After the rain had ceased after Noah's ark had stopped, and after all the animals had left, Noah looked up, were the symbol of God’s promise stood, “I shall never flood the earth.” It was the first Rainbow. This is why each time I see a rainbow I think it is God's promise. I don't only think it is the promise that God won't flood the earth again, but that it is a promise to me that things are going to be alright and that what I am doing or where I am going is where he wants me.
I really had a hard time in elementary school. It was very hard for me to understand and to finish my homework. The teachers had told my parents that I had ADD. My mom refused to treat me with medication and had to bear with me while I did my homework. We decided to switch schools to see if it would be better. Fourth grade in the new school turned out to be the most horrible school year of my life. I ended up having to do 5 to 8 hours of homework a day. I always thought that something was wrong with me.
After praying a lot for my school, God showed my parents a new one. I remember the first day at my new school. There were about five rainbows in the sky. It was so amazing. Seeing those rainbows put my heart at peace. I knew that God had heard my prayers and this was the sign of His faithfulness.
The 2 ½ years I spent in this new school were incredible. I had one of the highest grades of the class. I could finish my homework. I felt normal. Nothing was wrong with me; it was just the way I learned.
So what does this have to do with my mission in the States? Well, I had asked God to open the doors where he wanted me to go and to make it very clear that that was where he wanted me. Sometimes I am very stubborn in the sense that I have a feeling of what God wants me to do, but most times the uneasiness or the doubt wins out. I am not 100% sure, so I don't do it. As you've read in my previous blog post “Listening to God's voice,” He told me to get out of my comfort zone. I listened, but, where am I supposed to go? What is the next step? All these questions and uncertainty made it easy for me to dismiss that sense I had received from the Lord. I was probably mistaken; that wasn’t really the Lord. But not long afterwards, I had a conversation with a friend who assured me that I needed to get out of my comfort zone. He said, “Vic, I think you are too comfortable, even when you do a lot of service, you revolve too much around your family. The first thing I think you should do is to go and live somewhere else.” Wow, ok so getting out of my comfort zone is leaving home, yes God, but where will I go? A long story short, God made it clear to me that I was supposed to go to Detroit.
I knew where I was going, but how could I raise the money? One of the things I did was selling gummy bears and chocolate chip cookies at Youth Group. I did this for about five Saturdays. I knew that I had to raise the money somehow but one of the things I hate is when some people ask money for their mission and don't do anything. I didn't want to be a hypocrite, and I certainly was going to try my best to raise the money. I had completely forgotten that the Lord provides. I had a big surprise when I got an envelope from the Youth Group that said, “For Ana Vic's Mission.” Wow! The biggest impact for me was not the amount of money (it didn’t support the whole mission), but the fact that they wanted to help me with my mission and were praying for me. God provides.
The importance of the Youth Group in my heart is huge. The people in it are its heart and I cherish every one very dearly. Most of them are missionary kids, so they will only come for about 3 to 6 months. Thanks to all of the people who have come and gone I’ve learned to trust God and that good bye's are not forever, they are just see you later. I have met more than 100 people who are mostly missionary kids and therefore have left to do God's work when he has called them. I am sure that as Christians we will see each other again, not necessarily in this Earth, but in Heaven. My last night, one day before I left Costa Rica, as it is tradition for anyone who leaves, the Youth Group took me to the front and prayed over me and for my mission. Listening to their prayers, I was surprised at the way God had used me to touch other people. One of the guys who prayed for me thanked God for my impact in school. I was actually different enough that people saw God in me. People saw my behavior towards others. I had always thought that I was an invisible high schooler who went against the flow. In reality God was using me to be an example to others, to spark curiosity of why I was different and wanting to be my friends. What a joy it was to hear those words. It was so encouraging to see the fruits of my work and to know that God continues to work in me, that God is using me right now.
The week before leaving Costa Rica I was very busy doing last minute errands and saying good bye to friends, but the day I left was bad. Evil had crept curiously over me and the night before coming, after Youth Group, had given me the opportunity to read a 500 page book. Why evil? Because the next morning I was completely exhausted and useless. I wanted to finish the book so bad that I think I only got about 4 hours of sleep that night and almost didn't finish packing. I was very crabby and didn't go to church because I hadn't finished packing.
My parents got back from church and my brother was tired, which meant that one couldn't even look at him or he would scream and cry throwing a tantrum. I had all the family’s insurance papers I had to give to my dad, with the bad news that I hadn't been able to turn them in. I heard my brother slam his bedroom door and my parents downstairs. I went to tell my dad the things he needed to give me that I was missing and I also needed to give him the papers.
Part of the chores in my house are to fix the electric things in our house, scan, sort and organize all that is related to sickness and health for our family. I had been able, with my mom’s help, to fix the sowing machine and the fans, but not the toaster. When I went down my dad got mad, really mad because his bread had burned. That was the drop that spilled the water. Let us just say that the toaster died beyond repair. All the things that were going through my mind where thoughts of failure. I hadn't fixed it. What would he say when I gave him my incomplete work? I ran to my room and the tears just ran down my face, I tried to stop, but I couldn't, the pain was too great. I heard the guard's phone and remembered that my dad's best friend was coming to say goodbye and pray for me. I heard my dad slam the door to his office saying that I had forgotten to tell his friend he could not eat lunch with us. I had told him, but he had insisted on dropping by just to say good-bye and to pray for me. I didn't want him to see me cry; but the more I tried to swallow back the tears, the more tears would flood my eyes. I managed to fool my mind by telling myself that I could cry after he left. I washed my face but you could tell I was upset. When I went down to greet him with half a phony smile, I actually was happy he had come. He gave me a hug and prayed for me. Praying. I had completely forgotten to pray that day, not only that, but I hadn't gone to church. I didn't quite know it at the time, but evil had crept in silently to my field to steal more ground for battle. Evil was also stealing my ammunition; he was disabling me so that he could increase the chance to win this battle. And I would draw farther away from God. If God has great plans for me, would Satan just allow them to happen? No! He would fight. The important factor is to see that the best place to be is in God's protection. To be there we need to pray and that is what I had forgotten to do that day. I felt a lot better after he prayed. I thanked him and said good-bye.
