Each day is full of so many ups and downs that I am thankful again and again for our Steady, Unchanging Father...reminding us in the middle of each and every circumstance that He is with us, that He is faithful, that He is at work, that He is able and on the throne.
He's burning up our hearts lately, Matt and I. This is a random testimony of that, just these last four days.
The villages surrounding Emmaus, throughout Haiti, have been burdening my heart since before we moved here, and the hearts of many. In May, Emmaus renewed our commitment to participate in at-least monthly missions outreaches, and staff and students did a missions trip in May, June, July and August...and will continue. We also renewed our commitment to discipling and reaching those around us, and starting last Thursday and continuing on every Thursday, our staff and students set out from Emmaus to preach the Gospel once again yard to yard, and started Bible study groups in various yards of believers throughout our village, one for children, one for teens, one for adults.
This village was chosen many years ago as the new site for Emmaus BECAUSE it was so visibly saturated in darkness. Because we have SO MANY voodoo temples surrounding us. Because people are so totally living in darkness. We can't just BE the light shining in the middle of darkness, we gotta carry it throughout the darkness, too. We gotta go touch it, gotta go visit.
That idea is easy to see here, but it's no different than where you live, I promise!
Twelve men, women and children who heard the Word last Thursday already asked how to follow Jesus, dozens more asking to know a lot more. Our staff and students were shocked out how great the interest, and by how truly blinded so many people are to the truth.
I told you Matt spent some time with Noah, this area's head witchdoctor, last week, and I know the timing of all that was the Lord's. He is an intelligent and reasonable man, anxious for conversation and open to questions and debates. However, all of his truths were SUCH lies, so contradictory, such folly. He insists he only lives and works to serve the Haitian people, only working for the good of all. Then, he speaks moments later in a different hut about how this is the hut where he kills and curses people, then speaks later about how much he hates his fellow Haitians. He talks about all the people he has healed, and all the lottery numbers he has given the poor, but moments later asks for money, and talks about a major surgery he had to go all the way to Port-au-Prince to have. Even while Matt is standing there, people are coming and going, because Noah, Noah is where you get help. Voodoo, that is what you do, that is where you turn.
What deception! What darkness.
As Matt and Belo speak and pray with Noah, a blind man leading the blind, the students and staff go from yard to yard, light speaking light, truth speaking truth. EVERY Thursday, especially, PRAY for us.
Monday, Leme preached such a fantastic sermon. He is no-nonsense to the core, no fluff, just heart and mind and spirit. And as he preached humbly and assuredly and simply about evangelism, the truths that he was sharing were just SO OPPOSITE. So totally different than the truths of the world. How he instructed us to approach people, how he taught us to treat people, how he encouraged us to live, publicly and privately...it struck me again and again how foolish to the world our Gospel is. How foolish the wisdom of the world is in light of His truth. Everything Leme taught from the Word was so opposite of what the world teaches...and how He burned in my heart to sit with our brothers and sisters and be reminded that God is ALTOGETHER different than all this...that Biblical culture is TOTALLY foreign to the world's culture.
We are not supposed to be appreciated, understood, respected or loved by the world! We're not SUPPOSED to be going along with what makes sense the world. We've got a clear mandate, a clear example, a clear call, and it's totally upside down from the worlds!
It's easier to see here how different we must be and think and DO, where the world is going to Noah to conjure up demons and curses and poisons. But it's no different than where you live, I promise you.
Yesterday, our staff prayer time was on fire. I shared the story of a new student whom I'd just sat with for almost an hour, talking through his childhood and testimony and calling. This dear young man knows that he saw God's healing power once in his life...he knows that he wants to be a pastor. But no matter how long we talked and how much I questioned, it was clear. He is following after a religion and a profession, not after our Lord Jesus. There hasn't yet been any conviction of sin, any repentance, any transformation, any filling of the Holy Spirit. No abandonment, no making the Lord Lord of his life...he doesn't yet have the fruits of the Spirit, nor the heart of our Lord Jesus, nor the realization that any of that is necessary. He knows he wants to be a pastor...not that he wants to be like Jesus.
At first, I was discouraged. But as I shared the reminder with our staff that we must be praying and discipling and in the middle of God's will for our own lives as we continually work with our students, shepherding...I was encouraged, instead. We have men and women at Emmaus who know of Him, who study Him, but who have not yet become His own...who do not yet know HIM...and that is a powerful and exciting mission field in our classrooms, at our lunch table, in our soccer games, in the dorm, for us EACH.
It's all a mission field.
It's easier to see here. But it's no different than where you live, I promise you.
As we staff all prayed for our students yesterday, the burning HEART God has given the majority of our staff for the discipling and equipping of these men and women for God's work and transformation in Haiti was so full and apparent that I was humbled to be among them.
This morning as I was preparing for teaching on Monday, the new classroom building (where my office is) just exploded with cheering and clapping. On a break, I asked Marybeth what that was all about, and she shared with me how they had been discussing the importance of sharing testimonies of how we see God at work in our lives.
After they talked about this, five students asked to share ways they have seen God powerfully and miraculously provide, heal or move in the last several weeks in their lives, families, and communities. When one student shared about how God had miraculously met a major need he had, his fellow students all exploded with laughter and praise and applause, coming around him with joy.
What an example for me of celebrating in the joys of others, even when we continue to be in the middle of struggle. And those struggling were not forgotten, either.
After those testimonies, the class gathered around four students who are persevering in their faith and prayers, waiting on the Lord, a way still unseen. How precious their prayers for one another, as we wait. As we TRUST.
Entirely unlike the world.
We must BE the Light, in dark. And not only BE it happily in our homes, but CARRY it. We must rejoice with those who are rejoicing, we must hurt with those who are hurting. We must love those who are lovely, if only because they are Loved By Him.
Our steady God...never changing.
and always doing something new.
That might be easier to see here. But God. Is. At. Work. where you live, too...I promise.
Be a part.
Pray for us here...
we are praying for you, missionaries.
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