prayer for the nations.

hello!

wow again i have been bad at blogging! i am so sorry guys. thanks for reading even through my inconsistency :)

SO what a whirlwind life i am living right now! things are moving so quickly here, and i can barely absorb everything that is going on.

this past week we looked at evangelism, which is a scary topic for most of us here. it is intimidating to think about just going out and talking to people we don't know about our faith. that scares me, that's for sure.
this guy, phil, came and talked to us for most of the week about this topic. he has led teams to many countries many times to evangelize. he is probably the most comfortable with evangelizing out of anyone i have ever met.
he talked about how we should actually call evangelism "witnessing" - that it isn't about introducing a certain number of people to Jesus, but it's more about accurately giving testimony to the life Jesus lived. that was definitely a new way to think about this avoided topic, and it made me - if not everyone else too! - feel better. it took the pressure off - to know that God won't judge us because we didn't lead 50 people to the Lord, but that He knows we are trying.
thursday morning we all headed out to actually witness! most of us went to the mall, and we just went out in 1s or 2s to go talk to people. phil said that we would have a successful day if all of us took one more step out of our comfort zone than we had before. i think we can all say that happened - some people actually did share their faith, while others took the step of taking their Bible out in public. it was actually really awesome! i don't know if this is the way God is calling me to share my faith every day, but i do think it holds merit and maybe next time i will be more receptive to hearing the Holy Spirit prompting me to talk to someone.

how many of you have pulled an all nighter? well, i value my sleep, and until friday, i hadn't ever.
that changed, though, when we had "all night prayer", an event that is mandatory for us and voluntary for the public.
what is it? we pray. all night. for the nations.
so, over the night we prayed for many countries, in scheduled one-hour blocks. we watched videos about the countries, heard former and current missionaries from different countries, and worked through prayer lists for each country. we even were able to skype missionaries in peru and ukraine! that was really neat to be able to talk to people about their country and how we can pray for them.
it really was beneficial for me, because we live in a very us-first,-you-later culture, and this event did not allow for that. in fact, it forced us to do the exact opposite! we had to sacrifice our sleep for the well being of others - for God's people doing His work overseas. it was also a good reminder that every country needs prayer in its own way, and, as God's people, we are called to pray for them.
one block of time that struck me particularly hard was praying for the persecuted church. we weren't asked to pray that the persecution would stop, but that God's glory would become evident in these men and women, and that more people would come to love Jesus through that. that seems normal to us here in north america, but God has warned us that we won't have it easy all the time if we follow Him.
here's a picture of jonas and i, ready for all night prayer!

what a night; i will never forget it!

on saturday, we all went out to celebrate birthdays! one of the guys, mitch, and ashley both have their birthdays today! so we went out for supper last night, as well as giving gifts with a "surprise birthday" - which entailed us decorating the room and yelling "SURPRISE!!" while they pretended to be surprised. which they weren't ;)
we got tshirts made for each - mitch has a real man complex going on (mitch if you're reading this, it's all in love i say that), and he likes to be called BOSS, so we got BOSS written on his.
ashley wants to be a canadian, and LOVES saying "eh" (she really has it down! i've never seen a non-canadian master 'eh' so well!), so we got her a tank top with 'eh' written on it. they loved them! i'd say that was a success.

just had to add another photo of micah. i am going to miss that baby when i leave for the philippines. do you think luke and joanne would let me pack him in my carry-on?

love to all!
tejal :)