I only had to face my dad now. I felt better by knowing God was with me and the only problem was that anger had taken hold of my dad. “The sooner I do it, the faster it will be over,” I thought. I knocked the door. My dad was in his chair looking very serious. Swallowing my tears I went in his office and sat down. I told him what I needed and gave him the incomplete papers of the insurance. He told me that I was supposed to have presented the papers, but that it was OK, he would do it. A complete feeling of shame came over me; I was a disappointment to my dad. I had failed once again. What I needed to do was to cry to let it all out. Just like I had written one time when I was upset, “tears are the cleansing of my soul, healing the scars people have left bleeding.” I ran to my room took my teddy bear, hugged him and just sat there crying. While I cried, I prayed. I prayed for the emotions that were taking a hold of me, for I knew that the enemy was putting them in my mind. I prayed for strength to forgive and all the time I cried, my father from heaven was consoling me. I was his child and he had taken me in his arms to comfort me.
Lunch was ready. I had to go. At the beginning it was very quiet, we prayed and started eating in silence. Then, my brother threw a tantrum. I could tell we were all tense from my leaving and my brother was upset because of it; my brother and I are very united and have never been apart for more than 2 weeks. At the table we ignored him. I was waiting for my dad to apologize so that I could forgive him. Even after praying I was resentful because he had let anger take control. I cried a little because my mom was crying. They were going to tell me what they were going to miss me and thanked me for what a blessing I was. Then they both prayed for me. My dad was sorry for what had happened and I forgave him because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving being mad at him. That is why I had prayed for strength, for I knew that I couldn't do it without God and I would not let the enemy ruin the relationship my dad and I have.
Saying good bye to my mom and my brother was not as hard as I had imagined. God had given me the peace that I would see them again. My dad was coming with me and was taking Where the Red Fern Grows to finish reading it together. My dad and I have a very strong bond. If I have given you the image that he is an angry person, I am sorry. He is a strong, sensitive, and loving father who struggles with anger just as everyone struggles with something.
It was time to leave. My dad put my bags in the taxi and told me that he put a duffle bag in one just in case one of the suitcases didn't survive. I had told him that the bag was very old, but since he had insisted, I packed in it. It was too late to unpack and pack in another bag. My brother would not let go of me and my mom had to practically rip him off me. My dad and I got in the car. The ride there was silent at the beginning, then we started talking and acting as we normally do—telling bad jokes and finishing each other’s sentences because sometimes we know what the other is thinking. Then when we were about to get to the airport, a beautiful sight was seen. An airplane landing with the curtain of rain and sun behind it that was just in the right angle so that we could only see the nature and no man made technology but the airplane and the road. It was as if technology and nature were competing in beauty but making a masterpiece by being united. I would have been a great picture if we had cameras. Neither one of us had brought one.
I had been preparing myself for the airport to be packed; I had never expected it to be practically empty. Apparently, since it was a Sunday afternoon there weren't many flights. I paid my “getting out of the country” tax really quick and had tickets in hand in less than 15 min. Now my dad and I were going to finish reading the book he had brought. It had taken us over a month to finish it because I would read it to him only when he was icing his back. We were missing two pages and we both wanted to finish before I left. Where the Red Fern Grows talks about a kid who trusted God and got his prayers answered. Even when he went through unfortunate circumstances, he knew God had a plan. So we were pretty excited to see how it would end. We finished it. The end was a promise that everything would be all right. The signs was a red fern growing over their house. As I looked up from my book, not meeting my father's watery gaze, I could not believe it. There in the sky was a promise. God was answering my prayer and was assuring me that I was going where he wanted me to go, that I was doing his will. In the sky, above the mountains, there lay a rainbow.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Detroit Summer Outreach
This is a little Summary of the things I did during the summer. When I came to Detroit and served last semester, I completely fell in love with the city and its people. I went to Costa Rica for almost 3 weeks and then came back, the trip here is another story but I can let you all know that I was completely positive that Detroit was the place where God wanted me to be for the summer.
Having been here before I knew what I was getting into, but I had no idea what God's plan was. The first three weeks were training, so we sat and listened to talks and took notes, got to know the group a little better. There were people from Ann Arbor, Gran Rapids, Lansing, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania,North Carolina, Costa Rica, Philippines, Scotland, and Ireland. All in Detroit. The guys were living in Highland Park, the brothers were willing to give up there house for the Women and go to Highland park, and we, the women, got a beautiful house in a safer neighborhood. What a blessing. The first recreation event we did as a household was going to a park in Ann Arbor.
I love our driver, she didn't complain about this craziness. All I thought was, this is fun! Little did I know that the craziness would only get worse as the summer went on. By the way the game is, fake laughing, laugh with a fake laugh to make everyone else laugh, the person who laughs falsely till the end wins. So we got to the park and walked around. Some girls held on from vines and swung, another one climbed a tree. I had the brilliant idea of all the girls getting up a tree and I would take a picture, I am not very talented at climbing so I thought it a good idea for everyone else to, but someone else offered to take the pic. God worked on my trusting other people. It was a little hard to get up the tree, it was even harder getting down, I had to trust the rest of the girls to catch me, they did, but I'm not planning on climbing trees anytime soon. The pic.
