What do a skunk, a bad internet connection, and a missing power cord have in common? I’ll get back to that. In the mean time I’ll let you know about a few things that I’ve been doing lately.
About a month ago God made it clear to me that I was supposed to join staff at Gospel for Asia. Yes! Now I’m support raising at home so that I can get back to Texas and keep serving at the home office.
I knew it was going to be a battle to raise support and stay connected to the ministry but I was sure I’d conquer it all! It turns out some things can be a little harder to get done in the country than in the city. For instance, where I live in Michigan it’s all forest and well, cold. I have a few oddities I’m dealing with. One is that my family doesn’t have high speed internet – it’s not that bad, there are just a few things I can’t do at home. I was very excited to live stream a Gospel For Asia prayer meeting once I got back. (Gospel For Asia streams a prayer meeting every first Friday. Join us!) The first time I went to a prayer meeting I had to drive 6 miles through the wilderness to get to a connection I could watch the meeting on. Everything was wonderful! I really enjoyed praying with the Gospel For Asia family and felt like I was back at home (the TX one).
When I got home I was worn out – ready to hop in bed and sleep. I came through the driveway but discovered that there was a skunk by the front door! There was NO way I was getting out now. I thought about getting grumpy but decided it was the first adventure of support raising in the country. I called a friend and we talked for a while. Then I talked to another friend till I was sure the skunk was gone. 🙂
Well, I was trying to watch another prayer meeting one day. I’d been a little discouraged that day but was really looking forward to hearing the message and uniting in prayer with everyone. My connection didn’t work. I’d get a few words – maybe a sentence – then the video would freeze. I finally gave up.
Another prayer meeting arrived… I was sick but determined that though I was tired I was not going to stay home. I wanted to have dedication and not just decide to sit on the couch at home. I drove myself back out to the internet and set up my computer. Suddenly I realized that I did’n’t have my power cord with me. I had 43 minutes of battery life left. True to its word my computer turned off from a low battery 43 minutes through the prayer meeting. Well at least I got to go to bed a little early…
So, the question at the beginning of this was, “What do a skunk, a bad internet connection, and a missing power cord have in common?” The answer is prayer meetings of course!
There’s always going to be something that will draw your attention away from what is best. I’ve noticed that wacky things happen when I try to get to a prayer meeting. For you it’s most likely something else that the enemy doesn’t want you to be doing. Maybe it’s reading the Bible. There are 101 things that will come up and seem like they need your attention. When those things happen just purpose in your heart that God will come first. I laugh when I think that God used a skunk and a power cord to teach me a lesson. Maybe it just takes more to get my attention than other people…
Words are powerful. We have the power to use our words to be used to speak boldy about the Truth of God. We can yell, sing, whisper, scream and worship the Lord through our voices. For others they have no voice, they cannot speak, or scream but they can communicate just the same as people who can speak. They are Deaf.
I’ve been signing for many years now. It started with my hunger to know different languages in my Sophomore year in high school. I took a class and didn’t learn how to sign but I learned the alphabet and about the deaf culture. What intrigued me about sign was how expressive you could be. At my school there was a deaf girl who was in the marching band and played the cymbals. This girl amazed me how she pushed herself to not let her being deaf stop her. Little did I know that God was going to use her to be a big and important part of my Life in Him. I had a class with her and was eager to learn her language. Often I would pass notes to her and ask her questions. I found out that she was a believer! I then started to hang out with her and through fellowshipping with her I started to learn sign language very quickly and started to hang out with a lot of the deaf community. I then expanded my education of sign language and took ASL classes and kept going on to the next level. I was a little fustrated because I thought that I was waisiting my time taking so many ASL classes and I didn’t know what I really wanted to do in college.
God lead me to join Gospel for Asia- School of Discipleship for this year and He has shown me that everything that we have learned, skills he uses for HIS Glory! When our class goes evangelizing I have had oppurtunities to share with them Jesus and the Gospel in sign language. One of the times are class went out there were two ladies sitting together and the Spirit urged and tugged my heart to go pass out tracts to these two ladies. I walked up to them and started to speak and they signed to me ” We are deaf.” I smiled at signed to them “Good,because I know how to sign.” The ladies were so happy that I could communicate to them. Then, the Spirit started to move through me and I sharing my testimony on how the Lord changed my life and how He has redeemed from darkness. One of the ladies eye lit up and she was saying how weird it was that I was telling her that because she wanted to change her life but didn’tknow how. I told her how only Jesus Christ could only bring true change because of what He did for us on the cross and gave her a tract. After she was telling me that her bus came suddenly and she waved bye and left on her bus. I was awestruck that the Lord used me as a vessel through my hands and ASL to be able to touch her heart with what He wanted me to communicate to her.
And I thought I was never going to use my sign language here at Gospel for Asia. Please pray for those ladies. They are in my heart as I type this. And you may never know when your skills may be used for the Lord. He let us learn it for a reason.
“After 10 billion trillion years those in hell will scream saying, ‘I want to die,’ ‘I want to die,’ that’s all, not even for a drop of water, they just want to die! And the answer comes again, and again, and again ‘You shall never die,’ ‘You will never die.’ That is the fate of multiplied billions on planet earth. And you and I say ‘Jesus I love you!’ And I tell you what; if we can believe what we say we believe with our lips, it will revolutionize our life, it wil turn our lives upside down.” – K.P. Yohannan
“While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jarius, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” Over hearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid just believe.” Mark 5:21-43
This summer I went into my three month internship with some expectations. Some of them were met, others were not. Having been at Gospel for Asia for a month last year, I did not expect to be out of my comfort zone as much as some of the other interns. Boy, was I wrong.
Everything was going well until one day we went to Celebrate Freedom. There we were to pass out the new No Longer a Slumdogbooks. To be honest, I was scared and I told another intern straight out, “I don’t think I can do this.” Now, I’ve been at multiple events in the past representing Gospel for Asia but this time I was intimidated because I actually had to STOP people who wouldn’t normally stop at this kind of booth. I was really insecure about this. After our group prayed to God though, it was almost as if He was strengthening all of us to go on and I noticed as my time went on, I became more and more excited about passing out the books.
Once I was in the airport over the July 4th weekend, and I saw this man sitting by himself on the other side of the terminal. God kept on pushing me to go and talk to Him, and each time I said “no” the conviction I needed to go over there got stronger and stronger. Eventually it go so strong, I knew I had to go and talk to him. So I went over and sat with Him and started asking Him some questions. I knew God wanted me to give Him a gospel tract, but I went away before being able to give him a Gospel tract. I was too afraid.
God, as He always does used my failure as a time of teaching. He comforted me saying, saying, “Even though you fail, I still love you.” That really boggled my mind a lot.
Also during this time, I came to the place in Grace Awakening by Charles Swindoll where it talked abouat not fearing being the most common command of Jesus. This greatly encouraged me during this time.
I’m still not perfect. God will continue to challenge me to get out my comfort zone, as he challenges all of us in our weaknesses. Yet, one thing I do know, God will work through us as we turn to Him whether through our weakness our strengths.
When I prepared to pack my bags for this adventurous world of Carrollton, Texas and Gospel For Asia, I had two rather small minded objectives:
1. I would finally catch up on my books (of which I brought a few).
2. I would finally escape from the pressing issues back home.
Today, as I write this, I can say that I have not been able to pick up any of the books I brought with me and not only am I going back to the issues I left, I am going to have to face them.
All of that to say, my expectations for this “1 month internship” were completely shattered.
And then there’s all this praying.
I have had to realize that the staff and students here pray CONSTANTLY. I mean, incredibly consistantly. It doesn’t matter whether they want to or not, though, because its rather necessary.
I dont think that I expected anything more or anything less. I think I just didn’t expect any of it.
But oh, what joy it has been to have my expectations of people and experiences completely destroyed because really, I am the only one who is hindered by them.
So I go into the deep places of my mind and of my heart and I see that all of these expectations, or lack there of, were made to awaken me from a sleep that I had not known I was overcome with.
But as I wake, I am entrusted with the knowledge of my ability to speak to God constantly. Without ceasing.
And I know in my heart that all this praying was what I should have been doing all along.
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