These last couple of months have been a rollercoaster ride…some days have been really amazing and some have not been so great. I have been really challenged both as a leader but also in my own spiritual walk with God. A consistent theme for me lately has been I cannot do anything for God in my own strength, it must be through Him. This week our theme for classes was leadership. One important thing the teacher said was that if we fail in something with God, it is many times because we have done things in our own strength and not relied on God to do the task. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” My desire is to do everything in His strength and through the Holy Spirit and not in my own wisdom or giftings. I realized that I have been trying to do everything in my own strength and have not depended upon Him for His strength. I have felt very stressed and tired by all of the challenges in leadership and realized that He wants to take these burdens and they are not mine to carry. I guess the students saw my stress because on our last giving day I received a massage certificate, lots of chocolate, and ice cream! Thank God for the students He has put in this school!
One of the biggest reasons for my stress and request for prayer is that one of my students who I personally mentor is being asked to leave the school this next Tuesday. This will be the third student to leave the DTS and not complete the school or outreach. It has been an incredibly difficult decision for me because this student has so much potential, but just isn’t ready to complete the DTS emotionally. She has some deep emotional and spiritual issues that we are not equipped to handle and therefore, she cannot go on outreach since she is not ready. Please keep this student in your prayers as this will have an impact on her life, but also on our team of students. It is hard to go through this for the third time, but our team of students are incredibly mature and are trusting in God for what He is doing through all of these decisions.
Last week we went to Bocas del Toro, Panama for one week for our mini-outreach. In Bocas we also had a week of teaching on evangelism and spent the week doing evangelism in this town. This experience was amazing! We took 39 people and took over this small island in Panama sharing the Gospel! We did children’s ministry with Indigenous children, dug a road from mud in the river, and ministered in a home for the elderly. Along with these ministries, we also spent a couple of days praying and asking the Holy Spirit how we could creatively share the Gospel with people and to lead us to certain people that He wanted us to speak to and then doing whatever we heard. I personally participated in what we called “make a friend” where we prayed for the Holy Spirit to lead us to someone and then make friends with them and hear their stories and share about our faith with them. I went with one of the students in the DTS and we prayed and asked for the Holy Spirit to lead us to the right person. Then I prayed that God would make it so clear who we were to talk to that He would send the person up to us to talk to us first. No later than 2 minutes a man came up to us and asked us a question. The student and I looked at each other and agreed that this man was the one we were supposed to talk with. We started talking with him and asked him after a while if he would like to join us for lunch and he agreed. At lunch we talked with him about his life and he shared that he had just come into a relationship with God in December. His parents are pastors of a church in Bocas del Toro! We spent a couple of hours just sharing with him about God and encouraging him to grow more in his faith. He was so impacted by our meeting that he met up with our group the rest of the week and helped do evangelism with us. We both realized that this was truly a divine encounter! He really needed encouragement and wanted to know how to really live this relationship with God and so we were able to share with him about this.
One praise report that I have is that God healed my back! About 3 weeks ago I started having back pain again like I used to have 5 years ago before I got minor back surgery with pain going down my leg like sciatica. I asked the students to pray for me a couple of times during the week in Bocas and then the day we returned from Bocas I realized that my back wasn’t hurting anymore when it had been hurting constantly and I was walking a lot! I praise God as I realize that I haven’t had any pain since then! J God truly is a healing God!
As for prayer requests, I would really appreciate your prayers for what God has for me after this school. I commited to one year of serving with YWAM which ends in June with this school and now I need to know what God has for me! Please join me in praying for His direction as time is going so fast and I know June will be right around the corner! Also, please pray for the extra finances we need for Ecuador and all of the planning still needing to be done. The last prayer need is for boldness for me. One thing that God is showing me is that I am still struggling with fear of man, or caring about what others think too much. I realized that through my reluctance to speak Spanish because I am afraid of what people will think and this is hindering my ministry.
Thank you so much my friends! I am so appreciate of all of your support and prayers! Much love and blessing!
I'm sorry that I haven't added any pictures, but my camera was stolen! :(
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