Living in household. I had been an only child for almost 13 years in my life before my brother came, and when he did, he had his own room. What is my point here? well I have never shared a room. I only shared a room last semester, while I served here, but I had never lived with girls, only girls, and 8 of them! What would it be like? Well I found out that the best way to describe it is that girls will be girls. Now that the summer has come to an end I can say that God had a plan in placing us all together, being as different as we were, so that we could grow and learn more about sisterly love. The schedule was be up and ready for the rest of the day by 6:10 am, so get up before then and get ready, then we would eat breakfast all together, not all of the girls where morning people, but we would all be ready. Then we had Morning prayer, which consisted of worshiping and praising the Lord together, Alternating the worship leader, and then a meditation for the day, then we would have 30 min of personal prayer and then 15 to intercede for the day and whatever else was going on. At 8 we would leave for our respective services and we would get back around 5 30pm to make dinner if we were on dinner duty, and then share, and depending on the day we would have BB Q's, prayer meeting,free time, Recreation time. We would close the day doing night prayers all together at 10pm and go to bed. I was blessed at being able to serve leading worship in the mornings, and going grocery shopping for the girls household with Sarah, my roommate, on Mondays. I must say that it was very interesting to see that I'm not the only person who likes to talk, in fact there are other girls that like to talk more than I do, and they have really cool stories. So God worked this summer on my listening skills and showed me that if there is silence it is OK, one has to listen once in a while, if it is not another person, listen to what God is telling you. Getting home was always beautiful, it felt like a family, I was going to rest, to be with my sisters and see how their day had been. I came to the summer with no idea what household would be like, and I left with 8 sisters that will always be there with me because our relationship is based in Christ and His love. Every year there is a soccer tournament with people from different University Christian Outreaches, and Saint Paul's Outreaches, and Detroit Summer Outreach also participates. Unfortunately only the guys play, girls get to cheer. Yay! well I love sports and if I couldn't play, I was going to cheer as no one had before, so some of us girls had a plan. We would make portrait's of all the guy interns and cheer with them and give them their portraits at the end of the game, also, we would waterballoon them afterwards. That Saturday we had a service project in the morning with South West Solutions. Beautification day, planting gardens and cleaning some Gardens in Mexican Town. So we got ready to serve and brought everything to go after to the guys soccer game in Ann Arbor. Gardening is tiring, I learned, and pulling weeds and planting, but the result was beautiful, and a good learning experience. What was God telling me? well, sometimes we are beautiful flowers, but we are not at the correct place, we need to be replanted somewhere else so that we can shine even more. That was part of what God did to us this summer. He took us out of our comfort zone, and planted us in a new place so that we could grow more and get more. It was really cool to see that after helping out. So this pic is of the girls that went to beautification day.
When we got to the soccer game, the boys were loosing and the game was almost over. In total they won 1 out of 3 games, they did very well considering they only trained for 2 weeks while all the other teams had been preparing for at least a month. So we cheered, and then, we got the water balloons and they were taking pictures, so we went to take a picture with them, the pic was taken and we attacked, so much fun!!! We also got wet because the balloons wouldn't pop, so the guys would get them and throw them back.
I got to serve this summer doing all the services there are, normally one is assigned to one team for the whole summer. Vacation Bible School runs only during the first two weeks, while Street Team, Bezalel, and Mercy Team run for six weeks. Some people that are assigned to Bezalel are also assigned to lead Vacation Bible School with one of the two Street Team's. I started for the first three weeks doing Street Team, the one that was doing Vacation Bible School. So for the first two weeks it was working in the morning with kids, afternoons working at Hannah House cleaning and at South West Solutions. Mondays were training days so we would have teachings about the bible, small groups, prayer time, and games with the High School Interns. I got to serve mostly with the planning of the games, team work, and all need to participate. It was good to see some of this kids stepping up to lead the rest and motivate the rest. I gave one talk, shorter than half an hour, for me, something hard to do. It was called, God's law and his love for us. I talked about the commandments, and explained each one, why did God make the commandments? Because He loves us. I also talked about the prodigal son. All went very well. We also had trips, so the first trip we had we did a rope's course, and then we went to a park to play and swim. At Hannah House our work, for the girls, consisted mostly of cleaning inside, windows, walls, railings, the guys moved heavy stuff around. We also cleaned the parking lot and the front of the building, picked trash and swept the sidewalks and pulled weeds. This is a picture of Crew #2 First day of work before leaving to go back to the office.
The next pictures are from doing Vacation Bible School.
The second week we worked with South West Solutions and it was a great opportunity to know more about the teens that were in crew 1. For the second week they had the older teens go and work at Pennsylvania, the rest stayed behind. I stayed behind. This is when we had a retreat, we went to a rope's course and to a park with a lake. Interesting fact about Detroit. Most kids don't know how to swim. Why? there are no pools in Detroit, maybe in hotels, but not somewhere this kids can afford to go. So they don't like the water that much. Well it was a beautiful day and I got in the water, and to my surprise some of the kids wanted to learn how to swim! What a blessing! 2 Timothy 1:7 says "...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." So this kids were facing their fear, they were conquering evil in an activity that was recreational, so here are some of the pics from the rope's course and the swim!
