The last time I posted, we were getting ready to leave on our grand adventure to the wonderful country of Chin@. We arrived there at the end of March and hit the ground running. Our main ministry while we were there was evangelism and discipling university students. The city that we were in has many universities in it which means many English speaking people. Nearly every day we would spend time in the morning as team, worshiping and interceding, working through various teachings for our own growth, and just fellowshipping with one another. After that we would split up into our individual schedules, spending the rest of the morning and afternoon either making friends at the universities and sharing the gospel or hanging out with friends we had already made and continuing to tell them about Jesus and disciple them in that. I think it's always such a neat thing to be able to make friends in other countries and to just be able to hang out with them like you would a friend at home. This is a very practical and fruitful way of sharing what Christ did for us on the cross. In the evenings, we would each have different Bible studies or English corners that we'd go to. Each team member was usually paired off for these or went in a small group. During these studies and English corners, we would be running and/or teaching them. Some of our weekly topics that we taught on included the Parable of the Sower, the Vine and the Branches (John 15) and the Parable of the Rich Fool, to give a taste. We also had the privilege of running our own study several times where we invited all of our own friends that we had made. It was good to be able to have something of our own that we could run with. These specific ministries produced a lot of fruit and planted many more seeds. Altogether we saw 16 people saved by the grace of Jesus during our time in Chin@. Praise the Lord!!! It was so amazing to see how rapidly God moved in their hearts and even to be able to harvest the seeds that were planted from previous teams, especially the team before us. God is good. The title of this blogpost is "He is faithful". This really speaks to how our outreach went. We regularly asked the Lord before we left to go before us and prepare the hearts that we were going to reach out to and really just to be able to see fruit and see God do amazing things. And He did. In big ways. I've got a lot of stories that you'll just have to ask me about in person sometime because writing them out on here would not do them justice whatsoever. So please ask me. God is faithful. Never doubt that. Never doubt that His love never changes and it never fails. He will always be there for you and always pick you up when you fall down. He will always answer your prayers and always shower His love on you. Why? Because He's the perfect Dad and He loves His children.
That was the bulk of our ministry in Chin@. Our students grew so much in boldness for the gospel as well as teaching, discipling, and really receiving the Lord's heart for the people of Chin@. Every second Saturday, however, we received the opportunity of doing some orphanage ministry. Basically, we would serve in whatever way we could, whether it was playing with the children or helping the workers bathe them, it didn't matter because we were there to show them God's love. It was a good reminder for me that God loves even the most lowly and destitute of people just as much as He loves me. So who are we to not care for the orphans or widows? We also had the privilege of going to the crazy city/state/republic of Macau. If you are not aware, Macau was formerly a Portugese trading port but is independent of Portugal now. It has its own legal system, monetary system, etc. but is protected by Chin@. We went there to work at an orphanage for ten days as well as renew our visas to Chin@. Working with children for more of an extended time was a big blessing for all of us since our team had a big heart for orphans which was birthed largely in the other orphanage. We went to Macau towards the end of May and really began to wind down our outreach there. It was a good opportunity to spend more time with the team since we were always split up in Chin@. After Macau, we spent a few days back in Chin@ debriefing as well as spending some last minute time with our friends. We took off to Maui on June 1st and arrived on the 2nd and spent the following week debriefing here and as I mentioned beforehand, graduation was on the 8th of June.
Personally, this was a very challenging season for me. I came back on staff here at the end of December, as you all know, and dove right into leading an outreach team. It has been a very steep learning curve the past 6 months but I have seen the Lord's hand on my life so evidently the whole time. The biggest thing I've learned over this past while is so cliche. I've probably heard it taught way more than I can count in my lifetime. It is.. get ready.. this will blow you away.. DON'T RELY ON YOUR OWN STRENGTH! Why? Because it will fail you. Time and time again it will fail you. How many times have we heard the proverb "Trust in the Lord will all your strength and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6. We hear it so often but do we actually practice it? Do we actually listen to this instruction? God is good and He is faithful. We need to believe that. We need to come to a place of brokenness where we realize that we can't but He can. Where we understand that Jesus is EVERYTHING and we are nothing without Him. Think about it. How humbling is that? How true is that? Out of this brokenness and this submission, He can work. Basically, God has been teaching me and I hope that He teaches you that I will never be able to accomplish anything without Him. I need to get over myself and so do you. I won't be able to have peace unless I give Him all my trust. Philippians 4:4-13. One of my favorite passages in the Bible. I encourage you to read it and rest in that. Rest in the fact that God is God and you are not. That we can't do anything without Him. And that He is faithful and good and loves His children and is just and full of grace. Remember too that it is by grace that we have been saved, not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2). Grace is a gift given to us freely. Think about that. Think about the grace of God given to us through Jesus' death on the cross and His resurrection three days later. Think about that everyday and let it transform you. We will never understand grace completely so that gives us the beautiful opportunity to meditate on it always, in all areas of our life. That's my challenge to myself and my challenge to you. to think that God, who is HOLY, would come down and die for each of us on the cross, an excruciating death, taking all of my sins and all of yours, past, present and future, with Him. That He would defeat death, defeat sin, defeat destruction and torment and rise again so that I could have life. So that you could have life. And life to the fullest. Abundant life! That is why I live. That is why I do what I do. So that people can experience this too. Who am I to keep this to myself?
I went off there a bit but I guess that's the Lord at work. Thanks for reading through. You're all such a blessing to me. Thank you so much for your prayers and support and I hope that God's favour rests on all of you so mightily and beautifully. I'll try to get another post up here soon. Blessings!
Dave
p.s. if you have questions, please facebook or email me. I'd love to share more but I must go eat lunch.
