The January Invasion

The January quarter is back from outreach.

I have mixed feelings. Or, at least, I had mixed feelings. January’s school was THREE HUNDRED strong. It’s too many. We got straight up invaded by enthusiastic youngsters fresh off the mission field. And I was just really NOT feeling it last week and this weekend. I wasn’t really feeling people in general, especially not three hundred strangers who looked at us like aliens who had invaded their homeland (which, in all honesty, we kind of are). Let’s be honest, even at YWAM Kona, life is life and I still have a bad attitude sometimes. So last week I knew that I needed to change my mind and see their presence as an opportunity to get pumped up and learn more about what outreach will be like, but mostly I was just a bit chagrined that they had invaded our space and ruined our peace and quiet.

Fortunately, God loved me up and I changed my cranky attitude in time for TESTIMONY NIGHT. Which was AMAZING! Guys I’m SOOOOO PUMPED that I get to go on outreach soon and see God do these kinds of things through US! I mean, these testimonies were CRAZY! The kind of thing that I’ve only ever heard like told and retold and passed around the community and spoken about for years and I’m not really sure who exactly it happened to originally…But there were people standing up there saying THIS HAPPENED TO ME. I WAS THERE.

We’re talking stories about a girl in Nepal wanting to speak the gospel to an old woman who didn’t speak a single word of English, so God told her to go speak in tongues and He would give it in the woman’s first language. And she DID. And HE DID! Gaahh! We’re talking spirits cast out, limbs healed, depression and alcoholism cured, drug dealers saved and turned around. We’re talking a local witch doctor getting saved because HE TRIED TO POISON A GUY ON THE TEAM WHO WOULDN’T DIE. Then he burned all his witchdoctor stuff and turned over $100,000 worth of marajuana because it turns out he was also the local drug dealer. (Side note, what do you do if you get $100,000 worth of marajuana handed over to you??) We’re talking a team of 4 twenty-nothings marching up to the very deepest part of a Brazilian slum, a gang war zone, and preaching the gospel and bringing salvation to seven lives (among whom are at least 5 drug dealers) and also PREVENTING A DEATH BY SHOOTING THAT WOULD HAVE GONE DOWN IF THEY HADN’T BEEN THERE. A church planted in the heart of the red light district in the Philippines. Eight Muslim men saved because they heard the simple gospel from a bunch of kids through a translator. Only God.

I’ve been aching my whole life to see things like this with my own eyes. And I KNOW I can see it here in America, in my backyard, and I KNOW that plenty of people in my life have similar, powerful testimonies. But I’m so tired of hearing about God working. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good! Job’s life changed when he finally had a chat with God:

Job 42:5

⁵ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you;

I want to have a Job moment, where it changes from hearing about God with my ears to seeing Him with my eyes. I want to know Him personally, for myself. I want to not have to take ANYONE’S word for what He can do anymore. I’m not trying to say He hasn’t done anything in my life. I’m not trying to be unthankful for what I’ve already got. That’s not the point. The point is…I want more! Why not dream big, ask big? Let’s remember Ephesians 3:20.

Ephesians 3:20

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us

He can always do more, but we have to start out with the asking and thinking!  We could ask and think small and He could still work big, but why not ask and think big so He can work even bigger!? Gah! I’m so excited right now! Which is why I’m here typing at 10:43 when I should either be showering, getting my prayer time in, or sleeping…I still need to accomplish all three So I’m gonna sign off here before I tangent again. I love you all!

3 WEEKS TIL OUTREACH!!!!