The rest of the week we had work days, again in the morning doing vacation bible school and then working with South West Solutions. The mornings would go by quick and then the afternoons, well it depended on the day. The first work day we had to move all the paint from one garage to another, then empty the carpet materials in the garage, which were more than 8000 sq ft of carpet, to another building, carry it to the basement, and organize it. Our Employer thought that it would probably take us all afternoon, but this kids worked hard! I mean Hard! The crew leader stepped up, divided the tasks, and when we were done doing the little things we all went in and made an assembly line. We were done in less than an hour! We were 15 people, not that many, and yet we finished. Then they had to figure out what to make us do for the next 2 hours. We cleaned the parking lots and swept the sidewalk and were done, so they said we could go home early. So we went back to the office, explained the situation to our boss and he told us that even if the kids work hard they need to work well. They get paid by the hour not by the job, it won't help them to think that they just do the job as quick as they can and they they have free time, no, they need to work hard and well. And they did, they worked hard, well, and fast! Our employers would need to think of impossible un-endable jobs for us so that we could work for the time we were supposed to. One of the teens said, "We need to imagine God as our boss, our employer. If we think of work, and everything we do, as doing it for God, we won't be lazy, and we will most certainly give it our best." When this 14 year old said this, it struck me. It is sooooo true. It shouldn't matter what I get done, how fast, what matters is that I give my absolute best and glorify God by my work, for it is for Him that I am working! What an important lesson to learn. So for the rest of the summer whenever the temp got too hot, whenever the job was boring, I would remind myself and the people around me that we are a testimony to the rest of the world, we are Christians, we need to work as such, giving it our best. This next picture is of us enjoying our break, long break, after finishing the job in 1 hour. No one has pictures of the job, because we were all too busy working.
The rest of the week we were divided into groups and had different tasks, mine was organizing a garage. All this in the afternoon, morning we would have VBS. So the pictures that follow are from the different groups did, and also of VBS.
Friday we had off because it was fourth of July weekend. We had it completely free. Most of the interns went home or got together with their families and the rest, well, the guys went to Lansin, and the girls went to Ann Arbor. It was a great time to rest and to restore energy for the rest of the summer.
My appologys for not having the rest posted, I will post it as soon as I can.
Having been here before I knew what I was getting into, but I had no idea what God's plan was. The first three weeks were training, so we sat and listened to talks and took notes, got to know the group a little better. There were people from Ann Arbor, Gran Rapids, Lansing, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania,North Carolina, Costa Rica, Philippines, Scotland, and Ireland. All in Detroit. The guys were living in Highland Park, the brothers were willing to give up there house for the Women and go to Highland park, and we, the women, got a beautiful house in a safer neighborhood. What a blessing. The first recreation event we did as a household was going to a park in Ann Arbor.
I love our driver, she didn't complain about this craziness. All I thought was, this is fun! Little did I know that the craziness would only get worse as the summer went on. By the way the game is, fake laughing, laugh with a fake laugh to make everyone else laugh, the person who laughs falsely till the end wins. So we got to the park and walked around. Some girls held on from vines and swung, another one climbed a tree. I had the brilliant idea of all the girls getting up a tree and I would take a picture, I am not very talented at climbing so I thought it a good idea for everyone else to, but someone else offered to take the pic. God worked on my trusting other people. It was a little hard to get up the tree, it was even harder getting down, I had to trust the rest of the girls to catch me, they did, but I'm not planning on climbing trees anytime soon. The pic.
Living in household. I had been an only child for almost 13 years in my life before my brother came, and when he did, he had his own room. What is my point here? well I have never shared a room. I only shared a room last semester, while I served here, but I had never lived with girls, only girls, and 8 of them! What would it be like? Well I found out that the best way to describe it is that girls will be girls. Now that the summer has come to an end I can say that God had a plan in placing us all together, being as different as we were, so that we could grow and learn more about sisterly love. The schedule was be up and ready for the rest of the day by 6:10 am, so get up before then and get ready, then we would eat breakfast all together, not all of the girls where morning people, but we would all be ready. Then we had Morning prayer, which consisted of worshiping and praising the Lord together, Alternating the worship leader, and then a meditation for the day, then we would have 30 min of personal prayer and then 15 to intercede for the day and whatever else was going on. At 8 we would leave for our respective services and we would get back around 5 30pm to make dinner if we were on dinner duty, and then share, and depending on the day we would have BB Q's, prayer meeting,free time, Recreation time. We would close the day doing night prayers all together at 10pm and go to bed. I was blessed at being able to serve leading worship in the mornings, and going grocery shopping for the girls household with Sarah, my roommate, on Mondays. I must say that it was very interesting to see that I'm not the only person who likes to talk, in fact there are other girls that like to talk more than I do, and they have really cool stories. So God worked this summer on my listening skills and showed me that if there is silence it is OK, one has to listen once in a while, if it is not another person, listen to what God is telling you. Getting home was always beautiful, it felt like a family, I was going to rest, to be with my sisters and see how their day had been. I came to the summer with no idea what household would be like, and I left with 8 sisters that will always be there with me because our relationship is based in Christ and His love. Every year there is a soccer tournament with people from different University Christian Outreaches, and Saint Paul's Outreaches, and Detroit Summer Outreach also participates. Unfortunately only the guys play, girls get to cheer. Yay! well I love sports and if I couldn't play, I was going to cheer as no one had before, so some of us girls had a plan. We would make portrait's of all the guy interns and cheer with them and give them their portraits at the end of the game, also, we would waterballoon them afterwards. That Saturday we had a service project in the morning with South West Solutions. Beautification day, planting gardens and cleaning some Gardens in Mexican Town. So we got ready to serve and brought everything to go after to the guys soccer game in Ann Arbor. Gardening is tiring, I learned, and pulling weeds and planting, but the result was beautiful, and a good learning experience. What was God telling me? well, sometimes we are beautiful flowers, but we are not at the correct place, we need to be replanted somewhere else so that we can shine even more. That was part of what God did to us this summer. He took us out of our comfort zone, and planted us in a new place so that we could grow more and get more. It was really cool to see that after helping out. So this pic is of the girls that went to beautification day.
