Week 3: GREAT!

Wow...again i say...what a week! God is so good you guys! This has been just as busy of a week as ever! Sonshine week starts ON MONDAY! so things have been soooooo crazy getting the final stuff done for that! It is like combining planning for homecoming, winter banquet, all school retreat and march madness into one week! One thing tha ti have seen this week is how God uses EVERY thing in our past to prepare us for what he has today! All of my time spent at berean and doing stuff in student government has helped TREMENDOUSLY in the prep for sonshine week! but o man guys has it been challenging becuase i am spending a lot of time doing the little behind the scenes stuff and that is super humbling for me! Also, it has been SOOOOOOOOOOO hard to ask people for rides and stuff! O MAN! Also, there was a change of living arangements that happened this week! I am now staying with Jo and Mark Looney! Mark is a Rev. in the Church of Ireland! They are lovely people who are so gracious and have opened there house up to me! Again a humbling experience!
So a little recap of the week!
Starting with saturday! Last saturday i went to an OMS United Kingdom orientation! It was wonderful to be with 15 other people, yougn and old who were going over seas to do missions work! There was a team going to HAITI!!!!!!! (God would have them there!) a team going to Ukraine, Uruaguy, and Mexico! So we did a lot of cultural awareness games, things like preparing our testimonies and personality profile tests and stuff! It was very interesting becuase it hit me that being at HOME is almost harder for me then being over seas! All you APU people probably remember when Francis Chan talked about how we all would probably be willing to go and get on a plane and go to africa to do BIG thigns for God in a place where we dont know anyone and then come back in two week and then go right back to the routine of home....but WHY IN THE HECK ARE WE NOT WILLING TO DO THE THINGS WE DO ON MISSION TRIPS AT HOME! so saturday was pretty emotional for me becuase how am i going to take the thigns that i have learned here about God back and make them change the way i look and function in my community....i dont know yet BUT God is faithful and he knows what he is doing!
Sunday:Had the opportunity to go to sharon and melvin's home church:Antrim Baptist which was in a wee hall that held about 100 people and they had a celebration for all the kids that went to sunday school! It was still on the traditional side of church and we did all hymns and then did communion. Then SUNDAY NIGHT! THE HEALING SERVICE happened at GP! Wow guys! God is so good! HE IS ALIVE AND WORKING! When we step out in Faith! God rewards that! Pastor Jeff talked about Mark 11:22-25 and how to unlock healing we have to H-Have Faith and took someone out of the congration and said @with God you have to just jump sometimes' and he leaped off of the stage into the guy's arms and what a visual it was to see trust and faith that he had in his friend! then he talked about how he had Krohn's Disease and it was really acting up about 2 years ago when the chruch was getting started and he talkeda bout how the holy spirit told him that this sickness was not from Him and that is was not from the devil that Jeff was causing this sickness becuas eof his anxiety over getting the church started! And so he said that he had to trust that God was in control and that even after he prayed for healing and released his anxiety that he still was having pain==BUT== when you pains dont tell you that you are healed--look to the WORD of God(ISAIAH 53-by MY wounds you are healed) tells you that you are!!!!!!!!!!! then the letter E-Entertain no Doubt using verse 23--KNOW that you can move the mountain! Don't doubt! then the letter A- ASK! verse 24--be specific in your asking for healing! he also used John 15 where it talks about abiding in God! [Dare to ask and Dare to belive!] then last but not least the letter L=LET ALL OFFENSES GO! verse 25! let the offenses go...such a simple statement but yet so hard to do sometimes! and then verse 25 goes on saying if you hold anything against someone FORGIVE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so that your Father can forgive you! Don't hold grudges with people! For give them!
After Jeff talked about that there were some prayers that we said outloud using verses like Psalm 107, Proverbs 4:20, Rom. 12:12; John 14:20; Prov, 12:18, 16:24; Psalm 118; Exodus 23:25-26 to read out loud!
and guys....then he asked people to come up for prayer if they needed healing...and can i just tell you that like half of the 'house' got up! People are hurting...people are in pain....WHY DONT WE ASK THEM IF THEY WANT TO BE HEALED? I know that many times people think that God owes it to them to heal them...but if we look at this passage from Mark...there is a part that we must do...we have to be right with God...and i think that we miss that sometimes! The service started at 7ish and there were people there getting prayed over until 10:45ish! AMAZING! and i acactually got to talk with pastor jeff the next day and he said that he got SO many calls of people saying that they woke up HEALED!
what a step of faith....
can people see our faith being lived out...
faith is spelled-RISK-- are we taking any risks...are we jumping out on a leap of faith when the only thing we have to hold onto to is Jesus...becuase then and only then will God work in AMAZING ways!
