Outreach is winding down.. things will start to get a little less crazy very soon.. but before that happens, I plan to keep on enjoying the ride that God has been taking me on.
I have a team of 8 amazing people from different parts of the world, and we have all been brought together to bring the love of Jesus into the nations of Australia, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand.
We have already been to Burma and Australia, and now we are currently in Thailand.
The work we were up to in these different places has been just that; very different from one another. It was interesting to serve in Australia, being a first world nation. One would think that there wouldn't be much of a need. But we found that people there are just as broken on the inside as people in poorer nations such as Myanmar and Thailand. Our aim is always to share the gospel but in Australia we started out our ministry with quite a different approach. We found that people there don't care how much we know until they know how much we care. A lot of what we did to serve was physical labor and yard work or doing acts of service for people who could use a bit more help. We came in with a "no-intent" mindset but to just love them, and it's amazing how effective we were able to be without being "preachy". Conversation was so much more natural I found, and there were a lot of people who warmed up to the gospel. We saw one salvation when one of our teamates, Per-Ola (from Sweden) preached a message about Lordship at a church service. It was absolutely amazing how the power of God touched this man as He raised his hands to claim that he would be committing his life to Christ. It really encouraged our team. This was only in the first 2 weeks of outreach, so we continued to pray that God would show us much much more. And that He did...
After about 3 weeks of speaking in Christian High Schools, playing concerts at coffee shops and nursing homes, talking with people at the park,playing soccer with kids, running small groups, baking goodies and giving them away to people on the streets and telling them Jesus loves them (God gave me this idea ;) and running church services, and much more..we packed our bags and rolled on out to Myanmar, over in East Aisa.
There we saw God move in HUGE ways. We had this word that was really spoken over our team from Acts 4:29-31. It says "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."
One of our main goals in Myanmar was investing in this 'Chin' church. The chin people live up north in Myanmar and they are 99% Christians in a nation where only 2% of the population are believers. Because of this the authorities don't allow any tourists to go into the Chin areas, but rather they send buddhist missionaries into these Christian areas. So when we arrived, we were only to come in as tourists and had to go under cover. In this church, we taught bible students and church members about how God is for them and if that is true, nothing can stop them from doing what HE wants in their nation. So I actually got to preach to them about evangelism and I just felt that God wanted me to preach about the hope that their nation has, and how incredibly gifted each one one of them were. We definitely saw a transformation there from when we came.. and God really showed them that He will lead them into all truth and to keep going strong after Him, not getting discouraged by circumstances because we serve a God who is always good. It was really amazing to see.. and how God could speak through me personally. So cool! In this nation, we also worked in HIV clinics, orphanages, ran pre-school programs, music workshops, and cultural exchanges. We saw 13 + salvations, and prayed for a whole lot. Despite the fact that we were "under cover", that didn't stop us from reaching out whole heartedly to each thing that we were a part of... Praise the Lord that when He leads us to do something, He always makes a way when we trust in Him to carry it through.
Finally we are ending our outreach in Thailand. The doors have been opened for us to work with victims or daughters of victims in the human-sex trafficking scene. This has been very eye-opening for us as it is something the I find myself turning a blind eye to, so that I don't have to think that these things actually take place. Although that would be nice, the reality is that they do.. but the cool part is that there is hope for change. At this place called the Abba House, we have taught the guys and girls bible studies, English, and how to play worship music, as well as running the Sunday and Wednesday night services. It didn't take long for our team to fall in love with these kids.. and God showed us His heart is to restore their perceptions of who they are, and what they were made for, and to inspire them to chase the dreams that God has already placed within their hearts. It's amazing how easily love can come for people we barely know.. and that definitely happened for our team. We put together a carnival for the guys and girls, where they were able to take part in sac races, 3 legged races, egg and spoon races, bobbing for apples, face painting, bowling, volleyball tournament, a baseball tournament, and tie-dying. THEY LOVED IT! That same week, we decided to have a big thankgiving dinner, where there was heaps of traditional american thanksgiving food. We rolled out long mats and made a huge feast table in the grass with candles and everything...feeding about 40 of us in total. That night at English class, we told the story of how thanksgiving came into being and then I proceeded to teach them an embarrassing song about turkeys, which I hope to never repeat.
It has been INCREDIBLE to be a part of what God is doing over here in East Asia.
God has changed our hearts too in this process and has shown us that we NEED to be the lights for the ones who have no light. And I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart, the more I see God work, the more I find myself falling in love with Him.. He is SO good.. and I know that this is truly the way we were meant to live.. by meeting our maker through His love, and leading others to do the same. Praise the Lord.
