Seventh Week

This week started out with a call for repentance. We had a breakthrough with unity amongst each other but it was time to now repent of offense so we could go further with the Lord. We all felt something was holding us back in the past. So we went to those who had offended us or we held negative thoughts towards and asked for forgiveness and blessed that person. It was powerful and challenging. As Shara  said, “the one to the cross first wins.” This is true. Often we wait thinking it’s the other person’s responsibility or shrug it off, but this will really mess up the church. Honestly, this has been really eye opening and one of the most interesting things we have learned at this school. Not only are we learning how to live in unity with a different culture, race, religion, but also with other people from other nations that carry all kinds of others along with them.  Jesus calls us to have a pure thought life.  As he taught that not only should you not murder, but any who hate their brother in their heart have committed murder already – in this light, we need to have more consideration of how we think. Our thoughts determine our actions. From the overflow of the inside, the outside expresses. It was hard, humbling, and wonderful all at the same time. We also learned that when you are involved with others in Christ, there is this spiritual warfare. The bible says in Proverbs, ‘where there is strife, there is pride,’ and that is what we had to do, put down our pride and get right. One of our friends shared with us how this preacher is a hunter and once out in the wilderness he happened upon a bear family. All he had with him at the time was a gun and knew it wouldn’t be enough so he just emptied the gun into the male bear and ran. However, once he did that the male bear thought the female bear was attacking him and he started attacking her. This is a great metaphor for how it is as Christians. One of us gets attacked (spiritually) and we then attack our wife, husband, brother, sister, friend, etc rather than the thing shooting us. So it’s something to work on. Instead of drinking from the fountain of the enemy, when negative thoughts come into your mind, fire good thoughts and blessings for that person right back into the barrel. It’s a great practice that we are learning better late than never!

We didn’t get much teaching from Heidi this week because we had village feeding and then outreach during her teaching days. However we did learn from this guy named Charles Stock who is the head pastor the Life Center. He taught us a lot about the spiritual realm. I’m about to run out of battery on my friends lap top so I have to post this. Will write more later. Love you all! It will include the most amazing outreach experiences of this past weekend.