..
U
on monday did lots of prep for the kidz club with Joanne who is the leader of the kids club at WB and then on tuesday morning with Joanne we went to a nursey school(preschool) graduation to do a puppet presentation! GUYS PUPPETS ARE SO MUCH FUN! it is kinda hard to do and i got thrown into the deep end cuz i have never done them before! But the wee ones are SOOOOOOOOOOOO cute and it was great to be able to share that God loves them through a fun and easy thing like puppets! and then after that we went to Cullybackey High school again for lunch club and to do preparations for an assemble that we were to do on thursday! Guys it rocks...here(like so many other places other then the states) YOU CAN TALK ABOUT GOD IN SCHOOLS! wb has built a wonderful relationship with the vice principle of CHS and he is a christian too so they have some amazing opportunities to share the love of christ with these kids!
So the theme for the assembly was GLADIATOR! so we had a blow up bouncey obstacle course and a jousting bouncey thing. So we split them into teams of 150 on one side and a 150 on the other side and had them go through the course to see who won...then they had team members do the jousting! After the fun games, a professional body builder==the real life gladiator!==shared his testimony! Then we watched a video with clips from the passion of the Christ movie and following that Adam on heartbeat team shared his testimony and gave an appeal! I know that God used that all of the time that they had spent at CHS this past year to soften the kids hearts towards God and i know that God's word does not come up void (Isaiah 55) and that those kids lives will be turned to Christ!
Friday night and saturday morning we had training time for sonshine week and then as teams came back to the WB and had team bonding time! I am so dang excited for this week guys and the visual that i have in my head is this light that leaves the WB and leaves GP that permeates through the streets of Ahoghill and Galgorm and this light is so contagious that people can't help but come out of their houses and see what it is!
please pray that this is true! That lives will be turned from the way of darkness to the kindgom of LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! So much prayer and prep and more prayer and more prep has gone into this week!
I KNOW that God has big things in store!
Jeff challenged us to EACH DAY...pray with some we meet and share the gospel with someone...........
WHAT A CHALLENGE
but then i realized
that is what EVERYDAY should be.....
Also, amazing story! On friday night i met this couple named Richard and Susan! They are LOVELY and they were talkig about how He went to ORU in Oklahoma! (MIRIAM GOES THERE!) and for like 45 minutes we talked about all the ways in which God provided for them...God for provided money for tution 'randomly' when they didn't think they were going to make it-how he provided food and diapers for their baby when they were on their last bottle and last diaper==and Susan is a hair dresser but didn't have enough money to buy products and then she got a call from someone back in ireland who had just wired money into her account but the lady told susan that GOd told her that it was to be used for beauty products!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i was in AWE of their trust and faith in God and it inspired me so much to live a life of TOTAL reliance on God! Guys...we do we think that God is not going to provide for us! He knows what we need...and what WE WANT doesn't always mean it is going to be what is best for us...God knows what is best for us and he is going to make it happen in HIS timing! Our Job is to trust! and not to take things into our own hands!
So this morning i had the chance to go to the CHruch of Ireland with Mark and Jo! and i think that it is so funny i have been to a different church each sunday i have been here! Chruch of Ireland is a lot more like the catholic church but it was great to see how another place does worship....
what do u think God is saying when he looks down on us and sees his body so divided......
that is what is beautiful about the Washbasin! It is a interdenominational organization that meets the needs of the people in the village no matter what they belive about the holy spirit or spiritual gifts!
I have to run but i cannot thank you all enough for your prayers and support! I am so excited for sonshine week and to see people come to the Lord!
My prayer is that you can be challenged by our brothers and sisters over her to put your faith to the test and to expect God to show up! Take a step of faith! do something that you think you would never do!
FAITH IS SPELLED RISK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
..
U
love you all and miss you like crazy!
IN HIS GRIP,
megan