as I prepare for missions. Im not so up to date on this blogging business, but I am pretty sure that you can leave comments and questions on the blog. I hope that you will! So, welcome and I hope that through this blog you will see our Lord in a new light and worship Him more fully!

Standing in His Grace, 

Bethany