Hello again all. I realize the once a month thing means a long time between blogs, but it ensures two things. One, I focus my time on being at the DTS (discipleship training school) and two, I actually have something to write about! Again, this will be more of a week by week thing so I can keep my thoughts in line. Now to pick up right where we left off:
Week 6:
Repentance and Fear of the Lord. Guy named Paul Wilcox came and spoke, originally from Australia/South America (he's an MK). As you would expect it was pretty intense. But good. We started out by looking at the nature of God vs the nature of Sin. Basically the idea of that was if you understand what Sin actually is, you will fully understand why God can not allow it in His presence. To make that clear, understanding Sin, NOT all the different ways we can sin, but what the essence of Sin is. Also the differences between Trial and Testings, and the differences between God's testings and Satan's testings. Also the difference between confession and repentance and why we must do both. We ended the week with a time of confession, and then celebration of our freedom in Christ. Good stuff, Good stuff. That Saturday I received a call from a friend saying that he was going to take care of the money I needed so that I could continue in the DTS. So thanks to God for providing and thanks to my friend for being willing to be used by God to provide that.
Week 7:
Outreach!!! We spent half the day Sunday in prayer and intercession, then went out for out first outreach. It was two weeks, but we did two different things for each week. The first week we went to a village quite close to the mai city of Chiang Rai (actually closer than the base we stay at). There is a ministry there called MMF. The are expanding their campus to include housing and a conference center to save money on putting people up and renting space to hold conferences as their ministry has grown. So the majority of our group during the day helped out building a removable shelter so that they can make their own bricks and not worry about rain. The other part (self included) went to teach English/Thai to the children of Burmese migrant workers at a school that the ministry partners with. We also painted their playground equipment to make it look nicer. On Thursday evening, we invited all the churches in the area to come and spend a night in worship, which went really well. We sang, we danced (we stole things ;-P), and then several of our people shared and we ended the night praying as a large group. Great stuff. Then on Saturday we loaded up and went to Chiang Khong Thailand, which brings us too...
Week 8:
So we all rode a bus to Chiang Khong, but then split into two smaller groups to go to our respective sites. The other group rode in the back of a truck for an hour to Chiang San, while my group rode in the back of a truck 20 minutes to a village just outside of town. It was up in the mountains and very very beautiful (I guess now would be the time to point out that my main camera is broken, no phones were allowed on outreach, so I have no pictures, go to my facebook and look for pics that I have been tagged in, sorry). The other group painted all week. Our group was a little bit different. It was a challenging, but good week. We got there Saturday evening, and then found out we were in charge of Church Sunday morning. So we prepared for that, I got to teach the adult bible study one of the parable of Jesus in a fun style that I like. Also, we did the drama, danced and we had two testimonies and our leader shared the main message. (again, we decide who is going to speak through prayer) After church we rested a bit, then in the evening walked around the village meeting some of the people there. This was how we found out about the witch doctors that live in the village and don't like the Christians and pray to the spirits they worship continuously against the church there. So there was a lot of spiritual warfare going on that week.
The church was adding on a covered area to cook food, for the kids to play to put stuff when it rains, etc., So the guys in our group helped with that. But the leader of the church had found one small job for the girls, that was completed rapidly, so the girls spend most of the rest of the week praying which was great. We were only there until Thursday (technically Friday morning cause that's when we left), but we managed to finish the add on, have some times of great worship, both with the church and as a group. I had the chance to teach much of the church one style of intercession. We also got to hike to a beautiful two level (actually three, but you couldn't see the third from the bottom or second level) waterfall. I climbed it and jumped of and nearly broke my butt bone (worth it). Also picked up some sort of infection between my toes. Right now soaking my feet in this sodium solution that dyes my feet brown and my nails like a brownish purple color (s0 cute!). But all in all it was a great two weeks.
Week 9:
This past week has been rest and debrief. Each day we have met together for a few hours just to talk about everything that has been happening, both on outreach and the first month and a half of DTS to see how everyone is tracking. It has been wonderful.
I also found out where we are going for our first outreach... but I'm not sure how much I can post online about it, so I will send out a mid month update giving full details about that. Also, I made a mistake in my last post. In the prayer request section, I put that i was missing $1,1oo in tuition, which, yes, was true, but that was how far I was away from meeting the 50% paid before first out reach. So for my prayer request section, I will outline what's gonna be happening as far as that goes. Lectures start new next week, and if I have scheduled myself right, I should be writing my next blog the Saturday before the next outreach. Thank you all for keeping up with me month to month! Love you all.
Prayer Requests
~ Smooth transition back to lectures and going all day ~
~ That God would continue teaching me about him and bringing my character in line with His ~
~ Wisdom for what to do about my visa (more about that in the Post Script) ~
~ Funds for my visa ~
~ Appx $1000 for tuition before September 31st ~
~ Appx $1000 for tuition before October 31st, then the School will be paid for ~
~ We resume going to the university next week, please pray for the students we encounter ~
~ Annie will be coming to visit next week, I'm excited!!! but please pray for her safety as she travels, and that I don't allow myself to get to distracted by it during lecture next week ~
~ That God will reveal to me in His timing what I am going to be doing after DTS, and patience for me to wait on that timing. Ok, mostly the second half because we all already know that God will take care of the first ;-) :-P ~
Thank you again for taking care of me through prayers and through finances. Thank you for reading these blogs and responding to me about them (it really does encourage me to keep writing them). God bless you all
P.S. - September 5th or thereabouts, my current 3 month visa runs out. It will cost me approximately $300 dollars to go to Laos and get a new one. Or I might just go to Mae Sai the next few weeks to get my temporary 2 week visa until major out reach which will begin in Nov. So, do I pay the $300 for a visa that is too long as I'll only get 2 months use out of it and have to miss part of my lectures to get, or do I travel to Mae Sai every other Saturday until we leave the country. I am calculating the cost effectiveness of both options, and praying that God will show me what to do about it. So same as above, please pray for wisdom for what to do, as well as the funds to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment