Interesting Time of Life

Well, I've graduated, I've gone overseas and shared the gospel, and now the time has come for me to move on with life post-college. The only problem is...I don't know where to go. Yup, pretty clueless right now. Not gunna lie either...it stinks...well kinda. It stinks cuz I feel so helpless but I take comfort in Paul's words from 2 Cor. 12:9-10:

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecuations, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

So, in actuality I'm not that bad off. All I have right now is the Lord, and that's not such a bad place to be at...in fact, there is no where else I'd rather be but in my Father's hands. James says that we are perfected through trials. In Psalm 32 David says that the Lord will instruct me in the way I should go. Jeremiah 29:11 says that the Lord knows the plans he has for me. After that he goes on to say that they will seek the Lord and that they will find Him when they seek for Him with all their heart. Lamentations 3:22-25 says,

"The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'thereforeI have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him."

I know that the Lord is faithful. He has proven it time and time again in my life. Deut. 7:9 says,

"Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

So, though I don't know what I am supposed to be doing right now, the Lord does. And my God is a great God and I know nothing is impossible for Him and my "problems" aren't problems for Him. Therefore I rest in the knowledge that the Lord will guide me and lead me on level paths and that in my weakness His power will be perfected. In know that through this He will be glorified and in that will be my joy. So, I wait on Him, as patiently as I can, and pray that I would know Him more clearly and glorify Him more greatly through this time in my life.

Here is my prayer:
Let me learn that the cross precedes the crown, To be low is to be high, That the valley is where you make me more like Christ! Let me find Your grace in the Valley Let me find Your life in my death Let me find Your joy in my sorrow Your wealth in my need That you're near with every breath in the Valley.

SE Asia Recap

Well, it has been five days since we got back in country. It is good to be back home. We had a beautiful view of the CA coast as we were flying in. I saw half moon bay and the golden gate bridge as we flew over the bay area. I was so happy to be home that I jumped and clicked my heels for joy at LAX and got a couple of funny looks for it. I brought home with me many memories and a stomach bug...a nice combo right. It is those memories that I want to reflect on now though.

The trip was hard, but good. The team dynamics were hard for me. I love my team to death and they are all amazing people, but it was hard being with them 24/7 for 3 weeks. I just had a hard time relating with all of them. It was also hard for me to find time alone and just spend good time in prayer and fellowship with the Lord. The trip was also good though. We had amazing translators who were so much fun and made our time so enjoyable. We taught them how to play jenga and sequence and we played these all the time with them. I have now officially played the longest and shortest games of sequence possible and I am the jenga master.

We did many many different things on this trip. We did a couple of different sessions of VBS with different churches. We taught english and we helped with a church youth retreat up in the mountains. We witnessed to muslims on the beaches for a couple of days. We encouraged the missionaries and they encouraged us. We did a little bit of sightseeing as well. We got to go see the largest buddhist temple in the world (which supposedly is one of the wonders of the world and also which you can supposedly see from space...after seeing it I don't really believe either of these claims though:)) I also got to ride an elephant and saw the biggest spider ever (both of which you can see in my picture post).

I also had the neat opportunity one night to work with and encourage this boy and his family. The boy had been in a bad accident and was in a wheelchair. I was able to talk with his parents and just see what exercises they were having him do and stuff and then was able to give them a couple of stretches and exercises for him to do. They kept on asking me how long did I think til he would walk and I told them I wasn't qualified to answer those questions, but I think it was still encouraging to them to have me there and work with him a little bit and just talk with them and affirm some of the things they were already doing with him. It was nice to have my major come in handy for something. :)

Well, that's kinda the trip in overview. Thank you to everyone who was apart of supporting me through money and prayer. I appreciate it so very much! The gospel was made known in SE Asia. Puji Tuhan (Praise the Lord)!

SE Asia Picture Post

Hey Guys. I wanted to post some pictures of my trip. I will follow soon with a recap of the trip once I have a chance to reflect on it and gather my thoughts. Pictures are worth a 1,000 words though right.

This is us up in the mountains at a church youth retreat

This is the team at the beach doing some witnessing...it was rough, but someone has to do it :)

One of the towns we went throughMe scaring the crap out of two little girls as the lion in our daniel and the lion's den skit we did for the kids at VBS

Teaching the kids english at VBS

One of the families we stayed with

Jesus's name was proclaimed to unbelieving muslims on this beach

Biggest spider I have ever seen in my life...this picture doesn't do it justice...it was literally as big as my hand!!! Why on earth would God create that?

I not only got to touch this elephant but I got to ride it...how stinking awsome is that!!!

Super Encouraging

I had a really neat experience the other night. We went to the mall (just the 5 of us bule bule...no translator) to do a little shopping and get some dinner. We also decided to see the new batman movie and so we had like an hour to kill before the movie started and so I was just chilling outside the theater in the mall and this indonesian guy comes up next to me and starts talking to me. At first I can't understand what he is saying because it is super loud, but eventually we get to talking and I can understand most of what he is saying (he spoke pretty good english). We first just kinda made small talk about school and stuff and then out of no where he asks me if I am a christian which was funny because I was going to ask him the same thing in a minute. Well, I say yes, and then I asked him if he was and he said yes. Then he asked me my testimony and I shared that with him and then he shared his with me. Then we started talking about sin and being what they call a KTP (Kaw-Tay-Pay) christian, which is someone who professes Christ but has no fruit and doesn't live like a christian. He asked me if I thought such a person was a christian and stuff. Then he told me he was at the mall with some other people from his church witnessing. It was really neat and really encouraging to get to talk with him about that stuff and it was also great to know that the local people are doing evangelism as well. So, the Lord is at work here in Indonesia and it is SO COOL to have been able to see that!

