Where have I been? To tell the honest truth, it seems like everywhere. I don't think I can ever and will ever know how to relax and just sit. Yes, I am learning how to be still and know that God is God, that I am well aware that I need to do. However, if my life were just to be a regular life, with everything just going on as planned, I think I would waste away from boredom. Thank God I have God and because of that, my life can never be boring.
Well, with our wedding coming up, Luis and I have had to run around getting prices for stuff. 99 days isn't that far away. We have been seeing how God's hand has been in all this, blessing us with blessings untold and unforeseen, through people who must love us very much. Something deep in me tells me that we will be able to pull off this wedding and also go on a honeymoon on the very tight shoe string budget that we have, just because our God is our Dad and He wants the best for us. And that through all of this, all the glory will go to Him. We are already seeing this. The costs of our wedding rings are already covered by friends, another friend is blessing us by paying for the wedding cake, people have been helping us get points through their shopping. God is good.
On the ministry front, we are working both ministries now, Luis' La Taba V and the one God has called me to do, Siembra S.O.W. La Taba V is a ministry that reaches out to the community through drama and comedy. And right now, Luis is working to raise it up by giving worskshops and cultivating talent within churches. Siembra is praying for God's timing to work alongside with the community of Ciudad de Dios to start up a drop in centre within Ciudad itself. I am not rushing into starting the project asap because I want to be sure I can be there most times and also for God to provide people who can work turns with me. With our wedding in the works and me having to travel before, it just seems unwise to jump into having a drop in centre where I will be absent for most of the time. The work on the streets continue as we keep going down to offer food and the Word.
This week, we had a group of guys hanging out with us and we had the chance to counsel a couple of them with the Word. they have questions, they need a place to go to and I know that a drop in centre would give them a place to go where they can feel that someone will listen to them, a place where someone cares, a place where they can go without having their friends listen in on what they want to talk about. God's timing and hand in this is crucial in procuring a place that will not break us in rent. We are hoping that the municipality can help us in this area.
Today marks my 6th anniversary here in Peru. Hard to believe I'm still here and probably going to be here for some time yet. I almost went home to Canada for good several times in my first 3 years. But I see now that God allowed me to go through everything I went through so I will learn how to get over myself. With that said, I can say that I still need to go through refining and molding but I hope that now, I can react in a way that Jesus will be seen in the fires of my refining. I was asked if I would have said yes to God if I knew all that I had to go through these last few years. Though I may not have started up movements that rocked the nation, though I have blundered through many situations, though I haven't done more, there have been lives that were touched. Lives that came to know the Lord, lives that returned to His feet, lives that needed to hear and know that He loves them, lives that needed to know how to love the Word, lives that got healed. So, I guess with all that said, I think I would still say yes to the Lord if I had known all that I would have had to go through. Even if God had sent me here for just one soul, it is worth it. Because that is His heartbeat. Every one of us.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Seasons and Faith
I had written up my entire blog and then it got erased. Gotta love technology. I guess it has been incredible to me to see that every time I sit down to write my blog, something happens and I have to leave it and when I get back to it, it's weeks later.
Heavy on my heart is to have a drop in centre in Ciudad, to be more of a permanent presence there. Yet, I am only at the praying stage now, not willing to go ahead with it, scared that I will fail, scared that I stepped out on my own flesh. I guess the doors closing on the house in Jose Galvez has made me hesitant. In my previous blog I had mentioned that doors had closed to using the house there as a rehab centre. Yet, I know my time there was not in vain as God used me to minister to various people in the neighbourhood. However, that does not lessen my fear of starting something up in Ciudad now. I guess if it had to do with me alone, it would be one thing. But now that it has to do with a ministry which people are supporting and blessing, I am scared to take steps. Yet, it remains heavy in my heart. It sucks in a sense because what stops me other than my fear that I am doing this of my own flesh is that we lack resources for the rental of a place and also labourers for the harvest. Right now, it's just me and Luis, my fiance, and when we have the drop in centre, it will only be me covering it all the time. That is not wise as many things can happen especially since I am dealing directly with drugged up youth. I am in no position to pay anyone to work with me but unless I do that, I don't think I will have anyone. However, I don't think paid workers are needed but people who have a heart, a love and a calling to do this work.
In the last weeks, we saw God's hand in the streets. We got Henry his ID card which was the only thing stopping him from working a real job and he didn't have money to get one, and we found out that he is now working at a warehouse for one of Peru's largest departmental stores. We also got invited to Claudia's (a street worker) house to share the gospel with her husband but we ended up sharing with her cousin Yolanda who has had a constant migraine headache for a very long time and who had gone to witchdoctors to get cured and been made to drink dog's blood. We shared the truth of the gospel with her and she joyfully accepted the Lord and last night we spoke to Claudia and she said that Yolanda's headache is slowly going away. Our God is a healer God! Claudia knows the Word, was preaching it to her cousin when we were there but is still pulled to work the streets. Having a drop in centre would perhaps get her to visit us and talk and perhaps through that she would see Jesus in a tangible way and not as mere words on the street. All I know is I have to trust the Lord because His ways are not mine and they are higher. And nothing is impossible with Him.
We will keep doing what we do, it is not in vain. I have asked the Lord several times, is this in vain? People have told me that it is in vain. Some days, it gets really discouraging. Yet, every time I ask my Lord that question, He shows me that it truly is not in vain and to keep going. Perhaps we are not reaching hordes and multitudes of people but the one life we might touch with the love and truth of the Gospel of Salvation might be the one to totally change and transform all of Ciudad and beyond for the Lord. I will keep believing and doing because my God is a big God.
Heavy on my heart is to have a drop in centre in Ciudad, to be more of a permanent presence there. Yet, I am only at the praying stage now, not willing to go ahead with it, scared that I will fail, scared that I stepped out on my own flesh. I guess the doors closing on the house in Jose Galvez has made me hesitant. In my previous blog I had mentioned that doors had closed to using the house there as a rehab centre. Yet, I know my time there was not in vain as God used me to minister to various people in the neighbourhood. However, that does not lessen my fear of starting something up in Ciudad now. I guess if it had to do with me alone, it would be one thing. But now that it has to do with a ministry which people are supporting and blessing, I am scared to take steps. Yet, it remains heavy in my heart. It sucks in a sense because what stops me other than my fear that I am doing this of my own flesh is that we lack resources for the rental of a place and also labourers for the harvest. Right now, it's just me and Luis, my fiance, and when we have the drop in centre, it will only be me covering it all the time. That is not wise as many things can happen especially since I am dealing directly with drugged up youth. I am in no position to pay anyone to work with me but unless I do that, I don't think I will have anyone. However, I don't think paid workers are needed but people who have a heart, a love and a calling to do this work.
In the last weeks, we saw God's hand in the streets. We got Henry his ID card which was the only thing stopping him from working a real job and he didn't have money to get one, and we found out that he is now working at a warehouse for one of Peru's largest departmental stores. We also got invited to Claudia's (a street worker) house to share the gospel with her husband but we ended up sharing with her cousin Yolanda who has had a constant migraine headache for a very long time and who had gone to witchdoctors to get cured and been made to drink dog's blood. We shared the truth of the gospel with her and she joyfully accepted the Lord and last night we spoke to Claudia and she said that Yolanda's headache is slowly going away. Our God is a healer God! Claudia knows the Word, was preaching it to her cousin when we were there but is still pulled to work the streets. Having a drop in centre would perhaps get her to visit us and talk and perhaps through that she would see Jesus in a tangible way and not as mere words on the street. All I know is I have to trust the Lord because His ways are not mine and they are higher. And nothing is impossible with Him.
We will keep doing what we do, it is not in vain. I have asked the Lord several times, is this in vain? People have told me that it is in vain. Some days, it gets really discouraging. Yet, every time I ask my Lord that question, He shows me that it truly is not in vain and to keep going. Perhaps we are not reaching hordes and multitudes of people but the one life we might touch with the love and truth of the Gospel of Salvation might be the one to totally change and transform all of Ciudad and beyond for the Lord. I will keep believing and doing because my God is a big God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)