When we got to the soccer game, the boys were loosing and the game was almost over. In total they won 1 out of 3 games, they did very well considering they only trained for 2 weeks while all the other teams had been preparing for at least a month. So we cheered, and then, we got the water balloons and they were taking pictures, so we went to take a picture with them, the pic was taken and we attacked, so much fun!!! We also got wet because the balloons wouldn't pop, so the guys would get them and throw them back.
I got to serve this summer doing all the services there are, normally one is assigned to one team for the whole summer. Vacation Bible School runs only during the first two weeks, while Street Team, Bezalel, and Mercy Team run for six weeks. Some people that are assigned to Bezalel are also assigned to lead Vacation Bible School with one of the two Street Team's. I started for the first three weeks doing Street Team, the one that was doing Vacation Bible School. So for the first two weeks it was working in the morning with kids, afternoons working at Hannah House cleaning and at South West Solutions. Mondays were training days so we would have teachings about the bible, small groups, prayer time, and games with the High School Interns. I got to serve mostly with the planning of the games, team work, and all need to participate. It was good to see some of this kids stepping up to lead the rest and motivate the rest. I gave one talk, shorter than half an hour, for me, something hard to do. It was called, God's law and his love for us. I talked about the commandments, and explained each one, why did God make the commandments? Because He loves us. I also talked about the prodigal son. All went very well. We also had trips, so the first trip we had we did a rope's course, and then we went to a park to play and swim. At Hannah House our work, for the girls, consisted mostly of cleaning inside, windows, walls, railings, the guys moved heavy stuff around. We also cleaned the parking lot and the front of the building, picked trash and swept the sidewalks and pulled weeds. This is a picture of Crew #2 First day of work before leaving to go back to the office.
The next pictures are from doing Vacation Bible School.
The second week we worked with South West Solutions and it was a great opportunity to know more about the teens that were in crew 1. For the second week they had the older teens go and work at Pennsylvania, the rest stayed behind. I stayed behind. This is when we had a retreat, we went to a rope's course and to a park with a lake. Interesting fact about Detroit. Most kids don't know how to swim. Why? there are no pools in Detroit, maybe in hotels, but not somewhere this kids can afford to go. So they don't like the water that much. Well it was a beautiful day and I got in the water, and to my surprise some of the kids wanted to learn how to swim! What a blessing! 2 Timothy 1:7 says "...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." So this kids were facing their fear, they were conquering evil in an activity that was recreational, so here are some of the pics from the rope's course and the swim!
The rest of the week we had work days, again in the morning doing vacation bible school and then working with South West Solutions. The mornings would go by quick and then the afternoons, well it depended on the day. The first work day we had to move all the paint from one garage to another, then empty the carpet materials in the garage, which were more than 8000 sq ft of carpet, to another building, carry it to the basement, and organize it. Our Employer thought that it would probably take us all afternoon, but this kids worked hard! I mean Hard! The crew leader stepped up, divided the tasks, and when we were done doing the little things we all went in and made an assembly line. We were done in less than an hour! We were 15 people, not that many, and yet we finished. Then they had to figure out what to make us do for the next 2 hours. We cleaned the parking lots and swept the sidewalk and were done, so they said we could go home early. So we went back to the office, explained the situation to our boss and he told us that even if the kids work hard they need to work well. They get paid by the hour not by the job, it won't help them to think that they just do the job as quick as they can and they they have free time, no, they need to work hard and well. And they did, they worked hard, well, and fast! Our employers would need to think of impossible un-endable jobs for us so that we could work for the time we were supposed to. One of the teens said, "We need to imagine God as our boss, our employer. If we think of work, and everything we do, as doing it for God, we won't be lazy, and we will most certainly give it our best." When this 14 year old said this, it struck me. It is sooooo true. It shouldn't matter what I get done, how fast, what matters is that I give my absolute best and glorify God by my work, for it is for Him that I am working! What an important lesson to learn. So for the rest of the summer whenever the temp got too hot, whenever the job was boring, I would remind myself and the people around me that we are a testimony to the rest of the world, we are Christians, we need to work as such, giving it our best. This next picture is of us enjoying our break, long break, after finishing the job in 1 hour. No one has pictures of the job, because we were all too busy working.
The rest of the week we were divided into groups and had different tasks, mine was organizing a garage. All this in the afternoon, morning we would have VBS. So the pictures that follow are from the different groups did, and also of VBS.
Friday we had off because it was fourth of July weekend. We had it completely free. Most of the interns went home or got together with their families and the rest, well, the guys went to Lansin, and the girls went to Ann Arbor. It was a great time to rest and to restore energy for the rest of the summer.
My appologys for not having the rest posted, I will post it as soon as I can.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Listening to God's Calling
After graduation, my dad came up to me and said he wanted me to listen to a message. He has quite often done this, and later comes to see what I thought of it. Recently he had gotten a hold of a talk given by Bill Hibels entitled “Relentless” which he gave at the Leadership Summit.
My dad came with the CD and said, “Here, listen to this and then tell me what you think.”
My reaction was, “Sure, I'll do that.” But little did I know that I would be awakened.