Fishers of Men

So, I hope you can all appreciate the cleverness of my blog title by the end of this blog. On tuesday we went to a city on the coast and did some "street witnessing." We traveled most of the day and arrived at the beach at about 4pm. We broke into 3 groups and walked along the beach talking with people we ran into and making conversation with them and then directing that conversation to a presentation of the gospel. It is pretty easy to get people to talk with us here because I'm pretty sure about 90% of the people here have never seen a white person. They always stare at us where ever we go. It is kinda funny. Anyways, tuesday brandon and I and our translator were able to talk with a couple of university students who were muslim and a lady and her son who were both muslim and were able to share the gospel with them.

Wednesday we did the same thing. We went to 3 different beaches and broke into 3 groups again and just walked up and down the beaches talking with people and sharing the gospel with them. Tuesday and Wednesday were both neat experiences. It was a little stretching for me beacuse that isn't my personality to just talk to people and share the gospel and then leave never to see them again, but I'm also really glad that people who have never heard the gospel have now heard it. God's Word does not return void. Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, the Indian Ocean is cold even though we are in the tropics. Go figure.

The next couple of days we are going to be teaching english at a local school and doing who knows what else. Saying plans are tentative here in Indonesia is being pretty generous I think. Please continue to pray for my team and me as we finish out our last few days here. We are leaving thrusday morning. Pray that we would finish strong and stay focused on our tasks here.

The Beat Down

Craziest morning ever! Ok, so here's what went down. We are doing VBS with this church and we pull up to the church and we all pile out of the van and there is this guy sitting on the sidewalk outside the church. He seems harmless enough. We all go inside and are just saying hi to the kids and stuff when the guy outside starts throwing rocks at the church. At first he was like out on the street throwing them but then he got a lot closer. Well, he ended up throwing one through the window and so we get all the kids away from the windows and they are all like huddling in the corner of the room and the rest of us are kinda just sitting there while the pastor is calling the police. The pastor's wife also locks the front door in two places. Well, next thing we know the guy has kicked in the front door and is standing there with a crazy look in his eyes. The pastor's wife runs and slams the door shut and anthony helps her hold it shut against this guy and I go and grab a couple of pieces of PVC pipe to hit the guy with in case he gets in. Meanwhile Brandon takes the girls and all the kids upstairs and Becca and Andrea sing with them and get them calmed down. Well, after a couple of minutes of banging on the door the guy stops and apparently wanders back out to the street, but by this time all the neighbors realize what is going on and they take this guy out. Anthony and I look out the window and we see people throwing rocks at this guy and one guy has a board in his hand and starts beating the guy with it. Next thing we know the dude is unconscious on the street with like 30 people around him waiting for the police to show up and take him away. Talk about a sense of community man. Apparently though that is how they roll here. The people we are staying with said that they had a pair of jeans stolen and the people in the community found out who it was and almost beat the guy to death over a pair of jeans. It seems to keep the crime level down pretty well. Anyway, back to the guy. Anthony and I both think the man was demon possessed because he was way stronger than he should have been. He was about 5'2" and half starved and yet he managed to kick the door in when it was locked and he just looked crazy and he attacked us and the church for no reason, so there is definitely spiritual warfare going on here. Good did come of it though because all the neighbors were hanging around the church and heard us singing and talking about God and stuff, so that was awesome. What seemed bad may really have been a huge blessing. So, just keep us in your prayers as we do not struggle against just flesh and blood.

Tomorrow we are going to be traveling again to another city and doing some street witnessing. We are all excited about this opportunity, but please be praying for the Lord to open the hearts of the people that we talk to and for the preaching of His Word to change their lives.

Bule Bule

That’s what they call us here: bule (boo-lay). It means white man. Our time here has been very eventful already. Dain had to go home because of an infection, Andrea had to go to the hospital a couple of days ago (but is out of the hospital now and is doing much better now), my stomach is torn up, and Anthony’s stomach is beginning to bother him as well. All in less than a week. Despite all this though, we are loving it here. The people are wonderful. They are very very kind.

The past 2 days we have been on a retreat up in the mountains with a church here. It was a really good time. It was a little hard to determine the spiritual atmosphere there since we couldn’t really understand what was going on all that well all the time, but I do believe we were able to impact the kids. During the time there we were split into teams and did activities and went hiking and showed the kids how to play frisbee. We also introduced them to smore’s. They seemed to like them. I definitely ate like 3 and payed for it this morning. My stomach didn’t appreciate that much food with how it is feeling. Oh well...it was worth it. J

Tomorrow, we are going to be doing a vacation bible school for two days with a local church here. Pray that that goes well.

The people here definitely don’t see many white people. We get stared at all the time. Today I had some guy come up and get like 5 inches from my face and just stare at me for a few seconds and then walk away. It is pretty funny, but definitely testing my personal bubble. They don’t really have personal space here, so that is taking a little getting used to.

Prayer requests: Health. Our team is definitely not very healthy as I wrote earlier. Please pray for the Lord’s healing grace upon our bodies. We need it. Focus on God. We are really busy and I am having a hard time finding time to spend alone with Him which I desprately need and want. Pray that I will be able to find that time, and the time that I do have with Him will be blessed and fruitful. Terima Kasih (thank you).

We're Here

Well, I finally made it to SE Asia. We got in at like 6pm last night. I'll be happy not to see another plane for 3 weeks. :) Tomorrow we are going to church, and then after that we will be going to another city to do a youth retreat. Please pray that we will have fun with the kids and be able to show God's love to them. That's it for now...