Jun 16, 2010
Today June 15th, 2010 I have been at Gospel For Asia and School of Discipleship for 10 months. However as much as I am mentally in denile of it-this fact is true. Recently I went home and was asked to descibe what my experience has been like. I honestly cannot do credit to how truly wonderful it has been. I have learned so much and in exactly 46 days I will be going home . There is a song I recently listend to and in the chorus it says:
“Now that I have seen, I am responsible -Faith without deeds is dead”
In light of all I have exerienced and learned I now echo her words-Now that I have seen I am responsible-Responsible for living a life contrary to the world, resposible for making sure Jesus’ name is proclaimed in all the earth, responsible to be a tool of God no matter the cost, responsible to LOVE (1 cor 13), responsible to pursue God with a fire like zeal, and responsible to tell others what I now know.
This I know is considered to be crazy by some, but knowing what I know now, it would be more crazy to do nothing.
No :)…………………………… I am going to be used by God to Change the World 🙂
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Jun 10, 2010
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
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Jun 9, 2010
I learned two valuable things from God’s Word that helped me get through the year in the School of Discipleship. The year was the best year of my life, but it was also tough.
Lesson #1- Before I became a believer I was a rebel and so full of anger. Every week it seemed I was rebelling against authority and getting the police called on me.
Most of this happened in 8th grade. One year later I found Jesus and my heart changed towards my authorities and I began to love and respect them.
When I came to the School of Discipleship I was put into a new situation where I had a Christian authority over me – my house leader. I struggled with that but soon enough through living under my house leader and reading K.P.’s book Touching Godliness Through Submission and reading examples from God’s word my heart started changing towards my authorities.
Hebrews13:17 says, “obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
God really spoke to me through this verse. I realized I need to be praying for my leaders and submit to their authority.
Praying and being thankful for my leaders really changed my attitude toward them and I began to really love and appreciate them. I didn’t so much show rebellion on the outside, but on the inside I had rebellion in my heart towards my leaders during the beginning of the year.
From that Hebrews passage I realized that my obedience and cooperation with my leader would make their duty as a leader a joy and not something they dread or fear.
If we put our heart right before God and obey His Word then I believe we will submit to our authorities with no problem. This is something God taught me that was very valuable and even today I’m continuing to learn this.
In light of this, I used to hate cops, but today I find myself thanking God for every cop that I see on the road. They’re God’s delegated authority and I see them as one of God’s tools He uses to protect us and watch over us.
So, every time you see a cop thank God for them.
Lesson #2- The second big lesson I learned during my year was in going through testing and trials and hard times that don’t make sense.
My house went through the story of Joseph as a Bible study. He is like my favorite old testament guy and probably my favorite old testament story. Just how He went through trials and yet obeyed God and saw what God was going to make of this situation just amazed me.
Though he was mistreated by his brothers and then put into slavery, Joseph always thought positively and saw that God was going to bring about good in this situation. I learned I need to apply this to my life, to think positively in every situation and to know that God will bring about good in every situation…He’ll bring about maturity and growth in my life as the book of James says.
What I didn’t know was that soon after going through this study I would go through possibly one of the most confusing and dark times of my life as a believer.
A Monday evening I got a call saying my biological father had a heart attack and passed away. I thought it was a nightmare. I was confused. I was told I needed to come home right away.
The next day I flew home to Iowa. I didn’t know what to do, I was so confused and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. But everyone at Gospel For Asia showed me love in this time and I felt Jesus’ love more then ever before.
After a week I came back to Dallas and was ready to be back to serving the Lord where He had called me.
I saw God’s faithfulness in so many areas as I walked through this dark time. Joseph’s life example and the book of James helped me go through this time. Aww, it’s so good to be apart of this Gospel For Asia family where there is so much love and grace.
So, those are the two lessons God brought me through during my year in the School of Discipleship and I’m delighted to share them with you and hope you’re encouraged. Gospel For Asia is a great place, especially being a part of the School of Discipleship!
Be encouraged. If you come here for a year, you will be in good hands! It was the best year of my life, despite the struggles I had!
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Jun 2, 2010
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you , being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height– to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19
This is my prayer for all of our brothers and sisters in India, in the Bridge of Hope centers, in my School of Discipleship class, in the people at Gospel For Asia, and for all of you reading this. That we all would learn to depend on God for everything, because He created us, and knows us and His purpose for us is more than we could ever imagine.
That we all would be rooted and grounded in love so that even if we don’t have any earthly things in common, even if we don’t speak the same language, we still have Christ’s love in us that makes us one body, we are unified in Christ.
And that we would all know the love of Christ that supersedes all knowledge, and to be filled with the fullness of God.
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Jun 2, 2010
During Christmas time I wrote something in my newsletter about how I was learning about depending on God for things that I wasn’t capable of doing on my own. This has been a constant lesson that I’m learning, so it’s great to go back and re-read all my old newsletters. : ) Here’s what I wrote:
Gospel For Asia is possibly the closest example of how the Body of Christ should be working together. We are like one gigantic family, which is what it should be like. I could go up to almost anybody here and ask them to pray for me for something, and they would do it. Or, in prayer meetings, I am comfortable praying with any one of the people here, simply because of the bond that is so evident between every believer here.
In the Volunteer Department it is spectacular, I feel so close to each of the people, here with me. Right now we are all busy with the Christmas Catalog campaign, where the managers are calling up different volunteers to send them our Christmas catalogs to pass out to others. Then, since there are not many events around Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are registering for events that we will go to next year.
God has been using registrations to get me to depend on Him more. How is He doing that? Well, I have to be more assertive, which I am not very good at, I have to call people to make sure we get the right details, I delegate and pass some work onto our volunteers that come in to the office so that I have more time to do the other jobs I have to do. All of those things combined are hard to do in a work day. So prayer and dependence on God is very much so needed. Without Him, I would be so stressed out that I would make myself sick, and soon, not be able to work at all.
So I am thankful that God is with me every step of the way, and He put amazing people in the department with me so that I can go to them with questions, and not be afraid to ask for help. We are one body, if one part is not working right, the rest will not work as well either, which is why we work together, not afraid to come to each other with our problems. God is good!!
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