The talk was about Mother Teresa and her life, including her calling and her struggles. One of the things that caught my attention was that she said, "When I don't feel your presence, I will still be faithful and I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before." Wow. I was completely impressed by this. She blamed herself for not feeling God's presence as tangibly as she thought it would be, yet, she chose to love him as he had never been loved before. What does God want of me? I certainly sometimes feel he isn't there. And what do I do? I turn my back on him. I should choose to love him like he has never been loved before, even when I don't feel him. I want to follow him and do his will for me, but how can I if I don't choose to love?
Something else that caught my attention was that very early in her life: Mother Teresa made a series of powerful private pacts or vows, vows above and beyond what most of us would ever consider making. She didn’t make them with a spirit of compulsion; she made them with a spirit of love. In April of 1942, when she was just a school teacher, she made a vow to give God absolutely anything he might ask for. She put it this way, “To refuse him nothing”. “To refuse him nothing.” In other words she decided to say yes to God’s bidding every time, no matter what the request was, no matter the price it exacted from her life. “Yes God, yes God, now what was the question? 'Cause my answer is yes.” Along those lines she vowed that she would throw herself fully into whatever God asked her to do. She made this vow in the form of a question, “If God imparts himself fully to us, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? How could we?” And in responding to promptings from God, her vow was to do his bidding without delay. This was big to her. She never wanted to tell God, “Yes, but tomorrow. Yes, but next month. Yes, but when I’m not as busy. Yes, but when I retire.” Moreover, she vowed to God that she would be faithful in what she always referred to as “the little practices”--the little practices of love, which meant treating every person who crossed her path with dignity and deference every day, every situation. I want to do that; I want to be the person who says yes to God even before he has told me what I need to do.
Another important point. At 36 years of age, after a dozen years of total obscurity, cart blanch (handing God a blank check) yieldedness, and private daily vows, Mother Theresa goes on a 400 mile train ride to a spiritual retreat and God taps her on the shoulder and gives her a mission. He plants a thought in her mind that she knows is directly from him. He plants a picture of her serving the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She’s to live amongst the people that she’ll be serving, eat what they eat, dress as they dress, and do so quietly and faithfully the rest of her life. She was ecstatic that God would notice her. That God would whisper to her out of 6 billion people on the planet. When you have been praying for a decade, “Speak to me God; I’ll listen. Ask me to do something. I will refuse you nothing.” After you do that for a decade, and then God speaks, and God entrusts you with an assignment directly from his sovereign hand. Well, that's about as exhilarating as it gets. And Mother Theresa referred to that day and that train ride, the rest of her life, as “Inspiration Day.” “Inspiration Day,” September 10, 1946. And more importantly, the minute she got that prompting on that train, she said yes to that calling and it was yes without delay. That it would be hard, no problem; God had spoken. That she would be uprooted from all her friends and sisters and family, no problem; God had spoken. That her assignment would involve her working the rest of her life with diseased and dying people in one of the filthiest poorest places on the planet, no problem ;God has spoken. I will refuse him nothing. She said yes and intended to fulfill this without delay.
Now, you would think that when Mother Theresa finally got off from the 400 mile train ride, bursting with enthusiasm for her new calling in Calcutta, you would think that everything would unfold in a timely and uncomplicated way circumstantially. After all, this was God’s idea, God’s calling, she said “yes.” Shouldn’t all doors open automatically and all obstacles be miraculously removed from her path? This was not what happened to Mother Theresa. The next 16 months became a living nightmare for this Christ follower. She excitedly described her new calling to Father Venexum, her direct supervisor. But he is not too excited about her new calling. In fact, he tells her to slow down and back off and stick to her teaching job. This is intensely frustrating to Mother Teresa. Her heart is ablaze to move to Calcutta right away and start her work amongst the poor. But, what is she to do? She can’t get permission. Well, she decides to fight for her calling. She decides to meet with Father Venexum as many times as necessary. To vision cast him and to try to gently persuade him that this idea is from God and that she must do it. But it takes way too many meetings, which only adds to Mother Theresa’s frustration, and then to top it all off, some of the other nuns at the school where Mother Theresa is teaching started a rumor that Mother Theresa is having all these meeting with father Venexum because she has romantic feelings for him. Being misunderstood, being thought of in that way causes Mother Theresa almost insane amounts of anguish.. So here she is, knowing exactly what God wants her to do, excitedly having said yes to God, without delay. She wants to move ahead, but she can’t because of obstacles beyond her control.
This has happened to me, and many times I've let that dream or that vision die away because of the obstacles. But I should continue fighting and realize the vision God gave me. During this painful phase, penetrating questions are dealt with like, “Is this assignment really from God or did I just made it up myself? How do I know the difference between those two? What price I am actually willing to pay to fulfill this mission? How long am I willing to wait on God before he moves the obstacles aside? Might I need to adjust to his time table instead of thinking only of mine? Do I really believe that God can change the heart of someone in authority over me? Do I believe that he still has the power to part circumstantial waters that I’m neck-deep in right now? Will I lay down my life to carry out the vision that God is asking me to carry out?”
