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Prayer Email #9
Sent 8/16/2004
“Just as you trusted
Christ to save you, trust Him, too, for each day’s problems; live in vital
union with Him. Let your roots grow down deep into Him and draw up
nourishment from Him.”
Colossians 2:6-7
This verse keeps coming to mind
during my time here. It seems much easier to trust Christ to pour out His
mercy on us in Salvation, but when it comes to actually living out my life,
I keep hanging on, not wanting to let go. This has come up many times over
the past weeks. Last time I talked to you guys, I had just come off of our
mission meeting and I was on a high. I felt refreshed from the meeting and
ready to face anything. Well, little did I know that attitude was going to
be put to the test! In the weeks following ACM, it felt like absolutely
everything that Megan and I touched broke down.
I will compose a short list to give you an idea of how
things were going:
- Our water got shut off for a few days, and despite giving
our best shot in attempting to explain the problem to the municipality,
“Africa time” was applied to the efforts at fixing it.
- I took the car to the
shop to replace a tiny chip in the light that I had inflicted on the car in
my early days of learning to drive stick, and found that there was actually
extensive damage.
- While waiting to get an estimate on THAT, we were driving
home from Kenton and hit a deer (YUCK! Think, particles of it left on the
car) and tore off our front light as well as denting a lot of things.
- Less
than a week after that, we went out to our car one morning and discovered
that it had been broken into while sitting in our driveway the night before.
They broke the window, tried to steal the radio (but didn’t succeed,
although they broke it to the point that we can’t turn it off or adjust the
volume or anything. Glad we weren’t blasting it the last time we were in the
car!), AND managed to take off with all of our cassette tapes (they were all
Christian music, or sermons, and even the Jesus film on tape—join us in
praying that they listen to them!)
- Not more than a week following that, I
lost our gear lock key (all the cars here have gear locks on them that
prevent any potential car thieves from changing gears as long as they don’t
have the key). Much to our dismay, it is the only one that exists for our
gear lock and apparently it is going to take an act of congress to replace
it. Praises to God, He allowed me to figure out that I had lost it BEFORE I
locked it, otherwise, we would be getting to all our destinations in reverse
(that’s the gear that it locks in).
- And to top it off, the very day I lost
the gear lock key, our TV went kaput, which may seem trivial, but its main
purpose is actually to show AIDS videos as part of our ministry.
Now I am not sharing all this with you because I needed someone to complain
to and I picked you! I actually have a point. When these things first
started to happen, I was lighthearted, still basking in the glow of ACM, and
I took them in stride. But somewhere between the deer caked to my headlight
and the window shattered in my backseat, I began to pose some questions to
our God.
I mean, here I am in AFRICA, far away from my family and friends,
serving HIM, and He’s letting all these things happen to me? What’s up with
that? He’s sovereign, He’s all-powerful, He certainly could shield me from
these things if He wanted to. So why doesn’t He?! These are questions we all
ask at times.
But each time my heart began to complain and to question the Lord, I felt
the same answer come to me from Him: "Trust Me".
As He answered Job when Job
questioned Him: “Who is this that questions my wisdom…Brace yourself,
because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them: ‘Where were
you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so
much…Who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the
angels shouted for joy…’” God continues along these lines and then asks Job,
“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do
you have the answers?”
Job repented and so did I! Who am I to question God’s
wisdom or His sovereignty? I don’t know why He’s been letting all these
silly things happen. I don’t know why He allows a great many things to
happen. But I do know that He IS sovereign, He is good, He is worthy to be
trusted. And that is what He asks of us, He asks us to trust Him.
I was
reading in Elisabeth Elliot’s (WONDERFUL) book, These Strange Ashes which
tells of her first year on the mission field and bears testimony to her own
questions of God and His sovereignty. She says in conclusion, “And so it
often is. Faith, prayer, and obedience are our requirements. We are not
offered in exchange immunity and exemption from the world’s woes. What we
are offered has to do with another world altogether.”
When life begins to hit us harder than we would wish, let us remember that,
“these trials have come so that your faith—of greater worth than
gold…refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory
and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:7)
OK, enough about what I’ve been
learning. Let’s get to some praises and prayer requests:
Praises:
- We’ve started teaching in Alexandria! And the school is organized (a
small miracle right there!) so it looks like we’ll be going out there
Monday and Tuesday one week, and Thursday and Friday the alternating week.
- God specifically answered a prayer of mine during one of our little
mishap days. When the car got broken into, Megan and I prayed together
that morning before we took steps to get things fixed. We prayed that God
would put someone in our path that we could share Him with that we
wouldn’t have met if the car hadn’t been broken into. That very night, I
ended up having to sit and wait at the glass repair shop for an hour, and
in the course of that got to talk to the lady who owned the shop. She is
not a believer, and we were able to have a great talk about God and Jesus.
She was very open and even asked if we could get together for tea
sometime! Yay for God turning bad into good!
- We are starting to show the AIDS videos at Riebek East this coming
Sunday. (Yes, we got the TV repaired, so all should be in order, save
any other breakdowns).
- The youth are continuing to be faithful in coming to Bible study. It
is exciting when we can see them grow!
Prayer Requests:
- Alexandria! Pray for the hearts of these young people to be opened.
Also pray for preparations being made for the Mission team from the states
who are coming in September. They will be working in Alexandria, and
hopefully us being in the schools will help open doors in that community.
- The follow-up at Ntsika. It’s been really up and down. About twelve
students came to our first meeting and they all seemed very excited about
the study we were going to be doing. Then last week, no one showed up.
Pray for wisdom for Megan and I as we make decisions about this.
- The Youth Group. They have been struggling a bit with enthusiasm.
Although they still come to Bible study sometimes I get the feeling its
more so they can eat the things that Megan and I bake for them than the
hunger for God’s word. Pray that they will long for intimacy with God.
- We have a chance to go to Cape Town in February. All is not set in
stone yet, but it looks like we’ll be doing some things we’ve never done
before, so pray that we will have wisdom from the Lord in this.
- Pray for me personally as God continues to teach me and refine me.
Pray that I will be open to whatever He is trying to do in my life. Pray
for me and Megan. Pray that we will continue to grow in our friendship,
and be able to encourage and support each other. Pray that Satan will not
be able to use us against each other in any way.
- Pray for my Xhosa-learning. I know it’s important to be able to speak
a peoples’ heart language, but its going to take an act of God for me to
pick up this one!
OK, I thank you so much for taking the time
to read this! I would also encourage you to take a bit of time and let me
know what’s going on in your life. Hearing from you guys is a joy!
For God’s Glory heather :-)
Romans 5:3-5
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Photos from Heather Here
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