Not coincidentally, last week we were talking with some good friends down the road who have been trying for YEARS, literal years, to get one of our alumni to a church-planting training in Manilla. After having various visas denied countless times, they had finally and officially given up it ever happening. Of course, that same week someone made them aware of attempting travel through a certain country that is well out of the way and less convenient, but far more easy to get visas to travel through, and suddenly, literally next week, end of January, our friend and alumni brother are off to Manilla after traipsing the world a bit to get there.
Our souls are re-encouraged. Matt met with Jean-William and Rujerry the very next day as they have launched into their final semester at Emmaus, waiting and watching for God to open the way or clarify a new one. We're back on getting them to life-on-life ministry with Muslim refugees in their shared heart language, this time investigating travel and visas through this same country.
I'm sorry this is all vague. Vague writing is not my forte, but I don't ever want my words to be a speck of a hindrance to anything God might be doing. Forgive me when they are.
Please be continuing to pray. Pray for Jerry and Jean-William, for the work already happening in Italy, in Greece, around the world with refugees who are desperate and hungry and beloved. Pray that this new route we never even thought of might be the route He uses to get His people to people who need Him.
Matt preached just a fantastic sermon in chapel on Monday looking at the life of Elkinah, Hannah and Penninah from 1 Samuel, and pointed out some 8 things or so I never noticed or took away. The way Hannah dealt with her suffering vs. how Penninah did. The way Elkinah was faithful to do what God had asked even when the priests were crooked as could be. The way God used the suffering of this family to bring about Samuel, who brought Israel out of a great long season of suffering into a beautiful season of following after God.
The suffering of the world, the suffering of these refugees, it will not be wasted, God is using it even NOW, using it even now to bring many to Himself...some through the faithfulness of believers, some through simply dreams and visions. He uses suffering to remove veils, to open eyes, to bring about transformation, to reveal his great faithfulness, to bring about salvation, and He's using it still.
Beautifully, powerfully, on Sunday we sat in the very front of the tin church and watched little Miloura in her mama's arms, a mama so many of you have prayed for, a mama God un-debateably saved from death for His plans...and we prayed for them as she was dedicated to God.
What suffering this family has been through, and I'm often so quick to see suffering as the great enemy and try to bail everyone out of it. But how greatly He uses and redeems it, and what an unspeakable joy it was to just behold and remember for a bit.
When we're suffering, are we making everyone else around us suffer, too? Like Peninah? Do we allow our suffering to rot us, to revenge us, to make us bitter, to make us complain, to bring about blame, to try to widen our circle of suffering?
Or do we simply Hannah, who went to God, and went to God, and went to God, and went to God and after so many years, so much persecution, even at the chastisement of her spiritual leaders, actually had her suffering entirely redeemed, giving birth to a son who transformed a nation, a son she named Samuel, literally meaning, "because I have asked him of the Lord."
WHAT have I asked of the Lord, truly? What am I asking of the Lord? And what am I doing when the struggle continues? And how long am I willing to be Hannah, running to Him, running to Him, running to Him, faithful?
Keep on praying, keep on keeping on, keep on choosing His way, His response, His grace, His cross, His freedom, His faithfulness. If we can only muster up and cling to a tiny seed's worth of His faithfulness as our own, it will be enough.
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