What happened with Mother Teresa? It took Mother Theresa four solid months of consistently meeting with father Venexum to finally convince him to let her take this new calling to the archbishop who had the final say about starting new ministries in that part of the world. Four months of just terrible frustration. And then, when she finally got permission to go to the archbishop, the archbishop said “No. Not now. Wait.” Mother Theresa was done waiting. She had already been intensely frustrated for how long it had taken to get past father Venexum, and now there is this additional immovable obstacle. She is at a true decision point now. Just go back to teaching and give it up or choose another alternative. And with the kind of relentlessness that I’ve rarely heard about, she embarks on a letter writing campaign to simply wear the archbishop down. Like the widow in Luke 18. She writes him all about the 400 mile train ride and how God gave her the calling. She wrote him all about “inspiration day” and gave him the date and the time. She writes about it with deep emotion. She passionately describes how awful the situation is in Calcutta. She tells him in one letter, “You don’t have to do anything for me. I am not asking for money, for administrative support, for staff, for housing. I am only asking you not to stand in the way.” Now, at the end of every letter, she expresses in no uncertain terms that she will humbly submit to his authority. In fact one time she wrote to the archbishop and she said, “Please forgive me for being so tiresome with my continual appeal, but I have to act this way. Souls of the poor are being lost.” This letter writing effort continued month after month after month. And then came her famous “let me go” letter. “I beg you, your grace, in the name of Jesus and for the love of Jesus, let me go. Delay no longer. Keep me not back. If the work be all human, it will die with me; if it be all his, it will live for ages to come. Souls are being lost in the meantime. Fear not for me! It does not matter what happens to me. Please let me go.”
What an incredible example. Before doing some research about Mother Teresa I thought that God chose her, she obeyed, and everything worked out. But it didn't. What is more incredible is her persistence and her will to keep going, and still to submit to her authority, not sneaking and doing it her way, but the way it is supposed to be done. Acts 20:24 says, “I no longer count my life as dear as to myself. It doesn’t matter what happens to me, only that I achieve the mission that God gave to me.” I want to be like that. I want to let his plan live in me. It does not matter what happens to me. As we know, Mother Teresa eventually was able to go and do her mission, but how long after she had her calling? Almost a year and a half from the train ride, a year and a half from “inspiration day,” she finally received permission to go. But it required a relentlessness of spirit and a Pit-bull determination on Mother Theresa’s part to see it trough.
Incredible—once we do what God has for us, we will bear fruit and grow immensely. Who would have thought that a “pint-sized” nun from nowhere could have had the impact that she did? No one. It was through God and his strength that she was able to do it. What does this mean? What does this have to do with me? I really need to listen to God and ACT, not just listen.
The talk finished, and of course my Dad came and asked me what I had learned. He had no idea that that talk had changed me, that it had awakened me from my slumber. I told him everything and he was happy to have been able to help me.
I decide to pray, and this is what I said, “God, I yield myself fully to you. I embrace your calling on my life. I will do your bidding without delay. I will refuse you nothing. I will endure all hardships. When I don’t feel your presence, I will still be faithful. I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before. Here am I; send me. What is my calling Lord? What do you want me to do, 'cause my answer is yes. Amen."
God answered, "I want you to get out of your comfort zone and draw closer to me."
Ok, I already said yes, now lead me and open the doors where you want me to go.
My dad came with the CD and said, “Here, listen to this and then tell me what you think.”
My reaction was, “Sure, I'll do that.” But little did I know that I would be awakened.
The talk was about Mother Teresa and her life, including her calling and her struggles. One of the things that caught my attention was that she said, "When I don't feel your presence, I will still be faithful and I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before." Wow. I was completely impressed by this. She blamed herself for not feeling God's presence as tangibly as she thought it would be, yet, she chose to love him as he had never been loved before. What does God want of me? I certainly sometimes feel he isn't there. And what do I do? I turn my back on him. I should choose to love him like he has never been loved before, even when I don't feel him. I want to follow him and do his will for me, but how can I if I don't choose to love?
Something else that caught my attention was that very early in her life: Mother Teresa made a series of powerful private pacts or vows, vows above and beyond what most of us would ever consider making. She didn’t make them with a spirit of compulsion; she made them with a spirit of love. In April of 1942, when she was just a school teacher, she made a vow to give God absolutely anything he might ask for. She put it this way, “To refuse him nothing”. “To refuse him nothing.” In other words she decided to say yes to God’s bidding every time, no matter what the request was, no matter the price it exacted from her life. “Yes God, yes God, now what was the question? 'Cause my answer is yes.” Along those lines she vowed that she would throw herself fully into whatever God asked her to do. She made this vow in the form of a question, “If God imparts himself fully to us, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? How could we?” And in responding to promptings from God, her vow was to do his bidding without delay. This was big to her. She never wanted to tell God, “Yes, but tomorrow. Yes, but next month. Yes, but when I’m not as busy. Yes, but when I retire.” Moreover, she vowed to God that she would be faithful in what she always referred to as “the little practices”--the little practices of love, which meant treating every person who crossed her path with dignity and deference every day, every situation. I want to do that; I want to be the person who says yes to God even before he has told me what I need to do.
Another important point. At 36 years of age, after a dozen years of total obscurity, cart blanch (handing God a blank check) yieldedness, and private daily vows, Mother Theresa goes on a 400 mile train ride to a spiritual retreat and God taps her on the shoulder and gives her a mission. He plants a thought in her mind that she knows is directly from him. He plants a picture of her serving the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She’s to live amongst the people that she’ll be serving, eat what they eat, dress as they dress, and do so quietly and faithfully the rest of her life. She was ecstatic that God would notice her. That God would whisper to her out of 6 billion people on the planet. When you have been praying for a decade, “Speak to me God; I’ll listen. Ask me to do something. I will refuse you nothing.” After you do that for a decade, and then God speaks, and God entrusts you with an assignment directly from his sovereign hand. Well, that's about as exhilarating as it gets. And Mother Theresa referred to that day and that train ride, the rest of her life, as “Inspiration Day.” “Inspiration Day,” September 10, 1946. And more importantly, the minute she got that prompting on that train, she said yes to that calling and it was yes without delay. That it would be hard, no problem; God had spoken. That she would be uprooted from all her friends and sisters and family, no problem; God had spoken. That her assignment would involve her working the rest of her life with diseased and dying people in one of the filthiest poorest places on the planet, no problem ;God has spoken. I will refuse him nothing. She said yes and intended to fulfill this without delay.
