“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:7
The way that gold refining works is that they have to heat it to a liquid state and then all the impurities rise to the surface and they can be skimmed off the top. This is the best way I can think to describe the last month. All the stresses and frustrations that come with living in a foreign country surrounded by a new language really amplify every other problem you may have. These “pressures” really do make the truth come out and all the attitudes of your heart really come to your attention. I’ve heard sermons on sanctification before, but until now it hasn’t ever been that real. Let me tell you, it has not been fun to see my ugly side, but it is a humbling process to see that really I am no good! On my own I am a dirty rotten sinner in need of constant grace!
This last month I also finished reading Francis Chan’s book “Forgotten God”. It was so good, if you haven’t read it you should! Not to take any of Chan’s thunder, but just ask yourself, how different would your life look if one day you woke up and didn’t have the Holy Spirit. Would you even notice His absence? As Christians we are indwelt by the Almighty God of the universe, but how many of our lives actually reflect that power? God is unchanging and timeless, we don’t have a weaker, watered down version of the God f the Bible- He is still as real and powerful and active as we have read about! Francis Chan’s words are so much better than mine, so read his book! That’s just a tiny glimpse of how it impacted me! J
Yesterday, PDV hosted a “Famliy Picnic” on campus. We were expecting over 3,500 people, so the entire week leading up to it sports were canceled and everyone worked every day to prepare. When Saturday came it was so cool! I couldn’t have understood it before, because the culture difference, but it was a beautiful thing! Over 4,200 people from different churches throughout the province came in buses and spend the day just enjoying each other with music, games, and different shows/presentations throughout the day. There are two shows that our school does, Show Infantile for kids, and Renacidos which is the real life story about a couple who were drug addicts and gave their lives to Christ at the camp here, then went to the PDV “rehab” (I forget the name of it, but it’s like a rehab meets Celebrate Recovery) and then came to the institute (I think) where they found out that they had AIDS. It’s a really powerful drama! I heard this morning that over 300 people accepted Christ at the picnic yesterday (but I don’t know the official number yet)!!!! It was a wonderful thing to be a part of, and it was crazy to see the cultural differences—where in America churches put on individual events for everything, it was cool to see I don’t even know how many different churches coming together as the larger body of Christ to reach people and just fellowship together! <3
P.S.-I’m learning to play the ukulele. Random I know, but just thought I would throw that in.
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