Now, you would think that when Mother Theresa finally got off from the 400 mile train ride, bursting with enthusiasm for her new calling in Calcutta, you would think that everything would unfold in a timely and uncomplicated way circumstantially. After all, this was God’s idea, God’s calling, she said “yes.” Shouldn’t all doors open automatically and all obstacles be miraculously removed from her path? This was not what happened to Mother Theresa. The next 16 months became a living nightmare for this Christ follower. She excitedly described her new calling to Father Venexum, her direct supervisor. But he is not too excited about her new calling. In fact, he tells her to slow down and back off and stick to her teaching job. This is intensely frustrating to Mother Teresa. Her heart is ablaze to move to Calcutta right away and start her work amongst the poor. But, what is she to do? She can’t get permission. Well, she decides to fight for her calling. She decides to meet with Father Venexum as many times as necessary. To vision cast him and to try to gently persuade him that this idea is from God and that she must do it. But it takes way too many meetings, which only adds to Mother Theresa’s frustration, and then to top it all off, some of the other nuns at the school where Mother Theresa is teaching started a rumor that Mother Theresa is having all these meeting with father Venexum because she has romantic feelings for him. Being misunderstood, being thought of in that way causes Mother Theresa almost insane amounts of anguish.. So here she is, knowing exactly what God wants her to do, excitedly having said yes to God, without delay. She wants to move ahead, but she can’t because of obstacles beyond her control.
This has happened to me, and many times I've let that dream or that vision die away because of the obstacles. But I should continue fighting and realize the vision God gave me. During this painful phase, penetrating questions are dealt with like, “Is this assignment really from God or did I just made it up myself? How do I know the difference between those two? What price I am actually willing to pay to fulfill this mission? How long am I willing to wait on God before he moves the obstacles aside? Might I need to adjust to his time table instead of thinking only of mine? Do I really believe that God can change the heart of someone in authority over me? Do I believe that he still has the power to part circumstantial waters that I’m neck-deep in right now? Will I lay down my life to carry out the vision that God is asking me to carry out?”
What happened with Mother Teresa? It took Mother Theresa four solid months of consistently meeting with father Venexum to finally convince him to let her take this new calling to the archbishop who had the final say about starting new ministries in that part of the world. Four months of just terrible frustration. And then, when she finally got permission to go to the archbishop, the archbishop said “No. Not now. Wait.” Mother Theresa was done waiting. She had already been intensely frustrated for how long it had taken to get past father Venexum, and now there is this additional immovable obstacle. She is at a true decision point now. Just go back to teaching and give it up or choose another alternative. And with the kind of relentlessness that I’ve rarely heard about, she embarks on a letter writing campaign to simply wear the archbishop down. Like the widow in Luke 18. She writes him all about the 400 mile train ride and how God gave her the calling. She wrote him all about “inspiration day” and gave him the date and the time. She writes about it with deep emotion. She passionately describes how awful the situation is in Calcutta. She tells him in one letter, “You don’t have to do anything for me. I am not asking for money, for administrative support, for staff, for housing. I am only asking you not to stand in the way.” Now, at the end of every letter, she expresses in no uncertain terms that she will humbly submit to his authority. In fact one time she wrote to the archbishop and she said, “Please forgive me for being so tiresome with my continual appeal, but I have to act this way. Souls of the poor are being lost.” This letter writing effort continued month after month after month. And then came her famous “let me go” letter. “I beg you, your grace, in the name of Jesus and for the love of Jesus, let me go. Delay no longer. Keep me not back. If the work be all human, it will die with me; if it be all his, it will live for ages to come. Souls are being lost in the meantime. Fear not for me! It does not matter what happens to me. Please let me go.”
What an incredible example. Before doing some research about Mother Teresa I thought that God chose her, she obeyed, and everything worked out. But it didn't. What is more incredible is her persistence and her will to keep going, and still to submit to her authority, not sneaking and doing it her way, but the way it is supposed to be done. Acts 20:24 says, “I no longer count my life as dear as to myself. It doesn’t matter what happens to me, only that I achieve the mission that God gave to me.” I want to be like that. I want to let his plan live in me. It does not matter what happens to me. As we know, Mother Teresa eventually was able to go and do her mission, but how long after she had her calling? Almost a year and a half from the train ride, a year and a half from “inspiration day,” she finally received permission to go. But it required a relentlessness of spirit and a Pit-bull determination on Mother Theresa’s part to see it trough.
Incredible—once we do what God has for us, we will bear fruit and grow immensely. Who would have thought that a “pint-sized” nun from nowhere could have had the impact that she did? No one. It was through God and his strength that she was able to do it. What does this mean? What does this have to do with me? I really need to listen to God and ACT, not just listen.
The talk finished, and of course my Dad came and asked me what I had learned. He had no idea that that talk had changed me, that it had awakened me from my slumber. I told him everything and he was happy to have been able to help me.
I decide to pray, and this is what I said, “God, I yield myself fully to you. I embrace your calling on my life. I will do your bidding without delay. I will refuse you nothing. I will endure all hardships. When I don’t feel your presence, I will still be faithful. I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before. Here am I; send me. What is my calling Lord? What do you want me to do, 'cause my answer is yes. Amen."
God answered, "I want you to get out of your comfort zone and draw closer to me."
Ok, I already said yes, now lead me and open the doors where you want me to go.
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